5/9 New Stuff

Marc blogs about WYPR, WEAA, public transportation, and the democratic presidential race here.

We’ve got a new podcast with Ta-Nehisi Coates talking about race and the 2008 election here.

Our intern Christina Arrison sent us dispatches from Indiana where she was working with the Obama campaign.  Read them here.

5/2 New blog from Marc

Located here.

 

4/21 New Blog

New blog post from Marc at the Center for Emerging Media blog.

4/21 from Marc

4/21 Goodbye WordPress!

Well, friends, it is time for CEM and Marc Steiner to move on from WordPress.com.  We’ve enjoyed our time blogging on this site, but we just launched a brand new website and we’re going to blog over there for now on.  We’re going to keep this site up for archival purposes, but all new blogging will be going on at our brand new website, www.centerforemergingmedia.com.

The new blog is located here:

http://www.centerforemergingmedia.com/blog

Not only are we blogging at this new site, but there is also an interactive forum for all our listeners to have an opportunity to discuss any topic under the sun with each other.  So sign up, create a profile, and start chatting with us and fellow listeners.  The forum is located here:

http://www.centerforemergingmedia.com/forum

And of course, you can listen to all your favorite CEM programs, past and present, here:

http://www.centerforemergingmedia.com/all/cem/programs

 

Come visit us in our new home and let us know what you think!

-Jessica

4/15 from Marc

School Violence

Any of you who saw the tape of a student beating art teacher Jolita Berry were rightly horrified. Any of you who work in our schools understands what led to this and knows that disrespect for teachers and the threat of violence felt by students and teachers is a common occurrence in our schools.

It cannot be tolerated.

First, the school administration must stand by its teachers. Students who physically attack and assault teachers must be arrested. There has to be zero tolerance for those who perpetrate violence against their peers and their teachers. It cannot be tolerated. You cannot teach or learn in atmospheres of violence.

That is short term. That is a necessary immediate response. Long term, it takes an administrative and pedagogic strategy to end violence and disruption in our schools.

Does it make any sense to suspend students back to the street corner? Does it make sense to kick them out of school into the hands of communities and families that bred and feed that behavior in the first place? I don’t think so.

About fifteen years ago, Lombard Middle School had a very successful in-school suspension program. I am not sure, beyond funding issues, why that program was dismantled. It must be resurrected throughout every school in the city.

Suspended students should be required to come to school attending special classes taught by volunteer staff members, counselors and social workers and ex-felons from the community. It might require special partnerships with local schools of social work, universities and our medical community. It would mean changing the rules to allow trained ex-offenders and community members to work with our most troubled young people.

The goal would be to successfully reintegrate these children into the mainstream student body.

I think Dr. Andres Alonso is right to call on 500 volunteers from the community to enter our most troubled schools. It will be an incredibly powerful message and a step in the right direction.

Long term policy needs to complement that to address the problem of violence and disruption in our schools. If not teachers may walk out. The best students and teachers will leave the system.

We can make it work.

Development

This is just a modest proposal as a reflection on the closing the legislative session in Annapolis.   I have been thinking about how you create equity in our state and protect our land, environment and the Chesapeake Bay that we all love so much.

Let me offer some thoughts that would be a terrifying anathema to most people in the legislature and maybe a portion of our citizenry, as well.

Many of us worry about the increased development of our open spaces, the removal of the poor for housing for the wealthy, and the nature of much of that development.   What can you really do about it?

A man who I have known for 25 years, former state senator Gerald Winegrad, who was the original environmental warrior in the state legislature, suggested that all planning and zoning be taken away from local jurisdictions and given to the state Board of Public Works.   He says it is the only way to control development, save our forests and manage our agricultural lands.   When he said this on my show last year, I really had to stop and think about the consequences of this proposal.    I understand the frustration at watching our natural environment be devastated and our waterways becoming polluted beyond repair that led to this radical proposal.

The loss of local control is anathema to Americans.   Local control is a philosophical and pragmatic sentiment since the Declaration of Independence.   As unwieldy as it might be,  it really is the core of the American spirit.

So, in that spirit and pondering the proposal of that great patriot (he is a Navy JAG officer Lt. Commander I think) and environmentalist, Gerald Winegrad, let me offer an alternative.

If Maryland had one state wide property tax we could numb the power of developers in our local jurisdictions.   Counties and Baltimore City’s zoning and planning agencies are susceptible to the power of developers.    Development means property tax dollars in local coffers.   County and Baltimore City roads, schools and social service agencies are only as strong and funded as property tax revenues allow.   If there was a statewide property tax divided evenly between our jurisdictions then they could plan without pressure from outside development and capital power.    Then we could have local control that makes decisions that benefit the environment and citizens of localities.  It would create real local power.

If at the same time we equalized state funding for education it would add to local power and control.   If the state spent the same per pupil statewide each jurisdiction would be free to add as much as they want to their schools beyond that state number.    Counties and Baltimore City could be managed by elected boards, elected/appointed boards, appointed boards or no board at all.   They could create their own pedagogical policies.

Are we not one nation, are we not one state, and are we not one people?   Why should the vagaries of poverty or wealth of one jurisdiction over the other determine the well being and future of us all!

It seems to me that these ideas are the marriage of the best social democratic principles with our age old traditions of local control.

Your thoughts?

-Marc

Share your CAB meeting reflections

I want to thank all of you who came to the CAB meeting tonight.  I cannot tell you how wonderful it was to see your faces and hear your thoughts.

I see some people already made post-CAB comments in the previous post, so I imagined others would follow suit, and I wanted to make a place for all the post-CAB comments.  So feel free to share your impressions, feelings, thoughts in this post.

I am sure Marc will write something to you tomorrow.

-Jessica

2/13 I read the news today, oh boy…

Big news out today. Looks like Maryland will have two new faces in our Congressional delegation (unless Wayne Gilchrist and Albert Wynn choose to run as Independents and win).

11/6 College Gender Gap

Thirty years ago, male students were in the majority on college campuses. Today women are outnumbering men at colleges and universities. While the number of women is increasing; educators are asking where  have the boys gone? There’s been a significant drop in the number of men applying and attending college which is baffling educators.

                                                                                                                                     -Marcus

10/09/09 Mike Busch

Speaker of the Maryland House of Delegates Mike Busch joins us live from his office in Annapolis at noon today.  Expect talk of balancing the state budget, O’Malley’s plan which includes slots and tax increases, and maybe a few wild card questions.  What would those be?  You’ll have to tune in to find out..

-Justin

10/2 Governor O’Malley’s Tax Plan

Last week Governor O’Malley concluded a round a press conferences and kitchen table interviews with Maryland Residents to discuss his tax plan. This week Governor O’Malley is making the rounds of the media outlets to discuss his plan to close a projected $1.7 billion budget gap.

Early thi s morning, Governor O’Malley sat down with Marc to discuss his tax plan. Yesterday, Maryland’s GOP criticized the governor’s tax plan saying it would hit working families harder and possibly force some to move out of the state.

We talk with Governor O’Malley about his tax plan. Later in the hour we’ll analyze the governor’s tax plan with a panel of journalists.

                                                                                                                           -Marcus