The coronavirus pandemic has wreaked havoc in many areas of our lives, perhaps nowhere more so than in the education of our children.
The initial decision to close schools made sense when we didn't know very much about the virus. The effort to offer virtual learning in the fall was a sound interim alternative, but forced teachers to learn a new way of teaching, and failed to include thousands of students with no access to the internet.
We now have an entire year of experience with 'COVId-19 and more than half the school systems in the country have reopened. Some jurisdictions opened completely; more offered a hybrid version, allowing teachers and students with more serious concerns about COVID to remain home and continue virtual learning.
Reopening as soon as possible is strongly recommended by the Center for Disease Control (CDC) the foremost medical experts in the Country, and perhaps the world. As long ago as July of 2020, the CDC said the following: "the harms attributed to closed schools on the social, emotional, and behavioral health, economic well-being, and academic achievement of children in both the short- and long-term, are well-known and significant. Further, the lack of in-person educational options disproportionately harms low-income and minority children and those living with disabilities."
"The Importance of Reopening America's Schools this Fall," July 23, 2020
Unfortunately, some jurisdictions, including Howard County, are refusing even to consider reopening.
Why are schools refusing to repoen? Politics, leadership & Unions.
Teachers' unions have been uniformly opposed to reopening schools. Concerned that Baltimore City was planning to reopen, the City's teachers union held a socially-distanced protest, with more than 30 cars lined up outside school headquarters honking horns and decked out with signs that read “no staff forced in” and “#safenot silenced.”
"Parents say they have lost the argument — so far — against teachers unions, who have advocated for schools to stay closed until districts can accommodate a list of safety demands.""Parents say they have lost the argument — so far — against teachers unions, who have advocated for schools to stay closed until districts can accommodate a list of safety demands."
“It seems like a stalemate and the teachers union seems to be winning,” said Brian Taylor, a Howard County parent of two high school students.
from "While schools have reopened in much of the country, many Maryland
students remain online," The Baltimore Sun, Jan. 4, 2021
Teachers' Union: Whose side are you on?
For years, "teachers unions" have enjoyed wide respect. The public has generally felt that the teachers unions acted in the 'best interests of the children."
That respect is dwindling as the unions continue to oppose reopening. In truth, the teachers unions are doing exactly what unions do: they negotiate/demand to get more of everything for their members. As the late Albert Shanker, former head of the United Federation of Teachers, said: ”When schoolchildren start paying union dues, that’s when I’ll start representing the interests of schoolchildren.”
The difference this time is that the public is getting a first-hand look at what happens when the interests of the teachers unions are adverse to those of the students, and the public is fighting back:
Parents fight back on Facebook
"For every child failing academically, that is on YOU hcea. For every child's meltdown, every escalating mental breakdown, every parent worried and constantly monitoring their child for a potential suicide attempt, that is ALL ON YOU hcea. For all the kids who are sitting out in the cold outside at the library trying to access wifi, that is also on YOU hcea. For every child home alone because their parent doesn't have the luxury to telecommute and they struggle to get their work done by themselves, THAT IS ALL ON YOU HCEA BECAUSE YOU HAVE MISERABLY FAILED OUR KIDS."
"Get a grip. No other category of workers/employees was asked “So you FEEL like coming back to work?” NO! They were TOLD to come back, wear a mask, and move on. All this nonsense clearly shows you do not care about the students at all. Shame on you."
"There should be a CHOICE. A choice to send your kids back hybrid or to keep them home. For those that prefer to keep their kids at home – that’s fine and their choice. Others – like myself – want to send my kids back. They are losing too much. Masks work. Other school systems have figured it out and there are ways to make classrooms safe."
"Your union is a disgrace. The unions in Michigan, New York, New Jersey, Colorado, Texas, Nevada, Oklahoma and countless others from blue and red areas of the country all are good with their teachers being currently in school."
"This is a disgrace I don’t ever again want to hear about how Howard county schools are the best in the country. Instead of figuring out how to get the kids back to school, this county spends more time saying how they cannot. How are private schools, schools in the rest of the US and other countries open? I am sorry every day that we moved back here and my kids are suffering for it."
from News in Annapolis: Week 2, 2022
EDUCATION PART II
"It's for the Children"... isn't it?
As the new year rolls along, school systems all over the country are re-opening. But not here. In Maryland, a handful of counties are refusing to reopen, consigning 1000’s of children to the continued dangers of isolation, sitting in front of their computers day after day.
