Protest Hogan's diversion of public funds from public schools into private schools

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

That's great, but not the only purpose of funding education, don't you think? Vouchers have been shown to take support away from vulnerable student populations who need it the most. If we're saving money, it mustn't be on the backs of the poorest or the disabled children.

This argument makes me sick..class warfare. Come on.....

How is it class warfare to say that affluent people shouldn't benefit to the detriment of poor people and children with disabilities?

Now if you said that it's fine for affluent people to benefit to the detriment of poor people and children with disabilities, I would agree that this was class warfare.

Really? Come on...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The people benefiting are either wealthy taxpayers who pay more in taxes anyway or people who are on the fringes of being able to pay for private. If these students stay in private, there's more tax money available for everyone else.

I don't understand. Are you saying that the public school system is better off when children from wealthier families go to private school?

What I'm saying is you need to give wealthy tax payers an incentive to pay the crazy property taxes.... if they feel everything take, take, take...they'll move.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The people benefiting are either wealthy taxpayers who pay more in taxes anyway or people who are on the fringes of being able to pay for private. If these students stay in private, there's more tax money available for everyone else.

I don't understand. Are you saying that the public school system is better off when children from wealthier families go to private school?

What I'm saying is you need to give wealthy tax payers an incentive to pay the crazy property taxes.... if they feel everything take, take, take...they'll move.

Don't bother trying to understand the PP. There's some people on this MD public school forum who have a limited understanding of economics and math, and derail every post by screaming about the invasion of "the illegals".

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hey OP, Hogan DID increase the budget funds last year. He just didn't increase it as much as expensive MCPS wanted so they cry and cry. Then threaten to increase ratios to get nimwits like you to start sending complaints. They know if they cut from the top for more $, no one would care.

Have you seen the bloated budget plan? Do you see the overhead? Did you see the mismanaged of funds? Do you truly believe the FIRST thing to cut in the plan was teachers? Come on now.

I think you need to send your complaints to the county BOE. Ask why the BOE encourages that the county continues to be a sanctuary city when the funding isn't even there for legal kids. Ask why they continue to offer programs to a small select group of kids by lottery that cost millions to run every year. Ask why they spent 10 million changing bell times by 20min. Ask why they continue the PEP program even though schools are falling apart. Ask why PTA's are allowed to use for-profit fundraisers for "school needs" and not notify parents where their money they donated is really going. Ask about costs of chrome books, promethium boards, and other computers. Ask why your 9% property tax fee increase isn't enough?

You know, all the things the state looks at from EACH county before deciding where to allocate funds.

OP,

I do SO agree with you on wasting money!!! But the truth of the matter is that there is no easy quick-slash solution for that. It's unfair to the children to not address their needs, and even more unfair to give that money to people who don't need it as much. What we should do, and unfortunately it's a much harder job, is to create a non-partisan taskforce to delve into public school management and identify bad habits and areas of waste. Like in the Federal Government, it's little bits here and there, that add up to a lot.

What voters always fall for is the politician who will promise them quick fixes. There is never a quick fix.
Amen to this!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The people benefiting are either wealthy taxpayers who pay more in taxes anyway or people who are on the fringes of being able to pay for private. If these students stay in private, there's more tax money available for everyone else.

I don't understand. Are you saying that the public school system is better off when children from wealthier families go to private school?

What I'm saying is you need to give wealthy tax payers an incentive to pay the crazy property taxes.... if they feel everything take, take, take...they'll move.

Correct. The incentive is: a good public school system. Which everybody benefits from, including wealthy taxpayers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

That's great, but not the only purpose of funding education, don't you think? Vouchers have been shown to take support away from vulnerable student populations who need it the most. If we're saving money, it mustn't be on the backs of the poorest or the disabled children.

This argument makes me sick..class warfare. Come on.....

How is it class warfare to say that affluent people shouldn't benefit to the detriment of poor people and children with disabilities?

Now if you said that it's fine for affluent people to benefit to the detriment of poor people and children with disabilities, I would agree that this was class warfare.

Really? Come on...

