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Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS)
BOE election candidates 2024
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Anonymous
Have you ever attended or watched one of their meetings? They do not in fact appear to be "in charge"--the appear to be getting ridden like a toy rocking horse by MCPS Central Office lackeys. I'm not voting for any whack job book banning crap under any circumstances, but otherwise whomever produces a credible explanation of how they will end that dynamic will get my vote. I hope it's Laura Stewart; I think she could be great at it. |
Anonymous
It's my understanding that prior to Kim, Deal had tracking - with honors courses for a select group of high achievers. Under Kim, Deal changed from a junior high to a middle school & also switched to an "honors for all" approach with heterogeneous classrooms. So, be clear what you mean by prioritizing academics. I know that many in MCPS are frustrated by the lowest-common-denominator approach to academics (like detracking & grade inflation etc) in the service of equity for all. Some others might support that tack. Deal prior to Kim was still the most highly regarded junior high in the city. So the turnaround story is suspect to me. I knew Kim's predecessor, Reginald Moss, and many of the teachers who worked at Deal. The reason that many associate Kim with Michelle Rhee is that Rhee as superintended pushed out a lot of (in my opinion & many others) highly regarded African American teachers in an attempt to blame on teachers, indiscriminately, the absolute corruption at 825 North Capitol St (the former location of DCPS central office). Prior to Rhee, Deal never got student books before November & the building was crumbling overhead. Fenty & Allan Lew (may he RIP) got new buildings built - huge props to them for that - and Rhee attempted to break the culture of the central office by taking her broom & sweeping a LOT of frankly excellent teachers out with the chaff. Rhee, for all her talk, only lasted 3 years and then bailed on the District, leaving DCPS with its revolving door of superintendents intact. DCPS pushed out Moss with some bogus Pizzagate conspiracy & failed to give him credit for pulling in as many out of boundary kids as possible to the best jr high in the city & being the person who actually turned around Deal in the 70s. But, I'm older than a lot of other parents on here. At any rate, the link between Rhee & Kim & Kim's staunch defender Jacquie Davis is that they are all ed reformers from a New Leaders New Schools/TFA background who thought blowing up a bunch of African American teachers while they shook up the system was going to be the answer to all of DCPS's woes. Turns out that their implementation of standardized tests that didn't align with the curriculum at all but fed into IMPACT, a cutthroat test-scores-above-all metric evaluation system, resulted in the exodus of many great teachers to surrounding districts & in the unfair penalization of many of those who stayed. ABSOLUTELY not what MCPS needs right now. If their ideas were so great, why hasn't DCPS become a shining star? Perhaps because the answer to intergenerational poverty & central office corruption is not to demonize teachers (or strong principals, like Moss). I have no inside info about Kim's treatment of staff, by the way, but I do have many thoughts about whether she "turned around" Deal or whether Rhee "turned around" DCPS. Not at all interested in importing any of their ideas into a county struggling with similar problems to those they failed to solve. |
Anonymous
No, it's exactly the opposite. Deal may have been the most highly regarded middle school in DC prior to Kim, but that's because the bar was low. It was still not a particularly desirable school. Kim transformed Deal into a much more rigorous school that everyone wanted to attend. Honors for all is newer. She left deal well more than a decade ago. |
Anonymous
+1. I don't know them personally, but my kids attended schools with theirs when they were involved PTSA volunteers, and they were great at sharing updates and helpful information on the listservs and at meetings. They're both smart and dedicated and I appreciate their willingness to run for these seats. |
Anonymous
lol. Tell me you know NOTHING and have never been to an MCPS BOE meeting without telling me you know nothing and have never been to a BOE meeting |
Anonymous
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Here is the DCUM reaction when Kim announced she was leaving Deal:
https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/193775.page |
Anonymous
Reading is key. The BOE ***IS*** in charge. They chose to do nothing. You must be one of them. |
Anonymous
Guess who has the power to set the agenda for these important topics, extend the time in certain topics, tell staff to stop blah blah blah’ing, etc.? It’s the board members! They’re in charge. The idea that Lynn Harris would do a much better job if things just weren’t scheduled for such short discussion times is laughable. She can force MCPS staff to spend as much time as she wants on matters. As can the rest of the BOE. Instead, they all sit up there like a bunch of stiffs and get info provided to them out of a firehose. And we’re here given them kudos for occasionally asking a follow up question. It’s a complete joke of an organizational setup. |
Anonymous
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The BOE is supposed to be in charge, elected to represent the interests of the community, but they lack the salary to dedicate the necessary time and the direct-report staff to collect community feedback/do the legwork. $25K, a support person to cover bare-minimum administrata? For a ~$5B enterprise covering ~200k stakeholders among staff and students? Please!