Perhaps the clearest lesson to come out of this pandemic is that our children are the prisoners of a monolithic public school system. And no matter how good your own child’s school may be, the pandemic has shown us that we have very little control over decisions made by an insular and unionized system of public education.
Howard County Remains Closed
Howard County has perhaps the best school system in the state. Yet this is the second time in two years parents have found themselves at odds with decisions by our school board. Two years ago, the Board chose to unnecessarily redistrict over 5,000 children. Space needs could have been accomplished by redistricting fewer than 2,000 students. The balance of the redistricting was to achieve more “socioeconomic integration”— that has no proven legitimacy and was decided unilaterally by the system, all in the name of "equity." And yet we overlook or reject the greatest inequity in our educational system.
During the pandemic, families who were able to afford it pulled their children out of the virtual-only public school system and enrolled them private schools, including private schools that offered online learning because these schools had the experience to do it right.
Meanwhile, families without the means to afford private schools continue to sit and wait for the public schools to decide to return their children to school and their lives back to some semblance of normal.
Parents should have a choice about their children’s education. In Maryland, only the wealthy have that choice.
How is that fair? Where is the equity we strive so hard to achieve? Why aren’t my liberal friends beating the drum for school choice? For more access to Charter Schools? Unfortunately, as charter schools have become more successful, there has been a political backlash against charters, with anti-charter-school laws being passed across the country.
For example, in Cincinnati, a school district there sold nine buildings, “stipulating that the structures not be used for schools.” In Tucson, the Unified School District sold a former elementary school building to a developer for just under $1.5 million – after a charter school had offered $2.1 million.
Charters as "Competition"
Somewhere along the way, our public educators have taken a wrong turn. Instead of encouraging ideas and innovations that have proven successful in teaching children, they have viewed charter schools as competition.
In Los Altos, California, the "quid pro quo" for Charter Schools to get approval was to accept a very limited cap of 1,111 of students enrollment. The president of that school board called the charter school’s growing enrollment an “existential threat to the district.”
When the Detroit Board of Education blocked the sale of an unused school building to a charter school, a member of the Board explained that “there is no way we should be sustaining our competition.” [Sowell p.60]
A Milwaukee school board member described public support for charter schools as: “like asking the Coca-Cola Company to turn its facilities to Pepsi so Pepsi can expand and compete with the Coca-Cola Company.”
What the public school system and its vocal advocates fail to acknowledge is that "the taxpayers bought and paid for the school buildings for the purpose of educating children -- not for the purpose of protecting incumbents in the education establishment from competition."
The only real question we should ask is, do charter schools, by and large, offer and provide a successful education to children who have been mired in failing schools for years.
Just How Good Are Charter Schools? Depending on whom you listen to, charter schools are either a striking success or a "failed and damaging experiment."
One major complication in studies comparing public charter schools with traditional public schools is that the racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic backgrounds of students in the charter schools as a whole turn out to be very different from those of students in traditional public schools as a whole.”
In order to get a more reliable understanding of how charter schools compare with traditional public schools, Dr. Thomas Sowell, economist, social theorist, and senior fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution, undertook a study in which he compared individual charter schools with individual traditional public schools that are as similar as possible. His criteria were to compare only schools that: (1) have a similar ethnic composition of students; (2) are taught in the same building; and (3) have one or more classes at the same grade level in the same building. This allowed Sowell to compare individual classes in individual grades.
Charter Schools and Their Enemies
The results of his study are found in Dr. Sowell's newest book, Charter Schools and Their Enemies, published in 2020. Not only are his findings exceptionally proven and well-documented, the book is delightful to read. I highly recommend it.
Although Maryland finds the concept of a half-full school building hard to believe, New York City proved exceptional in having a substantial number of charter schools and traditional public schools meeting all three requirements. Indeed, in the school year 2017 - 2018, there were more than 23,000 students in New York City meeting all of the requirements. Sowell added an extra criterion in selecting his sample. For the sake of ethnic comparability, the paired schools in his study had to have a majority of their students who are either black and/or Hispanic.
There is a great deal more detail in the book, supporting the validity of Dr. Sowell's findings. Records of the paired class comparisons are presented in a series of more than 60 tables like the one below. You can open the book, close your eyes and point to any chart and you will find virtually the same pattern of success. The results are hard to argue.
The tests used in these comparisons are the New York State English Language Arts Test, and for mathematics, the New York State Mathematics Test. These two tests are given annually by the New York State Education Department.
