Legislature Gives $100,000 to Private School for Playground

Source:  School construction bill as passed by legislature.

For background on this private school giveaway, click here. 

Remember to thank the Montgomery County Delegates and Senator who are giving away State School Construction money to a private school rather than funding repairs for Montgomery County Public Schools.

Is your child in a classroom trailer?  You might want to consider a private school that is the recipient of consistent, significant State funding, including an entire free high school building!

Delegates Kramer, Cullison, and Morales

Senator Manno

Kramer, Cullison, Morales and Manno would rather see your child in this container than in a bricks and mortar school building.  

MCPS classroom trailer

Breaking: MCEA Shuts Down Local Apple Ballot PAC

The Montgomery County Education Association Fund for Quality Schools PAC, known to voters as the Apple Ballot mailer that would come each election time, is no more.  The Montgomery County PAC was shut down and had a zero balance in their last report.

Apparently, the contributions of teachers alone were simply not enough to sustain this local Apple Ballot PAC.  Recall The Washington Post's expose of the funding scheme that the Montgomery County Apple Ballot PAC was using back in 2010. 

...Candidates who receive the union's stamp of approval are also then expected to pay.  As far as we know, this arrangement is unique; in elections elsewhere, unions and other special interests contribute to candidates, not vice versa. But such is the overweening power of the teachers union in Montgomery that the usual rules are turned upside down. And it's no coincidence that the union's toxic influence in local elections is matched by its success in squeezing unaffordable concessions from the county in contract negotiations -- at taxpayers' expense.
In the latest elections for the Montgomery County Council, in 2006, most candidates on the union-approved (and trademarked) "Apple Ballot" coughed up the maximum contribution allowed by state law, $6,000, to a PAC run by the Montgomery County Education Association, as the teachers union is known. Union-backed candidates for the Board of Education also paid handsomely. Supposedly, these funds covered the cost of the union's mailings to constituents and other activities on behalf of its anointed candidates -- although there is no real accounting on a campaign-by-campaign basis. In theory, these contributions are voluntary. In fact, several sources told us that the MCEA's chief political strategist, Jon Gerson, made it clear that he expected candidates, once endorsed, to pay what they "owed" for the union's campaign on their behalf. One candidate, asked to explain the decision to pay, answered concisely: "Fear."...

 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/04/AR2010020404421.html

After that, the $6,000 arrangements dried up.  Then, the Apple Ballot was involved in this scandal:

...At issue are phone calls by Jon Gerson, chief political strategist for the Montgomery County Education Association (MCEA), in which his interlocutors say that he threatened to withhold the group’s political support from anyone backing county school board hopeful Rebecca K. Smondrowski. “Support her, and you can just forget about ever getting our support” is how one activist characterized the message from Mr. Gerson. Ms. Smondrowski, whom we have endorsed, is a candidate for the Montgomery County Board of Education in Tuesday’s contest, which will include two candidates backed by the MCEA, Fred Evans and Jeanne Ellinport.
Included in the effort to siphon support from Ms. Smondrowski, sources told us, were personal slanders. “I don’t recall” was Mr. Gerson’s initial response when we asked him about them. When pressed, he said that he doesn’t believe that the conversations occurred in the way described to us, arguing that the credibility of those who insist on anonymity must be doubted. We, too, wish that those who told us of their encounters with Mr. Gerson would agree to be named, but the teachers union has such an outsize role in Montgomery politics that few dare to cross it...

 https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/a-smear-campaign-in-montgomery-county-against-rebecca-smondrowski/2012/03/30/gIQAZN63lS_story.html

And now, this:

 

   CampaignFinanceReport Public 97dfced2 8618 4325 9db6 6e4b9749f306(2) by Parents' Coalition of Montgomery County, Maryland

State Debt for Private School That Already Got Entire MCPS High School Building for Free

MCPS students go to school in overseas containers.

Is your child in a classroom trailer? Consider switching to a private school.  

In Montgomery County private schools are given entire MCPS high school buildings for free, and additional legislation (see below for House Bill 901 introduced this session) authorizing the creation of state debt to provide the private school with additional funds.  No classroom trailers for private schools!

Entitled:	Creation of a State Debt - Montgomery County - Melvin J. Berman Hebrew Academy
	Sponsored by:	Delegate Kramer
	Status:	In the House - Hearing 3/14 at 9:00 a.m.

