Is it time for private school vouchers in Montgomery County?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Great way to shift wealth towards the wealthy while reducing effectiveness for the rest by decimating economies of scale. It's a win-win for the self-centered, with the added bonuses of 1) being able to note the resulting degradation of public education as a support for the "need" to continue voucher programs and 2) being able to subsidize single-view religious teaching.

But, hey, there's always one or two edge cases from the rest to whom they can point as benefitting. "See, in America, anyone can get ahead. Let the invisible hand of the market do its thing!"

What a crock...

The wealthy pay most of the taxes. They need to be taken care of, or the tax base will leave...think Florida.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Great way to shift wealth towards the wealthy while reducing effectiveness for the rest by decimating economies of scale. It's a win-win for the self-centered, with the added bonuses of 1) being able to note the resulting degradation of public education as a support for the "need" to continue voucher programs and 2) being able to subsidize single-view religious teaching.

But, hey, there's always one or two edge cases from the rest to whom they can point as benefitting. "See, in America, anyone can get ahead. Let the invisible hand of the market do its thing!"

What a crock...

The wealthy pay most of the taxes. They need to be taken care of, or the tax base will leave...think Florida.

This just isn't true. For example, Trump's a billionaire and I'm a civil servant who pays far more taxes. Regardless, this idea is as preposterous as it is wrongheaded.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Great way to shift wealth towards the wealthy while reducing effectiveness for the rest by decimating economies of scale. It's a win-win for the self-centered, with the added bonuses of 1) being able to note the resulting degradation of public education as a support for the "need" to continue voucher programs and 2) being able to subsidize single-view religious teaching.

But, hey, there's always one or two edge cases from the rest to whom they can point as benefitting. "See, in America, anyone can get ahead. Let the invisible hand of the market do its thing!"

What a crock...

Ha ha! What are the "economies of scale" that provide benefits to MCPS consumers? The top notch curriculum generated by their Central Office? School lunches? Of, never mind, subsidized by the Feds. HR? Talk to the applicants who don't hear back for months. Etc. Your whole logic is disjointed. If public schools are left with fewer high needs students perhaps they can specialize.

I think it would be the opposite it would be most likely that the highest needs students will be the ones who don't get school choice because only a few select schools cater to students with IEPs and there aren't a lot of private schools with esol programs

Students with disabilities are a very diverse population of students with various special needs. Very few students would need services that would be the equivalent to a 100% pull out from a general education environment. Also, some private school students still qualify for MCPS special education services.

I was frustrated with the treatment and lack of support for one child that I transferred him out of MCPS to a non-parochial private school that had about 12 students per class and a disability support counselor. My child thrived because the teachers had time to give him the attention he needed. Much of what would have been considered special education services to learn organizational, time management, and study skills was woven into the universal design of their curriculum. My son’s school also offered a supervised study hall period in the library so the disability support counselor would have periodic checks which help with the transition to the school. The school took the educational data for my child, the MCPS plan, had one meeting with my child and myself, and fully implemented our agreed to plan. A truly positive and rewarding experience.

I would say, before we chose the private we selected, we looked at other schools. Not all privates had the ability to meet my son’s needs and schools like Lab and McLean were not the least restrictive environment for my child. Privates are not one size fits all institutions, however when there’s a good fit, the environment is an appropriate remedy when MCPS doesn’t have the resources to implement a child’s IEP.

Even if they don’t need pull out support, they still require something more than the status quo. Whether that is additional time on test, smaller classes, or different curriculum, all of which comes at a cost. Lets take smaller classes for instance. Many kids, special ed or neuro typical could benefit from smaller classes. But that requires more space, more teachers, etc etc. So yes a smaller private can offer this, but its not necessarily less expensive or less resource intensive.

Much of Special Education would benefit all students. That’s why a universal design of implementing a plan for a disabled child is a best practice in education. Any general education teacher will say class size is key as far as how well they can meet the needs of all students.