News from Annapolis, Week 3 is devoted almost entirely to Education. A link to that Newsletter is shown below.
NOTE: the "Blueprint for Maryland" is the name of the bill implementing the Kirwan Commission recommendations.
MYTH
REALITY
"Maryland’s schools are underfunded."
NOT TRUE: Per pupil, Maryland spends 22% more than the national average
"Maryland’s teachers are underpaid."
NOT TRUE: Per pupil, Maryland teachers are paid 28% more than the national average
"Kirwan is necessary to reduce education inequality."
NOT TRUE: The only way to eliminate education equality is to give low-income parents SCHOOL CHOICE through more Charter Schools and BOOST vouchers
"The Kirwan reforms would not impose heavy financial burdens on Maryland's local jurisdictions."
NOT TRUE: About 1/3rd of Kirwan's eventual costs will fall on all local jurisdictions
"Maryland's poorest jurisdictions are inadequately funded & unfairly treated by current school funding formulas"
NOT TRUE: For example, Baltimore City spends 10% more than the state average and gets 79% of its budget from federal & state sources.
"Kirwan Commission's spending recommendations are new ideas"
NOT TRUE: In 2002, the Thornton Commission recommended a 60% hike in state aid to education. Billions of spending later, students' test cores are virtually flat.
"Kirwan recommendations can be implemented without significantly raising taxes."
NOT TRUE: The legislature will vote to override Hogan's veto of the "Netflix" bill imposing a new tax on digital advertising and specifically directing that all revenues go to the "Blueprint for Maryland." (the Kirwan bill)
"The Kirwan reforms would certainly improve student outcomes."
NOT TRUE: Even if the plan, as written, would work, the likelihood that it would remain intact over a 10-year implementation period is less than 1% (see Thornton)
"Kirwan would make Maryland's education system more transparent and accountable."
NOT TRUE: There is very little accountability in Kirwan; annual spending for "Governance and Accountability" is less than one-tenth of one percent of the plan's budget.
"The Kirwan proposal (the Blueprint for Maryland bill) is very popular."
NOT TRUE: Polls that show support for Kirwan often fail to disclose the taxpayers' cost of the plan; when costs are mentioned, the majority of Marylanders turn thumbs down.
School Resource Officers (SROs)
School Resource Officer (SRO) Program Under Siege
Among the calls for "police reform," is an effort to eliminate the School Resource Officer (SRO) program. an SRO is a career law enforcement officer, trained and assigned by the local police department to work in the schools in collaboration with school administrators and community-based organizations. Two primary purposes of the officer are:
to address crime and disorder problems, gangs, and drug activities affecting or occurring in or around an elementary or secondary school;
to create an opportunity for police officers to relate to young people in a comfortable environment
Are SROs in schools to arrest students??
or
Are SROs in schools to protect students??
They serve both roles--but students may perceive these two roles as incompatible.
Howard County has put forth a local bill to eliminate funding for the program, and several state-wide bills have been filed.
HB 522, School Resource Officers - Prohibited Conduct, that would prohibit an SRO from enforcing discipline-related school policies, rules, regulations, and procedures, whether self-initiated or asked to do so by the school.
Unfortunately, opposition to SROs in the schools is coming from many African Americans and Hispanics who say they feel threatened by the presence of the officers, and that black and brown students are disproportionately arrested. These are legitimate concerns and must be addressed by every Maryland jurisdiction.
The SRO program began with several goals in mind, not the least of which was to allow for positive interactions between students and police in a familiar environment, and that is what happens regularly in every school these well-trained officers serve; these officers truly care about the kids.
At the same time, police officers are also there to prevent violence, and on occasion, they must arrest students; certainly, this can create tension. Nonetheless, experiencing arrest as a juvenile can often serve as a wake-up call and keep these kids from joining gangs or engaging in the kinds of activities that would cause them to be arrested as adults.
No doubt there are “bad apples” among the SROs just as there are in any organization. And sometimes the actions an SRO may take can be perceived differently depending upon a student’s background or culture.
But let’s not discard the entire program without making any effort to address whatever problems there are with the program. Rather than removing SRO’s, let’s identify specific problems and see if we can provide resources and training that will help address the legitimate concerns that some of our young people have.
from News in Annapolis: Week 5, 2021
"But we need to spend more money on education . . . don't we?"
