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| Casey Anderson $200,000 a year Chair |
In a January 7, 2016, e-mail, Montgomery County Planning Board Chair Casey Anderson says that adding more students to already overcrowded MCPS classrooms is not a problem.
Parents and guardians: Mr. Anderson is paid $200,000 a year to be the Planning Board Chair. Mr. Anderson is appointed by the Montgomery County Council. The County Council is 100% responsible for putting in place a Planning Board Chair who loves overcrowding MCPS classrooms and schools.
MCPS schools and classrooms are overcrowded by CHOICE. It's not an accident, it's not a mistake, and it's not a surprise. MCPS has been continuously using classroom trailers for over 30 years.
Here is Mr. Anderson's statement on school capacity in the planning of the Westbard area:...SchoolsDemographers for Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) have analyzed the Westbard plan and concluded that the school system can accommodate the additional students generated by the plan's recommendations for new housing. Most of the growth of enrollment in MCPS comes from demographic changes within existing development as older residents sell their homes to younger adults with school age children.The apartment and condominium units built under the new Westbard plan will add students, but the growth in enrollment will be a fraction of the total student population in the area and will contribute fewer children for each unit than the single-family houses that predominate in the adjoining neighborhoods...
Casey In Wonderland?
ReplyDelete"...the growth in enrollment will be a fraction of the total student population..."
ReplyDeleteWell, that is ALWAYS true, and ALWAYS meaningless.
98% can be expressed as a fraction too. LOL
Deleteyes and the statement that the new units will send fewer students per unit than the single family homes they replace ignores the fact that there are more units and is also either sleight of hand or the new expensive demographer cannot do simple math.
DeleteIn his presentation at Walt Whitman HS in April Bruce Crispell, MCPS demographer, stated that affordable housing generates many more children. Casey Anderson's plan calls for 25% affordable housing in Westbard.
DeleteThis post fails to realize the construction/renovation of schools that is going on in the surrounding area.
ReplyDeleteWhy don't you educate everyone then. What is it that parents all over the county have failed to realize?
DeleteP.S. Sign your name when you respond. You are on the MCPS clock getting paid for these posts, so take credit for your work.
DeleteSo Anonymous,
DeleteThey have been constructing/renovating every single year since the 60s?
The time has come and he is gone
DeleteBut still lingers a lasting legacy
For during his tenuous tenure
The county schools had morphed
Into hasty shelters of emergency.
It continues to be all about the numbers...of children. Quantity over quality, the brainiac wonks say.
ReplyDeleteUpon his exit, Joshua Starr continued the trend of previous Superintendants by including comments about how he raised the graduation rate. Young man, sooner or later you actually would reach 100% of every student graduating on time. Then what do you say? You graduated more than 100%? Oh sorry, that's only socialist voters in Cuyahoga County, Ohio who can do that, my mistake.
This is about stuffing as many students into as many boxes as they can get. It adds up to more and more funding. And it means you crank out higher gross graduation numbers. But those graduations mean NOTHING. How do I know?
If MCPS was the educational standard bearer it constantly claims to be, then why do schools like Montgomery College, University of MD, many Maryland colleges in general, and a host of other local schools that MCPS sends a strong percentage of their students to, why do they all have FULL TIME REMEDIAL READING AND MATH courses?
Hmmm?
Words mean things. These decision makers need their feet held to the fire. Because right now, its all about how many cattle you can get through the chutes to sale (read that as how many students are matriculated to get next year's funding increases?)
Just my $.02 and I dont expect change.
RFM3
Excellent question, Richard. Worth a lot more than $0.02 but we'll never get an answer from the Board of Education or any MCPS employee.
DeleteThis is where "common core" might be put to the acid test.
DeleteI was just curious if all these planners and demographers are MCPS alumni and this is their way of giving back to the community.
ReplyDelete