Let's do the budget math: What Weast left out of his memo.

In the memo to staff of March 5, 2010, Superintendent Jerry Weast told of cuts to classroom teaching positions, but didn't give the details of the budget numbers involved.

But the numbers are available, so let's do the math. From a February 18, 2010, Washington Post article we know that a cut of 240 teachers would equal $15.4 million, and a cut of 30 administrators would equal $6 million.

$15.4 million divided by 240 = $64,167 per teacher position

$6 million divided by 30 = $200,000 per administrator position

Superintendent Weast's March 5th memo details cuts that would equal $16,170,084 for teacher positions, and $6 million for administrator positions for a total of $22,170,084.

Taking a look at the Maryland Fact Book data (Page 9).  Montgomery County has 6,709 positions that are "non-instructional".

We know that in 2006, there were 765 MCPS positions making over $100,000 a year, and only 4 of those had the title "teacher" in their position. It is unknown what MCPS staffing looks like today.

How many administrator positions would need to be cut to avoid any cuts to classroom teachers? At an average of $200,000 per administrator that would come out to about 111 administrators.

Superintendent Weast had a choice of what to cut. He chose to cut 252 classroom teacher positions and 30 administrator positions.

Superintendent Weast could have chosen to cut 111 administrator positions, out of the 6,709 "non-instructional positions" in MCPS, and spared classrooms entirely.