The Maryland State Department of Education announced that it will grant more than $169 million across the state’s school systems as part of the Maryland Leads Initiative. The initiative, which aims to use federal funding to address pandemic-related educational issues, will give school systems money to dedicate toward programs across seven strategy categories, including bettering student outcomes, aiding staff recruitment and retention, and strengthening teacher pipelines. All school systems in the state applied for and received funding from the program.
Maryland State Department of Education will give more than $169M to school systems to address pandemic-related issues
Baltimore-area Apple and Starbucks workers have led the way in nation and state forming unions. Now what?
Workers at the Apple store in Towson won national attention and praise from President Joe Biden after becoming the first of the tech giant’s U.S. employees to unionize. Less than two months earlier, Starbucks baristas in Baltimore’s Mount Vernon neighborhood became the first of the coffee chain’s Maryland employees to organize. Now comes the hard part. While the workers are among those leading what union organizers see as a resurgence in the labor movement, most of these campaigns are in the early stages and labor experts warn that employees face difficulty ahead in a process tilted heavily in favor of employers.
Opinion: Livestreaming committee meetings is smart, and need not be complicated
Every penny has to be counted when the Frederick County Board of Education sits down to approve a budget. Every spending item has to be weighed to see its relevance to the mission of the school system, which is to provide the best education possible to the children of Frederick County. So, it is little wonder that the board balked at a meeting last week at the idea of livestreaming its committee meetings. Presented with a cost estimate from its staff of more than $140,000, the board said no. We understand the thinking, but we still believe it was not the correct decision.
Opinion: Enough with the squeegee panhandling; Baltimore leaders must intervene
If it was a white kid who had so angrily banged my driver-side window that I thought it was going to shatter, I would have unhesitatingly laid into that son of a gun with a few choice words. But it was a Black kid, and I said nothing. I did not want to offend. I just bit my tongue and prayed for the light to change. Can an old white dude complain about squeegee kids without sounding racist? Probably not. I mean, the African American grandmother of my friend’s multiracial son finds these street-corner hucksters irritating too. So, there’s that.
As Afghan refugees rebuild in Baltimore, the challenges are many — and so are helping hands
The interpreter’s phone rings regularly and often. On the other side of the line are fellow Afghan refugees sharing the concerns and questions that come with restarting their lives in Baltimore. The challenges are many, the interpreter said: learning another language, navigating immigration paperwork, figuring out how to use the public bus system and struggling to find a job. Many families are making this transition alone, separated from relatives and friends.
2 Democrats running for Maryland attorney general locked in tight race, poll reveals
With less than one month to go before the primary, the two Democratic candidates running for Maryland attorney general are locked in a competitive race, with no clear frontrunner. Meanwhile, more than two-thirds of Republican likely voters are undecided about which candidate to support, according to the Goucher College Poll that was conducted in partnership with The Baltimore Banner and WYPR. Katie Curran O’Malley, a retired Baltimore district judge and former assistant state’s attorney in Baltimore County, was polling at 30% among 403 Democratic likely voters. U.S. Rep. Anthony Brown, who has represented Maryland’s 4th Congressional District that includes parts of Anne Arundel and Prince George’s counties since 2017, was pulling in 29%.
Wes Moore: Author, veteran, nonprofit chief seeks to add ‘governor’ to his resume
Wes Moore has built up a diverse resume over his career, serving as a military veteran, an investment banker, a best-selling author, an entrepreneur and the chief of a large charity. All of those stops along the way have prepared him, he says, for what he hopes is his next title: governor of Maryland. Amid a crowded field of candidates — there are 10 Democrats on the ballot — Moore has drawn the most attention. He’s both a lightning rod for criticism and a beacon for hope for change in Maryland.
Maryland leaders react strongly to Supreme Court overturning Roe
Baltimore Mayor Brandon M. Scott: Today the court has taken aim at women and their right to make fundamental health choices about their own bodies. This decision is especially harmful for Black Women and women of color who already face disparate health challenges and barriers to care. The court got it absolutely wrong again today. Men have absolutely no place deciding what women do with their bodies.
Maryland lawmakers could change gun law after Supreme Court’s ruling
Feldman: Ending Roe is institutional suicide for Supreme Court
Modern constitutional law as we have known it ended Friday. When the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and Casey v. Planned Parenthood, it repudiated the very idea that America’s highest court exists to protect people’s fundamental liberties from legislative majorities that would infringe on them. What the dissent aptly called a “catastrophic” decision is not only a catastrophe for women, who now can be forced to carry unwanted pregnancies to term. It is a catastrophe for all Americans — and for people all over the world who have built their own modern constitutional courts on the U.S. model. The tyranny of the majority won the day.