All Calvert Institute Publications

A Bully's Reputation: Why the Democrats' Tax Cut Is Not Enough
Hon. Ellen R. Sauerbrey
Imagine you are a child once again, and you have a problem: the schoolyard bully. He keeps taking your lunch money. So you adapt, avoiding the bully, varying your route to school.

A Conservative Robespierre: A Review of Bork’s Gomorrah
Ronald W. Dworkin, M.D., Ph.D.
Tod Lindberg contends that the winning Republican coalition of the 1980s is cracking up. The state legislatures, the governorships, the Congress - all are increasingly Republican, while the presidency has now twice gone Democratic for the first time since FDR. Lindberg argues that practical Republicanism sells at the local level. But the Republicans’ ideology does not.

A Contrast to Regionalism: Reversing Baltimore's Decline through Neighborhood Enterprise and Municipal Discipline
George W. Liebmann, J.D.
If exodus is a measure of livability, then only a handful of cities are as unlivable as Baltimore. And the people leaving are just the sort of folk Baltimore must keep. They are the ordinary, middle-class types without whom no city can function. But the municipal authority's response to these individuals' verdict on the city has been - nothing. Baltimore is home to public employees and welfare recipients a-plenty.

A Government of Laws
George Liebmann
Lee Casey and David Rivkin, in the latest of their many apologias for the Bush administration, again urge the theory of the unitary executive (Times, May 29). In this scheme of things, the Presidency is an elective dictatorship, and subordinate officers like U.S. Attorneys, once the formality of Senate confirmation is over, are removable for any reason or no reason, and Congress has no business complaining of exercises of this power.

A HOPEless Cause
Calvert Institute for Policy Research
Though it looks as though Governor Glendening’s plans for a middle-class education entitlement will be dashed this legislative session, we are disturbed to note that some legislators are committed to further "study" of the government-provided scholarship issue.

A Matter of Law: Is Rehrmann's Property-Tax Ploy Illegal?
Editorial Board
It is a rare day indeed when this journal opposes a tax cut, a rarer one still when it actually suggests an increase. But Harford County Executive Eileen Rehrmann's proposal to do away with the state property tax prompts this response.

A Plea for Sanity: Keep Politics Out of the Regulatory Process
State Senator Christopher J. McCabe
Each year, the Maryland General Assembly considers over 2,500 bills during its 90-day session. Because of this volume and due to limited time, it is difficult adequately to address each bill proposed. It would help if there were fewer bills, if certain categories of bill were simply ignored or ruled "off limits" or were dealt with externally.

A Short Attention Span
Calvert Institute for Policy Research
Ten years ago, a City Council Committee, under a Chairman who shall go nameless (his name starts with "O’" and is neither German nor Ukrainian), took a look at the Baltimore City criminal justice system. Its central focus was Baltimore’s notorious Central Booking Facility, a state-financed facility whose operation has important implications for Baltimore law enforcement.

A 'D' for the Professor: Maryland's Taxing Situation
Edward L. Hudgins, Ph.D.
During Maryland’s last gubernatorial election, Republican Ellen R. Sauerbrey promised deep tax cuts. She pointed to the 30 percent tax cut in New Jersey as a model.

Achilles Heel: Education and the Democratic Party
The Editor
Education is particularly relevant at the moment, given Governor Glendening's plans to shore up support by "spending his way to November," as the Baltimore Sun puts it.

An Albanian Sojourn: A Staffer Recalls an Unusual Odyssey
Douglas P. Munro, Ph.D.
was looking for something in my basement the other day. As is so often the case, I did not find what I was looking for. But I did find something better - two photo albums filled with snaps I had taken during a trip to Albania in 1987. This prompted a frantic search for an old diary essay I had written after the trip and which I later published in the Hopkins Spectator, a now defunct conservative student publication at Johns Hopkins. For once, my search was successful. I found the Spectator in question, with its Albanian reminiscences intact.

Are You Afraid of the Religious Right ?
Ronald W. Dworkin, M.D., Ph.D.
Evil, like beauty, is often in the eye of the beholder, and the religious right serves as a good case in point. Some Americans, mostly liberal and secular, believe the religious right poses the greatest threat to American democracy since the country’s founding.

Bailing Out on Busing: Why Maryland Should Reject the P.G. Plan
Editorial Board
there can scarcely be a soul in Maryland convinced by Governor Parris N. Glendening's (D) rationale for his plan to pump $250 million or so of state money into the Prince George's County school system over the next five years.

Baltimore’s Jarndyce v. Jarndyce
Calvert Institute for Policy Research
Your editor had a look at the federal case file in that most macabre of all cases, Vaughn G. v. Board of Commissioners, involving special education in Baltimore City.(84 Civ.1911 (D.Md.)),which has lasted for 18 years, created two new bureaucracies, cost an estimated $50 million,and provided a Special Master with a $200,000+ salary (To assuage readers’ disbelief, pleading numbers are included).

Benchmarking: Taking Local Government into the 21st Century
William R. Miles
The economic uncertainty of our tomorrows necessitates a commitment to preparedness on the part of county and municipal governments successfully to meet the challenges of the 21st century.

Bush Replaces U.S. Attorneys in Power Play
G. Liebmann
The news that the Bush administration has replaced seven U.S. attorneys, none charged with or guilty of wrongdoing, with people fairly describable as Washington apparatchiks should give pause to all those concerned with America's working Constitution.

Calvert News December 2005 - Mr. Ehrlich’s Vetoes
Calvert Institute for Policy Research
We here present some information that might usefully be considered when the General Assembly takes up its first order of business–consideration of executive vetoes. As is shown below, these bills, taken as a group, say much about the present leadership of the General Assembly. In the age when Marvin Mandel, Thomas Hunter Lowe, and Benjamin L. Cardin were Speakers of the House, and William S. James and James Clark Presidents of the Senate, most bills such as these would not have seen the light of day. Indeed, even in the era of Speaker Casper R. Taylor, most of them would have been sent to their demise.