Yes, really. How is it class warfare to say that affluent people shouldn't benefit to the detriment of poor people and children with disabilities?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This poster sounds like a broken record with the "try something different " mantra.

How about we close all schools. Then there will be no achievement gap because there will be no testing. That is different.

But people with critical thinking skills can reason out that just because something is different doesn't make it better.

People with critical thinking skills can also realize that we have been doing it this way for a long time and public schools are not providing what poor kids need. We can also recognize that we have been throwing money at the public education system in this county but are still not seeing a closing of the achievement gap.

There have been multiple studies that show voucher programs make outcomes WORSE, not better. Even from right-leaning sources. There may need to be some changes in how we deal with low-income and high-needs students, but we know vouchers are counterproductive and kids perform worse.

E.g. this http://seii.mit.edu/research/study/school-vouchers-and-student-achievement-first-year-evidence-from-the-louisiana-scholarship-program/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The people benefiting are either wealthy taxpayers who pay more in taxes anyway or people who are on the fringes of being able to pay for private. If these students stay in private, there's more tax money available for everyone else.

I don't understand. Are you saying that the public school system is better off when children from wealthier families go to private school?

What I'm saying is you need to give wealthy tax payers an incentive to pay the crazy property taxes.... if they feel everything take, take, take...they'll move.

Don't bother trying to understand the PP. There's some people on this MD public school forum who have a limited understanding of economics and math, and derail every post by screaming about the invasion of "the illegals".

Thanks PP! I agree- I'm not going to respond anymore. It's a waste of time and energy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In December 2016, the Baltimore Sun reported that 3,000 students received BOOST scholarships totaling $5,000,000 (or $1,666.67 per student average). See http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/politics/bs-md-hogan-boost-funding-20161213-story.html

Maryland PTA President Elizabeth Ysla Leight stated that "78%" of these 3,000 students were already attending private school, so 22% were not previously attending private school.

Let's say that the 3,000 students were evenly distributed between K-12 (13 total grades) and that every K student would have gone to private school anyway. That's 270 K students we can exclude.

Additionally, the 78% of 3,000 = 2,340.

Therefore, 390 (3,000 - 2,340 - 270) children who would have been in Maryland public schools instead went to private school at a cost of $1,666.67 each to the state, instead of $12,000 - $15,000/year each for public.

Let's assume the state-wide average public school cost is $13,500 per student.

390 x $13,500 = $5,265,000.

In other words, providing BOOST scholarships totaling $5,000,000 saved $5,265,000 in public school spending, and therefore effectively SAVED taxpayers $265,000.

In other words, all the complaining over BOOST is a farce.

It's not a good thing that 78% of those receiving Maryland taxpayer subsidies for private school were those whose parents already chosen to and had the resources to fund a private school education, even before the subsidies. What a waste of $. 5mn$ in taxpayer funding could have paid for a lot of teachers to reduce class sizes in my county.

+1 There are NO taxpayer savings here. If PP is saying that 78% of students receiving these subsidies were already in private school, why pay 5mn$ to subsidize them?

People have a right to make their own private choices--my tax dollars should not go to subsidize people who have made those choices.

$5,265,000 was saved from being spent by public schools in losing 390 students to private schools. The program cost taxpayers a total of $5,000,000, which is $265,000 LESS THAN what it would have cost to educate those 390 students in public school.

The point of the post originally quoted is that BOOST has SAVED taxpayers money, despite covering a very small amount of costs for students from low-income families who were already enrolled in private school.

You can argue whether students already enrolled in private schools should be eligible for BOOST funding, but BOOST in its current form results in a net savings for Maryland. Any arguments pertaining to BOOST shouldn't be about its costs.

What are you talking about? Of course this discussion of Boost should be about the costs. If Boost were free to taxpayers, we wouldn't be discussing it. But it's not free, so yes, we can wonder why $5mn was spent on vouchers to support kids whose parents already had the resources to put them in private school, i.e. subsidizing the private school choices of a lucky sub-segment of the Maryland population.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Illegal aliens do not pay property taxes. Makes sense that is the tax they increase. Unbelievable.

