How Come BOE Candidate Stephen Austin Won’t Say What His Employment Is??

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

A huge red flag for me is that it appears that the current Board of Education and sitting politicians do not want anybody on the board who does not go with the flow and does not challenge them. This to me is a very big deal. I have always always said that there should always be checks and balances and political organizations. It should never be ruled by a single party or only by like minds. There should be diversity in thought and different points of view.

As other PPs have said: there are lots of candidates who have "diversity in thought and different points of view." He's not the only one. He is the only one who combines rhetorical bomb-throwing with lack of knowledge about MCPS, though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

A huge red flag for me is that it appears that the current Board of Education and sitting politicians do not want anybody on the board who does not go with the flow and does not challenge them. This to me is a very big deal. I have always always said that there should always be checks and balances and political organizations. It should never be ruled by a single party or only by like minds. There should be diversity in thought and different points of view.

I don't see the other 12 at-large candidates as being of like mind. If you read through their responses, you'll find a good deal of diversity of thought.

I think they’re all attacking him because he has the greatest chances of winning.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

A huge red flag for me is that it appears that the current Board of Education and sitting politicians do not want anybody on the board who does not go with the flow and does not challenge them. This to me is a very big deal. I have always always said that there should always be checks and balances and political organizations. It should never be ruled by a single party or only by like minds. There should be diversity in thought and different points of view.

I don't see the other 12 at-large candidates as being of like mind. If you read through their responses, you'll find a good deal of diversity of thought.

I think they’re all attacking him because he has the greatest chances of winning.

Says who? Based on what?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

This is a huge red flag for me as well. Despite having what appears to be a pretty flexible job, Austin had basically not stepped foot in a MCPS school - even his own children's school - until MCPS started talking about adjusting adjacent school boundaries in order to alleviate overcrowding and address underutilization of facilities.

Anyone with a map want to clue me in on what Austin's so worried about? Is his house right on a border or something?

Deep concern that someone will force their children onto buses to White Oak at gunpoint, or at least that's what some of his supporters I've talked to are worried about.

Also, property values.

Can you guarantee that his kids, and thousands of other children zoned for top schools won’t be forced to attend (perhaps adjacent) lower performing schools to help boost their performance? Oh, and also lower their FARMS number so that MCPS looks better politically? A more effective way to reduce school overcrowding is slow down the rate of residential development. But we can’t have that because it could lead to lower tax revenue for the county.

[Anonymous]

But Ithought that he supports good schools for ALL children?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:But Ithought that he supports good schools for ALL children?

So there are bad schools?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:But Ithought that he supports good schools for ALL children?

He does, but you don’t risk pulling top performing students down to advance an economic diversity agenda. That’s just stupid.

It’s kinda like telling a student who works really hard that she doesn’t need so many As, so the school is going to take some of them and give them to someone who needs them more.

Before anyone attacks me, please guarantee that top performing students won’t be sent to an adjacent lower performing school to boost that school’s performance or lower its FARM score.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

That's because the others do not have a reasonable chance of winning and making a change. It's like saying "Well, no one ran negative advertisements about Tulsi Gabbard and John Delaney".

Not really. Jay Guan has raised more money than any other at-large candidate. All things being equal, that makes him MORE likely than Steve Austin to have a chance of winning. I honestly don't understand why there's this belief on DCUM (maybe in real life too) that Steve Austin has a chance and Jay Guan is a spoiler - except maybe that Steve Austin is a white guy from Bethesda while Jay Guan is a Chinese-American guy from Clarksburg.

Seventh State had a good analysis of the source of donations to BOE candidates. They left off union and PAC donations unfortunately, but it does show the pattern for individual contributions to each candidate:
http://www.theseventhstate.com/?p=12895

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

A huge red flag for me is that it appears that the current Board of Education and sitting politicians do not want anybody on the board who does not go with the flow and does not challenge them. This to me is a very big deal. I have always always said that there should always be checks and balances and political organizations. It should never be ruled by a single party or only by like minds. There should be diversity in thought and different points of view.

I don't see the other 12 at-large candidates as being of like mind. If you read through their responses, you'll find a good deal of diversity of thought.

I think they’re all attacking him because he has the greatest chances of winning.

One political analyst wrote his thoughts on why everyone is going after Austin:
https://aminerdetail.com/StephenAustin

I've never heard of this guy (Miner), but his explanation does sound plausible.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

This is a huge red flag for me as well. Despite having what appears to be a pretty flexible job, Austin had basically not stepped foot in a MCPS school - even his own children's school - until MCPS started talking about adjusting adjacent school boundaries in order to alleviate overcrowding and address underutilization of facilities.

Anyone with a map want to clue me in on what Austin's so worried about? Is his house right on a border or something?

Deep concern that someone will force their children onto buses to White Oak at gunpoint, or at least that's what some of his supporters I've talked to are worried about.

Also, property values.