As is, MCPS is at a low point in meeting the needs of students with disabilities. Complaints and law suits are on the rise and MCPS is wasting funds for noncompliance. How do they dig themselves out of the mess left over from ignoring students with disabilities for the past two years?

A voucher system would provide a mechanism to allow students who MCPS doesn’t meet their needs to go elsewhere. This could be aimed at disabled students who have needs for more attention and support, but it could also be exceptional students who need more enrichment but didn’t get chosen in the magnet school lottery process.

If enrollment declines in MCPS schools, it would lower the staffing and infrastructure needs of the entire school system. Less size, less bureaucracy, and focus for what MCPS does best - the middle 50% of students.

You know it's not well advertised by mcps but there are ways to get mcps to pay the private school tuition of a student who is not being well served in public education. I have some friends who took that route and their daughter is in private school that services students with IEPs. However this took a lot of time and advocacy and documentation

The only way to get private special education placement at public expense is to hire an attorney (at around $500 per hour) and take MCPS to Due Process. A huge gamble for parents, most do not have the $50,000 to $75,000 for the risk. MCPS legal fees do not get paid out of the MCPS budget. They are paid out of the Montgomery County Government Budget so the sky is the limit as they fight a prolonged legal battle against a disabled child.

Many families of students with disabilities, especially after the hell of the last two years, want more than endless meetings that do nothing for their child because MCPS never fully implements an IEP. For some students, smaller classes are better. At the end of the day, as a parent I feel my child has been lied to and cheated by a school system that was quick to say his needs could not be met in an online setting, not give him support and services to get caught up, then was real quick in January to pull the plug again because staffing was needed to babysit not provide the services my child needed. MCPS treats students with disabilities as undesirable afterthoughts. I would be happy to take a pittance of my tax dollars to take my child to an environment that has the resources and who wants to teach him.

I'm not sure which private school. You think had the staff to manage your little snowflake in January, during the height of the covid surge, when many private schools were also virtual... But you're aware there's no law mandating private schools follow any IEPs at all?

Guess what? What matters most is that the child needs are met and the child receives an education.

Thus far, the IEP my child has might as well been written on toilet paper. It has not been followed in 2 years.

Then there’s the dumbing down of the curriculum for my child so the school can say he is making adequate progress. MCPS is passing a child through by lowering the expectations to the point he is not learning basic writing and math skills.

Query: Is the “2 years” that you’re so incensed about the same two years when the rest of Montgomery County and, indeed, the rest of the wold, was struggling with the pandemic? A completely different 2 years? Some overlapping time period?
Guess what? “What’s matters most” is that people were dying. And your kid got the best that concerned administrators and dedicated teachers and a supportive community could provide under frighteningly challenging conditions. Your priorities are self-servingly interesting.

I know, right?

And is this the same poster who's now bringing up that it's Black families who want charter schools as if charters and vouchers are the same? That seems calculated as well.

"Hard for the libs to say Black families can't have something," Kenny thinks. "They will be too guilty."

This bread and circus pandering is really starting to piss me off. More than it already was.

We have school choice within the existing system. It is far from perfect. The last two years have tested it mightily, but actually, unlike many areas of the country, we came out of it relatively unscathed with most of our teachers and kids alive and uncrippled. Sometimes in the face of horror, success looks like nothing at all. So they didn't learn enough algebra. My kid is doing horribly in one class this year too. I don't blame their teachers because at the end of the day, there is a lesson to be learned in failure as well as success. I'm fine with that lesson being learned.

[Anonymous]

PP you are citing multiple posters and trying to lump different arguments into one.

Many special populations - special needs students being one - fell disproportionately behind than other students according to MCPS data presented to the Board of Ed. MCPS was quick to remove the supports and services that these students legally need for accessibility. MCPS has been slow to provide services so special needs students can catch up. This equates to a two year decline for students with special needs. Enough is enough. We are tired of our students being treated as an afterthought by MCPS, and as one PP has expressed, not deserving of educational benefit. That’s taking a whole student group that gained rights under the ADA, Section 504, and the IDEA back to pre-Civil Rights level of discrimination.