Take a look at the County Council. They have A LOT of money going to similar work. It's broader, of course, but considering the relative budgets (excluding the MCPS budget from the remainder of the County expenditures) and relative expectations, the money going to representative oversight, there, is something like an order of magnitude greater, and I don't think we get a greater relative return on that expense. That's not to say the BOE is doing a good job, just that the current conditions present a terrible handicap. MCPS, which is "overseen" by the BOE, but is a separate organization, really determines most of what goes on. If we had a highly responsive and responsible administration, that could help solve things, but the upper leadership for a very long time has been determinedly lacking in the openness necessary to bring that about and highly focused on that which many might see as progressive, niche initiatives. That last bit is the fault of the BOE over the past decade (or three). The limited time/resources available to BOE members constrain their focus to higher-level policy changes, along with selections of Superintendents who might sympathetically adhere to them, and those who have been elected largely have had the aforementioned initiatives as their goals. In that sense, it's the fault of the electorate, most of whom either: 1) have personal interests that align with the initiatives, themselves, or 2) are not particularly invested in education (e.g., those without school-aged or near-school-aged children), or 3) don't care enough about the subject to discern, independently, among BOE candidates. In addition, many of those who have thrown their hat in the ring for election who might present an alternative to the status quo have been difficult to support because of their own unpopular leanings. Who has stepped forward in the past decade to bring accountability, responsiveness and a focus on educational excellence, without wanting to tear the system down with defunding and/or disrupt with unlikable social conservativism of one sort or another? |
Anonymous
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To make this as simple as possible- if you like Lynne Harris and Jill Ortman-Fouse- then vote for Laura Stewart. She is absolutely more of that, and she would probably say that herself.
If you do not- then she is not the candidate for you. |
Anonymous
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Jill Ortman Fous was on the board when my child started in MCPS and she was the only BOE member who responded when I emailed them questions or comments. I met her once at an event and asked a question, and she noted it down and connected me with the right administrator to get more information. She was approachable and always seemed to want to make what the board was doing more accessible through social media. If Laura Stewart is like her, that seems like a good thing.
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Anonymous
+1,000,000 |
Anonymous
Glad to hear you will be voting for your friends. Laura is an insider. If she were going to agitate for change, she would have done so long ago. |
Anonymous
I don't know anything about these people but will support the teacher's union by voting straight apple ballot. |
Anonymous
I don’t know about these people either, but I think the apple ballot is a huge problem in our county’s school board elections. I think many voters want to support teachers and assume that as teachers know what’s going on in schools, supporting teachers is the best way to support education. At one point, I did too. What these voters don’t realize is that the priority of the teacher’s union is not to improve education. While I’m sure they’re pleased if it happens to occur as a side effect, their primary goal is to negotiate the best possible contract for teachers. I respect teachers tremendously and think they should be well compensated for their work, but my understanding is that MCPS is already relatively generous. My priority in voting for the school board is to improve the education of our children - something with which, unlike teacher contracts, I think MCPS has huge problems. Moreover, the teacher’s union has developed a finely tuned cycle of corruption where candidates have to pay the union to get the apple ballot endorsement so that then they can get elected and prioritize union goals. https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/04/AR2010020404421.html I prioritize education, support teachers, and loathe the teacher’s union. |