Calvert News July 2005 - The Drug Symposium Summarized
Calvert Institute for Policy Research
The Calvert symposium on drugs on May 18 did not produce complete agreement among all speakers on all subjects: few discussions do so. However, there was general agreement on some major themes.

Calvert News May 2005 The ‘War on Drugs’ : A Reconsideration After Forty Years
Former Gov. Gary E. Johnson (R.-N.M.)
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to a symposium on the war on drugs, a reconsideration after 40 years, sponsored by the Calvert Institute. It seemed to us that the time was opportune for a more detached look at drug policy issues than that which is usually presented. And it seemed to us that one way of obtaining such a detached look would be by asking some of the people who were present at the start of our national drug agencies to review the developments of the last 40 years.

We also are honored to have as our kick-off speaker former Governor Gary Johnson ofNew Mexico. His participation is explained by the fact that he has invested more of himself in seeking to foster change in national drug policy than any other public official participating in the frequently unenlightening controversies over this subject.

Before we begin with his remarks, I would like to introduce Alan Friedman of Governor Ehrlich's office to present some greetings on behalf of the Governor.

Child Access Mediation: Saving Time and Money
David L. Levy, J.D.
With all the criticism of non-custodial parents that goes on in Congress over payment of financial child support, it is gratifying to see that at least one jurisdiction in Maryland pays attention to the emotional aspect of child support - parenting. There are financial child-support offices all across America to help parents obtain monetary relief, but offices to help parents with access/visitation problems are almost non-existent.

Choice, Polls and the American Way
Douglas P. Munro, Ph.D., John E. Berthoud, Ph.D., Carol L. Hirschburg
Really three topics in one, the institute presents a roundup of recent developments regarding education in Maryland.

Civility: Key to Genuine School Reform
C. Stephen Wallis
When they met last spring for the "Education Summit II," the nation’s governors and several prominent corporate executives hoped to light a fire under American education. It needs it.

Clinton Coronation?
George W. Liebmann
A rash of recent newspaper stories have proclaimed, a year in advance of the Presidential election, Sen. Hillary Clinton to be the next Democratic nominee, and the next President. The fixation of these stories is on campaign contributions and poll results, a sort of 'inside baseball' that our great newspapers now seem to regard as central to their informing function. But the oceans of ink expended in recirculating data provided by campaign organizations shed remarkably little light on what her interests in life are, what sort of public officer she has been, what her education has been, what methods she regards as acceptable or unacceptable, what campaign promises she has made and what their implications are, what sorts of people she surrounds herself with, what standards she will apply in making appointments, whether her political style is characterized by candor or the opposite, what importance she attaches to the less fashionable guarantees of the Bill of Rights, the vertical separation of powers, or federalism and localism, whether she is tolerant or vengeful in her attitude to those who differ, and whether she is a realist, a chauvinist, an opportunist, or a 'liberal imperialist' in her approach to international relations. Such questions have not been seriously asked about her, or about any of the other candidates. They deserve answers.

Consumerism in Health Care: State Report Shows Promise, More Must Follow
Vikram Khanna
In October, the state government released a new and important resource for bewildered health-care consumers. The Maryland health maintenance organization (HMO) report card, developed by the Maryland Health Care Access and Cost Commission (HCACC), is a critical step in consumer education and the development of the market for health-care services.

Contract holds back city schools
George W. Liebmann
A new schools chief has come to Baltimore. Andres Alonso's arrival coincides with the last stages of negotiation of a multi year teachers union contract, which will effectively tie his hands if its provisions are unwise.

Corporate Welfare, City Management
Editorial Board
As the victors of the Great Stadium Debate of ’96 now find that the whopping $200 million set aside for a new Baltimore bowl will not even buy one they find attractive, advocates of small government must surely be suppressing a smile.

Costs of the Vaughn G Lawsuit
Kalman R. Hettleman
The amount of money spent and misspent on the compliance maze is enormous.

Counterpoint - 'Civil Gideon': An idea whose time has passed
George Liebmann
A lawsuit seeks to accord civil litigants a constitutional right to state-paid lawyers like that guaranteed criminal defendants by the famous case of Gideon v. Wainwright. The test case is Frase v. Barnhart, a child custody matter which the Court of Appeals is to hear this October.

Creating Community in Planned Communities
Engineering Society , Baltimore, reported by Linda Crockett, videotaped by G. Stanley Doore
Over the course of the last 50 years a ‘quiet revolution’ fostered by federal mortgage lending regulations has given rise to the creation of hundreds of thousands of private community associations with the power to impose charges on members.

Curing Misperceptions: The Calvert Cure and the DLS Rebuttal
Paul O. Ballou III, William R. Miles & Douglas P. Munro
Though conservatives have long been aware of it, many of Maryland's opinion leaders seem blissfully unconcerned about the state's traditionally casual approach to the cost and size of government.

Cutting Costs: A Compendium of Competitive Know-How and Privatization Source Materials
William D. Eggers, Timothy J. Burke, Adrian T. Moore, Richard L. Tradewell, and Douglas P. Munro
As Maryland moves toward the 21st century, an expanding population demands ever better services and ever more schools - without more taxes. How to pull it off? The answer is for local governments to pay less for services, leaving funds available for purchasing additional services in other areas. The easiest means of doing this is to subject service providers to the rigors of the market by making them compete with each other.

Cutting Taxes: Why and Why Now
Secretary James T. Brady
The year is 2002. Maryland is flourishing, with robust economic growth - well above the 1.5 percent anemic growth of the mid-l980s. Businesses are moving to Maryland and expanding by the score.

David Hoffman of Baltimore: A Profile in Courage
Michael I. Krauss, J.D.
Our Constitution guarantees a "republican form of government." Alas, from my experience as a law professor, the meaning of "republican" appears opaque to most law students. To early generations of Americans, republicanism conveyed two clear and important concepts: one of "rights," through popular sovereignty and governments of limited powers; the other of "responsibilities," expressed through a civic virtue independent of popular passions.

