Got the MD Board of Education absentee ballot today. Who will be least likely to raise taxes?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Board of Education cannot raise your taxes. They will of course ask for more money every year because1- everybody wants a pay raise the next year and 2 - thousands of more students come to MCPS every year - thousands.

The County Council is responsible for taxes, and no matter what nut-job Robin Ficker would like you to believe, they have all already committed to no new taxes next year and no raising taxes next year.

Get ready for cuts a lot of pain everywhere. For schools it's going to be worse for every school, because we will get more students than usual because privates will have people leaving who can no longer afford it, that's what happened in 2008, and because we already have horrible overcrowding.

Why does MoCo have such horrible overcrowding?

Because in many places, enrollment exceeds capacity, and MCPS hasn't undertaken any boundary adjustments to reassign kids to nearby schools that are under capacity.

In what areas are enrollments exceeding capacity and why are they seeing increased enrollment?

The overall reason for overcrowding is MCPS does a really poor job of estimating enrollment when it comes to new development. For example, if an apartment building goes up in Bethesda ($2k+/month rents), they assume only a tiny fraction of tenants will be families so that 100-unit building will only add a couple kids to the schools. In reality, lots of families move there so the actual number of kids is much higher. They constantly under-project -- they didn't properly account for all the empty nesters in developed neighborhoods who moved out, and families with kids taking their place either.

For new buildings, developers have to pay an "impact fee" for the additional resources the new residents will use. It ranges in the $10-25k/unit price depending on the type of building. But if you look at the recent school construction projects, it costs about $60k/seat to build or renovate a school.

In short, there's blame all around.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Austin is for fiscal accountability and community voice in decision making. He wants excellent education for all. This is possible still being fiscally responsible by more closely finding how money is spent and data informed outcomes. He will listen to the voices of communities of parents, teachers, and students.

Please explain how he will create " excellent education for all" in terms of overcrowded schools?

He doesn't want to look at adjacent clusters when redrawing boundaries, which means we have to build more. So, how does he think MCPS will afford to address over crowded schools with the limited budget? And of course now they have to also spend time and money on dealing with the lawsuit that *he* in involved in.

Please explain Austin's plan for how he will address over crowding in our schools? And also, please explain why he doesn't want neighborhood schools, but rather the status quo? Let's recall that some 30 to 40% of students do not attend their closest school.

Austin posted this on Twitter today:

"Not many students are actually eligible to be moved for capacity if we stick to adjacencies. I’ve been saying this all along, but here’s the data summary on my numbers:"

https://twitter.com/Stephen_Austin_/status/1262020682516508672

Based on his computations, derived from the WXY report, moving students to adjacent schools won't solve the overcrowding issue.

Isn't that sweet? Steve Austin is using data from the WXY report he opposed. I guess it's turned out to be useful after all! How about that?

It's a weak argument, anyway. Just because boundary changes wouldn't ameliorate all overcrowding problems, doesn't mean we shouldn't do it where it would.

I see nothing wrong with that. It's the most recent data, why not use it if it's there?

I opposed certain roadway projects, but they were built anyway, and I'll use it if it's there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Austin is for fiscal accountability and community voice in decision making. He wants excellent education for all. This is possible still being fiscally responsible by more closely finding how money is spent and data informed outcomes. He will listen to the voices of communities of parents, teachers, and students.

Everyone says that they're for those things.

Meanwhile he's done a pretty lousy job, so far, of listening to the voices of parents, teachers, and students who disagree with him. He never volunteered for anything MCPS-related before running for a seat on the BoE. And if he were successful in opposing boundary changes, then either kids would unnecessarily remain in overcrowded schools, or MCPS would unnecessarily spend hundreds of millions of dollars unnecessarily building new schools.

Austin is the only candidate calling for an independent auditor for MCPS. With a $2.8bln budget, I"m surprised they don't already have an independent auditor (FCPS does), but indeed that's the case. Makes you wonder why the union-supported candidates aren't making the call for financial accountability? What's so bad about that?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Austin is for fiscal accountability and community voice in decision making. He wants excellent education for all. This is possible still being fiscally responsible by more closely finding how money is spent and data informed outcomes. He will listen to the voices of communities of parents, teachers, and students.

