Gazette article: Exiting Montgomery County school board member, family leave public school system

[Anonymous]

Laura Berthiaume has taken her kids out of MCPS, citing Curriculum 2.0 as one of the reasons.

http://www.gazette.net/article/20121205/NEWS/712059573/1070/exiting-montgomery-county-school-board-member-family-leave-public&template=gazette

Thoughts?

[Anonymous]

I applaud her honesty!

[Anonymous]

You can't fight City Hall. She fought longer and harder than most, and even got elected. There just aren't enough people like her who are willing to throw themselves into the fray. Too bad.

[Anonymous]

That's what MCPS and the school board did to me too - totally turned me away from the Democratic Party and its politics. Once you get involved and realize what's going on it just makes you feel sick. And all of this is happening at the expense of taxpayers.

[Anonymous]

I think part of the problem is that MoCo is so big-- IIRC it's one of the 10 largest school systems in the country. I think "community superintendents" are a good thing if the system is that big, but it's a little crazy that we have to have them, when in probably 98% of other school districts they would just be the school superintendent. Doing anything in a system that big is always going to be incredibly hard.

[Anonymous]

Also the divide between the school board and the county council is very odd and problematic.

[Anonymous]

Umm her son is now attending something called the First Presbyterian School. Go with God, all those of you who hate MCPS. I'm sure there are a lot of 4th Presbyterian kids at Harvard.

And since her daughter is at Holton Arms, where she presumably didn't get in mid-semester, this woman doesn't sound terribly committed to public schools to begin with. Note that she also takes the opportunity to trash kids from troubled families, why? Is that relevant to her choice to leave the board and MCPS? If this article was a bid for sympathy or support, she lost me.

[Anonymous]

You seem defensive, PP. The article says she pulled her son out after last school year, so no mid year switch. Sounds like her frustration has been brewing for a while, not some simple protest move.

I'm not defending her because I don't know anything beyond what the article says. But it seems like you are just trying to hatchet her.

Article makes the MCPS board sound pretty messed up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think part of the problem is that MoCo is so big-- IIRC it's one of the 10 largest school systems in the country. I think "community superintendents" are a good thing if the system is that big, but it's a little crazy that we have to have them, when in probably 98% of other school districts they would just be the school superintendent. Doing anything in a system that big is always going to be incredibly hard.

I agree. The lack of local control/voice makes me crazy. I don't understand it, not at all.

My kids are in middle & high school magnets, and when I read about 2.0 I feel like we got the last train out of Dodge.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Umm her son is now attending something called the First Presbyterian School. Go with God, all those of you who hate MCPS. I'm sure there are a lot of 4th Presbyterian kids at Harvard.

And since her daughter is at Holton Arms, where she presumably didn't get in mid-semester, this woman doesn't sound terribly committed to public schools to begin with. Note that she also takes the opportunity to trash kids from troubled families, why? Is that relevant to her choice to leave the board and MCPS? If this article was a bid for sympathy or support, she lost me.

She doesn't trash kids from troubled families. She says the school system cannot take on all of the problems, including home problems, of the students it serves. I agree with her - we devote far too few resources to our children in this country. 1/7th of the number we devote to the elderly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Umm her son is now attending something called the First Presbyterian School. Go with God, all those of you who hate MCPS. I'm sure there are a lot of 4th Presbyterian kids at Harvard.

And since her daughter is at Holton Arms, where she presumably didn't get in mid-semester, this woman doesn't sound terribly committed to public schools to begin with. Note that she also takes the opportunity to trash kids from troubled families, why? Is that relevant to her choice to leave the board and MCPS? If this article was a bid for sympathy or support, she lost me.

She doesn't trash kids from troubled families. She says the school system cannot take on all of the problems, including home problems, of the students it serves. I agree with her - we devote far too few resources to our children in this country. 1/7th of the number we devote to the elderly.

She didn't state that we devote too few rersources to our children and I'd like to see support for the statement that we devote 1/7th of the amount that is devoted to the elderly. You need to look at everything that's available on the local, state and Federal level. My experience with MCPS is that they provide a tremendous amount of support to kids who need it, both in terms of providing for their physical needs and their academic needs. Back to the article, I'm not sure that Curriculum 2.0 is as awful as people make it out to be, I just don't understand why it has to be packaged with the need to remove all acceleration. I do agree with her that MCPS is a crazy bureaucracy. To me, it serves more as a jobs program for high paid administrators. I mean, look at Starr, guy is awful but gets almost half mil a year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Umm her son is now attending something called the First Presbyterian School. Go with God, all those of you who hate MCPS. I'm sure there are a lot of 4th Presbyterian kids at Harvard.

And since her daughter is at Holton Arms, where she presumably didn't get in mid-semester, this woman doesn't sound terribly committed to public schools to begin with. Note that she also takes the opportunity to trash kids from troubled families, why? Is that relevant to her choice to leave the board and MCPS? If this article was a bid for sympathy or support, she lost me.

She doesn't trash kids from troubled families. She says the school system cannot take on all of the problems, including home problems, of the students it serves. I agree with her - we devote far too few resources to our children in this country. 1/7th of the number we devote to the elderly.

She didn't state that we devote too few rersources to our children and I'd like to see support for the statement that we devote 1/7th of the amount that is devoted to the elderly. You need to look at everything that's available on the local, state and Federal level. My experience with MCPS is that they provide a tremendous amount of support to kids who need it, both in terms of providing for their physical needs and their academic needs. Back to the article, I'm not sure that Curriculum 2.0 is as awful as people make it out to be, I just don't understand why it has to be packaged with the need to remove all acceleration. I do agree with her that MCPS is a crazy bureaucracy. To me, it serves more as a jobs program for high paid administrators. I mean, look at Starr, guy is awful but gets almost half mil a year.

I didn't say she said that. She did say the school system cannot solve all of the problems that low-income students present.

RE the 1/7th figure. here is your source:

http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/research/files/re...20isaacs/1_how_much_isaacs.pdf

You can probably thank the lobbying arm of the AARP for that.

Federally, we spend $7 on programs for elderly people for every $1 spent on programs for children. The result of that has been an incredible reduction in the number of older people living in poverty since the 1970s — but 21 percent of the children in the United States live in families with incomes below the poverty level, the highest percentage since 1993 and the highest numbers (about 16.4 million) since 1962. This is a fact.

[Anonymous]

The article said she has 2 daughters in private school and pulled her third, the son, ostensibly because of 2.0. Again, good riddance, I'd prefer if my representatives to the PUBLIC school board actually utilize public schools for their families! Thats not a very high bar for expectations! Personally I think the 2.0 stuff is just a dodge to avoid acknowledging that she was not an appropriate person to represent families in MCPS. Debat 2.0 all you want, but I wouldn't embrace this fraud an an advocate.

[Anonymous]

Good Riddance. I'm pretty sure I didn't vote for her. Glad she has found the right situation for her kids, glad she is gone.

[Anonymous]

I didn't realize that her two daughters were in private school during her tenure on the board until I read this article. I agree with posters above who would prefer board members who are committed to public education. Clearly prior to her tenure she'd already decided to vote against MCPS.