Commentary

As if new state schools superintendent Carey Wright doesn’t have more than enough Halloween hobgoblins to contend with, the scariest one has been overlooked in public understanding and political debate about the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future: How many students are actually expected to succeed by the time the Blueprint sunsets in 2032?

An Iowa high school student considered the future of her family farm through the lens of Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring.” One middle-schooler analyzed tensions between Bangladesh and Pakistan with fierce moral clarity. Another educated himself about trade policy to understand Puerto Rico. The kids I met at the National History Day finals in College Park in June weren’t afraid to confront history.

Dear Baltimore: I have loved you and lived with you for the better part of a decade. I love you, I really do, but I think it’s time we have The Talk. You are failing me and your half-a-million residents. What happened? Roughly a week ago, my partner and I were woken by piercing screams directly outside our window near Patterson Park. We ran to the window in time to witness the tail-end of a violent carjacking in the street.

Holly Beach Farm is a garden of marshes, coves and coastal woodlands with sweeping views that include the Chesapeake Bay Bridge — a twin expanse of steel over blue-green waters dotted by boats and ships. Now this environmental treasure is up for grabs. The Chesapeake Bay Foundation on Wednesday posted a notice calling for letters of interest in taking over the 300-acre site just across the Severn River from Annapolis.

Twelve years ago, my son and I visited Maine for a fishing trip on the Androscoggin River. We went to a Walmart because those stores reliably sold licenses, and the experience would have been thoroughly unremarkable and forgotten if not for the guy who walked in and bought a rifle. Though his purchase process had started at roughly the same time ours did, he walked out of the store with the rifle — sorry, gun lovers, can’t remember which make and model — just before we left with our paper licenses.

The late Everett Dirksen, the conservative Republican who served as Senate minority leader in the 1960s, reportedly once said the following: “A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you’re talking real money.” Such gallows humor provided a small comfort while reviewing the latest state legislative audit, which revealed that the Maryland Department of Health can’t account for about $1.4 billion it received from the federal government during the final three years of Gov. Larry Hogan’s administration.

The full impact of social media on our children’s lives is still being studied and debated, but much of the ugly evidence of harm is right in front of our eyes. From body shaming to bullying to — in the most extreme cases — suicide, parents know how the pervasive social media environment is hurting young people. growing up in this brave, new world.