Deep flaws in proposed hate crimes bill
George W. Liebmann
- Endorsement by major media organs like The Washington Post and many "liberals" in the nation’s political establishment of the proposed "hate crimes" bill exists in strange juxtaposition with recent articles and editorials on the U.S. attorneys scandal deploring the abuse and over-centralization of federal law enforcement. But the supporters of the hate crimes bill invite further expansion, politicalization and abuse of a system that is already seriously bloated and flawed.

Don't Blow It: Why Maryland Needs a Get-Out-of-Debt Policy
William R. Miles
Prudent families only borrow when they must. They know that the results of over borrowing can be dire. No such worries appear to exist in Maryland with respect to incurring debt.

Editorial: Time to Privatize Maryland's Smart Growth Initiatives
Calvert Institute for Policy Research
The following appeared in the November 2002 issue of the print and internet publication Smart Growth News, issued by the United States Environmental Protection Agency

Educating Arizona: Credit Where Credit's Due
Jeffry L. Flake
Arizona's public education establishment has gone on red alert, talking about a possible lawsuit or ballot referendum as a strategy to derail a $500 income-tax credit for private-school scholarships.

Educational Follies
George W. Liebmann
Readers of the Baltimore newspapers have been regaled by a series of advertisements placed by the Baltimore Teachers’ Union, which has reached an impasse in contract negotiations with the school board. The school board proposes to slightly reduce the allowed weekly amount of what is quaintly called ‘preparation time’, in order to have additional time for compulsory annual workshops for teachers, which actually prepare them to teach classes.

Emily: Why Strong Charter-School Legislation Is a Must
David A. DeSchryver
Marjorie lives in Montgomery County, having moved there a number of years ago in part because the reputation of the county's school system. Marjorie's daughter, Emily, is what is known as a "GT/LD" student in bureaucratese. That is to say that she is a gifted and talented student, but also learning disabled.

Enter O'Malley
George W. Liebmann
The new administration has now been in office for nine months, an acceptable period of gestation, and it is now not too early for a preliminary assessment. Let us first accentuate some positive developments:
1. The administration appears to have placed the Departments of Public Safety and of Juvenile Services in the hands of fully qualified professionals, who have made difficult and overdue decisions.
2. The administration has made serious improvements in the handling of environmental issues. Historic tax credits and open space funds have been enhanced. There has been long-overdue enforcement of air pollution constraints against Baltimore's public utility.
3. Qualified people have been appointed to preside over the Public Service Commission and the office of the Insurance Commissioner, the two most important regulatory agencies. The administration has not indulged the illusion that in a mixed economy, 'business-friendliness' is demonstrated by appointing semi-competent regulators.

Fixing Baltimore: Suggestions for Restoring Efficiency in Government
Jonathan England and Kantahyanee Whitt
ccording to scholars Anthony Downs, Katherine Bradbury and Kenneth Small, Baltimore was a city in distress as early as 1982. Today, the town is in a similar state, if not worse, given the diminishing tax base and increased demand for services that have occurred over the last several years.

Flunking H.B. 999: Do’s and Don’ts for Charter Legislation in Maryland
Douglas P. Munro, Ph.D.
Maryland has no legislation authorizing charter schools, nothwithstanding the fact that the charter-school movement is one whose time has undoubtedly come.

Focus on the Facts: Deadly Maryland
Douglas P. Munro, Ph.D.
Despite recent self-congratulation due to Maryland's declining crime rate over 1997, the fact remains that this state compares most unfavorably.

Focus on the Facts: Going Private, Dropping Out
Douglas P. Munro, Ph.D.
Analysis of Census Bureau and other statistical data from this decade reveals that Maryland's public schools are relatively under utilized, at least in comparison to many other states. as shown in the table, in 1994, only 15 states saw a smaller proportion of school-aged children enrolled in the public schools.

Focus on the Facts: NTU Brands Md. Senators Most Spendthrift in Congress
Douglas P. Munro, Ph.D.
The National Taxpayers Union, a watchdog group in Washington, D.C., has just released its annual rating of the "taxpayer friendliness" of all members of Congress. Maryland's U.S. Senators, Democrats Paul Sarbanes and Barbara Mikulski, ranked absolute bottom on the NTU scale.

Focus on the Facts: "F" is for Maryland
Douglas P. Munro
The institute's Focus on the Facts No. 2 described Marylanders' relatively low utilization of public schools, compared to other states.

Fool's Gold: A Review of Goodman's Work on Gambling
Ronald W. Dworkin, M.D., Ph.D.
Governor Glendening appears unequivocally to have ruled out the legalization of casino and slot-machine gambling in Maryland for the remainder of his term.

Gambling in Maryland
Calvert Institute for Policy Research
The recent discussion of slot machines at race tracks makes it appropriate to focus on Maryland's existing gambling enterprise: the lottery.

George Liebmann: Ask Gubernatorial Candidates About Schools and Education
George Liebmann
Voters must ask the two main candidates for governor these three questions about schools before they vote.

George Liebmann: The conflict between Mr.Malley and Mr. Clark
George Liebmann, The Examiner
BALTIMORE - The recent opinion by an especially distinguished panel of the Court of Special Appeals in Clark v. O’Malley allowing a fired police commissioner’s suit to go forward should have come as a surprise to nobody.

George Liebmann: There is another way to settle ‘eminent domain’ debate
George Liebmann
The recent election has seen states adopt constitutional amendments reversing the recent Kelo decision allowing New London, Conn., to condemn private homes for purposes of development.

Good Credit: A Step Toward Education Freedom
Douglas P. Munro, Ph.D.
Serious school reform is no longer a train that can be stopped. The groundswell of public opinion is on the side of reformers.

Government First: Why the Rusk Plan Cannot Save Baltimore
Ronald W. Dworkin, M.D., Ph.D.
To understand the effort to revitalize Baltimore City, one needs an analogy - perhaps the Allied landing on D-Day. About 15 years ago, the yuppies landed on the beaches of Baltimore. On that thin strip of land called the Inner Harbor, they built their camp, and the fashionable and gleaming Brooks Brothers, Williams-Sonoma, and Crabtree and Evelyn stores stood in stark contrast to the housing projects and poverty-stricken neighborhoods that filled the hinterland.

