Foreclosures: The Chickens Come Home to Roost

The O’Malley administration’s response to the real estate crash in 2008 was a characteristic one: kicking the can down the road. Lenders were blamed; foreclosure attorneys were blamed; everything was done to obscure the fact that many if not most of inner-city loans should not have been made in the first place, were frequently made […]

Pension Follies, Resumed

      Maryland has, just, preserved its AAA bond rating, though with a negative outlook from Moody’s. Moody’s has issued a publication reporting that Maryland is one of the ten worst states in terms of the burden of pension debt, Maryland’s pension obligations being almost exactly equal to one year’s gross revenues, 99.5% of […]

Solving Maryland’s Teacher Staffing Crisis

Solving Maryland’s Teacher Staffing Crisis: A Comparative Analysis of Teacher Certification in Maryland and Other States The Calvert Institute for Policy Research 8 West Hamilton Street Baltimore, Maryland 21201 info@calvertinstitute.org Christopher P. Ryan June 2013 Table of Contents Executive Summary Introduction Maryland Teacher Certification Background and Status Quo Difficulties Inherent to Discussions of Traditional and […]

Solving Maryland’s Teacher Staffing Crisis: Executive Summary

    The Calvert Institute for Policy Research     Solving Maryland’s Teacher Staffing Crisis: A Comparative Analysis of Teacher Certification in Maryland and Other States   June 2013   Executive Summary   Maryland’s public schools consistently suffer from shortages of qualified teachers, especially in science, math, technology, foreign language, special education, and English for […]

Justice Delayed in Maryland

Justice Delayed in Maryland By James B. Astrachan, George W. Liebmann, and Henry R. Lord The upcoming retirement next month of Chief Judge Robert M. Bell of the Maryland Court of Appeals is a critical event, the first transition in the leadership of Maryland’s courts in nearly 20 years. A matter of central importance for […]

Solving Maryland’s Teacher Staffing Crisis

                                  Solving Maryland’s Teacher Staffing Crisis: A Comparative Analysis of Teacher Certification in Maryland and Other States   The Calvert Institute for Policy Research 8 West Hamilton Street Baltimore, Maryland 21201 Christopher P. Ryan           […]

Mismanaged Maryland

    Mismanaged Maryland Despite talk of reforms and budget cuts, Annapolis dabbles in excessive borrowing, noncompetitive projects and risky investments   By George Liebmann6:00 a.m. EDT, March 11, 2013   There is a sharp disconnect between the image and reality of the O’Malley administration’s fiscal policies. The image features pension reforms, reduced structural deficits, […]

Role of the Attorney General

Captain of the Black Sox   One of the more curious and notable decisions rendered by the Maryland Court of Appeals in recent years is its short opinion in Ports v. Cowan, 426 Md.435 (2012) holding that Maryland, notwithstanding that it had an as yet unrepealed statute and public policy declaring marriage to be between […]

Licensing in Maryland

Free Enterprise, Maryland Style   Nearly fifty years ago, the present writer served as counsel to the Maryland Home Improvement Commission, an administrative agency which had just been immortalized in Barry Levinson’s The Tin Men. The agency then functioned under a statute that was more a self-certification than licensing statute. To obtain a license required […]

Teacher Certification in Maryland

Maryland’s Protective Tariff Against Teachers   In 2011, Maryland colleges produced 2897 graduates from state-approved teacher education programs, out of 28701 new Maryland college graduates (Maryland Higher Education Report, 2011, p.17). Barely 10% of Maryland’s college graduates are thus eligible for regular certification as teachers in Maryland’s public schools. The regulations governing approved teacher education […]