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Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS)
MOCO parents - how much are we willing to put up with??
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Anonymous
| I am tempted to think that the person pretending to be a teacher is fake. If this is not the case, then I hope our foolishness does drive her/him away from classrooms and kids. I cannot accept that our children are being educated by this type of enraged individual. |
Anonymous
| Interesting. Why don't you start yelling about the gas prices and Wall Street, Exxon, Shell, BP having a good laugh at their profits? |
Anonymous
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So now I'm an enraged individual?
not so Thankfully, I'm no Stepford Wife who's so compliant as to fully agree with damaging decisions that will ultimately destroy our system. My students are taught how to question things, too. I'm sorry that you have no respect for those who teach others how to critically question issues. good luck in raising your chidlren to be independent thinkers
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Anonymous
Still waiting for your specific budget proposals . . . what should be cut so that teachers are left alone and "respected?" |
Anonymous
And right on cue . . . there it is. |
Anonymous
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Not PP, but I would consider cutting:
*MCPS Central Office - I can tell you that there is a LOT of waste there. *Jerry Weast's PR people ($9M/year right there) and additional "research" departments which are not transparent to the taxpaying public And why does the superintendent, who serves (with a $500K annual salary plus tremendous benefits) for a relatively short time get such great pension benefits? I agree with all this - but I think this is just nibbling at the edges. Trimming waste is barely going to make a dent in the skyrocketing costs of health care, and won't do much at all to the pension deficit. And, Angry Teacher - see how easy it is? Concrete proposals! Where are yours? |
Anonymous
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what should be cut so that teachers are left alone and "respected?"
And, Angry Teacher - see how easy it is? Concrete proposals! Where are yours? Not a teacher but the very idea that you think teachers need to come up with budget proposals in order for parents to respect their profession and leave them the heck alone is utterly ridiculous. So, now they not only have to teach your children, but they need to solve the nation's budget crisis in their spare time. Now, if I were in charge of the world, I would slash the DOD's budget. We should pay for our wars with war bonds sold to those Americans who actually want to finance war. I'd make sure each and every free-loading bank paid back their debts to the tax-payers. I'd cut all of the benefits of the politicians. I'd make sure that every corporate fat-cat paid taxes and I'd impose HUGE tariffs on the BLACK and DECKERS of this country who decide to do their business elsewhere. |
Anonymous
Yes, you are enraged. Grow up. Rest assure my kids are well, much against your personal wishes I am sure. |
Anonymous
I heartily agree! |
Anonymous
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Have you heard about public goods and how national security is the number one example for that? Now revisit your primitive proposal about war bonds. But forget all of that. Your proposal to cut DOD expenditures to keep salaries of teachers at the current level mixes federal and state budgets. It is not implementable and only good for high school hippies to have spurious debates. Look at the county budget. Tell me how you will balance it without touching teachers' salaries and benefits.
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Anonymous
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Yawn...it's very sad that you can't think of ways to cut budgets and still leave education alone. Ok, here are some ideas...
No cars, paid cell phone services, car insurance coverage for county employees Get rid of all contracted lobbying Lay off every middle manager Cut all HR in 1/2 Consolodate state and county services (IT, HR, etc.) Apply for Federal and Private Grants. |
Anonymous
| When you jolt down your ideas like this it seems that you are the only thinking creature on earth and that a solution to the problem is simple. This is simply not the case. Visit the budget page of MoCo website. Read the documents. The problem at hand is complex. More than 80 percent of the operating budget is spent on compensation and benefits. This represents a structural fiscal issue for the county given the escalating health care costs. By law, the county needs to adopt a balanced budget every year, so it is clear expenditures related compensation and benefits will have to decline. We may continue to argue here if teachers are respected or not in our society, but the reality is that no adjustment on the total compensation and benefits paid to teachers will imply implausibly large reductions elsewhere in the budget. Almost surely this will take place through class size increases and cuts on school programs. I hope that 10 years from now kids will not be educated through online courses to make sure teachers are getting wages and benefits completely out of line with the rest of the population. Sure there are fat cats milking the system, but we try to fix this by voting right, not by shifting the burden to the weakest of all: the children. Teachers can be reasonable about their pleas and drop the enraged attitude we have seen in this forum. |
Anonymous
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Indeed the problem at hand is complex and this is why making sweeping statements about how teachers are the ones milking the system causes the enraged attitudes. There certainly are budget concerns, but to continue to put the budget woes of our society ONLY on teachers is not right. We've got pork programs, central office pork, outrageous benefit packages for Jerry Weast and his friends, lobbying pork, middle manager governmental pork etc. I pay my taxes in order to ensure that ALL children receive an excellent education and have an opportunity to learn. I pay my taxes precisely because I want people with disabilities to have homes, education, and bus rides to where they need to be. I pay my taxes so that if my house catches fire, there is someone there to help me.
