Deleted school funding data

The MCPS Board of Education now puts out LESS information about your local school than they did two years ago. Over the last two years funding information for local schools has been deleted from the MCPS publication "Schools at a Glance".

As an example, let's look at Gaithersburg High School. MCPS puts out a two page sheet about each school as part of the "Schools at a Glance" publication. Included in the information for each school was a box titled "School Operating Costs". Click here to see the 2002-03 pages for Gaithersburg High School. Go to the bottom of the second page to see the box.

Suddently in the 2007-08 School Year the information in the "School Operating Costs" box was replaced with the following message:

Cost data regarding staffing and other resources will be posted on the MCPS Schools at a Glance website as soon as it is available.

The information was unavailable ALL YEAR! Click here to see the Gaithersburg High School pages for 2007-08.

So what innovation has the Board of Education introduced for sharing data for the 2008-09 school year? Less information. Now that same box is titled "School Personnel Costs" and funding data for the following categories has now been deleted:

Substitutes/Stipends
Instructional Supplies/Support
Facility Costs

Here is the Gaithersburg High School - Schools at a Glance page for the 2008-09 school year.

Just thought you'd like to know, what you aren't allowed to know anymore.

"Nothing builds trust like transparency."

Jerry Weast, foreword to Getting it Right-

Why Good School Communication Matters, 2008.