Shooting at Montgomery County HS Renews Debate Over School Safety Measures
By: John Huber MarylandK12.com A shooting at Thomas S. Wootton High School in Montgomery County, Maryland has once again forced school leaders, parents, and policymakers to confront an increasingly grim reality: incidents of gun violence in schools are no longer rare, shocking anomalies. They are part of a disturbing pattern. The incident occurred during the …
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Profanity, Protests, and Poor Test Scores: The Uncomfortable Truth About Maryland’s ICE Walkout
By John Huber, MarylandK12.com By any measure, Maryland saw a wave of student walkouts over immigration enforcement the first week of February. Students in Baltimore City marched from City College to Pearlstone Park; others at the Baltimore School of the Arts joined. In Baltimore County, students poured out of Kenwood, Woodlawn, Towson, Dulaney and Dundalk …
Failure Factory and the Architecture of a Broken System in Baltimore City Public Schools
By John Huber MarylandK12.com Chris Papst’s Failure Factory: How Baltimore City Public Schools Deprived Taxpayers and Students of a Future is not a polemic, nor is it a broad ideological critique of public education. It is something that is more difficult to ignore: it is a well- documented account of how a major urban school …
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From World‑Class Vision massive Budget Cuts: The Blueprint for Maryland’s Future; What happened?
By: John Huber Maryland K12.com The Blueprint for Maryland’s Future grew out of the Commission on Innovation and Excellence in Education, widely known as the Kirwan Commission, which the General Assembly created in 2016 to examine whether Maryland’s funding system was adequate and equitable and to recommend policy and funding changes capable of moving the …
We Say ‘Keep Politics Out of Schools:’ But Here’s the Hidden Politics Already in Maryland Classrooms”
By: John Huber, Maryland K12 What We Really Mean When We Say “Keep Politics Out of Maryland Schools” For years, we’ve heard the phrase: “We need to keep politics out of our schools.” It sounds simple, even obvious. Of course, we want classrooms to be places of learning, not battlegrounds for ideological agendas. But in …
Finalist in a Failing System: Why Baltimore’s CEO Doesn’t Merit Superintendent of the Year
By John Huber, MarylandK12.com January 12,2026 When the School Superintendents Association (AASA) named Dr. Sonja Brookins Santelises, CEO of Baltimore City Public Schools (BCPS), a finalist for 2026 National Superintendent of the Year, the celebratory press cycle kicked in—as expected. City Schools and local media highlighted ‘steady, sustainable progress’ across academics, community engagement, and leadership …
Boys at her school shared AI-generated, nude images of her; She was expelled not them. Is this the school’s fault?
By: John Huber MarylandK12.com Just before Christmas, a 13-year-old girl at a Louisiana middle school found herself at the center of a nightmare. AI-generated nude images of her and her friends began circulating among classmates. The pictures were fake, but the humiliation was real. They spread quickly on Snapchat, a platform where content disappears almost …
Abbey Zwerner: Part 5: The Final Chapter; How a System Failed and Left One Person to Carry the Blame
By John Huber, MarylandK12.com This is the fifth and concluding installment in our series on the Abby Zwerner case. It is a story that began with a single gunshot inside a first-grade classroom and unfolded into a legal and cultural reckoning for Newport News Public Schools. Over the past four articles, we examined the timeline, …