Last week, we listed a number of "myths" about education that have permeated the minds of the public, put there primarily by strong teachers' unions that fight hard to get their members more money and benefits. Remember, that is the unions' job -- not doing what's best for the kids. And the unions are doing a bang-up job of convincing us that schools and teachers are severely underfunded, when, in Maryland, the opposite is true.
Below are two of the questions asked in the poll conducted in 2020 by Education Next. The first chart asks different groups for their guestimate of how much their own school district spends per pupil. The green bar gives their answers; the blue bar shows what the actual per-pupil expenditure is in their local school district.
Every group dramatically underestimates the per-pupil spending. I am a bit confused by the "Teachers" and the "Union-member public school teachers" underestimating the amount spent by about half; apparently, the union is even effective in convincing teachers that the budgets paying them and providing the schools are only spending half the money they actually are spending. Some feat!
Perhaps the biggest and most prevalent misstatement made in America is "Teachers are underpaid!" It has been said for so long, by so many, and with such passion that no one questions the truth of the statement. Yet the statement clearly is based on false data. Every category of responders underestimates the average teacher salary in their own local school district! Even union teachers.
Until we can disabuse parents and taxpayers that "schools are underfunded" and "teachers are underpaid," we will continue to make bad spending decisions.
Education Next is an education reform publication with offices in Cambridge, Massachusetts and Stanford, California. The organization publishes a quarterly journal edited by Paul E. Peterson containing peer-reviewed research about educational issues.
News from Annapolis 2021: a SPECIAL EDITION -- Why are our Schools Still Closed? A link to that Newsletter is below.
SPECIAL EDITION: Why are our schools still closed?
from News in Annapolis: Week 6, 2021
Big Brother is in Your School!
Collecting data on students & teachers
In 2010, Senate Bill 275 created a database for the purpose of collecting "certain student data from all levels of education and into the State's workforce." It is called the Maryland Longitudinal Data System. ("MLDS")
By definition, "Longitudinal studies employ continuous or repeated measures to follow particular individuals over prolonged periods of time—often years or decades."
According to the sponsors, the reason for the database was to collect "individual-level student data and workforce data" to "effectively organize, manage, disaggregate, and analyze individual student data; and (2) examine student progress and outcomes over time."
The original bill included certain safeguards to individual privacy, such as following:
Discipline Records were NOT to be included
“Student data" does NOT include:
(I) Juvenile delinquency records:
(II) Criminal and CINA records:
(III) Medical and Health records, and
(IV) Discipline records."
The collection period was limited to 5 years
"The linkage of student data and workforce data for the purposes of the Maryland Longitudinal Data System shall be limited to no longer than 5 years from the date of the latest attendance in any educational institution in the state."
Changes to the Law
In 2016, it was concluded that there were "data gaps" the remedy for which was to begin collecting (1) student discipline data, and (2) private school and homeschool data for pre-K-12.
In 2017, the legislature passed, by a vote of 100 to 37, House Bill 680, the "Extension of Time Limit" bill striking the 5-year limit and extending it to 20 years: "The linkage of student data and workforce data for the purposes of the Maryland Longitudinal Data System shall be limited to no longer than [5] 20 years from the date of latest attendance in any educational institution in the State."
Despite the specific assurance in the original bill that this data would be kept no more than five years, the legislature extended that time limit to 20 years!
Security of the Data
According to the sponsors, the reason we are collecting such extensive data on students and teachers is to analyze what teaching works best to lead students to a good job later in life.
Maybe it's worth it.
But I have very serious concerns about the government collecting such extensive personal data on children starting from about three years of age and continuing for the next 34 years.
There are all sorts of levels of privacy protection set forth in the bills, and I have no doubt that these efforts are sincerely applied and maintained. Nonetheless, more and more computerized data has been hacked by ransomware, among others is always -- and apparently, fairly easily -- subject to being hacked, stolen, or sold.
This is an issue that demands more public discussion. Now may be the time to engage.
"Not long ago, a breach that compromised the data of a few million people would have been big news. Now, breaches that affect hundreds of millions or even billions of people are far too common. About 3.5 billion people saw their personal data stolen in the top two of the 15 biggest breaches of this century alone. The smallest incident on this list involved the data of a mere 134 million people."
Few of today's youth understand the inherent danger of "government." I do and so do our citizens who have emigrated from almost any other country.
It's far easier to see the potential planning benefits of collecting tons of data about people. It is harder to see--or explain--the potential misuse of this information when a government gradually decides it needs more control. . .to do more good . . .for the people. Remember:
"A government big enough to give you everything you want is strong enough to take everything you have."
