There Needs to Be Enforced Equity Among PTA's

[Anonymous]

Montgomery County is ruined by the equality thing, No longer can the smart kids be too smart, they can't take the hardest classes because not everyone can take them,

It is the mindset to make everyone the same and we are all goin to be happy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't actually like anything my PTA funds, so I'm not interested in donating or joining them. I give my teacher an anonymous gift card to Amazon at the beginning of the year. I also volunteer when asked. I send in balls/toys/games because last year there wasn't *one* toy on the entire playground for Kindergarteners. DD said something about it on the first day and I didn't believe her. But then the whining kept continuing so I contacted the teacher and then the principal- nope- no toys! They expected them to just sit and talk or run around? I mean it was a walled in courtyard that didn't even have a bench/ball/play structure/chalk- nothing!

The things my school needs funded, can't be funded by PTA: new playground equipment, more teachers, tutoring, redone bathrooms/ cafeterias/ libraries.

It can’t be funded by the PTA but the PTA can work with MCCPTA and other PTAs to advocate to the BOE, Central Office, the County, and State. Folks forget that a central part of PTA is advocacy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How is this legal????
https://www.whitmanfoundation.org/

This makes me furious. These are PUBLIC schools! My elementary, middle, and high schools in MCPS don't have access to these resources. I mean, I knew the deck was stacked against us, but not by this much.

We are also hardworking. We are also taxpayers. But our families don't come from money, so we can't afford to buy into these districts that are dominated by $1million+ SFHs.

The extent of which the wealthy think they 100% deserve what they have makes me furious. They only see that they're giving their children the best-- not that in by doing so they're depriving other children of opportunities.

What happened to our sense of community? Everyone is just out for what they can grab for themselves.

There is a sense of community. If you join a community be moving there you have an interest in all children getting what is needed. That is a very different question from doing all you can to make sure things work well for your children. That is an obligation on you. If you can do more for your child you do it. No one is saying do less for others but the rich kid and the poor kid have different experiences. Just the way it will always be. What you should want is that the government give an education to the poor kid so that the poor kid can be rich. We are not doing that. It has little to do with the PTA and more to do with not knowing how to teach kids. We need to spend lots more money because frankly education has become a national security issue. So I would support a massive amount of new spending that would make build back better supporter blush. But this has nothing to do with the PTA.

[Anonymous]

Our PTA does a lot admittedly but it also does a lot for the poorest school in MCPS from coat drives to fund sharing. Kneecapping the "rich" schools will hurt the poorer ones first.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Our PTA does a lot admittedly but it also does a lot for the poorest school in MCPS from coat drives to fund sharing. Kneecapping the "rich" schools will hurt the poorer ones first.

I, for one, am not advocating to kneecap rich schools. But I do think the general public should understand that these foundations can raise and spend $100k or more per year. There are advantages to having current/modern physics labs, brand new iPads, paid guest lecturers from NIH, etc.

Keep that in mind when those schools get dozens of acceptances to the world's top universities. It isn't just that individual families really take care of their kids. It is that these communities really take care of their kids.

Now do you understand why an ordinary house is millions in those neighborhoods?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We need to suppress students who are doing too well academically by eliminating tracking and ap classes. We also need to definitely enforcing equity with ptas. I totally agree, OP. We need to end poverty. We need to ensure that everyone has the same decision making capacity or enforce decisions so that all decisions are the same and everyone achieves the same outcome even if we need to hold some back to achieve it.

A few of us are trying to have a serious conversation here. I'm sure you can find something else to do with your time...[/quote

Oh, I’m sorry did my satirical post interrupt a completely serious thread titled: “we need to enforce equity among PTA’s”?