Have the Checks Come In? A Review of Dash's Rosa Lee
Doug Bandow
The word "crisis" is much overused in America these days, but there really is no better word to describe the problems afflicting the nation's inner cities. The social pathologies are overwhelming: illegitimacy, crime, drug use, unemployment and despair. These pathologies seem to grow more intense with each succeeding generation.

High School Science and Mathematics in Maryland: A Discussion
Calvert Institute for Policy Research
Roughly 10 of 35 respondents to Calvert's survey of public college science and math professors referred in one way or another to the problem of recruiting and retaining qualified high school science teachers.

High School Science and Mathematics in Maryland: A Study in Failure
Calvert Institute for Policy Research
This is the first Calvert Institute study to be issued in 18 months, and reflects the work of a reconstituted Board and new Executive Director. The Institute intends to continue to reproduce in Maryland proposals for market-based reforms that have not received serious discussion, though its basic thrust will seek to promote better government by promoting discussion from a variety of points of view, of areas of public policy that have been neglected by the Maryland press and its political leadership.

High Taxes, Low Growth: What Maryland Hasn't Learned from Others
John E. Berthoud, Ph.D.
Governor Glendening has reneged on his pledge to cut taxes. This is a political mistake as well as an economic one for the state. While he may pay the political price that befell George Bush in 1992 and the Democrats in 1994 after they broke their promises on taxes, it is Maryland residents who will pay the economic price.

How to Wean the Poor from Medicaid
Bill Styring
What will welfare reform mean for medical care of the poor?

Keiffer Mitchell to Back Vouchers?
Douglas P. Munro
At a recent symposium hosted by United Citizens for Maryland’s Future,1 state education Superintendent Nancy S. Grasmick rhetorically asked, "Should any student, by accident of where he lives, have to attend a failing school?"

King Saud of Baltimore
Calvert Institute for Policy Research
Many have commented on Mayor O’Malley’s ambitions, but hitherto these have been thought to center on Washington, not Riyadh. It now is apparent, however, that the Mayor relishes his role as a minor-league energy czar, the commander-in-chief of an almost unique chain of a dozen municipal filling stations.

Lowered Expectations in Baltimore
The Editor
A great swathe of the intellectual establishment has come around to viewing Baltimore through Calvert-colored glasses. Now that he need no longer fear the electoral wrath of the unions, even Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke (D) is making approving noises about adopting privatization as one means of introducing an element of value for money into the delivery of services.

Market Approaches to Congestion Control
Transcript of a Discussion
On October 7, 2002, during the State election campaign, the Calvert Institute sponsored a symposium at Montgomery College, Germantown, including presentations by four leading transportation experts on the then little-discussed subject of Market Approaches to Congestion Control.

Martin in Wonderland
The Calvert Institute
The popularity of Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland has lasted for nearly a century, and elaborately annotated editions of it have been published to expose its subtle points to the uninitiated. In Baltimore, an equally classic teachers’ union contract has been maintained intact and virtually unamended throughout the six years of the current O’Malley administration.

Maryland Charter Legislation Out of Sync with Other States
Douglas P. Munro, Ph.D.
A charter-school bill will be introduced in the Maryland General Assembly this year. That is the good news. What sort of charter-school bill? Well, that may be the bad news.

Maryland’s Pension Scandals
Calvert Institute for Policy Research
The Employees’ Retirement System of Baltimore City had consistently produced investment results below its benchmark yields based on comparisons with market indices.

Memorandum
George W. Liebmann
This memorandum (in PDF format) is intended to outline the constitutional powers of the Maryland Governor, who is often said to be the most powerful Governor in the country in terms of constitutional authority.

Missing Issues
George W. Liebmann
Americans in both parties report themselves uninspired by the current crop of Presidential candidates. Yet Americans know that significant domestic problems are unaddressed: that the public high school system is a disaster area; that the savings rate is nonexistent, being discouraged by over-liberal credit and justified fear of eventual inflation; that transportation infrastructure is deteriorating; that both local and national policies favor sprawl development and the mismanagement of public lands; that families with young children are under great economic pressure, while the elderly are the darlings of the tax and benefit systems; and that police, prison, and judicial bureaucracies are ever-expanding.

Montgomery Innovations: Lessons for Baltimore?
Editorial Board
One of the education establishment’s defenses of its poor performance (in relation to private and parochial schools) is that non-public schools are selective.

Move Beyond School Voucher Fantasy to Focus on Real Reforms
George Liebmann
The recent, ringing defeat of a referendum on school vouchers in Utah - generally thought of as America's most conservative state - should be a wake-up call to critics of our public school system. The proposal failed for several reasons apart from the might of the teachers unions. Chief among these is that it was perceived as a solution in search of a problem: an effort by a group of doctrinaire conservatives to sell an intellectually tidy "free market" panacea without taking the trouble to first convince the electorate that schools, and particularly high schools, have serious flaws.

Much Ado About Nothing: Fuss about Certification Protects Closed Shop
Jeffry L. Flake
Five minutes into any discussion on the subject of teacher certification you're bound to hear the analogy: "If you needed heart bypass surgery, wouldn't you insist on having a licensed surgeon perform the procedure? Well, then, you certainly wouldn't want an uncertified teacher instructing your child, would you?"

Multiculturalism and the Demise of the Liberal Arts at Maryland's Public Universities and Colleges, Except Morgan State
Robert Lerner, Ph.D., Althea K. Nagai, Ph.D.
A number of years ago, I was teaching a political science course at Towson University. About half way through the semester, one of my less stellar students - a junior whom we'll call John - came to my office for a chat. What could he do, he wanted to know, to get his grades up (short of doing any work, you understand). I suggested going to the library once in a while.

No Dice!
State Senator Christopher J. McCabe
On August 12, Governor Glendening announced - firmly - that no bill authorizing slot machines or casinos in Maryland will pass into law under his watch

No U-Turns: Why Welfare Reform Must Not Be Undone
Douglas P. Munro, Ph.D.
With Bill Clinton’s reelection to the White House, doubtless there will be intensified talk of "revisiting" welfare reform - largely with a view to gutting it. Likewise, at the state level, this reporter recently participated in a public debate on welfare reform at Loyola College in Baltimore.

