Questions for Board of Education Primary Election Candidates

The Parents' Coalition bloggers have assembled a list of 8 questions that we have sent to the Board of Education Primary 2012 Candidates. We welcome candidates' responses to any or all of the questions that we have posed.  We will post responses that we receive to this blog.

1.  Do you support an online checkbook for MCPS such as is used in a number of other public school systems including Miami-Dade County Public Schools?

2.  MCPS has minority contracting goals—we want more business to flow to people of color.  Currently, do you believe the practice of awarding non-bid contracts supports these goals?  What would you do to make MCPS always use a fair and open bidding process?

3.  Do you suppport a U turn away from a one-size-fits-all education and restoring and improving wider choice of education opportunities for our children, including restoring learning centers for special education students, restoring honors classes, and restoring non-IT vocational education?

4.  Do you support requiring new initiatives and new curriculum be required to undergo a legitimate pilot study that meets the minimum standards from the U.S. Department of Education for reasonable evidence before deploying to the whole county?  Do you support assessing all new initiatives against the minimum U.S. Department of Education standard of "what works"?

5.  If elected to the Board of Education, will you support or oppose MCPS' practice of permitting principals to assess students fees to attend public school classes?

6. Do you support a U turn from current policy of paying attorneys for advice on how to skirt the Maryland Open Meetings Act to a policy of full compliance with the Act and spirit of the law of open meetings, and even going beyond the legal requirements of the Act?

7.  Do you support returning the preparation of the MCPS budget to the public Board of Education table? 

8.  Do you believe that the MCPS Educational Foundation should be transparent in its sources of funds and its expenditures?

Responses:

Annita Seckinger

Susan Byrne

Morris Panner

Aryeh Shudofsky