The new plan doesn’t address these problems, and doesn't have cost estimates or academic performance targets. Just words. The latest budget only explains how 1% of the money will be spent on lowering the achievement gap, but lowering the gap will take a much larger share of the budget. Absent performance targets, the plan requires us to imagine outcomes. But, closing the gap could take another 20 years at the current rate of progress. We can only hope that the newly designated 20 innovation schools with stepped up interventions will have higher targets than the remaining 80 or so formerly designated red zone schools, and that these remaining schools will soon benefit as well.
The Superintendent told the Council’s Education Committee that it’s impossible to figure out how much will be spent on gap closing strategies. Really? If we don’t know the funding for each strategy, then we can’t know how the benefits compare to costs, and which strategies are most efficient. This management gap is consistent with another gap in the plan. The academic measures stop measuring classes that at risk kids take after the 9th grade, and don’t assess their academic performance until they’re expected to graduate. Many at risk kids will drop out in between 9th and 12th grade, and the dirty secret is that drop-outs improve system-wide performance averages. Can’t we do better?
Gordie BrenneBoard Member
Montgomery County Taxpayers League
We could hire a lot of teachers and paras for the cost of, say, the Promethean Boards MCPS purchased and will now have to maintain and eventually replace as they become obsolete, and how many thousands of dollars was just spent sending people to Boston for ONE (VERY expensive!) conference? I don't think there is a need to point at teacher salaries as the main problem. (Disclosure: I have not been a salaried MCPS teacher for over 11 years.)
ReplyDeleteAnd while I think that "closing the achievement gap" is an admirable goal, that gap, or its numerical representation, is just that: numbers. There are multiple ways to spin those numbers, and to affect them, and to interpret them, and to go about changing them. Heck, we could narrow that gap almost immediately by lowering the performance of the top-performing groups just to make the numbers look better. Just waving the "Close The Gap!" flag and throwing money at it might not be the way to go. And what works in one county, or even in one school, might not be the optimal way to go about it in another, so a one-size-fits-all strategy for everyone might only be partially effective.
Has anyone asked the TEACHERS?
I think it is fair to point out teacher salaries. I don't know the budget as well as others here, but it looked to me like teacher salaries where the highest component of the budget. I saw $877M out of $2B for this year. Further, the recent raise really bugged me as a taxpayer because inflation is low and many taxpayers (like me) haven't had raises in many years either. The argument that teachers really suffered during the recession applies to taxpayers as well. Further, MCPS already had the highest paid teachers in the area, so why we are competing against ourselves? Why pay above sticker price? Probably because we voters have hired the teachers union to negotiate teacher salaries for us. Seems crazy, but that is what we do. (Note: I do want our teachers to be among the highest paid, but I don't think it is the best use of funds to pay so much more than other school districts).
DeleteAs for the gap, I agree this is a silly measure that can and is manipulated. As you say, we can close the gap easily by capping the high acheivers with easy tests/easy courses/low investment. The incentives are messed up. That said, the same people have been running MCPS for as long as I have been here. They always talk about the gap, but they don't get anywhere. When are we going to hold them accountable for not meeting their own objectives?
Thanks Mr. Brenne for the post. As a preview, again early next year the Montgomery County Civic Federation, the Taxpayers League, and the Parents' Coalition will be holding the Annual MCPS Budgetpalooza. As we did last year, we will go through the budget chapter by chapter.
ReplyDeletecrunchydeb, of course the teachers have been asked. They are at the secret budget meetings via their elected MCEA leadership. Again, if you are a teacher, step up. If you don't believe you are being represented by MCEA, run for office or vote the existing leadership out. But don't come back and tell us, the parents, and taxpayers, that you haven't been asked. You have, and this is your answer.
ReplyDelete