Padded Payroll: An Examination of Municipal Employment Practices in Baltimore City
Kantayhanee Whitt, M.A.
Recently, I was invited to a meeting of the Baltimore Homeowners' Coalition for Fair Property Taxes. One of the attendees was Kantayhanee Whitt, who had just completed some research for the coalition on municipal employment in Baltimore City (funded by the Abell Foundation). The coalition apparently did not intend to publish the material. So I asked if the Calvert Institute might "adopt" the project. The coalition agreed. This study is the result.

Pork, Charters and Taxpayer Rights: Making Government Accountable
Editorial Board
Given the drubbing the Conservatives received in the recent election in the U.K., this may seem a strange time to suggest that Annapolis adopt Toryesque policies. However, as the commentary on the back page makes plain, the Conservatives' electoral defeat has not in any way invalidated their ideological program of the last 18 years. After all, it is not as though the new Labour administration intends to undo any of the Tories' legacy - a legacy of scaled back government and enhanced citizen input.

Practical Feminism: A Review of Fox-Genovese’s Reevaluation of Feminism
Ronald W. Dworkin, M.D., Ph.D.
For the vast majority of men, the basic pattern of life has not changed in 3,000 years. As young boys, males play, go to school; later, they get jobs, get married, raise families. Life is now more competitive than it used to be, and the rhythm of life accelerated as students learn computer science and foreign languages in pre-school; but, for men, the pattern of life has not seriously changed.

Precedents and Pitfalls: How to Create a Successful School Choice Program
Clint Bolick, J.D.
School choice - which gives parents control over where the public dollars earmarked for their children's education will be spent - is the most promising education reform in the United States today.

Private Models Improve Services to Vets
Daniel C. Devine
The homeless veteran - he is a historical problem we want to ignore.

Private Schools Challenge Students to Achieve
David Gadson
One of the easiest ways to ignite a fire storm among a group of inner-city educators is to ask them how best to challenge students.

Private Sector Public Schools: Fiscal Responsibility Dictates It, Says Nova Scotia
Ronald D. Utt, Ph.D. & Douglas P. Munro, Ph.D.
There is a widespread perception that there is a nationwide shortage of classroom space. Education proved to be an issue of serious voter concern in Maryland's 1998 election, with both gubernatorial candidates feeling compelled to make promises to hire at state expense over 1,000 new public school teachers (despite spotty evidence that reduced class size has any long-term impact on student achievement).

Public Funds into Private Pockets: How Corporate Welfare Offends the Constitution
Dale F. Rubin, J.D.
How can such public expenditures be justified? If you ask a legislator or petition the court for an explanation, the answer will be the same: The expenditures are legal because they are expended for a "public purpose."

Public v. Private Schools: A Reality Check on the BCPS
Douglas P. Munro, Ph.D.
So how are vouchers doing?" asks columnist Clarence Page in a March 15 piece in the Baltimore Sun, preposterously titled, "A Reality Check on School Vouchers."

Reform Schools Reformed: How Competitive Tendering Saves Your Money
David B. Muhlhausen
With surging juvenile crime rates and limited budgets, state governments have been hard pressed to handle the increasing demands on the juvenile-justice system. This strain has led to increased privatization of juvenile-corrections services.

Reforming The Schools To Save the City, Part 1
Denis P. Doyle with David A. DeShryver and Douglas P. Munro
You have in front of you part I of a two-part examination into the potential for school choice to reverse urban decline. Denis Doyle's thesis is that the various proffered remedies for urban decline - new police, new green space, new tax cuts - will never save the city unless the schools are saved. The lifeblood of any city is its middle and working classes. These ordinary people are what make the place tick. Unable to afford the private schools that make city living tolerable for those that can afford them, the middle and working classes must be given access to good schools at public expense. The simplest way to achieve this is to allow them to choose their own. If they are not given this access, they will leave. They do leave. Baltimore loses over 1,000 people a month, net.

Reforming The Schools To Save the City, Part II
Douglas P. Munro, Ph.D
Part I of this two-part series described our theoretical premise, which was this: Only by giving middle-class taxpayers access to schools of their own choice will Baltimore's population decline be stemmed. This theoretical work, written by education scholar Denis Doyle, prompted what what might be termed the "Doyle question": If they had school choice, would people stay in the city?

Revisiting the ‘Three Ring Circus’
Calvert Institute for Policy Research
In our February 2005 issue, we reviewed three ancient and venerable lawsuits: the Bradford school financing litigation in Baltimore City, now in its tenth year; the federal special education lawsuit, now aged 21; and another ‘baby’ lawsuit, the federal court housing litigation, now also ten years old....

Saving the City Through Private Activity
Editorial Board
This issue focuses largely on the related topics of government efficiency and private-sector activity in areas traditionally ceded to government. Let us be honest: Government provision of services is often inefficient provision of services.

Schmoke's Gamble: A Conversation with Urbanologist Fred Siegel
Douglas P. Munro, Ph.D.
Last year, Frederick F. Siegel, a history professor at New York's Cooper Union for the Arts and Sciences, released a somewhat pessimistic book on the fate of America's cities, The Future Once Happened Here.1 During one of his recent visits to Maryland, the Calvert Institute conducted a lengthy interview with Siegel. In particular, the institute was interested in Professor Siegel's views on Baltimore, which are reproduced below.

Smarter than the French: A Review of Reitz's Moral Crisis
Ronald W. Dworkin, M.D., Ph.D.
The French are smart. They have two words for education, not one.

Subsidies and Stadiums: Maryland’s Moment of Truth
Michael I. Krauss, J.D.
Maryland’s so-far successful attempt to attract Art Modell’s Cleveland-based NFL franchise to Baltimore is a spectacular example of corporate welfare, regardless of Modell’s February 21 consent to contribute $24 million himself. The deal still involves involves a 30-year, no-rent lease on an estimated $200 million stadium to be built almost entirely at state expense, and near 100 percent of revenues from concessions, parking, etc.