--Thomas Jefferson
from News in Annapolis: Week 8, 2021
Educating our kids?
These schools DON'T work
Most of our traditional public schools do a good job educating our children. But there are large pockets where schools are seriously failing our kids, and have been for years. Most of these schools are located in neighborhoods of lower-income families. Here's a vivid reminder of what these children are facing, day after day, year after year. Below are the headlines from just a few of the stories that have appeared in the press over the last three years:
We've talked enough about the problems. Now let's look at what each individual, each concerned parent, and each dissatisfied teacher, can do
School Choice Works
Charter Schools create EQUITY for lower-income students
The single most effective cure for getting kids out of failing schools and giving them a chance to succeed educationally is to give parents the ability to get their kids out of these failing schools and into a school that has shown the ability to educate its students.
Parents deserve school choice. In the name of EQUITY, low-income families deserve the same opportunity and right to move their children into better schools as high-income parents have!
Parents need to have a portion of the taxes we pay for education able to go with the child.
Where would they go?
Right now, there are a number of Charter Schools in Maryland, 38 of them in Baltimore City. Charter Schools are "public" schools, but with a little more flexibility. All children are able to apply to go to a charter school of their choice! Except! There is no room.
Admittance to a charter school is done by lottery. Those children not lucky enough to win the lottery go on a waitlist. Waitlists in some of the best charter run between 200-600 students.
Think about that! Here we have literally thousands of children consigned to schools that demonstrably fail to educate them, year after year. Better schools exist -- but not for them. Because the State refuses to sanction Charter Schools as a viable option.
What Needs to Happen?
Maryland has a law that allows Charter Schools to apply to operate in the State. That law is rated as the most restrictive among the 38 states that have such laws, and it has been made more onerous over time.
The best brands of Charter School providers won't even bother to apply here anymore because the likelihood of obtaining a charter is so low. So, here is the first thing we have to do:
Convince the Legislature tomodify our Charter Law along the lines of the D.C. law so that it encourages Charter School providers to come to Maryland rather than discourages them.
BOOST Opportunity Scholarships create EQUITY for lower-income students
The state of Maryland enacted the BOOST (Broadening Options & Opportunities for Students Today) Scholarship Program in 2016 to give K-12 students from lower-income Maryland families an opportunity to find the best educational fit for their needs by providing scholarships for their children to attend a nonpublic school. This puts more options within reach for Maryland families and children, particularly those who are most in need.
What Needs to Happen?
Every year, Governor Hogan includes $10million in the Budget for BOOST Scholarships, and every year, the Appropriations Committee cuts it in half. Two years ago, the Chair of the Appropriations Committee tried to insert a provision that would have totally killed the program. Fortunately, that provision was defeated.
But there is always the threat that this legislature will kill BOOST and any program designed to help educate our kids that is not completely under the control of the Public School System. Here's what needs to happen:
Convince the Legislature to fully fund BOOST, and gather data from the program, parents, and the kids who attend to show the Legisature the value BOOST provides.
This bill is patterned on the model legislation provided by the American Legislative Exchange Conference (ALEC). The purpose of the Program is to provide State grants to the account of the parent of an eligible student to provide for the student's education. To be eligible, the student must have been in a Maryland public school for not less than 100 days in the previous year.
The funds go directly to the parents rather than to a school, to be used for education purposes. These purposes are spelled out in the bill and include tuition, fees, textbooks, school uniforms (if required), private tutoring, purchase of curricular materials, and, if applicable, Internet service provider fees or online learning fees. Other expenses may be approved by the Department of Education.
For families whose income is less than or equal to 500% of the federal poverty level [$26,500 for a 4-person family] the State will deposit into the family's ESA, 25% of the per-pupil spending in the family's county (or Baltimore City). For families whose income is greater than 500% of the federal poverty level, the amount would equal 18.75% of the per-pupil spending.
To participate, a school must be (1) an approved nonpublic school; (2) a nonpublic school with provisional approval; or (3) an approved home school program.
The bill combines specific regulatory requirements with sufficient flexibility to allow parents to find the best match for their student.
Anti-School Choice Testimony
Testimony against the bill came from the same public school organizations that oppose any form of school choice. Testimony from the Maryland Association of Boards of Education (MABE) stated: "MABE opposes all types of public financing for private schools and home instruction, including education savings accounts, and opposes the use of such public financing tools for not only those families choosing non-public schools, but also families choosing to provide home instruction, commonly known as homeschooling."