Please explain how he will create " excellent education for all" in terms of overcrowded schools?

He doesn't want to look at adjacent clusters when redrawing boundaries, which means we have to build more. So, how does he think MCPS will afford to address over crowded schools with the limited budget? And of course now they have to also spend time and money on dealing with the lawsuit that *he* in involved in.

Please explain Austin's plan for how he will address over crowding in our schools? And also, please explain why he doesn't want neighborhood schools, but rather the status quo? Let's recall that some 30 to 40% of students do not attend their closest school.

Austin posted this on Twitter today:

"Not many students are actually eligible to be moved for capacity if we stick to adjacencies. I’ve been saying this all along, but here’s the data summary on my numbers:"

https://twitter.com/Stephen_Austin_/status/1262020682516508672

Based on his computations, derived from the WXY report, moving students to adjacent schools won't solve the overcrowding issue.

Isn't that sweet? Steve Austin is using data from the WXY report he opposed. I guess it's turned out to be useful after all! How about that?

It's a weak argument, anyway. Just because boundary changes wouldn't ameliorate all overcrowding problems, doesn't mean we shouldn't do it where it would.

I see nothing wrong with that. It's the most recent data, why not use it if it's there?

I opposed certain roadway projects, but they were built anyway, and I'll use it if it's there.

I guess you don't know about all of the kicking, screaming, and foot-stomping from the NO-BOUNDARY-ANALYSIS!!!!!!!! faction. I'll summarize.

People who thought the boundary analysis might be a good idea: "It's a good idea to collect data and analyze the issues."
The NO-BOUNDARY ANALYSIS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! faction (including Steve Austin): "No! Stop lying to us! The fix is in! No boundary analysis! Cancel the contract! Shut it down!"

If Steve Austin would concede that he was wrong about the boundary analysis, and that it actually did provide useful data (I mean, here he is, using the data, so obviously it provided useful data), that might be one thing. But I haven't heard him concede that he was wrong about the boundary analysis. Have you?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Austin is for fiscal accountability and community voice in decision making. He wants excellent education for all. This is possible still being fiscally responsible by more closely finding how money is spent and data informed outcomes. He will listen to the voices of communities of parents, teachers, and students.

Please explain how he will create " excellent education for all" in terms of overcrowded schools?

He doesn't want to look at adjacent clusters when redrawing boundaries, which means we have to build more. So, how does he think MCPS will afford to address over crowded schools with the limited budget? And of course now they have to also spend time and money on dealing with the lawsuit that *he* in involved in.

Please explain Austin's plan for how he will address over crowding in our schools? And also, please explain why he doesn't want neighborhood schools, but rather the status quo? Let's recall that some 30 to 40% of students do not attend their closest school.

Austin posted this on Twitter today:

"Not many students are actually eligible to be moved for capacity if we stick to adjacencies. I’ve been saying this all along, but here’s the data summary on my numbers:"

https://twitter.com/Stephen_Austin_/status/1262020682516508672

Based on his computations, derived from the WXY report, moving students to adjacent schools won't solve the overcrowding issue.

No, but it will help. And it isn't interesting that the WXY report discovered that 30 to 40% of students don't go to their neighborhood school? Doesn't Austin want this... neighborhood schools?

So, I still haven't heard from Austin and his supporters how they plan on addressing the overcrowding issue.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Austin is for fiscal accountability and community voice in decision making. He wants excellent education for all. This is possible still being fiscally responsible by more closely finding how money is spent and data informed outcomes. He will listen to the voices of communities of parents, teachers, and students.

Everyone says that they're for those things.

Meanwhile he's done a pretty lousy job, so far, of listening to the voices of parents, teachers, and students who disagree with him. He never volunteered for anything MCPS-related before running for a seat on the BoE. And if he were successful in opposing boundary changes, then either kids would unnecessarily remain in overcrowded schools, or MCPS would unnecessarily spend hundreds of millions of dollars unnecessarily building new schools.

Austin is the only candidate calling for an independent auditor for MCPS. With a $2.8bln budget, I"m surprised they don't already have an independent auditor (FCPS does), but indeed that's the case. Makes you wonder why the union-supported candidates aren't making the call for financial accountability? What's so bad about that?