Summary Documents History

Synopsis:	Authorizing the creation of a State Debt in the amount of $100,000, the proceeds to be used as a grant to the Board of Directors of the Melvin J. Berman Hebrew Academy for the acquisition, planning, design, construction, repair, renovation, reconstruction, and capital equipping of the Melvin J. Berman Hebrew Academy, located in Montgomery County; providing for disbursement of the loan proceeds, subject to a requirement that the grantee provide and expend a matching fund; etc.
Analysis:	Not available at this time
All Sponsors:	Delegates Kramer, Cullison, and Morales
Additional Facts:	Cross-filed with: SB0444 Bill File Type: Regular Effective Date(s): June 1, 2016
Committee(s):	Appropriations
Broad Subject(s):	State Debt (Bond Bills)
Narrow Subject(s):	Ethnic Affairs Forests and Parks -see also- Program Open Space; Trees Montgomery County Private Schools Public Works, Board of State Bonds

2007: Foose and the Test Prep Scandal. WPost says Foose on Short List for MCPS Superintendent.

Sunday, March 4, 2007
The principal of Earle B. Wood Middle School in Rockville gathered teachers and handed out a list of all the black, Hispanic, special-education and limited-English-speaking students who would take the Maryland School Assessment, the measure of success or failure under the federal No Child Left Behind mandate.

Principal Renee Foose told teachers to cross off the names of students who had virtually no chance of passing and those certain to pass. Those who remained, children on the cusp between success and failure, would receive 45 minutes of intensive test preparation four days a week, until further notice.

...That is what some teachers say has happened at Wood. Their accounts and interviews with Foose offer a glimpse at a kind of test-prep triage that analysts think is increasingly common at many schools but is rarely discussed in public...

...Test preparations began in earnest, the staffers said, on the day faculty returned from winter break. In separate meetings with the English and math teachers, Foose handed out lists of "subgroup" students and outlined her plan:
"We were told to cross off the kids who would never pass," one staffer said. "We were told to cross off the kids who, if we handed them the test tomorrow, they would pass. And then the kids who were left over, those were the kids we were supposed to focus on."

The next week, teachers regularly began pulling selected students from social studies, science, gym, art and other elective classes to work in small groups to prepare for the test. They used test-prep workbooks and sample material from the state education department's Web site.
The principal and some employees disagree on how often students were removed from classes for test-preparation. Foose said that many teachers delivered extra instruction in the classroom.
Employees say that Foose and one of her administrators added to the urgency by telling students and parents that those who failed the assessments might be held back. The principal said the comments came from an assistant principal and were more about students' long-term academic prospects...

... Others, inside and outside the school, said they thought the exercise crossed a line.
"They're not teaching the material," Cullison said. "They're teaching them how to take a test, which is a huge disservice to these kids." 

 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/03/AR2007030301372_3.html

Pa. House approves 'Pass the Trash' bill to stop abusive teachers from relocating to another school

Legislation designed to prevent abusive teachers from relocating to another school district will go to Gov. Tom Corbett for enactment after being unanimously approved by the House on Wednesday evening.
Corbett is likely to sign it, said the governor's spokesman Jay Pagni.
The bill would bar schools from entering into contracts that suppress information about investigations of abuse and sexual misconduct, as well as prevent schools from transferring problem teachers from school district to school district, a practice called "pass the trash."
House Bill 1816, which was approved 195-0, was introduced in the wake of a raft of lawsuits and revelations of widespread abuse in the school system.

 http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/index.ssf/2014/10/pa_house_unanimously_approves.html#incart_m-rpt-1

More State Funds for Private School in closed MCPS high school building

MCPS needs school construction money, right?  

Here's a MCPS closed school that was constructed with State funds that was turned over to a private school for pennies.  Now, the private school wants more funding from taxpayers and our Montgomery County Delegates are pushing a bill to do just that.  

Public school students?  This property belonged to you, but our County Executive, County Council, State Delegates and the Governor worked very hard to turn this entire high school building and property over to a private interest. Public school students can stay in trailers as far as they are concerned. 


By: Delegates Bonnie Cullison, Sam Arora, and Ben Kramer 
Introduced and read first time: February 24, 2014 

HB1478
2014 Regular Session

Entitled:
Creation of a State Debt - Montgomery County - Melvin J. Berman Hebrew Academy
Sponsored by:
Delegate Cullison
Status:
In the House - Hearing 3/10 at 10:30 a.m.

