Children Need Charters

Originally Published in the Frederick News-Post

By Marta Hummel Mossburg
Published on Wednesday, March 16, 2011
The teachers union in the City of Baltimore may kill one of the highest-performing public schools in the state, KIPP Ujima Village Academy, over wage issues. If negotiations fall apart, its future rests in proposed legislation to make it easier for public charter schools in Baltimore to operate by their own rules.

This is First Place?

Originally Appeared on The Examiner Blog

By Barbara Hollingsworth
Published on Wednesday, March 02, 2011
For the third year in a row, Education Week gave Maryland’s public schools the nation’s top ranking on its “Quality Counts” survey even though 56 percent of the state’s high school graduates need remediation in order to perform college-level work - up from 47 percent a decade ago, according to the Maryland Higher Education Commission.

Truth behind the numbers

Originally published in the Frederick News-Post

By Marta Hummel Mossburg
Published on Wednesday, March 02, 2011
State officials wear Education Week's top ranking of Maryland's schools like a low-cut dress on a Hollywood actress at the Oscars. They hope like many on the red carpet that their décolletage is so mesmerizing the B movies filling their résumé will be forgotten.

Maryland's secret education spending spree

Originally Published in the Baltimore Sun

By Marta Hummel Mossburg
Published on Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Maryland spends on public education like a Saudi prince in Tiffany's.

Lawmakers push for some elected Balto. Co. school board seats

Originally Published in the Baltimore Sun

By By Raven L. Hill, The Baltimore Sun
Published on Sunday, January 09, 2011
The fate of Baltimore County's appointed school board is again in question, as debate over the selection process is expected to arise during this year's General Assembly session.

First Priorities First

Originally Published in the Frederick News-Post

By Marta Hummel Mossburg
Published on Wednesday, January 05, 2011
The 2011 legislative session has not started, and already some members want to focus on things that should be at the bottom of state priorities.

Legislative self-interest

Originally Published in the Frederick News-Post

By Marta Hummel Mossburg
Published on Wednesday, December 22, 2010
As the state wrestles with ways to pay for state employee pensions and health care, one thing is clear: Legislators with a state or local government pension in their day jobs must recuse themselves from voting on the issue. They should not be allowed to vote directly or indirectly on their own benefits and hand taxpayers the bill.

Is a civil war brewing within the Tea Party?

Originally published in the Herald-Mail

By Thomas A. Firey
Published on Sunday, December 12, 2010
“God forbid we should ever be 20 years without such a rebellion,” Thomas Jefferson wrote to William S. Smith in 1787 — the same letter that observed the natural manure of the tree of liberty is “the blood of patriots & tyrants.” Thirteen years later, the Virginian found that rebellion need not require blood: his defeat of John Adams in the presidential election of 1800 — the “Revolution of 1800,” Jefferson called it — peacefully removed a sitting government from power. The election showed that in liberal democracies, dramatic change in governance can come from ballots, not bloodshed.  

Give charter a 2nd chance

Originally Published in the Frederick News-Post

By Marta Hummel Mossburg
Published on Wednesday, December 08, 2010
Launching a charter school in Maryland takes the patience of Job, as the board of trustees of the Frederick Classical Charter School found out last month.

Give Charter a Chance

Originally Published in the Frederick News-Post

By Marta Hummel Mossburg
Published on Monday, November 22, 2010
Sometime in the past few decades school systems started to care more about the people running them than the students. As Davis Guggenheim of "An Inconvenient Truth" fame points out in the 2010 documentary "Waiting for 'Superman,'" per-pupil spending in public schools has doubled since the early 1970s while student performance has stagnated.