There are 13 candidates for BoE at large. ONE of them received the union endorsement. If you don't want to vote for someone endorsed by the union, you have 12 other candidates to choose from. And almost all of those 12 candidates have more experience with MCPS than Steve Austin (not difficult to do, since he had none, prior to making a name for himself by opposing the district-wide boundary analysis).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

The overall reason for overcrowding is MCPS does a really poor job of estimating enrollment when it comes to new development. For example, if an apartment building goes up in Bethesda ($2k+/month rents), they assume only a tiny fraction of tenants will be families so that 100-unit building will only add a couple kids to the schools. In reality, lots of families move there so the actual number of kids is much higher. They constantly under-project -- they didn't properly account for all the empty nesters in developed neighborhoods who moved out, and families with kids taking their place either.

For new buildings, developers have to pay an "impact fee" for the additional resources the new residents will use. It ranges in the $10-25k/unit price depending on the type of building. But if you look at the recent school construction projects, it costs about $60k/seat to build or renovate a school.

In short, there's blame all around.

That's been repeatedly shown to be false, PP. There are lots of over-capacity schools where there has been no new development.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Austin is for fiscal accountability and community voice in decision making. He wants excellent education for all. This is possible still being fiscally responsible by more closely finding how money is spent and data informed outcomes. He will listen to the voices of communities of parents, teachers, and students.

Everyone says that they're for those things.

Meanwhile he's done a pretty lousy job, so far, of listening to the voices of parents, teachers, and students who disagree with him. He never volunteered for anything MCPS-related before running for a seat on the BoE. And if he were successful in opposing boundary changes, then either kids would unnecessarily remain in overcrowded schools, or MCPS would unnecessarily spend hundreds of millions of dollars unnecessarily building new schools.

Austin is the only candidate calling for an independent auditor for MCPS. With a $2.8bln budget, I"m surprised they don't already have an independent auditor (FCPS does), but indeed that's the case. Makes you wonder why the union-supported candidates aren't making the call for financial accountability? What's so bad about that?

DP.. nothing wrong with financial accountability. Has anyone stated that we don't need an IG?

But how does Austin propose to alleviate overcrowding without increasing our taxes?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Austin is for fiscal accountability and community voice in decision making. He wants excellent education for all. This is possible still being fiscally responsible by more closely finding how money is spent and data informed outcomes. He will listen to the voices of communities of parents, teachers, and students.

Everyone says that they're for those things.

Meanwhile he's done a pretty lousy job, so far, of listening to the voices of parents, teachers, and students who disagree with him. He never volunteered for anything MCPS-related before running for a seat on the BoE. And if he were successful in opposing boundary changes, then either kids would unnecessarily remain in overcrowded schools, or MCPS would unnecessarily spend hundreds of millions of dollars unnecessarily building new schools.

Austin is the only candidate calling for an independent auditor for MCPS. With a $2.8bln budget, I"m surprised they don't already have an independent auditor (FCPS does), but indeed that's the case. Makes you wonder why the union-supported candidates aren't making the call for financial accountability? What's so bad about that?

DP.. nothing wrong with financial accountability. Has anyone stated that we don't need an IG?

But how does Austin propose to alleviate overcrowding without increasing our taxes?

Where's the IG then? This is not a new concept. The BOE is full of MCEA union-supported candidates, and none of them have called for one.... Wonder why?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

The overall reason for overcrowding is MCPS does a really poor job of estimating enrollment when it comes to new development. For example, if an apartment building goes up in Bethesda ($2k+/month rents), they assume only a tiny fraction of tenants will be families so that 100-unit building will only add a couple kids to the schools. In reality, lots of families move there so the actual number of kids is much higher. They constantly under-project -- they didn't properly account for all the empty nesters in developed neighborhoods who moved out, and families with kids taking their place either.

For new buildings, developers have to pay an "impact fee" for the additional resources the new residents will use. It ranges in the $10-25k/unit price depending on the type of building. But if you look at the recent school construction projects, it costs about $60k/seat to build or renovate a school.

In short, there's blame all around.

That's been repeatedly shown to be false, PP. There are lots of over-capacity schools where there has been no new development.

For the other reason stated -- empty nesters moving out and being replaced by families. MCPS has the data on ages of homeowners as it's part of property tax records and also in census data. They just do a really bad job estimating, consistently.