SummaryDocumentsHistory
Synopsis: Authorizing the creation of a State Debt in the amount of $65,000, the proceeds to be used as a grant to the Board of Directors of the Melvin J. Berman Hebrew Academy for specified development or improvement purposes related to the Melvin J. Berman Hebrew Academy, located in Montgomery County; providing for disbursement of the loan proceeds, subject to a requirement that the grantee provide and expend a matching fund; prohibiting the use of the loan proceeds or matching fund for sectarian religious purposes; etc.
Analysis: Not available at this time
All Sponsors: Delegates Cullison, Arora, and Kramer
Additional Facts: Cross-filed with: SB0917
Bill File Type: Regular
Effective Date(s): June 1, 2014
Committee(s):
Appropriations
Broad Subject(s): State Debt (Bond Bills)
Narrow Subject(s): Montgomery County
Private Schools
Religion -see also- Churches
State Bonds

MCEA Plans to Force County Gov'ts. to Apply for MOE Waivers

Last year the Montgomery County Council made a decision not to request a Maintenance of Effort waiver. This allowed the County to hit the 'reset' button on per-pupil spending. As a reminder, the MCPS is not a county agency. It is a 'quasi-state agency.' The response from MCEA is below, proposed by Bonnie Cullison, state delegate (D-MCEA):

From the Gazette:
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
Montgomery lawmaker seeks to protect education funding
Counties might be required to seek waivers from per-pupil spending requirements
by Andrew Ujifusa and Erin Cunningham, Staff Writers

A state lawmaker from Montgomery County wants to force the government entities that fund schools to apply for waivers from education spending requirements.

Had such a law been in place this year, the Montgomery County Council would not have been able to reduce school system funding as much as it did a move that reduced the base from which future budgets will be derived.

Del. Bonnie Cullison (D-Dist. 19) of Aspen Hill expects to introduce legislation next year that could require counties to apply for a waiver from Maryland’s “maintenance of effort” law for education spending if certain economic conditions are met. Her bill also would set a floor for just how low per-pupil spending by a county could be, based on a new formula.

and:


The state’s maintenance of effort law requires counties to spend at least as much per pupil on public schools as they did the previous year, in order to qualify for increases in state education funding aid.

However, counties can apply for a waiver from that requirement with the state Board of Education if they think they cannot meet that per-pupil amount.

This year, the County Council chose not to seek a waiver and make cuts to Montgomery County Public Schools from maintenance of effort levels. This decision allowed the council to set a new and lower per-pupil spending level that it believes will be easier to meet next year.

Instead of spending $1.497 billion on the school system, the maintenance of effort level for fiscal 2012 based on enrollment, the council spent $1.37 billion. That decision has resulted in a $26.3 million penalty in lost state aid to the school system for fiscal 2013.

Read more at The Gazette, here.

Getting a little bit closer to you on election day!

Here's the list of Delegates who have voted to get closer to you on election day!  Read our previous post on this special legislation just for Montgomery County.

CAMC19-11

School Fees and Union Busting

I admit - I am no longer enamoured of Joel Klein, NYC Chancellor of Schools.

Last fall, while we were fighting to enforce our rights to a free public education in Maryland, through our battle to eliminate school fees for textbooks and gym towels, NYC schools were faced with a similar dilemma.

However, like everything else in the Big Apple, its on a much larger scale, as indicated in this article from the New York Post. From the article:

The powerhouse parent groups boldly solicit donations - some accept credit cards and PayPal online - to bypass Department of Education rules, a Post investigation found. The PTAs advertise on Craigslist or at colleges and put $12-an-hour assistant teachers on their own payrolls - violating DOE policies and skirting union pay and benefit scales.

In the article, some parents admit that paying upwards of $500 as a fee to send their kids to these schools is a bargain compared to private schools - especially in NYC. Read further and you will see that under Mr. Klein's tenure - where smaller schools are often co-housed in the same building, one school may raise significant funding, while the other occupants? Too bad, how sad.

What is really striking about this piece is that the practice bypasses the unions and the hiring system in the school system. Advertising on Craigslist for a teachers aide? I am a product of the NYC public school system and grew up with a parent who toiled away at a NYC Title I school and still proudly carries her UFT card.

Am I disappointed.

First, with the Unions for putting up with this practice without a fight.

Second, for lawyer turned school system administrator Klein, who so conveniently forgets that it is his obligation to oversee the largest school district with a free public education.

And, most of all, with the residents of NY - who tolerate this practice.

Equity and a free public education are obviously far from reality in New York City.

This makes our PTSAs with their budgets in the $40,000 range look very modest.