Hogan Expanding State-Funded Scholarships to Private Schools
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Anonymous
Because we've done this and it doesn't work! Maybe it's time to try something new? Let the lower income students who are more motivated attend private schools and see what happens. MoCo already provides lower income students with free breakfast and lower cost lunch, offers Saturday School, buses kids who need special programs, etc. We spend SO much money per student already, and yet the lower income students still don't perform as well. The current system is not working, so time for a new approach. |
Anonymous
Just, for the record, MCPS doesn't provide free lunch. That's a federal program. Busing for special needs students is also federally mandated. |
Anonymous
I call BS, I live there and yes they are. Didn't they just spend close to 1 million in taxpayer dollars on an illegal immigration center to push through citizenship more quickly. Our tax dollars paid for that too, and we were not asked. Hence, term limits passed this year in the county. People are getting sick of this crap. |
Anonymous
Potatoes, potatoes …. federal funding is given to the school to provide those programs. The kids are still fed at school and it has increased substantially over the last decade. ESOL programs are through the roof. I just applied for a private school that stated on its summer reading list that the book must be read in English no matter what your first language is, why are we spending so much money on ESOL programs? |
Anonymous
You don't know that most of there students would be white. Hogan has cut spending in programs so I am sure he will find the money for this program rather than increasing taxes. The question is why do we want to do this? Just another social handout, why aren't we focusing those funds on making the public schools work for these children? Now we want to put them in a situation where their self esteem may be attacked for not being able to keep up with the all the trappings that typically come with a private school environment. |
Anonymous
I seriously doubt these scholarships would be used by kids trying to get into a $40,000 school. |
Anonymous
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Vouchers/scholarships are typically used to help struggling parochial schools stay afloat on our tax dollars. Republicans get to appear as if they care about poor kids by giving a handful the opportunity to attend (in my opinion subpar private school.
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Anonymous
I hadn't seen that story about the immigration center - is there a link? |
Anonymous
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The Democrats angrily opposing this idea come out looking pretty bad, IMO. Why would you oppose giving lower income kids CHOICES?? If the private schools are as bad as the PP says ('subpar'), then the students can choose not to go there.
Where does it say that this program will be limited to parochial schools? |
Anonymous
What are you talking about? County doesn't do citizenship. ? That's federal. |
Anonymous
True. So self centered. |
Anonymous
That would be fine, too, except year after year it doesn't happen. I don't think it's any coincidence that in Baltimore County the majority of the schools that lack AC are the ones with poorer/more minority children. No, it's not "all the rich kids have AC and none of the poor kids do" because they can't be that blatant. But it's pretty obvious that the areas with more political pull get the benefits first, and everyone else comes last. Year after year, we pretend that we don't have schools with great test scores and great facilities just a few miles away from schools with poor test scores and poor facilities. We pretend it has absolutely nothing to do with wealthy single family homes providing the students for one school, and poorer apartments and single-head-of-household homes providing the students for another school. We pretend we're liberal and open hearted and the second someone suggests shifting boundaries to make the situations more equitable for the children we scream because Property Values! (And college. But I think the property values screams are louder.) We don't offer paths to let kids into public schools that would serve them perfectly, we force them to stay in their zoned schools. And we're ok with that. For whatever reasons. But the second someone comes in and offers what might be an escape hatch in the form of a voucher? Why, that's just wrong! We've been contributing to the educational neglect of these kids for decades. Maybe it's time to try something else. Maybe this will motivate all of us to make sure that all of our kids have access to an appropriate education and a safe educational environment. But I expect many of us will just enjoy complaining bitterly about that mean old gov. |
Anonymous
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You know who benefits from republican Hogan's program?
- poor minority children. The kids who benefit are not from rich families. They are overwhelmingly A-A or other racial minorities. What all of these kids have in common is a dismal future if they are condemned to their failing local public schools. At least this program gives some of these children a glimmer of hope at a better future. Look, I wish there were no failing public schools in MD; but there are many such schools, and nothing will change that if we just keep repeating what we have always done. |
Anonymous
Maryland is a populous state, and majority white. Therefore, it stands to reason, many poor white children will also benefit from scholarships to private schools. Not all non-white people are low income, and not all whites are wealthy. |
Anonymous
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