This week: links to our recent blogs – on how activists are chipping away at the entrenched profit-before-people health care system, and a roundup of our coverage on the funding of the Kirwan school improvement plan, a battle coming up in the General Assembly next month. Plus PM’s one-day power-building training Dec. 7, more battles on school improvement and Medicare for All, news and events from PM’s chapters, and events from our progressive allies.
Â
Progressive Maryland Weekly Memo for Monday December 2 2019
This week: links to our recent blogs – on how activists are chipping away at the entrenched profit-before-people health care system, and a roundup of our coverage on the funding of the Kirwan school improvement plan, a battle coming up in the General Assembly next month. Plus PM’s one-day power-building training Dec. 7, more battles on school improvement and Medicare for All, news and events from PM’s chapters, and events from our progressive allies.
STATEWIDE
IT DOESN’T JUST HAPPEN -- Maryland’s legislative session is right around the corner! Progressive Maryland has a bold vision to bring power to the people-- Medicare for All, ending mass incarceration, campaign finance reform, and much more! This Giving Tuesday (that’s tomorrow!), will you support our mission? https://www.givelikealocal.org/team/progressivemaryland
(Or, beat everyone to the punch and give today!)
GAIN THE SKILLS IT TAKES TO BUILD POWER AND MAKE IT WORK FOR WORKING FAMILIES
December 7 Movement Leadership Training 9 AM – 5 PM ET MCEA, 12 Taft Ct, Rockville, MD 20850 -- Progressive Maryland is hosting a 1-day Movement Leadership Training for current and prospective members. Folks from Montgomery County, Prince George's County, and Central and Western Maryland are encouraged to attend. This is an agitational training designed to develop grassroots leaders' skills around building power in alignment with their self-interest. The training costs $25, which covers lunch, snacks, and materials.  Sign Up Now
The Push for More Support for Community Schools is at the heart of the Kirwan Commission proposals to improve Maryland’s schools – which is being finalized now. A recent poll shows that about three out of four Marylanders want more money spent on public schools but need more info on that plan, which has rolled out a decade-long reform plan that could cost about $3.8 billion more each year once fully implemented, as Danielle Gaines reported for Maryland Matters. But you can find out lots more from our roundup of the blogs we have published on education reform in the second half of 2019; see below in our blogs recap section. See also the advocacy work of the “Blueprint for Maryland’s Future” coalition, including Progressive Maryland and teachers’ organizations statewide.
LABOR SOLIDARITY WITH METRO WORKERS
Bus system workers in Virginia are striking against a function that Metro has privatized. It’s the Cinder Bed bus maintenance yard in Lorton, where the private company pays way less then Metro. Sure, it’s not Maryland, and a right-to-work state – but when WMATA sticks it to workers anywhere in the system we have to ask if we are next. Find out more at http://www.atulocal689.org/cinder-bed-strike.html
Â
Ways to help the Cinder Bed workers:Â
Strike Fund:Â http://bit.ly/cinderbedstrike
-- Meal Fund, Â http://bit.ly/cinderbedmeals
-- Va picket (daily):Â https://facebook.com/events/2310195405775260/
-- DC picket (daily):Â https://facebook.com/events/553753515478162/
MEDICARE FOR ALL IS GAINING SUPPORT NATIONALLY AND IN MARYLAND The Medicare for All town hall held in Gaithersburg on Oct. 20 by our allies in the Maryland Progressive Healthcare Coalition (MPHC) is now available on a video stream and is already approaching 18,000 views. Take a look at the explainer, an introductory talk by Our Revolution president Larry Cohen (retired president of the Communications Workers, CWA) and a panel of expert analysts who also respond to some solid questions from the audience. https://www.facebook.com/OurRevolutionMD/videos/531692600951283/
How are activists moving Medicare for All closer to reality? Read People’s Action health organizer Connie Huynh’s account from our blog of victories against the entrenched profit-over-people health care system.