Parents are tired with fighting with MCPS for basic services listed on IEPs that aren’t being provided. School choice would provide us a financial mechanism to be able to leave MCPS to a school that wants to educate them.

[Anonymous]

Again, let’s take school vouchers to the polls and see who wins. There’s plenty of reasons voters are fed up with MCPS, any one of them would be a rationale to support having school vouchers or some form of school choice for Montgomery County -

* school safety

* educational standards

* class sizes

* special needs

* school climate / how happy are staff and students?

* bullying in schools

* drugs in schools

* resources including a lack of textbooks

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:PP you are citing multiple posters and trying to lump different arguments into one.

Many special populations - special needs students being one - fell disproportionately behind than other students according to MCPS data presented to the Board of Ed. MCPS was quick to remove the supports and services that these students legally need for accessibility. MCPS has been slow to provide services so special needs students can catch up. This equates to a two year decline for students with special needs. Enough is enough. We are tired of our students being treated as an afterthought by MCPS, and as one PP has expressed, not deserving of educational benefit. That’s taking a whole student group that gained rights under the ADA, Section 504, and the IDEA back to pre-Civil Rights level of discrimination.

Parents are tired with fighting with MCPS for basic services listed on IEPs that aren’t being provided. School choice would provide us a financial mechanism to be able to leave MCPS to a school that wants to educate them.

+10000

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Privates are recruiting again.

It's that time of year!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Great way to shift wealth towards the wealthy while reducing effectiveness for the rest by decimating economies of scale. It's a win-win for the self-centered, with the added bonuses of 1) being able to note the resulting degradation of public education as a support for the "need" to continue voucher programs and 2) being able to subsidize single-view religious teaching.

But, hey, there's always one or two edge cases from the rest to whom they can point as benefitting. "See, in America, anyone can get ahead. Let the invisible hand of the market do its thing!"

What a crock...

The wealthy pay most of the taxes. They need to be taken care of, or the tax base will leave...think Florida.

Good! Bye! No one cares.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:PP you are citing multiple posters and trying to lump different arguments into one.

Many special populations - special needs students being one - fell disproportionately behind than other students according to MCPS data presented to the Board of Ed. MCPS was quick to remove the supports and services that these students legally need for accessibility. MCPS has been slow to provide services so special needs students can catch up. This equates to a two year decline for students with special needs. Enough is enough. We are tired of our students being treated as an afterthought by MCPS, and as one PP has expressed, not deserving of educational benefit. That’s taking a whole student group that gained rights under the ADA, Section 504, and the IDEA back to pre-Civil Rights level of discrimination.

Parents are tired with fighting with MCPS for basic services listed on IEPs that aren’t being provided. School choice would provide us a financial mechanism to be able to leave MCPS to a school that wants to educate them.

+10000

They're short-staffed in this area since 5 out of every 6 kids these days have an IEP.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:PP you are citing multiple posters and trying to lump different arguments into one.

Many special populations - special needs students being one - fell disproportionately behind than other students according to MCPS data presented to the Board of Ed. MCPS was quick to remove the supports and services that these students legally need for accessibility. MCPS has been slow to provide services so special needs students can catch up. This equates to a two year decline for students with special needs. Enough is enough. We are tired of our students being treated as an afterthought by MCPS, and as one PP has expressed, not deserving of educational benefit. That’s taking a whole student group that gained rights under the ADA, Section 504, and the IDEA back to pre-Civil Rights level of discrimination.

Parents are tired with fighting with MCPS for basic services listed on IEPs that aren’t being provided. School choice would provide us a financial mechanism to be able to leave MCPS to a school that wants to educate them.

+10000

They're short-staffed in this area since 5 out of every 6 kids these days have an IEP.