Taking Charge: How Citizens Can Help Kids when Government Won't
Suzanna Duvall
At the same time that Baltimore Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke (D) was announcing plans to appoint a task force to explore different options for providing school choice for parents, a new group was being chartered in Maryland - a Baltimore version of the Children’s Educational Opportunity Foundation (known as CEO America).

Talking Taxes: Rural Counties Seriously Gypped
Editorial Board
The nay-saying has started. Opponents of tax cuts have deluged the General Assembly with dire warnings about the consequences of trimming taxes.

Tax Credits for Private Tuition, Arizona House Bill 2074
Douglas P. Munro, Ph.D.
Amending section 43-1021, Arizona revised statutes

Taxes and Revenues: The Road Not Taken
George W. Liebmann
A year into the new administration, and a few months or weeks before the next legislative session, special or general, there is no sign that any study inspiring public confidence has been undertaken of the state’s revenue and tax structure. Instead there is vague talk of conversations between the Governor and Senate President Miller, inspiring the same confidence among budget students that the Willy-Nicky agreement between Czar Nicholas II and Kaiser Wilhelm II inspired among diplomats, and for the same reasons. One finds here no Cooper-Hughes Commission, not even a Linowes Report. There is no effort to see things whole, in order to give the state a modernized tax structure, not a stop-gap designed to get through the next general election. There is certainly no effort made to balance revenues and responsibilities between state and local governments, to end the annual beg-a-thons. There is not even the agreed body of statistics that a study commission would produce: the administration feels entitled to its own facts.

Testing for Drugs in Schools: The Constitutional Issues
George W. Liebmann, J.D.
Beginning in 1985, nearly five million members of the American military underwent routine drug testing, a program which continues, and which is credited with having virtually eliminated from the military the serious problems of drug abuse which afflicted it following the Vietnam war.

The 2008 General Assembly Session: An Intellectual Vacuum
George W. Liebmann
Consideration of the work of the 2008 General Assembly causes one to recall the observation of Gertrude Stein: "There's no there there." The Governor proposed an essentially nonexistent legislative program, having run out of ideas in his second year, after having raised almost every available tax except the two most obvious candidates for increase: the gasoline tax and the alcoholic beverage tax.

The Agreement: How Federal, State and Union Regulations Are Destroying Public Education in Maryland
George W. Liebmann, J.D.
When Baltimore attorney George Liebmann approached me to ask if the Calvert Institute might be interested in publishing a study he was writing on teachers' union contracts in Maryland, I took one look at the draft manuscript and realized I had found a winner. Just getting possession of all 24 union contracts currently operative in the state had been a task in itself, for the unions do not lightly divulge such information.

The Baltimore City Retirement Systems: Heading for Trouble
Calvert Institute for Policy Research

The Baltimore Criminal Justice System: The Judges Speak
Calvert Institute for Policy Research
The Baltimore Criminal Justice System: The Judges Speak, a symposium on the Criminal Justice System in Baltimore City, was held on April 30, 2003, at the World Trade Center in Baltimore.

The Baltimore Forum: Would-Be Mayor Addresses the Issues of the Day
Christopher M. Bruce
As Baltimore's disappointing Schmoke era draws to a close, Calvert recently attempted to elicit answers from potential 1999 mayoral candidates to some key questions. Surveys were mailed to seven people, either announced candidates or folk whose names have been mentioned as possibilities.

The Brighter Borough: Lessons from Wandsworth, London
Councilman Maurice Heaster
Wandsworth is a United Kingdom success story. An inner-city London borough of 260,000 people, it has prospered because its leading council members have retained a clear and focused vision of what good local government means. (American readers should recall that in the U.K., there is no separation of powers for legislative/executive functions.

The Candidates and Education
Calvert Institute for Policy Research
The Sun and other publications have compared the views of Governor Ehrlich and Mayor O’Malley on education issues, but the comparisons for the most part miss the point.

The Cure: How Tackling Waste and Abuse in Annapolis Could Eliminate the State Debt and Release a Billion Dollars a Year for Tax Cuts
Paul O. Ballou III, C.P.A., William R. Miles, M.S., Douglas P. Munro, Ph.D.
A casual approach to the cost and size of government has been a tradition in Maryland. State and local personal income taxation is among the very highest per capita in the country, a fact that has elicited remarkably little interest among the intelligentsia. This is despite a recently published warning by the Glendening administration's own secretary of business and economic development, James Brady, that such confiscatory fiscal policy serves as a "red flag" to businesses.

The Dissent: How the Townsend Report Fails to Address the Roots of Juvenile Crime and What to Do About It
Robert M. McCarthy, J.D. with David B. Muhlhausen

The Do's and Don'ts of a Tax Cut for Maryland
John E. Berthoud, Ph.D.
Governor Parris N. Glendening (D) has proposed a sizable cut in income-tax rates for Maryland. While the governor has taken an important step in recognizing that the key to economic growth is a lower tax burden for state residents, his proposal has several key defects that must be remedied before enactment.

The Ehrlich Administration at Mid-Passage
Calvert Institute for Policy Research
Two of the four legislative sessions of Governor Ehrlich’s first term have passed, rendering appropriate an interim assessment of the administration’s performance on major issues facing state government. This review will necessarily pass over some important subjects such as the environment, where the administration has major successes to its credit. It will focus on four core functions of government: Transportation, Health, Crime and Justice, and Education, and on overriding Budget issues generally.

The Folly of ‘Consent’
George Liebermann
The recent consent decree relating to ‘racial profiling’ by the State Police negotiated by the Glendening administration and accepted in modified form by Governor Ehrlich appears to put a nasty controversy to rest: one which united ‘hit and run’ politics and identity politics in one toxic package. Such decrees nonetheless raise serious concerns.

The Governor's Educational Design
George W. Liebmann
The only indication of the Governor’s thinking, if it can be called that, about the school system, is that supplied by his task force on education, whose report was publicized by, and not repudiated by, the Governor’s office.