Objections are always the same:
Against using public funds. This argument ignores the fact that there is no such thing as "public funds." There are Taxpayer funds that governments collect to, among other things, educate our children. If the state fails to do so, year after year, the state has an obligation to let parents take their kids out of failing schools and put them into schools that do the job!
Lack of Maryland State Board of Education oversight. I have difficulty understanding the benefit of MSDE oversight when such oversight fails to do anything about failing schools that continue to fail year after year!
Private school options "underperform" public schools. This is a generic statement without meaning --and wrong. There is a study in existence somewhere to prove virtually anything. But the clear majority of studies done show that school choice produces better outcomes in every category.
What the opponents are really saying is that parents cannot be trusted to choose how their children are educated. They are wrong. Not only will parents care more about how their kids are being educated, school choice gives them flexibility; if their first choice is not providing what their child needs, school choice options give them the right to find a better alternative.
The public education monopoly does not. The pubic education monopoly forces children to stay in some of the worst schools in the nation, year after year, decade after decade. It's time we stood up to the teachers' unions; it's time we stopped protecting a system and started protecting our children!
from News in Annapolis: Week 10, 2021
Tell THIS Mom that Baltimore City Schools Aren't Failing!
Of course there are good -- even great -- schools in Baltimore City. I've toured them. The problem is, there aren't enough of them; too many City Schools are failing. No parent should ever have this experience.
More Private Information about students to be collected in State database
In 2010, the Legislature 2010 established Maryland Longitudinal Data System (MLDS) Center “to contain individual-level student data and workforce data from all levels of education and the State’s workforce.
Its original charter had clear boundaries, including limiting the time frame for collecting such data to five years after college, and prohibiting certain information from being collected, such as school discipline records. The time frame has been extended to 20 years after the student completes their last educational level, and school discipline was added several years ago.
Yet each year, the boundaries are breached and the prohibitions cast aside as the MDLS grows ever larger, devouring more and more of our children’s private, personal information.
NEW DATA: This year, HB 854 allows the MDLS to delve into the data-rich Social Services Administration within the Maryland Department of Human Services to gather information “on the experience of children who were provided with out-of-home placement and how out-of-home placement affected their participation in higher education.”
The purpose of collecting the data is to use it “to improve the State’s education system and guide decision-makers at all levels.” Arguably, the availability of the MDLS data is not helping.
HACKABILITY. The system is equipped with high-performance cybersecurity to protect private individual data from being hacked -- but it is clear that almost any database can be hacked. And although MDLS uses de-identified data -- data about individuals that has been rendered anonymous by stripping out any information that would allow people to determine an individual’s identity -- some datasets may indirectly reveal the identities of specific students or individuals.
"For example, some small, rural schools have very small minority student populations. . . . If State or school records contain, say, test scores or graduation rates for various racial subgroups, the identity of an individual . . .could be inadvertently revealed"(read more)or even deduced. States and schools are not supposed to use de-identified data when a subgroup is small enough to potentially reveal specific students.
1. Magellan Health, a Fortunate 500 company, was struck by a ransomware attack and data breach in April 2020. The healthcare giant confirmed by stating that about 365,000 patients were affected by the sophisticated cyberattack.
2. Twitter took the whole internet by storm when it was hit by one of the most brazen online attacks in history! The social media platform suffered a breach where the hackers verified Twitter accounts of high-profile US personalities like Barack Obama, Elon Musk, Joseph R. Biden Jr., Bill Gates, and many more.
3. On March 31st, 2020, the hotel chain Marriott disclosed a security breach that impacted the data of more than 5.2 million hotel guests who used their company’s loyalty application.
4. Last year in 2019, MGM Resorts suffered a massive data breach. The news of the breach incident started to circulate in February 2020 when hackers leaked the personal details of 10.6 million hotel guests for free download. But in the later findings, the number increased by 14 times (nearly 142 million) than the number recorded in February 2020.
5. In the first week of April 2020, the news of “500,000 stolen Zoom passwords available for sale in dark web crime forums.”
from News in Annapolis: Week 11, 2021
Back to School!
What a sight for sore eyes!! It's back to school in Howard County for three of my grandkids this morning. Yes, it's only for two days a week, and yes, they have to wear masks -- but seeing them get on the bus this morning provided a hint of normalcy!