Can you guarantee that his kids, and thousands of other children zoned for top schools won’t be forced to attend (perhaps adjacent) lower performing schools to help boost their performance? Oh, and also lower their FARMS number so that MCPS looks better politically? A more effective way to reduce school overcrowding is slow down the rate of residential development. But we can’t have that because it could lead to lower tax revenue for the county.

Stop and think about what you're asking. Even if MCPS reverted back to the old pre-"especially" FAA policy (seemingly Mr. Austin's #1 priority), there would be no "guarantee" of any such thing. Nor should or would any MCPS policy consider some schools to be "top schools" and therefore have special rules or regulations apply to them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:But Ithought that he supports good schools for ALL children?

He does, but you don’t risk pulling top performing students down to advance an economic diversity agenda. That’s just stupid.

It’s kinda like telling a student who works really hard that she doesn’t need so many As, so the school is going to take some of them and give them to someone who needs them more.

Before anyone attacks me, please guarantee that top performing students won’t be sent to an adjacent lower performing school to boost that school’s performance or lower its FARM score.

I LOVE this analogy because that is what the plan of JOF and her socialist coterie sounds like: "You are doing well and hence must be punished!!"

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

A huge red flag for me is that it appears that the current Board of Education and sitting politicians do not want anybody on the board who does not go with the flow and does not challenge them. This to me is a very big deal. I have always always said that there should always be checks and balances and political organizations. It should never be ruled by a single party or only by like minds. There should be diversity in thought and different points of view.

I don't see the other 12 at-large candidates as being of like mind. If you read through their responses, you'll find a good deal of diversity of thought.

I think they’re all attacking him because he has the greatest chances of winning.

One political analyst wrote his thoughts on why everyone is going after Austin:
https://aminerdetail.com/StephenAustin

I've never heard of this guy (Miner), but his explanation does sound plausible.

LOL yea, that wasn't biased at all.

If I was one of the other BOE candidates, I would be insulted by this article because it assumes that the rest of the BOE candidates can be controlled by the BOE, and only Austin can stand up to the rest of the BOE.

IMO, it's assumptions like these that make people not want to vote for him.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:But Ithought that he supports good schools for ALL children?

He does, but you don’t risk pulling top performing students down to advance an economic diversity agenda. That’s just stupid.

It’s kinda like telling a student who works really hard that she doesn’t need so many As, so the school is going to take some of them and give them to someone who needs them more.

Before anyone attacks me, please guarantee that top performing students won’t be sent to an adjacent lower performing school to boost that school’s performance or lower its FARM score.

Why would you assume that attending a more economically diverse school would "pull to performers down."

We're not talking about moving kids from Whitman to Kennedy. We're talking about adjacent zones, so maybe Whitman to BCC (not really, but as an example). Are the Whitman kids' academic credentials so fragile that a 10% swing in FARMS rate would erode them entirely?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

This is a huge red flag for me as well. Despite having what appears to be a pretty flexible job, Austin had basically not stepped foot in a MCPS school - even his own children's school - until MCPS started talking about adjusting adjacent school boundaries in order to alleviate overcrowding and address underutilization of facilities.

Anyone with a map want to clue me in on what Austin's so worried about? Is his house right on a border or something?

Deep concern that someone will force their children onto buses to White Oak at gunpoint, or at least that's what some of his supporters I've talked to are worried about.

Also, property values.

Can you guarantee that his kids, and thousands of other children zoned for top schools won’t be forced to attend (perhaps adjacent) lower performing schools to help boost their performance? Oh, and also lower their FARMS number so that MCPS looks better politically? A more effective way to reduce school overcrowding is slow down the rate of residential development. But we can’t have that because it could lead to lower tax revenue for the county.

Stop and think about what you're asking. Even if MCPS reverted back to the old pre-"especially" FAA policy (seemingly Mr. Austin's #1 priority), there would be no "guarantee" of any such thing. Nor should or would any MCPS policy consider some schools to be "top schools" and therefore have special rules or regulations apply to them.

+1 looking at adjacent clusters to reduce over crowding has nothing to do with the "especially" word in the FAA policy. And IMO, it would be irresponsible of the BOE to NOT look at adjacent clusters that are under capacity when redrawing boundaries.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:But Ithought that he supports good schools for ALL children?

He does, but you don’t risk pulling top performing students down to advance an economic diversity agenda. That’s just stupid.

It’s kinda like telling a student who works really hard that she doesn’t need so many As, so the school is going to take some of them and give them to someone who needs them more.

Before anyone attacks me, please guarantee that top performing students won’t be sent to an adjacent lower performing school to boost that school’s performance or lower its FARM score.

Why would you assume that attending a more economically diverse school would "pull to performers down."

We're not talking about moving kids from Whitman to Kennedy. We're talking about adjacent zones, so maybe Whitman to BCC (not really, but as an example). Are the Whitman kids' academic credentials so fragile that a 10% swing in FARMS rate would erode them entirely?

Do you know if this is enough to achieve the 10000 over enrollment -> 10000 under enrollment problem?