• Building a culture of peace in Baltimore

    Let’s Build a Culture of Peace in Baltimore. What would it take? We’ll need to start with a better understanding of what we mean when we talk about Peace. We need to move beyond thinking about Peace only in reaction to war and violence. Peace is much more than the absence of conflict; it is the presence […]

  • Up on the roof tops

    Look out any window more than a few stories high in Baltimore. Can you spot a vast untapped energy supply? Those stretches of mostly flat rooftops rolling out before your eyes are fallow ground for wind and solar farms! Recently we started to bring farming back to the city through programs like School Farm and […]

  • Affordable health care for everyone

    Few things would be more audacious than for everyone in Baltimore City to have quality, affordable health care, including full access to prevention and treatment for addictions. This would surely help the tens of thousands of Baltimore residents who have no health care coverage and suffer physically, emotionally, and financially as a result. It would […]

  • Obstacles even with health insurance

    When talking about insurance coverage for substance abuse and mental illnesses, people often assume that the problem is limited to the poor. That assumption is way off the mark. Even for those families with “good” health insurance, coverage is far from easy to obtain. In my own experience, when trying to obtain coverage for residential […]

  • Fostering greatness by honoring beginnings

    We seldom miss the opportunity to celebrate an achievement, whether it is a good report card, an acceptance into a competitive school, or a school graduation. However, with less than 15 percent of Baltimore City School students graduating from college, too often these important milestones simply never happen. My audacious idea is that we celebrate […]

  • Talking about race

    Editor’s note: At Monday’s Talking About Race event “Can we talk about how race affects our classrooms?” with Beverly Daniel Tatum and David Hornbeck, we received an unprecedented number of questions from the audience. It was clear that audience members wanted to continue the conversation. Towards that end, we’re posting some of those questions here […]

  • Open schools/lifelong learning

    America has two kinds of schools: the first are well-equipped private and suburban public institutions or magnet/charter schools with inviting facilities where kids feel at home, feel known, and can grow in a nurturing environment. Having invested in their infrastructure, these “beacon” schools have a vested interest in staying open long after the school day […]

  • When talking of health care, don’t forget that we are talking about people, not just about money

    Editor’s note: Following National Alcohol and Drug Addiction Recovery Month, we’ve asked several individuals to share their ideas about addiction issues and the war on drugs. This week, Kimá Joy Taylor, Director of OSI-Baltimore’s Tackling Drug Addiction Initiative, closes the Recovery Month series with her thoughts. *** The recession and other health care changes have […]

  • The failed war on drugs

    Editor’s note: Following National Alcohol and Drug Addiction Recovery Month, we’ve asked several individuals to share their ideas about addiction issues and the war on drugs. *** “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” — Albert Einstein I have worked for over 30 years in […]

  • Addiction recovery is not just for the addict

    Editor’s note: Audacious Ideas is featuring a special month-long series in conjunction with National Alcohol and Drug Addiction Recovery Month. We’ve asked several individuals to share their ideas about addiction issues and the failed war on drugs. *** When we sent our son to an in-patient addiction treatment program, we were spinning with doubt about the […]