Reply to MD Gov. Moore Establishes New Office of Children, Installs Carmel Martin as Head

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Reply to "MD Gov. Moore Establishes New Office of Children, Installs Carmel Martin as Head"

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[quote=Anonymous]Look, this is basically why he was elected.  He built his fame largely on a critique of the effects on children of those concentrated areas of poverty.  Maryland is a great state with one really serious problem—the situation in Baltimore (and to a lesser extent, the PG area bordering DC).  If we just throw up our hands and say it will never get better, that’s awful.  I remember when The Wire came out and everyone decried how awful parts of Baltimore had become …. But then nothing happened.  If this can make something happen, I’m all in favor of it.  The idea that we are otherwise going to let a large group of children grow up in grinding poverty with no real education and no real path out is unacceptable.  I don’t know the solution.   Looking back 100 years, NYC seemed to have the right approach with an amazing public education system and a network of great and basically free community colleges.  I know so many “greatest generation” folks who grew up in grinding poverty — some with completely absent parents — who went on to great things thanks to the NYc public schools and City College.  We probably also need a lot of Black professional mentors starting at the MS level (and continuing in HS), and free summer camps starting in MS to get kids out of the city and show them something different.  And community policing and SROs with ongoing training and support  for those police officers so they understand what community policing really is (which some really do understand already, but not all).

I’m not sure where we find people to staff all these programs though, even if we could find them.  I personally would be in favor of a 2 year national service commitment — you can pick military, peace corps, Americorps, teaching, police (maybe — would have to think about whether that would be worthwhile), or paramedic.  I’m not a fan of the draft but I do wonder if the end of the draft really increased poverty in some communities—you have these non-college bound 18 year olds without much maturity and no productive way to spend their time, in both rural and urban areas.  A lot of people, especially young men, need more structure in their life from 18-20.  The military was one way to bridge that but there are lots of other ways.[/quote]

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