And your president doesn't pay taxes...so what is your point?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I believe in the freedom of school choice.
Why don't you, op?

It's only freedom of choice for some. But, while Trump is busy attempting to weaken the independent media, by all means, he should go ahead and weaken public education. Both are essential to democracy.

Public education is already weak, IMO.

We spend tons of money on education in this country and it gets wasted on stupid shit like Chromebooks in 2nd grade so kids can learn how to message each other, Promethean boards that don't work properly some of the time, additional testing year after year for no good reason.

What are you so afraid of? Try something different.

This.

MCPS is more focused on perception than education. I was at an early meeting where MCPS was talking about installing Promethean boards in the schools. I think it was the 2008-09 year, a time when the country was facing economic difficulties. I know it seemed prudent to use caution before adding a large budget item. I asked them what function the Promethean boards could perform that couldn't already be done with the technology they already had. After thinking a while, they finally said that it could be used to annotate videos as they were watched. I'm sure the Promethean boards are nifty, but I'm not sure how frequently teachers need to annotate videos.

I have seen MCPS pour money into things that have little to no effect on education. Further, MCPS has poured money into reducing the gap for many years, and it hasn't seemed to reduce the gap. I remember Jerry Weast having red and green zones. I don't know how many superintendents before him tried to close the gap. The people of Montgomery County are not only willing to fund our school system at a high level, but to support allocating higher funding to lower performing schools. If giving money to MCPS was the answer to helping struggling students, I think they'd be in much better shape.

Frankly, despite it's claims to being one of the best school systems in the country, I think it's a mediocre one at best whose performance is masked by a highly educated population who makes up for its shortfalls either through parents supplementing at home or hiring professional tutoring services. Seems to me a lot of our public school students are going to private "schools" like Sylvan and Kumon.

If we had charter schools, vouchers to private schools might be less of an issue. However, MCPS has fought charter schools for years leaving us with the choice of MCPS or private.

I believe fiercely in the importance of public education. I think every child deserves a good education. However, if they aren't getting it from MCPS, maybe we should look for other options that will offer them that opportunity.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

This.

MCPS is more focused on perception than education. I was at an early meeting where MCPS was talking about installing Promethean boards in the schools. I think it was the 2008-09 year, a time when the country was facing economic difficulties. I know it seemed prudent to use caution before adding a large budget item. I asked them what function the Promethean boards could perform that couldn't already be done with the technology they already had. After thinking a while, they finally said that it could be used to annotate videos as they were watched. I'm sure the Promethean boards are nifty, but I'm not sure how frequently teachers need to annotate videos.

I have seen MCPS pour money into things that have little to no effect on education. Further, MCPS has poured money into reducing the gap for many years, and it hasn't seemed to reduce the gap. I remember Jerry Weast having red and green zones. I don't know how many superintendents before him tried to close the gap. The people of Montgomery County are not only willing to fund our school system at a high level, but to support allocating higher funding to lower performing schools. If giving money to MCPS was the answer to helping struggling students, I think they'd be in much better shape.

Frankly, despite it's claims to being one of the best school systems in the country, I think it's a mediocre one at best whose performance is masked by a highly educated population who makes up for its shortfalls either through parents supplementing at home or hiring professional tutoring services. Seems to me a lot of our public school students are going to private "schools" like Sylvan and Kumon.

If we had charter schools, vouchers to private schools might be less of an issue. However, MCPS has fought charter schools for years leaving us with the choice of MCPS or private.

I believe fiercely in the importance of public education. I think every child deserves a good education. However, if they aren't getting it from MCPS, maybe we should look for other options that will offer them that opportunity.

There's that argument again: MCPS isn't all it should be, so let's just blow it up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

This.

MCPS is more focused on perception than education. I was at an early meeting where MCPS was talking about installing Promethean boards in the schools. I think it was the 2008-09 year, a time when the country was facing economic difficulties. I know it seemed prudent to use caution before adding a large budget item. I asked them what function the Promethean boards could perform that couldn't already be done with the technology they already had. After thinking a while, they finally said that it could be used to annotate videos as they were watched. I'm sure the Promethean boards are nifty, but I'm not sure how frequently teachers need to annotate videos.

