Midday

High quality child care and parent support are key in closing the achievement gap for low-income, minority, and non-English-speaking children in the U.S. These children often enter school grievously behind their middle-class peers and lack the skills needed to succeed.  Entering school behind generally means staying behind, and this has major implications for individual life outcomes as well as public costs (remedial education, incarceration, welfare, and social services).  Our guests Naomi Eisenstadt, the first director of Sure Start, a program in the U.K.

In 1989, Francis Fukuyama, one of our leading political economists, created a sensation and ignited a debate over his proclamation that liberal democratic capitalism would prevail around the globe, even in places (the Islamic world, for instance) where democracy seemed far-fetched. Fukuyama, affiliated with Johns Hopkins University, joins us on Midday in what has become known as the Arab spring, with populist uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa, and with grumblings from China.

The revenge of the electric car. A sequel to the popular 2006 documentary who killed the electric car has just been released. We’ll talk to one of the film’s consulting producers, Chelsea Sexton. She has a long and interesting association with cars and has become one of the nation’s leading advocates of electric-powered vehicles. Chelsea Sexton and the revenge of the electric car.

How did an educated, middle-class girl from Orange County, California go from earning $50,000 a year as an executive assistant to being homeless? At the age of 23, Brianna Karp, found herself on the streets, a casualty of the Great Recession, struggling to survive while coming to terms with the suicide of her father, a man who sexually abused her during her childhood. Remarkably, she began to blog about her experiences.  In her memoir, The Girl’s Guide to Homelessness, she shares a story that underscores how close many of us live to the line between a “normal” life and homelessness.

A Washington Post/ABC poll found that seven out of 10 Americans support raising taxes on the wealthy to bring down the nation’s debt, and no other option came even close. That falls in line with what longtime consumer advocate Ralph Nader has been saying, and what he imagines in his “nonfiction novel,” Only The Super Rich Can Save Us!

In June Maryland schools Superintendent Nancy Grasmick will retire. She is the nation’s longest-serving education chief. We’ll talk about her career, Maryland schools and her memories of recently passed Baltimore Mayor and Maryland Governor William Donald Schaeffer.

This Earth Day, Midday spotlights the sea turtle, the majestic, ancient and once-plentiful creature that is currently in danger of extinction. Our guest, scientist James Spotila, joins us in studio to provide an overview of sea turtle biology, discuss the threats they face, and tell the tales of today’s sea turtle conservationists, real-life heroes who risk life and limb to understand, track and conserve sea turtles across the globe.

Two of the most revered films in cinema history deal with the Civil War. Midday film aficionado and critic Linda De Libero, associate director of film & media studies at Johns Hopkins, looks at Birth of a Nation, Gone with the Wind and other Civil War films. We’ll also talk with Midday producer intern Haley Deutsch about Maryland’s role in the Civil War.

Our conversation with county executives series continues with Anne Arundel County Executive John Leopold. His recent budget for the next fiscal year calls for the first layoffs in twenty years. We’ll talk with him about tax increases and higher school spending at a time of slumping revenues and rising costs.

With Maryland Public Television looking for new leadership as it loses audience, membership and funding, should Annapolis be in the television business? Will former Lt. Governor Michael Steele get his own cable talk show? HBO’s filming of the best-seller Game Change begins shooting in Maryland next month. Join us this hour as Sun media critic David Zurawik offers his take on television.