PROGRESSIVE MARYLAND IS HIRING – Organize with us throughout the state and in digital and strategic organizing tasks – check the opportunities here. Â
OUR CHAPTERS AROUND THE STATE
Progressive Prince George’s Chapter Meeting Wednesday, December 11th from 6:30 to 8:20 pm at 9221 Hampton Overlook, Capitol Heights, MD.  Help us continue to grow and build a grassroots movement of people who want to take Prince George's County on a progressive course. (flyer)
<>Â
Advocates for criminal justice reform in Prince George’s County are circulating this petition for the removal of Police Chief Henry Stawinski, arguing that “Chief Stawinski fails to hold police officers accountable under Maryland and federal law for acts of criminal misconduct, including for such acts as murder and other forms of violent assault;” and that he “permits Prince George’s County police officers to use excessive force, especially when dealing with black people.” A more complete account of the activists’ arguments is at the petition link.
Is hosting organizing training: December 7 Movement Leadership Training 9 AM – 5 PM ET MCEA, 12 Taft Ct, Rockville, MD 20850 -- Progressive Maryland is hosting a 1-day Movement Leadership Training for current and prospective members. Folks from Montgomery County, Prince George's County, and Central and Western Maryland are encouraged to attend. This is an agitational training designed to develop grassroots leaders' skills around building power in alignment with their self-interest. The training costs $25, which covers lunch, snacks, and materials.  Sign Up Now
Is fighting for the full promise of school improvement: After summer and fall forums and community conversations about the equity gaps in the MCPS system and the need for stronger levels of investment from the County and the state of Maryland, the PM Montgomery County chapter continues its grassroots organizing on education issues. We’re doing outreach to folks who attended the forums and participated in our school and community surveys—thanks for joining us at those events and letting us know your views about what’s needed to get the schools our kids deserve.
- We’re asking our members and supporters to contact County Executive Marc Elrich to encourage him to fully fund MCEA’s contract and our schools. His budget is expected to be released in March so it’s critical to send a message to him now that the County must make a significant financial investment in MCPS in order to close the gaps and deliver the resources our students and educators need.
- We stand with the Montgomery County Education Association as it undertakes its contract campaign and continues its advocacy for great public schools! As part of that effort we invite our members (especially parents and alumni parents of MCPS) to come to a Parent Meeting on Wednesday evening, December 11. We’ll have a conversation led by some MCEA staff and parent organizers about communication and other critical issues facing MCPS. The meeting takes place from 6:30 – 8:00 pm in Rockville at the MCEA office at 12 Taft Court. Please contact local MOCO organizer Patty Snee to RSVP and/or to make suggestions and to find out more about this effort: [email protected].
- We remain focused on the game-changing Kirwan Commission recommendations which are embodied in the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future.   We will need to push back against Governor Hogan’s moves to attack and undermine the Blueprint and the funding needed to improve Maryland’s public school system. Progressive Maryland will make this a priority in the upcoming 2020 legislative session. Stay tuned for updates and actions. Â
Â
Take Action Anne Arundel County
Lower Shore Progressive CaucusÂ
EVENTS FROM OUR PROGRESSIVE ALLIES
THURS, Dec 5 Webinar on linked climate justice issues with journalist/activist Naomi Klein, 8-9:30 PM, Greenbelt Community Center Room 114, 15 Crescent Road, Greenbelt. Klein will analyze relations between Palestinian liberation, white supremacy and climate justice. Discussion will follow. Webinar sponsored by Jewish Voice for Peace; local event, open to the public, by Greenbelt Climate Action Network and Prince George’s Peace and Justice Coalition.
Thursday DEC 5 Progressive Cheverly forum, The School to Prison Pipeline — Exploring the school-to-prison pipeline’s nature, impacts and solutions with experts Karen Dolan, IPS director studying Criminalization of Race and Poverty who explains zero tolerance effects and restorative justice remedies; and Dana Coles of Key Bridge Foundation Center for Conflict Resolution currently working in Prince George’s for alternatives to criminalization of behavior. 7 PM, multipurpose room of Gladys Noon Spellman Elementary School, 3324 64th Avenue in Cheverly.