The Interview: Charles I. Ecker, Howard County Executive
Ronald W. Dworkin, M.D., Ph.D.
We continue our series of interviews with the major contenders in the 1998 gubernatorial race. In this issue, we talk with Chuck Ecker, county executive for Howard County. Dr. Ecker will be facing 1994 Republican nominee Ellen R. Sauerbrey in the GOP primary.

The Interview: Eileen M. Rehrmann, Harford County Executive
Ronald W. Dworkin, M.D., Ph.D.
From time to time, the Calvert Institute will be interviewing the major contenders in the 1998 gubernatorial race. In this issue, we have a conversation with Eileen Rehrmann, county executive for Harford County, who is challenging incumbent Governor Parris Glendening in the Democratic primary.

The Interview: Ellen R. Sauerbrey, Former House Minority Leader
Ronald W. Dworkin, M.D., Ph.D.
We continue our series of interviews with the major contenders in the 1998 gubernatorial race. In this issue, we talk with Ellen Sauerbrey, the Republican gubernatorial nominee in 1994 and the former minority leader in the Maryland House of Delegates.

The Malpractice Scandal
Calvert Institute
Few Marylanders have read the text of the malpractice bill that emerged from the General Assembly over Governor Ehrlich’s veto, but those who do will come to share Mark Twain’s belief that politicians are "the native American criminal class." The bill in its final form is almost a parody of clueless, reckless, extravagant policymaking.

The Maryland Budget: The Experts Speak
Reported by Linda A. Crockett, videotaped by G.Stanley Doore, conference organization by Robert O'C. Worcester
This is deja vu all over again, I think. In a large sense state fiscal policy is only paid any attention to when we have too much money or not enough. Actually, that's wrong, because when we have too much money or not enough, we're really not interested in policy; we're interested in spending the money if we have too much, and avoiding difficult decisions if we don't have enough.

The Menendez Menace: A Review of Wilson's Moral Judgment
Ronald W. Dworkin, M.D., Ph.D.
For years, social scientists have been trying to expand their influence from beyond the small university departments where they are holed up to the real world where serious work is being done. To some degree, they have been successful.

The Right Choice for Taxpayers: How Parental Choice would Save Public Funds
John D. Schiavone
In the winter 1998 issue of this journal, Robert C. Embry, Jr., president of Baltimore's Abell Foundation, asked in a letter to the editor, "A graduated voucher [system] would certainly reduce the public cost of existing private school students - but would it be enough to keep or attract the middle class?"

The Trimmer
John Barry
The Calvert Institute's George Liebmann Preaches The Common Sense Of Thinking Locally And Acting Locally Frank Klein Baltimore has its own conservative think tank, but don't confuse it with the Heritage Foundation. There's no sign-in book, no large glass door, and no view of Dupont Circle. The Calvert Institute for Policy Research is discreetly tucked away on easy-to-miss West Hamilton street, a few blocks north of City Hall.

The Trimmer's Almanac: Ten Years of the Calvert Institute 1996-2006

The Calvert Institute announces publication of The Trimmer's Almanac: Ten Years of the Calvert Institute, 1996-2006, available for $30 including postage (five or more copies, $15 each including postage). The Table of Contents of this handsomely bound 660 page volume appears below:

Table of Contents

Table of Contents i

Preface v

I. Criminal Justice

Charles E. Moylan, Jr., J. Frederick Motz, John Glynn,Timothy Doory, Elizabeth Julian, Page Croyder and Peter Saar; The Baltimore Criminal Justice System: The Judges Speak

George Liebmann, Three Brief Comments: Gun Control, Citation Authority, Tenure of Police Commissioners 34

Robert M. McCarthy, Action Plan on Juvenile Crime 41

II. ‘Court Watching’ 49

George Liebmann, The Folly of Consent 49

Kalman Hettleman and George Liebmann;Special Education 60

George Liebmann, A Three Ring Circus 64

George Liebmann, Civil Gideon: An IdeaWhose Time Has Passed 76

III. Drug Policy 81

Alan Friedman, Gary Johnson, Donald Santarelli, Jerome Jaffe, and Robert DuPont; The War on Drugs: A Reconsideration After 40 Years 81

George Liebmann, Testing for Drugs in Schools, The Constitutional Issues 111

Douglas Munro, Why Maryland Should Screen Welfare Applicants For Drug Use 120

IV. Education 127

Denis Doyle, David DeShryver and Douglas Munro; Reforming the Schools to Save the City 127

George Liebmann, The Agreement: How Federal, Estate and Union Regulations are Destroying Public Education in Maryland 192

Donald Langenburg, Peter Martin, and John Toll; High School Science and Mathematics in Maryland 231

Jeffrey Flake, Much Ado About Nothing: Fuss About Certification Protects Closed Shop 254

C. Steven Wallis, Civility: Key to Genuine School Reform 257

Douglas Munro, Public v. Private Schools: A Reality Check 267

Robert Lerner and Althea Nagai; Multi-culturism and the Demise of the Liberal Arts at Maryland’s Public Colleges and Universities, Except Morgan State 271

V. Devolution and Management 307

William Eggers, Timothy Burke, Adrian Moore, Richard Tradewell, and Douglas Munro; Cutting Costs: A Compendium of Competitive Know-How and Privatization Source Materials 307

George Liebmann, A Contrast to Regionalism: Reversing Baltimore’s Decline through Neighborhood Enterprise and Municipal Discipline 389

Donald Stabile, Wayne Hyatt, Linda Schuett, Marc Porter Magee, Leta Mach, Charles Duff, Jr.; Creating Community in Planned Communities 489

Peter Samuel, C. Kenneth Orski, Kenneth Reid and Ronald Utt; Market Approaches to Congestion Control 528

William Ratchford, Nancy Kopp, Robert Neall, James Brady, Donald Devine and Nina Owcharenko; The Maryland Budget: The Experts Speak 564

George Liebmann, The Baltimore City Retirement System: Heading for Trouble 620

The Calvert Ethos 629

Douglas Munro, An Albanian Sojourn: A Staffer Recalls an Unusual Odyssey 629

Christopher West, Partisan Politicking and the Maryland Judiciary 640

Ronald Dworkin, A Conservative Robespierre: A Review of Bork’s Gomorrah 643

Ronald Dworkin, Too Easy and Too Free: A Review of Murray’s Libertarianism 648

George Liebmann, Two Essays on Terrorism 653

The "Pop Issues"
George Liebmann
The late Spiro Agnew, no great statesman, once referred disgustedly to "the pop issues-acid, amnesty and abortion." The first two are no longer with us as political issues, having now been replaced by ‘gun control’.

