Commentary

This fall, residence halls and classrooms are filling with new students eager to start their academic journey. Many of them are “first generation” students — the first in their family to be able to pursue higher education. The thrilling feeling of accomplishment and pride these students feel upon entering college, however, is often accompanied by less helpful emotions like anxiety and self-doubt. And, unlike students for whom college-going is a family tradition, first-generation students often lack the structural and emotional supports to overcome the real and perceived barriers they face as they enter academia.

Two very different ballot measures in two very different states this year teach the same lesson: Bad ideas on education can come from either side of the partisan divide. In Florida, a referendum asks voters whether they want to change local school board elections from nonpartisan contests to races between candidates identified by party affiliation.

If you wake up early enough to get to the gym with Zach Orr — few people do — you’ll see the 32-year-old doesn’t lift like a former NFL linebacker. He does a lot of stretches. Many of his lifts aren’t heavy, an anomaly in a weight room dominated by stacking plates for Olympic-style lifts. But, even though it’s apparent Orr is in good shape, you won’t see him doing barbell squats.

When former Gov. Larry Hogan, now the Republican nominee for the U.S. Senate seat currently occupied by retiring Sen. Ben Cardin, sat down with The Baltimore Sun Editorial Board on Tuesday in downtown Baltimore, one of the issues he made crystal clear to all was his continued disdain for building the Red Line, the proposed 14.1-mile-long east-west light rail line running from Woodlawn to Johns Hopkins Bayview and possibly beyond.

For years, an award of the Bronze Star for his service in Afghanistan was part of the story of the rise to national prominence by Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, despite the fact that it wasn’t true. Moore’s failure to correct the public record when he had opportunities to do so has drawn a considerable amount of criticism. I don’t know which accusation I find more annoying: That Moore’s failure to correct the record diminishes the significance of his military service, or that criticism of his failure to be more forthcoming constitutes an attack on his military service. Neither accusation is fair.

I was lost in a thicket of pawpaws and towering bittersweet vines at South River Farm Park. Lisa Arrasmith and Mike Lofton were walking me to the water’s edge, picking a path through public land across the South River from Annapolis. It was overgrown and littered with flotsam from hundreds of surging storms. His knee was dodgy but holding up.