At the end of the day, the problem with your statement is that you seem to honestly believe that teachers ARE getting wages and benefits that are out of line (i.e., meaning OVERPAID) with the population and I believe that teachers are underpaid for their professional qualifications and responsiblities...therein lies the heart of the matter. |
Anonymous
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Angry Teacher here - You want my concrete solution? See below:
On Tax Day, Remember the Tax Dodgers by Chuck Collins<http://www.commondreams.org/chuck-collins> As you pony up to pay your taxes – or fill out forms to get back a portion of what Uncle Sam has already withheld from your paycheck – pause to contemplate how wealthy and corporate tax dodgers deal with Tax Day. The emerging US UNCUT movement is pressing the point: “No Budget Cuts before tax dodgers pay up.” There are over 100 actions planned for this tax weekend to underscore this point. If you write a check over $10 to the IRS, then you just paid more than Verizon, Boeing, Bank of America, Citigroup and General Electric combined in federal taxes. And you may have paid a higher percentage of your income than the billionaires who appear on the pages of the Forbes 400. As super-investor Warren Buffet has pointed out, he pays a lower actual tax rate than his secretary. Business Week’s cover story this week is “The Billionaires Guide to Paying No Taxes. Reporter Jessie Drucker declares, “the more you make, the less you pay.” For our nation’s millionaires and billionaires, “this could be the best tax day since the early 1930s.” Don’t worry, we’re assured, these wealthy investors and global corporations are the great productive engines of the American economy. To tax them at all, we are told, would be to “kill jobs” and hurt the economy. In fact, we should pay them – like the $3.2 billion we taxpayers funneled to General Electric last year in various forms of tax breaks and subsidies. Here’s the thing: If you gave me $3 billion – I would create jobs, too. Or if our society invested in green infrastructure and our small domestic U.S. business sector, we’d create even more jobs. But the key question is what kind of country do we want to be –and how will we pay for it together? When we hear our governors and lawmakers lament that “we’re broke,” consider this fact: If corporations and households with $1 million income paid at the same levels they did in 1961, the Treasury would collect an additional $716 billion a year – or $7 trillion over a decade. Our budgetary stress is the result of declining revenue, thanks to the economic downturn and decades of tax cuts. A new report that I co-authored, Unnecessary Austerity argues that before we make draconian budget cuts at the federal and state level -- we should reverse huge tax cuts for the wealthy and tax dodging corporations. If corporations and households with $1 million income paid at the same levels they did in 1961, the Treasury would collect an additional $716 billion a year – or $7 trillion over a decade. There are two important explanations behind our current budget “squeeze.” First, income and wealth have become extremely concentrated in the hands of the super wealthy. The richest 1 percent of households own over 35.6 percent of all private wealth, approximately $20 trillion. The number of households with incomes exceeding $1 million has grown from 15,753 in 1961 to 361,000 today, adjusted for inflation. Meanwhile the middle class standard of living is collapsing and poverty rates are at a 15-year high. Second, we’ve dramatically reduced taxes on these wealthy households and the global corporations they largely own. Congress and special interest lobbyists have made mincemeat of our tax code, losing hundreds of billions in revenue. A new study from Public Campaign shows that a dozen companies spent over $1 billion on lobbying Congress for subsidies and tax breaks. That’s how a profitable company like General Electric legally and aggressively avoids taxes. Since 2006, General Electric has reported over $26 billion in profits yet paid not one penny in U.S. taxes. Other huge global companies such as Verizon, Boeing, ExxonMobil, and Federal Express also pay no or very low taxes. In his new book Treasure Islands, journalist Nicholas Shaxson describes how these artful tax dodgers use accounting gymnastics to move money to overseas tax havens like the Cayman Islands or Ireland. They pretend to earn their profits offshore and then report their paper losses here in the United States—reducing or eliminating their U.S. taxes. Our “Unnecessary Austerity” report identifies over $4 trillion in potential revenue over the next decade. Closing offshore tax havens could generate an estimated $100 billion a year. Adding new top tax brackets for millionaires could generate another $60-80 billion. Instituting a financial transaction tax could generate $150 billion a year. Public opinion polls show that the majority of voters would rather hike taxes on millionaires and tax dodgers before budget cuts. But with Congress captured by corporate interests, it’s going to take a powerful movement to push back. The emerging US UNCUT movement is pressing the point: “No Budget Cuts before tax dodgers pay up.” There are over 100 actions planned for this tax weekend to underscore this point. Without such a social movement, reasonable solutions will be drowned out by the drumbeat of “we’re broke.” -
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Anonymous
So please feel free to share your child's school, PP. a W feeder?
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