[Anonymous]

It's interesting that all the love and hate is for Austin. No one says anything about any of the other candidates. He's not supported by the "establishment" (teacher's union, Washington Post) so this must really be bothering some people that an "outsider" candidate is actually drawing the interest of the voters!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's interesting that all the love and hate is for Austin. No one says anything about any of the other candidates. He's not supported by the "establishment" (teacher's union, Washington Post) so this must really be bothering some people that an "outsider" candidate is actually drawing the interest of the voters!

People are saying things about several of the other candidates. Pay closer attention.

Also, speaking for myself - no, Austin's candidacy isn't bothering me. I'm a big believer in the Run For Something idea. It's his positions, his statements, and his actions as a candidate that bother me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's interesting that all the love and hate is for Austin. No one says anything about any of the other candidates. He's not supported by the "establishment" (teacher's union, Washington Post) so this must really be bothering some people that an "outsider" candidate is actually drawing the interest of the voters!

People are saying things about several of the other candidates. Pay closer attention.

Also, speaking for myself - no, Austin's candidacy isn't bothering me. I'm a big believer in the Run For Something idea. It's his positions, his statements, and his actions as a candidate that bother me.

^^^also, since this "outsider" candidate thing comes up often: No, a white man who lives in Bethesda and is employed in the finance industry, and whose candidacy is explicitly based on defending the status quo, is not an outsider candidate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Austin is for fiscal accountability and community voice in decision making. He wants excellent education for all. This is possible still being fiscally responsible by more closely finding how money is spent and data informed outcomes. He will listen to the voices of communities of parents, teachers, and students.

Everyone says that they're for those things.

Meanwhile he's done a pretty lousy job, so far, of listening to the voices of parents, teachers, and students who disagree with him. He never volunteered for anything MCPS-related before running for a seat on the BoE. And if he were successful in opposing boundary changes, then either kids would unnecessarily remain in overcrowded schools, or MCPS would unnecessarily spend hundreds of millions of dollars unnecessarily building new schools.

Austin is the only candidate calling for an independent auditor for MCPS. With a $2.8bln budget, I"m surprised they don't already have an independent auditor (FCPS does), but indeed that's the case. Makes you wonder why the union-supported candidates aren't making the call for financial accountability? What's so bad about that?

DP.. nothing wrong with financial accountability. Has anyone stated that we don't need an IG?

But how does Austin propose to alleviate overcrowding without increasing our taxes?

Where's the IG then? This is not a new concept. The BOE is full of MCEA union-supported candidates, and none of them have called for one.... Wonder why?

I'm assuming not everyone places a high importance on having an IG, but I have not heard that they are totally against an IG.

You still haven't answered the question.. how does Austin plan on addressing over crowding issues in our schools?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Austin is for fiscal accountability and community voice in decision making. He wants excellent education for all. This is possible still being fiscally responsible by more closely finding how money is spent and data informed outcomes. He will listen to the voices of communities of parents, teachers, and students.

Everyone says that they're for those things.

Meanwhile he's done a pretty lousy job, so far, of listening to the voices of parents, teachers, and students who disagree with him. He never volunteered for anything MCPS-related before running for a seat on the BoE. And if he were successful in opposing boundary changes, then either kids would unnecessarily remain in overcrowded schools, or MCPS would unnecessarily spend hundreds of millions of dollars unnecessarily building new schools.

Austin is the only candidate calling for an independent auditor for MCPS. With a $2.8bln budget, I"m surprised they don't already have an independent auditor (FCPS does), but indeed that's the case. Makes you wonder why the union-supported candidates aren't making the call for financial accountability? What's so bad about that?

DP.. nothing wrong with financial accountability. Has anyone stated that we don't need an IG?

But how does Austin propose to alleviate overcrowding without increasing our taxes?

Where's the IG then? This is not a new concept. The BOE is full of MCEA union-supported candidates, and none of them have called for one.... Wonder why?

Some school districts have IGs. Some school districts don't. Which candidates oppose the idea of an IG?

Meanwhile, what are Steve Austin's plans to increase the number of kids in neighborhood schools, and decrease the number of kids in overcrowded schools, without boundary changes?