You can Google to find the correct percentage of students with IEPs - 11.9%

https://ww2.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/regulatoryaccountability/SpEdGlance/currentyear/SPAAG2021.pdf

MCPS has a legal requirement to either have staffing for the services on each IEP or MCPS can reimburse parents for a private provider. It’s not like there’s a lack of professionals in the metro area that can provide special education services. They just choose to continue to be in private practice because MCPS doesn’t pay well and they keep many positions as part time to exclude benefits. Not a very attractive hiring model.

[Anonymous]

11.9% is a sizable number of students with diverse needs that are being discriminated against by MCPS. There’s a lot of frustration and anger from this stakeholder group whose children were ignored during the pandemic closures, there’s been minimal discussion of compensatory services, and basically little help thus far to help the 40% of this population of students catch back up.

My son is one of those students who fell behind. I have spent $12,000 in private services over the last two years to try to carry him through. We are tired of waiting and we want school choice because our children are denied the things that MCPS agreed that they need. We are not asking for a Cadillac education. Right now our children aren’t even getting a Ford Pinto of an education.

Enough bs from MCPS is enough.

[Anonymous]

My kid is in a non public placement. I went into CIEP already knowing the outcome. Whole meeting lasted 15 min. No lawyer, no advocate, no adversity. Every parent I’ve met at school has had a similar experience.

For as easy as they made it for my kid, I wonder if his needs are so significant that they significantly eclipse other kids or if parents of kids who are fighting for IEPs don’t have a realistic concept of FAPE and want “the best”

My kid was part of Covid virtual like everyone else. He didn’t do great during virtual, but he also didn’t fall off a cliff. Some of his goals were not able to be implemented but I worked with him where the school couldn’t. We’ve been offered compensatory services and while I think it’s lovely of them, I don’t think it’s necessary. The pandemic impacted everyone and somethings just had to be put on hold. School has offered us an option to repeat this year if I feel it’s necessary.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My kid is in a non public placement. I went into CIEP already knowing the outcome. Whole meeting lasted 15 min. No lawyer, no advocate, no adversity. Every parent I’ve met at school has had a similar experience.

For as easy as they made it for my kid, I wonder if his needs are so significant that they significantly eclipse other kids or if parents of kids who are fighting for IEPs don’t have a realistic concept of FAPE and want “the best”

My kid was part of Covid virtual like everyone else. He didn’t do great during virtual, but he also didn’t fall off a cliff. Some of his goals were not able to be implemented but I worked with him where the school couldn’t. We’ve been offered compensatory services and while I think it’s lovely of them, I don’t think it’s necessary. The pandemic impacted everyone and somethings just had to be put on hold. School has offered us an option to repeat this year if I feel it’s necessary.

You have private placement. Is it at public expense or are you paying for the private placement?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid is in a non public placement. I went into CIEP already knowing the outcome. Whole meeting lasted 15 min. No lawyer, no advocate, no adversity. Every parent I’ve met at school has had a similar experience.

For as easy as they made it for my kid, I wonder if his needs are so significant that they significantly eclipse other kids or if parents of kids who are fighting for IEPs don’t have a realistic concept of FAPE and want “the best”

My kid was part of Covid virtual like everyone else. He didn’t do great during virtual, but he also didn’t fall off a cliff. Some of his goals were not able to be implemented but I worked with him where the school couldn’t. We’ve been offered compensatory services and while I think it’s lovely of them, I don’t think it’s necessary. The pandemic impacted everyone and somethings just had to be put on hold. School has offered us an option to repeat this year if I feel it’s necessary.

You have private placement. Is it at public expense or are you paying for the private placement?

Public expense. I’m not sure having a voucher would make a difference to me. I could not afford my kids school even if I had $10k off but had to pay the rest.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Privates are recruiting again.

There was a 300% increase in private school applications in 2021. Most full pay. They don’t have to recruit. This is a desperate post from a publics parent who can’t afford to leave their school zone. No private wants to be deluged with the 160,000 applications of students fleeing MCPS.

Haha made up statistics.. so DCUM.

Not made up for the well know privates.