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Education
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Education
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The issue for the 36th District is and will continue to be funding. The Thornton requirements have been a mixed blessing in that the 1.3 billion dollar unfunded mandate is proclaimed by its supporters to be all that is necessary to achieve educational excellence in Maryland Schools. Unfortunately, experience showed us that pouring money into a problem, especially education, seldom is the answer in and of itself.
Surely, additional funding helps but there are may other things which have just as significant an impact. For example, Caroline County is in the lower to middle rating as for dollars expended per child on education but has consistently turned out children who rate in the upper percentiles of those being tested. One reason may be that Caroline County has had all day kindergarten for over twenty years.
Demanding final responsibility and accountability should be a prerequisite to providing more dollars to any State School System. Yet we have urban areas such as Baltimore City unable to account for tens of millions of dollars. We refuse to do anything about school systems which are lacking in responsibility and leadership. The failures of urban systems have a direct impact on the 36th District and the Eastern Shore because each year there are more dollars poured into those deficient systems.
There are changes that we Eastern Shore legislators can and must pursue to ensure that our children receive an equitable share of educational dollars. The practice of disparity funding is unfair to the children and teachers of the Eastern Shore. The urban schools receive more per pupil dollars than do the rural areas. The urban areas have more representation in the legislature so they have gotten away with the practice and justify it by arguing it is more expensive to live in Montgomery and Prince Georges Counties or Baltimore City and thus their school system should receive more tax dollars per child. The current formulae fails to take into account the greater tax base of the urban areas or to give credit for the proximity to cultural activities such as museums. A review of the formulae used for educational fund allocation is necessary to reinstate equity amongst the assets provided to Eastern Shore School Systems.
This is not likely to occur overnight and the urban areas which dominate the legislature will not easily give up the excess that the current system allots them.
The State Teachers Union perpetuates the "Us vs. Them" attitude by only giving credit to those legislative votes which follow the philosophy of throwing more dollars at the problem to make it better. Recently legislators were rated by the M.S.T.A. (Maryland State Teachers Union) and in order for a legislator to receive a high mark, he or she had to vote for tax increases. Despite the fact that conservative Republicans all voted to delay building the new House of Delegates Building and instead to use the approximately $38 million dollars for the construction of new schools, they received no "pro education" consideration. Another bill overwhelmingly supported by Republicans would have changed the accounting methods used by County school systems to be similar to that used by the larger urban areas. This change would have allowed enough saving to build two new schools each year in Maryland. While both of these bills would have clearly been beneficial to the education system, they are given no credit by the M.S.T.A. when calculating those who are pro education.
The M.S.T.A. is the most powerful organization amongst the urban lobby groups and therefore there will be little change in the philosophy that begot Thornton's misguided philosophy that throwing dollars at an education system will solve its problems.
Thornton funding should be spread out over a number of years and the M.S.T.A. needs to realize that all problems are not solved by just raising new taxes and providing more money.
We all need to consider the effects of attempting to fulfill the unfunded mandates of Thornton and realize that there is more to a first class education other than just pouring more dollars into a system that is broke.
There is no shortage of additional new ideas from charter schools, voucher programs, teacher training and going back to tried and true methods such as phonics, heterogeneous groupings and testing. Reinstating discipline and prioritizing expenditures so as to reduce class size and retain teachers are all positive changes proven to work.
We will continue to work with our educational leaders in and out of the legislature to achieve a consensus on how to implement these changes.
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Cecil County - Elected School Board Vote
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The citizens of Cecil County have agreed with the Delegation that it is time that the school board members in Cecil County are elected instead of appointed. Cecil County citizens not only voted in favor of an elected school board but did so in what truly must be considered a mandate. The most votes ever cast for an individual or issue were cast in favor of the Elected School Board question which 28,975 voters (87.4%) approved the change to an elected school board.
While we have won a major battle we are far from having won the war. The next step is to identify, recruit and train qualified candidates to be ready to run for the three open positions in 2006.
This will take a lot of hard work by all those who believe we can improve upon our school system in Cecil County.
All the stake holders, parents, teachers, students and other interested parties such as the press, political and business leaders must work together to facilitate this transition to make it as smooth and effective as possible.
If anyone wishes to obtain more information on the process ahead, please contact my office and we will help direct you to the proper persons to address your individual question.
Once again, congratulations to all those who were involved in pushing for the legislation to create the elected school board and to all those who helped to shape the bill or who worked on getting the ballot question approved.
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Reasons for an Elected School Board Vote
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I. More Responsive Representation
A. If school board is "elected", there is effective accountability to the "stakeholders" (ie. the parents, teachers and children).
1. Greater parent/teacher input regarding choice in curriculum and discipline issues.
2. Direct addressing of the needs of gifted and special needs children.
B. Elections every two years (with staggered terms) insure concerns will be addressed in a timely manner. (Promotes open meetings, position papers, public forums, debates)
C. Fiscal Responsibility - How many knew that the School Board budget makes over 65% of the County Budget. However there still are problems like:
1. Not enough text books for each student
2. Children being forced to standing up on buses due to overcrowding
3. Portable classrooms
4. Teachers without supplies
5. Teacher v. Administration arguments over asset distribution
6. Inadequate resources for children with special needs. (Despite a 50% increase in State Funds this session)
II. Opponents Arguments are:
A. Elected School Board Process is too political. This is absolutely false in fact its just the opposite. This is because:
1. In fact an elected school board is counter intuitive to the political process because the Governor and delegation are returning power to the voters.
2. School board candidates run as a nonpartisan candidates which encourage bipartisan support for those best qualified for the office. 3. Old process was political and a facade. Old process of nominating convention was never adopted as the official process for approving the next school board candidate. It wasn't changed because those in power wanted a political system. Political patronage was the poisonous tree and school board seats were its fruit. When convention selected their top nominees, Governor still appointed the one selected by the Senator.
4. Why didn't proponents of the Nominating Convention speak out in support of their process and request legitimacy from their elected officials.
B. Better Diversity through Appointment.
1. There is "No statistical support" for this claim. In fact, just the opposite has been found.
a. First judges of color were elected not appointed.
b. Kent County elected its fist minority commissioner as President of the Board of Commissioners during the last election.
2. Town of Elkton elected two African American Commissioners last election.
3. Lt. Governor Michael Steele was elected as the first African American Lt. Governor last election. |
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