SUN Dec 8 Future of Healthcare Town Hall — 1:30 – 4 PM Miller Branch of Howard County Library System 9421 Frederick Road, Ellicott City  21042. Details at link.
FRI Dec 13 Maryland Sierra Club Benefit in Annapolis (Eastport), guests Steuart Pittman and Sarah Elfreth, 6-8 PM, info and RSVP here.
SUN Dec. 15 Maryland Legislative Summit, 10 AM to 5 PM at UMBC Catonsville. Details at https://mailchi.mp/038a7a4d5fb0/bills-for-the-week-of-march-5th-1056375?e=d378240ba7
SUN Dec. 15  MoCo DSA 🌹General Branch Meeting 2 PM, Silver Spring Library, 900 Wayne Ave, Silver Spring, MD 20910 DSA members and state delegates Gabe Acevero and Vaughn Stewart discuss the upcoming 2020 state legislative session. Follow link for full details/updates.
Baltimore progressives, Check in on the wide-ranging Baltimore Activist Alert calendar and tip sheet at http://baltimorenonviolencecenter.blogspot.com/
Reading the Progressive Maryland BlogSpace: our recent blogs are shown below, but if you want a handy way to keep track – and never miss a blog post – you can sign up to get this Weekly Memo by email. Remember this is your blogspace and your participation is heartily invited. See something going on that you don’t like – or that you do like and hope to see more of? Send us your thoughts; submit to the moderator at [email protected]
We recently published these blog posts:
November 27, 2019 How we can take on powerful interests to win Medicare for All
Activists are dismantling, piece by piece, the decades-old resistance of traditional capitalist medicine to pro-people, pro-family changes in the health care system. As Connie Huynh of People's Action points out, “The AMA’s decision to leave the [anti-single payer) PAHCF didn’t happen on its own, or overnight. Rather, it was the product of organizing.”
November 25, 2019 Progressive Maryland Weekly Memo for Monday, November 25, 2019
In the Memo this week: links to our recent blogs – Kirwan finale and next steps, as well as SCOTUS DACA hearings and vigilance against the chipping away of working families’ gains. Plus PM’s one-day power-building training Dec. 7, battles on school improvement and Medicare for All, news and events from PM’s chapters, and events from our progressive allies.
PROGRESSIVE MARYLAND’S CONTINUED BLOG COVERAGE OF THE KIRWAN COMMISSION AND MARYLAND SCHOOL IMPROVEMENT CAMPAIGN
Assembly majority ready to move on Kirwan school improvements AND construction
November 8, 2019
Kirwan funding group meets tomorrow; recommendation expected this week
October 14, 2019
How the community school approach leverages all local improvement efforts
October 09, 2019
Underfunding our schools is undermining our future
October 02, 2019
September 19, 2019
Teacher Pay Dominates Discussion of Proposed Kirwan Education Formula
September 11, 2019
BATTLE LINES DRAWN FOR STRUGGLE FOR BETTER SCHOOLS IN MD -- $$$ AT ISSUE
August 20, 2019
PG Civic Academy tomorrow charts course for school and community improvements
July 31, 2019
Teachers across Maryland flexing their political muscle
July 13, 2019
>REMEMBER – these blog posts are frequently expressions of political opinion from our wide-ranging membership and circle of allies. They are not expressions of opinion by Progressive Maryland. Don’t be surprised if they sometimes vary in their political content. You might even disagree with them – a good reason to contribute a blog of your own. Send it to the moderator, Woody Woodruff, at [email protected].
>>Keeping up with the blogs is easier with the index. The blogs published in the PM BlogSpace from June 2015 through December 2016 are all available with descriptions and links here. You can follow blogs for 2017-18 starting from here
Â
Â
Do you like this page?