What to Read in Baltimore This Week - Entrepreneur Generations

I've got a few drafts going, but please read these important pieces this week in the mean time:

The New Redlining
http://ift.tt/22b0uSM
Housing Policy Watch unpacks the numbers about the Port Covington development numbers. Baltimore City's median income is $41,000, while the metro Baltimore are's median income is $86,700. Even though the development will be in Baltimore City, the numbers used to create affordable housing are dictating by the area median income, not the city median income. Therefore, the development will create more cycles of poverty, which Housing Policy Watch argues is the new redlining, the discriminatory housing policy of the first 60 years of the 20th century that helped create some of the generations of poverty we still see today, that have helped create such a divided Baltimore.

Hogan and Franchot take an 'astonishing' step
http://ift.tt/1Ta9bXC
The Baltimore Sun editorial team outlines my feelings about Larry Hogan and Peter Franchot's decision to hold back $10 million in Baltimore County Public Schools funding and $5 million in Baltimore City Public Schools funding in order to force both school systems to install window air-conditioning units. As a teacher who has taught in 90 degree classrooms and started a Donors Choose in order to get two window units, I understand the need for window units. But in my own classroom, I have had to run extension cords through my room to get the a/c units to work because the building is not wired for them. The fix is temporary. One of my frustrations with BCPSS projects is that they continue to band-aid the problems with quick fixes; the heating situation at our school has been an issue since I started 15 years ago, because they never actually fix it, they just band-aid it. For Hogan and Franchot to force the band-aid solution rather than invest in central air is an exercise in financial stupidity that will hurt kids because of other projects that will be abandoned. Franchot is especially an embarrassment, after his foolish campaign to force schools to open after Labor Day and now this, he is no friend of education. With Hogan, I thought Republicans were supposed to be financially sound? Why is he forcing schools into this band-aid solution rather than investing in true overhaul? It's money down the tube.

Recognizing Shylock's Humanity in The Merchant of Venice
http://ift.tt/1T6Ad20
My friend and colleague Amber Phelps writes movingly about how teaching The Merchant of Venice using the Folger Shakespeare Library's resources changed after the Baltimore Uprising last year. Of an image, found in the Folger's Digital Library LUNA: "The other LUNA images that positioned Shylock as a merciless monster felt so limited in attempting to capture the scope of that character and his pain.  We saw this painting as an image capturing the consequences of when we fail to recognize each other’s humanity. As the media shone an unforgiving light on Baltimore, my students recognized Freddie Gray and Shylock were the same in this moment. Both were convicted before the trial ever began. It was understood by everyone that neither Freddie Gray nor Shylock would receive unbiased justice, but it was the status quo’s dehumanizing failure to recognize The Other’s actual right to exist that inspires outrage." I love that the students of Baltimore City are getting such conscious teaching, and that Shakespeare is -- as it always has -- helped shine light on our society, even centuries after publication.

Bathroom bills are about fear, not restrooms
http://ift.tt/1XchmHZ
Another friend and colleague, Tonya Luster, writes insightfully and emotionally about the unisex bathroom issue. I love the structure of the essay -- I attended one of the weddings she writes about, but honestly didn't notice if the bathrooms were unisex or not, which made me think -- and especially its ending. Read this if you want a measured take on the issue that the right has created in order to attempt a wedge issue.

Baltimore City Power Rankings: Green party, West Family, BCPS, and more
http://ift.tt/22b0v97
I once attended a talk that compared Tyrone West's sister, Tawanda Jones, to Harriet Tubman for our time. Her tireless, weekly protests of her brother's death at the hands of police a couple of years ago -- she calls them "West Wednesday" -- are finally giving this tragedy the attention it deserves. Joshua Harris, the very strong Green Party candidate, is given a writeup (hopefully he offers Pugh a real challenge), and the Baltimore City Public School Board is criticized for its non-transparent, and even dishonest, search for a new CEO. All spot-on, except: doesn't City Paper know that BCPS stands for Baltimore COUNTY public schools, and BCPSS stands for Baltimore CITY Public School System?



from Epiphany in Baltimore http://ift.tt/1XchoQ4 What to Read in Baltimore This Week - Entrepreneur Generations

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