I have seen MCPS pour money into things that have little to no effect on education. Further, MCPS has poured money into reducing the gap for many years, and it hasn't seemed to reduce the gap. I remember Jerry Weast having red and green zones. I don't know how many superintendents before him tried to close the gap. The people of Montgomery County are not only willing to fund our school system at a high level, but to support allocating higher funding to lower performing schools. If giving money to MCPS was the answer to helping struggling students, I think they'd be in much better shape.

Frankly, despite it's claims to being one of the best school systems in the country, I think it's a mediocre one at best whose performance is masked by a highly educated population who makes up for its shortfalls either through parents supplementing at home or hiring professional tutoring services. Seems to me a lot of our public school students are going to private "schools" like Sylvan and Kumon.

If we had charter schools, vouchers to private schools might be less of an issue. However, MCPS has fought charter schools for years leaving us with the choice of MCPS or private.

I believe fiercely in the importance of public education. I think every child deserves a good education. However, if they aren't getting it from MCPS, maybe we should look for other options that will offer them that opportunity.

I don't agree with "change for change's sake." MCPS, however imperfect, has to offer a fair and equal education to all of those who want it, at a zero $ cost and is held accountable for its students meeting or not meeting those standards. Private schools do not. When they agree to meeting transparent standards and take all students who want to attend, then maybe, I would consider having some of my tax $ go to them. If not, don't ask me to subsidize private school choices for parents who want specialized options for their kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

This.

MCPS is more focused on perception than education. I was at an early meeting where MCPS was talking about installing Promethean boards in the schools. I think it was the 2008-09 year, a time when the country was facing economic difficulties. I know it seemed prudent to use caution before adding a large budget item. I asked them what function the Promethean boards could perform that couldn't already be done with the technology they already had. After thinking a while, they finally said that it could be used to annotate videos as they were watched. I'm sure the Promethean boards are nifty, but I'm not sure how frequently teachers need to annotate videos.

I have seen MCPS pour money into things that have little to no effect on education. Further, MCPS has poured money into reducing the gap for many years, and it hasn't seemed to reduce the gap. I remember Jerry Weast having red and green zones. I don't know how many superintendents before him tried to close the gap. The people of Montgomery County are not only willing to fund our school system at a high level, but to support allocating higher funding to lower performing schools. If giving money to MCPS was the answer to helping struggling students, I think they'd be in much better shape.

Frankly, despite it's claims to being one of the best school systems in the country, I think it's a mediocre one at best whose performance is masked by a highly educated population who makes up for its shortfalls either through parents supplementing at home or hiring professional tutoring services. Seems to me a lot of our public school students are going to private "schools" like Sylvan and Kumon.

If we had charter schools, vouchers to private schools might be less of an issue. However, MCPS has fought charter schools for years leaving us with the choice of MCPS or private.

I believe fiercely in the importance of public education. I think every child deserves a good education. However, if they aren't getting it from MCPS, maybe we should look for other options that will offer them that opportunity.

I don't agree with "change for change's sake." MCPS, however imperfect, has to offer a fair and equal education to all of those who want it, at a zero $ cost and is held accountable for its students meeting or not meeting those standards. Private schools do not. When they agree to meeting transparent standards and take all students who want to attend, then maybe, I would consider having some of my tax $ go to them. If not, don't ask me to subsidize private school choices for parents who want specialized options for their kids.

Especially considering that public schools often excel, like MCPS does, at catering to high-achieving students in magnet programs and accommodating students with special needs because of its large resources that privates do not have.
Privates cherry picl students upon entry, then gloat about their high test scores and exmissions. While making their parents pay through the nose, and apparently taxpayers as well, now. There is something wrong with channeling even more funds to such set-ups when we could work to make public schools better.

[Anonymous]

To the PPs who are opposed to this why don't you just take more of your money/time and funnel it into charities that help the under privilege...Each dollar you spend one something else is money that you are taking away from more deserving people.