Because from what I see, these last few years of progressive hyperbole, fatalism and poor decision making on behalf of all students with regard to education reform may not make my post all that silly. Effectively, much of what is being proposed either hurts educational outcomes long term, waters down academic rigor or, and I hate to sound like a conservative, is a sort of pseudo-socialism masquerading as social activism. What you folks fail to realize is that no matter what you can’t stop driven parents from wanting the best for their kids and you btching about some PTAs and their ability to provide for their own children is just them trying to get ahead. Another poster here noted the same. All these attempts to restrain educational excellence and attainment of advanced learning is pathetic. We need engineers who are qualified to build things, not ones that were advanced because they were “close” to the right answer. Stop whining about PTA funding. Maybe the communities themselves in poorly functioning areas should give more of a fk, and advocate more, for their own kids. These are the kinds of parents who should buy leas PlayStation 5’s and maybe put the money towards tutoring.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our local ES PTA has a sister school that they fundraise for/provides funds to. Instead of trying to discourage parent giving PTA’s that can afford it should work with a sister school.

So does the teachers at the sister school also get $250? Or just like old books and handed down clothes ?

Do we have a system where all wealthy otas have adopted a title 1 or focus school or is it haphazardly dive?

It's equal fundraising $, not random used stuff. Like paying for a new gym at our school and the sister school, etc.

When has an MCPS PTA ever paid for a new gym? That’s stuff for the CIP. Our PTA did pay for playground equipment, like benches and stuff. But that’s not a physical structure. What PTA has millions to fund construction costs?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was President of one of these more wealthy associations and we donated a huge amount of money to the county to disperse to other schools that didn't have the same level of participation as the more successful schools. We also mentored their association on fund raising etc. It isn't that they don't have the money in those areas, it is they lack participation.

And why do you think they lack participation? People are working! People that don't make as much money have more inflexible jobs. They also tend to work in the evenings when these meetings are held (like me). They also probably can't afford a house cleaner, so they have to keep up their house themselves after work. They also probably can't afford to order take out as much either-- cooking dinner takes time. They might also not have two cars, or might have to rely on public transportation to make it to the school-- public transportation that stops running or gets scarce later in the day. It blows my mind that people don't see the connection. A lack of participation doesn't mean that parents don't care-- it's that they don't have the energy to do so after all the other work they have to do. The wealthy have easier lives in a million little ways that add up to them having more energy to participate.

I was a PTA officer of a very poor school with high FARMS and ESOL rates. We made dinner available to people, encouraged them to bring their whole family to PTA meetings, had childcare and babysitting provided with movie nights, ran shuttles, to get the parents to participate. Crickets! None of the poor people showed up. Did not matter when we had the meetings, did not matter if we had translators, if we had coffee and breakfast made available to them, had weekend events for the family. LOL! These people did not show up.

I don't resent the rich school. Because rich or poor, no one wants to parent their children it seems and parental participation is very little in both rich and poor school. Yes, the rich can still throw money for outsourcing their kid's education, opportunities or EC activities because they are aware of the path to a MC/UMC/Rich life and what education and ECs their kids will need to at least get into a good college.

The awful truth is that for uneducated parents or poorly educated parents in poor schools, they have no idea of what the education that opens the door to college and career even looks like. They are not the guides that their children can get help from. As a result, they completely cede control to the school and not question any made up statistics that the school tells them. They are gullible and they are powerless. They are fed the lies by unscrupulous administrators that the achievement gap is completely filled in their schools.

They do not even understand what they hear because they themselves are poorly educated. They will not be involved with the PTA because they see no reason to advocate for their child. They can easily be manipulated by MCPS and school administration to advocate for dismantling programs that they think give unfair advantages to other children doing better than theirs. They are fed the lies that their kids are doing poorly because other kids have taken the resources of their children. They never ask more of the administration and the teachers, but somehow their sense of entitlement to get some sort of restitution from others doing better than them is immense.

I think the PTA of rich schools should not feel guilty for what they do for their own children. I find this misplaced guilt even more annoying than the fact that they have money. Seriously.

MCPS provides the same to rich and poor schools. However, the parents of poor school cannot even maximize what opportunities MCPS provides. However, they will bellyache about the icecream socials that the rich school kids get through their PTA. They don't know that they need to ask MCPS for more Math and English tutoring, more experienced teachers, more aides in the classrooms. This is the level of understanding of their own problems.

Rich parents want their kids to go to college and know what career path they will choose. Poor parents don't have any idea of what this path will mean. They are aware that other kids are doing better but it is easier to be the fake victim of others pickpocketing their "golden" opportunities rather than to accept that they are in a deep, deep hole because of whatever reasons and they need to get the help to get out of it. That is the reason this thread was started. To blame for your own misfortunes and shortcoming someone else, rather than face what your own disadvantages are and find a way out. They don't acknowledge their problems and swallow the bitter pill, so their ongoing chronic disease of underachievement is never addressed.

