How the community school approach leverages all local improvement efforts

slate_for_school.jpgInformational town halls on school funding improvements are under way around the state, with one in Prince George's County's Laurel High School set for tomorrow night (Thursday, Oct. 10). Only a coordinated and fully-funded approach can lift schools and communities together.



 

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Progressive Maryland Weekly Memo for Monday, October 7, 2019

Candlelight_Vigil_for_L_Shand-1.pngLots of progressive activism going on this week and into October, with a Medicare for All event in MoCo, vigil for a police killing TOMORROW NIGHT in Prince George's, scary small-cell objects in Anne Arundel, and the fight for school improvement, despite Larry Hogan's outside-money campaign against it, going on statewide with informational events from mountains to the Shore. The Memo keeps you up on things; get it by email.

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Why justice for Botham Jean is impossible

police_violence_reduced.pngProgressive Maryland Executive Director Larry Stafford, who's been leading our longtime advocacy for decarceration and mass liberation in Maryland, thinks through the question of justice in the Botham Jean murder conviction and sentencing of Amber Guyger.

Prince George's is struggling with the police killing of a black man in Hyattsville within the last week, the latest of sixteen police killings in the state this year.



 

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Underfunding our schools is undermining our future

slate_for_school.jpgGov. Larry Hogan’s move to raise “dark money” to fight school improvement confirms he is appealing to the national GOP electorate and its drive to privatize all things public, starting with the public schools. It fits into his annual attempt to divert more state budget money to vouchers for private schools and de-fund not only public schools but privatize transportation for corporate gain. Two frontline education leaders make clear, in this Maryland Matters opinion, that Hogan’s underhanded efforts to raise his national profile run counter to the state constitution’s requirement for adequate school funding.



 

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Progressive Maryland Weekly Memo for Monday, Sept. 30, 2019

action_for_ed.jpgBlogs this week: See articles on food deserts, concerns about a good census in Maryland, the struggle for education improvement and introducing our lead organizer in Baltimore. See below. Plus crossing the Bay, a Spanish-language workshop on school improvement, and cell transmitter health worries in Anne Arundel.



 

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Saving Shoppers Food for our workers and communities: Del. Dereck E. Davis

pm_folks_with_banner.jpgWe folks at Progressive Maryland are not always fans of Prince George’s Del. Dereck E. Davis (nor vice versa). He is nailing it here, however -- an asset-stripping corporate predator is threatening one of the region’s stable and beneficial businesses, Shoppers Food, which has come to be a reliable provider of full-line grocery goods in many marginalized neighborhoods where other chain groceries have edged back. But is he overlooking the opportunity to actually involve workers and communities in the public interest?



 

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State officials pressed on outreach effort for MD census count in 2020

MD_state_house_sketch.jpg“The top indicators for places that tend to be undercounted during the Census: low-income communities, communities with a lot of renters, communities with a lot of female-headed households, and communities where people have only recently moved in,” as this Maryland Matters report states. Progressive activists want to make sure these constituencies don’t get left behind in many respects, including the critical state census count, and members of an appointed “Complete Count Committee” are pursuing the question.



 

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New Lead Organizer in Baltimore City brings experience, passion to the task

As Maryland progressives gear up for the 2020 election cycle and the 2020 General Assembly session, strategy and personnel mesh. We introduce here Progressive Maryland's new Baltimore City Lead Organizer kenyarn_hed_shot_crop_2.jpgKenyarn Maxfield, who brings organizing at the college level and over a half-decade of work around the country in electoral campaigns to the work of building power for working families in his home town, Baltimore City.



 

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Progressive Maryland Weekly Memo for Monday, September 23, 2019

pm_folks_with_banner.jpgIn this week’s Memo, we have news about school improvement activism at the grassroots level across communities, the fuss about crossing the Bay, Medicare for All needs a signal boost in the House and the Prince George’s Council chair needs to introduce public safety bills. Plus our Progressive Maryland resources. Read on.



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Democrats urge full funding for Kirwan education proposals as advocacy coalition hosts forums around state

slate_for_school.jpgAs Hogan and his GOP minions jealously guard the budget against school improvement plans, the state Dems have urged him to wise up about the state's priorities and an advocacy coalition has scheduled 23 town-hall type information events around the state in the next several months.



 

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