Things That Ain't So: A Response to Dworkin's Review of Murray
Howard Baetjer, Jr., Ph.D.
Will Rogers is supposed to have said, "The trouble with most folks isn't their ignorance, but that they know so many things that ain't so." Ron Dworkin's disapproving review of Charles Murray's What it Means to Be a Libertarian, published in the spring 1997 issue of Calvert News, is based on some ideas about economics and economic history that ain't so.

This Is Our House: How the Caroline Center Tackles Job Readiness
Douglas P. Munro, Ph.D.
Drive a few blocks due east of the state penitentiary in downtown Baltimore and you will cross the 900 block of Somerset Street. There you will find the "Caroline Center: A Learning/Career Center for Women of East Baltimore."

Thornton's False Hope
George Liebmann
Originally published February 16, 2004

Ticket to Ride: Why Baltimore Must Not Raise Income Taxes
Douglas P. Munro, Ph.D.
The defense first made for Mayor Schmoke's recent proposal to up the city piggyback income tax was the small average per-person tax increase that would result, less than $75 a year. This is not the point.

To Secure These Rights: Maryland's Infringement of Medical Privacy
Jennifer A. Katze, M.D.
The 1990s will come to be known as the heyday of the information age. The cost will be the loss of personal privacy.

To Staunch a Wound: How Parental Choice Would Save Baltimore City
Douglas P. Munro
A number of weeks ago, the Calvert Institute released the first of its new Calvert Issue Brief (CIB) series. These in-depth studies of the concerns of the day are available to all institute donors upon request. We realize, however, that time is limited for many readers.

Too Easy and Too Free: A Review of Murray's Libertarianism
Ronald W. Dworkin, M.D., Ph.D.
Libertarianism was once the ideology of cranks. While not the kind of people to hand out leaflets at the airport or solicit your house uninvited, libertarians were humorously derided by many and considered suspect by the rest.

Tort Reform: The Time Is Now
Carol L. Hirschburg
ort reform, the effort to curb abuses in the civil justice system, is sweeping the country. In reaction to a public outcry against frivolous lawsuits which produce awards far in excess of actual damages (if any) suffered, more than 30 state legislatures have enacted tort reform legislation since the mid-1980s.

Troubled Waters: PTA Bureaucrats Silence Reform Efforts
Sylvia Fubini
Last fall, Montgomery County activist Sylvia Fubini established a committee within the Montgomery County Council of PTAs to examine serious school-reform ideas - school choice, charter schools and so forth.

Unfinished Work: Baltimore Academy of Excellence Looks to Future
Sarah Carver
The Baltimore Academy of Excellence (BAE) is located on the 4200 block of Belair Road in Baltimore, next to Herring Run Park.1 It was founded by Jacqui Gough (see photo 1) almost three years ago, supported by the Greater Grace World Outreach, a nationwide, nondenominational church that places great emphasis on urban outreach projects.

Union Rules: A Summary of Liebmann's Agreement
Calvert News Staff
When George Liebmann approached us to ask if the Calvert Institute might be interested in publishing a study he was writing on teachers’ union contracts in Maryland, we took one look at the draft manuscript and realized we had found a winner.

Voucher Politics
Calvert Institute for Policy Research
The condition of Baltimore’s schools, together with the fact that more than 40% of the parents of Baltimore schoolchildren applied for a limited number of private scholarships would suggest that Baltimore City is a jurisdiction politically ripe for the introduction of vouchers.

Wake Up, Corporate America: How Business Feeds the Mouth that Bites It
Austin M. Fulk
The Environmental Law Institute is a tax-exempt organization active in the field of public policy. Among its claims to fame is the legal rationale that allowed Exxon to be held criminally responsible for the Valdez oil spill off Alaska.

Welfare Reform in Maryland: A Promising Start, More Must Follow
Edward L. Hudgins, Ph.D.
"You get what you pay for" is a saying no truer than when applied to welfare programs. A study by my Cato Institute colleagues Michael Tanner and Stephen Moore, with David Hartman of Austin’s Hartland Bank, examined the amount of assistance from major federal and federal/state programs that a typical welfare family - a mother with two children - would be eligible for in the 50 states and the District of Columbia.

What Annapolis Won't Say About Kidcare: Medicaid Plan Would Cost Big, Cover Little
Ronald W. Dworkin, M.D., Ph.D.
A "State Child Health Insurance Program," called the S-CHIP, was included in the 1997 federal budget. This assistance program provides states with federal funds to extend coverage and services to uninsured, low-income children.

When Our Fiscal Hands Are Tied: How Maryland Lost Control of Half Its Budget
State Delegate D. Bruce Poole
Great demands are placed on lawmakers each year to spend taxpayers' money. The causes are usually noble, well intentioned and passionately argued.

Why Maryland Should Screen Welfare Applicants for Drug Use
Douglas P. Munro, Ph.D., Michael I. Krauss, J.D.
It is by now well known that the General Assembly’s Joint Committee on Welfare Reform has recommended that legislation be crafted allowing the state to screen welfare applicants for drug use. The task force is co-chaired by Senator Martin G. Madden (R-Howard and Price George’s) and Delegate Samuel I. Rosenberg (D-Baltimore City/County).

"Think Again: A Decade of Calvert Institute Colloquies"
B. Kearney
Established in 1995 as a conservative counterweight in left-leaning Maryland, the Calvert Institute for Policy Research ruffled feathers and got people talking with reports that spotlighted the size of the state’s debt and Baltimore’s government work force.