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When kids fall behind in school, learning acceleration may work better than remediation
July 20, 2021 -

With the COVID-19 pandemic waning, school systems across Maryland are shifting their focus from surviving the crisis to helping students recover from the social, emotional and academic toll of the most significant disruption to K-12 education in history. That process will take years — but the choices educators make as they plan for the upcoming school year will be crucial. One choice that looms especially large is how to help students who’ve fallen behind academically get back on track. New research from our organizations points to a promising approach: learning acceleration.

Read More: Baltimore Sun
Maryland’s Beltway toll lanes would expand access to jobs in the region
July 20, 2021 -

Maryland’s multimodal high-occupancy toll lanes plan for Interstate 270 and the American Legion Bridge is essential to the D.C. area’s economic future. This critical infrastructure will dramatically reduce travel times, create jobs and expand access for everyone in our region. We call on regional leaders to join with us and the more than 60 business, labor and community organizations from across the region in supporting this important investment. Specifically, this investment will relieve congestion and improve travel times for both free and toll lane users, allow carpoolers free use, provide $300 million for transit and facilitate express bus service between key regional job and activity centers such as Bethesda, Gaithersburg, Silver Spring, Tysons and Reston.

Read More: Washington Post
We’re failing in the mission to restore the Bay
July 19, 2021 -

New preliminary data documents that Chesapeake Bay grasses declined again in 2020 to the lowest level since 2013. Submerged aquatic vegetation coverage dropped to 62,169 acres, a loss from 66,387 acres in 2019 which represented a 33% decline from 2018. The 2020 acreage is just below the level of 30 years ago. This loss of underwater grasses is another indication of how badly the restoration of the Chesapeake Bay is going. The surveys mapping submerged aquatic vegetation have been conducted by the Virginia Institute of Marine Science since 1978.

Read More: Capital Gazette
Surfside condo tragedy will surely spur new Md. legislation in 2022, but first we must convene a study group
July 19, 2021 -

Common Ownership Communities (COCs) refer to condominium associations and homeowner associations. The Department of Legislative Services estimates that approximately 1 million Marylanders live in nearly 7,000 such organizations. Maryland’s COCs differ by size, resources and services provided. And their members differ by income, race, age and just about every other relevant demographic. The issues they face also vary widely across the state by region, spanning areas including Deep Creek in Western Maryland, Baltimore City, Charles County, the D.C. suburbs and Ocean City.

Read More: Baltimore Sun
Experimental treatments changed the course of the AIDS epidemic; we need the same approach to mental illness today
July 19, 2021 -

In 1988, at the height of the AIDS pandemic, playwright Larry Kramer exposed the Centers for Disease Control for slow-walking AIDS therapies. In a scathing open letter published in the Village Voice to Dr. Anthony Fauci — who was then, as now, spearheading public health policy — Kramer declared that after three years of effort, Dr. Fauci and the CDC “have established only a system of waste, chaos, and uselessness” and that “there are more AIDS victims dead because you didn’t test drugs on them than because you did.”

Read More: Baltimore Sun
Gov. Hogan is working against Maryland families
July 16, 2021 -

We are two moms of Baltimore City public school children, and we speak for a lot of Maryland parents when we say the last year has been tough. Many of us have lost jobs, wages and loved ones. The child care supports that Tracie put in place for her military spouse’s overseas assignment fell apart, forcing her to work full-time while overseeing virtual learning for her elementary school child. And the pandemic caused the loss of over half of Stephanie’s income, leading to a stressful work search while overseeing her daughter’s transition to middle school online.

Read More: Baltimore Sun
Landlords aren’t the enemy: Stop vilifying them, and start working with them toward housing solutions
July 16, 2021 -

Throughout the pandemic, housing providers have held a vital stake in keeping residents housed, whether it was through payment plans, late fee waivers or other prevention efforts. Housing providers have also spent countless hours and human resource costs facilitating access to rental assistance. And, at the same time that federal rental assistance wound its way through government processes, Maryland’s housing providers worked with United Way of Central Maryland to recruit housing providers for the Strategic Targeted Eviction Prevention (STEP) Pilot Program, which quickly provided residents with rental assistance through a unique model that allows housing providers to apply for bulk rental assistance that will benefit all of their eligible residents.

Read More: Baltimore Sun
Our Families Deserve an Environment Free of Chemicals
July 16, 2021 -

Would you rather your kids be bitten by a mosquito or be exposed to cancer-causing chemicals in your backyard? This mosquito season, the Maryland Department of Agriculture is replacing its previously used truck-based pesticide, Permanone 30-30, with two similar pesticides after our organizations found alarming levels of the toxic “forever chemical” per- and polyfluoralkyl substances — PFAS — in a sample of Permanone 30-30.

Read More: Maryland Matters
Cut corners on infrastructure and look what happens
July 15, 2021 -

That pancake collapse of a building in Florida is an allegory for issues across the nation, in every town and county where people are constructing buildings, driving roads, and crossing old bridges. It’s a study of collapse at every level of American life: politics, business, aspirations of living the American dream and even faith in the possibility of justice. Case in point: the haggling in Congress over a long-overdue infusion of public money in public infrastructure. Arguing over who pays, how much, when, and what are the alternatives to waiting, just a little longer, to fix something that people would like to just take for granted as being invulnerable

Read More: Carroll County Times
More pandemics are coming; will we heed the warning signs?
July 15, 2021 -

We should have seen it coming. There had been too many near misses for devastating human pandemics: the Ebola virus, beginning in 1976; the “bird” flu H5N1, first appearing in 1997; SARS in 2003; Zika, beginning in 2007; MERS, starting in 2012. There were others. We had ample warnings before COVID-19.

Read More: Baltimore Sun

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