Power Plays and Penalty Kills

Posted on February 7, 2021February 7, 2021 by Jenny

Everyone in my household plays ice hockey, except me. I spend a good bit of time cheering on the menfolk with frozen toes and chattering teeth, and I enjoy it. In my relatively short career as a hockey mom, I've come to find that there's a lot about American youth sports that annoys me. It hasn't always been clear exactly what it is about it that irks me so much, but I realized recently that some of the same inequities and constructs I dislike about American K-12 education exist in youth s...

The SMOB vs. the Mob

Posted on November 18, 2020November 18, 2020 by Jenny

This week, the Howard County Board of Education held a work session to discuss hybrid learning models for the second semester of the 2020-2021 school year. After a long and arduous discussion that illustrates the quagmire that is making education decisions in a pandemic that is worsening by the day, the board voted to maintain a virtual learning model in the third quarter of the school year with the option to bring small groups into school buildings for in-person learning. Five board members ...

Update: (River Hill) Money (Still) Makes the World Go ‘Round

Posted on October 24, 2020October 28, 2020 by Jenny

I wrote back in late August that of the $167,000 raised thus far by Board of Education candidates and PACs in the 2020 election cycle, roughly half of it has come from a single high school catchment area - River Hill High School. I surmised that River Hill was putting its financial might into a slate of anti-redistricting candidates. Another round of campaign finance reports are out as of yesterday, and that story hasn't changed. Except that the numbers have become even more mind-boggling....

Our Teachers Deserve Better

Posted on October 23, 2020November 1, 2020 by Jenny

My mother is a retired Maryland public school teacher. When she was a young teacher back in the ‘70s, she was the newspaper adviser in the high school where she taught foreign language. In 1975, two years after the landmark Roe vs. Wade Supreme Court decision, her students wanted to write a piece in the school newspaper about sex education, birth control, and abortion. Believing strongly in the First Amendment, my mother allowed them to write and publish the piece despite such topics being t...

It’s Time to Vote, Howard County

Posted on October 2, 2020October 28, 2020 by Jenny

Ballots are beginning to arrive in mailboxes, and ballot drop boxes are in place. It’s time to vote, Howard County, but please read this first. Today, the League of Women Voters of Howard County held a candidate forum for our local Board of Education candidates, a prime opportunity to watch all the candidates as a group debate several important topics. The candidates’ performances so perfectly embodied what I’ve been saying about them all year, so I’m going to present a debate analysis and...