Did you stop to consider it was either you or a past president/board that was not welcoming. You can offer all those things but not be welcoming or inclusive and why would people participate. The other issue is the schools run separate groups and generally its very segregated.

[Anonymous]

If the Sup and BOE didn't spend $1M on bocce ball, $2M on diversity training, $4M on Kid Museum, that could have been a nice $500 bonus for all 13,000 teachers with change to spare for exemplary awards.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If the Sup and BOE didn't spend $1M on bocce ball, $2M on diversity training, $4M on Kid Museum, that could have been a nice $500 bonus for all 13,000 teachers with change to spare for exemplary awards.

Or $500 for classroom supplies. Ironic that MCPS schools still have to pay to use the Kid museum. At least give free field trips. Our school didn't get any bocce ball kits. $100 bonus/supplies even.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How is this legal????
https://www.whitmanfoundation.org/

This makes me furious. These are PUBLIC schools! My elementary, middle, and high schools in MCPS don't have access to these resources. I mean, I knew the deck was stacked against us, but not by this much.

We are also hardworking. We are also taxpayers. But our families don't come from money, so we can't afford to buy into these districts that are dominated by $1million+ SFHs.

The extent of which the wealthy think they 100% deserve what they have makes me furious. They only see that they're giving their children the best-- not that in by doing so they're depriving other children of opportunities.

What happened to our sense of community? Everyone is just out for what they can grab for themselves.

There's an easy solution. You yourself go out and earn a few million dollars, then create your own foundation for your kid's HS. There! Problem solved. See how easy that was!

But if you can't, then you probably need to respect the folks that can and realize that the Earth does not revolve around you.

Even when my family lived in a 115K townhome because that's all I could afford, I still made time to nurture my kids and teach them myself. So if you're looking to pawn off your responsibility as a parent on someone else, I feel sorry for your kid and I think you're a really bad parent.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If the Sup and BOE didn't spend $1M on bocce ball, $2M on diversity training, $4M on Kid Museum, that could have been a nice $500 bonus for all 13,000 teachers with change to spare for exemplary awards.

MCPS has a $3 billion budget with hundreds of line items. The great bocce ball war of 2020 was a good laugh - but let's really dig into it?

[Anonymous]

Those were just easy examples to prove. Go through line-by-line and audit receipts. I'm sure it'll be an eye-opener.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If the Sup and BOE didn't spend $1M on bocce ball, $2M on diversity training, $4M on Kid Museum, that could have been a nice $500 bonus for all 13,000 teachers with change to spare for exemplary awards.

MCPS has a $3 billion budget with hundreds of line items. The great bocce ball war of 2020 was a good laugh - but let's really dig into it?

The real solution to this is simple, DIVERSITY BUSING since it will put all PTAs on equal footing!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t think teachers should pay anything out-of-pocket for supplies or class materials. I think it’s a shame that the county doesn’t provide a stipend for every single classroom teacher.

However I don’t think PTA should be limited or capped If they want to reimburse teachers for bells and whistles. Our school pta adopted A less fortunate school and we fund raise and give them supplies. It’s telling that the original author only cares about this now that her school does not have the resources or strong pta.

Our Principal told us that MCPS DOES pay for all supplies and class materials that are part of the curriculum. It's all the extra after-school or special programs that they don't. That's where the inequity comes in. Don't be fooled in thinking that the experience at all schools is the same. I would be okay with this fact if any MCPS kid is allowed to attend any school but they can't, and the reality is school boundaries are highly segregated by SES.

If you walked into a classroom that just had the basic supplies, no classroom library, nothing else I'm sure you would be pissed off. There's always some smart-ass who claims they are okay with the bare minimum but most are not

Engaged and resourceful teachers create good classroom environments. It is fully independent of socio-economic status.

Although it takes effort, there are many, many charitable organizations and book publishers that provide books and materials to teachers in low income schools. The OP just needs to do a search on DCUM for multiple threads with lots of links.