Starr to place spending restrictions on Montgomery school system

[Anonymous]

Someone told me that schools will put kids in ESOL even if their English is good if they put on the school enrollment form that other languages are spoken in the home. The schools do this for the ESOL money even though the kid doesn't need the services.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Re: public pension benefits. "If something is not sustainable, it shall cease."

Unsustainable, overpromised benefits will be whittled down. No more paying in low and juicing final salaries, no more taxpayer on the hook for public unions, no more promising the moon and stars for a vote. They will be whittle, whittle, whittle down to more sensical figures, even the bloated, underfunded MCPS and MoCo defined benefit plans.

Baby boomers retiring at record numbers = bloated pensions. School districts will need to start cutting pensions back. It is not sustainable.

http://www.newsday.com/long-island/li-school-districts-to-save-more-than-100m-from-drop-in-teacher-pension-costs-state-says-1.9687970

Quote from the article "More than 60 percent of local property tax bills goes to school taxes." This is in Long Island, but maybe in MoCo % are similar?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

I have older AA friends who said desegregation was the root of all of our problems today. They said the instruction given at all-black schools was superior to instruction given today, as blacks were pulling for blacks. I will say that the three pals I have - all teachers - were some of the best in the department. So their training was indeed exceptional. well read, strong writers, creative lessons - Few could hold a candle to them.

an interesting perspective

Ah, the good old days of segregated schools. If only Thurgood Marshall had let things be, eh?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I have older AA friends who said desegregation was the root of all of our problems today. They said the instruction given at all-black schools was superior to instruction given today, as blacks were pulling for blacks. I will say that the three pals I have - all teachers - were some of the best in the department. So their training was indeed exceptional. well read, strong writers, creative lessons - Few could hold a candle to them.

an interesting perspective

Ah, the good old days of segregated schools. If only Thurgood Marshall had let things be, eh?

their perspective

We talked about some uncomfortable issues. I appreciate their honesty.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Re: public pension benefits. "If something is not sustainable, it shall cease."

Unsustainable, overpromised benefits will be whittled down. No more paying in low and juicing final salaries, no more taxpayer on the hook for public unions, no more promising the moon and stars for a vote. They will be whittle, whittle, whittle down to more sensical figures, even the bloated, underfunded MCPS and MoCo defined benefit plans.

Baby boomers retiring at record numbers = bloated pensions. School districts will need to start cutting pensions back. It is not sustainable.

http://www.newsday.com/long-island/li-school-districts-to-save-more-than-100m-from-drop-in-teacher-pension-costs-state-says-1.9687970

Quote from the article "More than 60 percent of local property tax bills goes to school taxes." This is in Long Island, but maybe in MoCo % are similar?

Probably not. Property taxes for a house between $400-500k was about 9-10K. Around here, a house at that price would have taxes between $5k. Every year classes would start and there would be a budget vote. It would fail and then they would pull buses and then hold a revote after a few weeks and it would pass.

[Anonymous]

Local property taxes go back to the state and the county. The higher SES areas of Montgomery County subsidize the rest of Maryland as well as the lower SES areas of Montgomery County. Most people in Montgomery County would be OK with this if Starr was leading the school system better. Constant hiding of sex abuse scandals with not one principal held accountable, horrible curriculum, gutting the math program, wanting to end magnets and HGC centers, placing over 30 kids in an ES classroom because they could perform average even without instruction, and his constant self promoting PR and tweets all add up to this school system not being worth funding. Parents have had enough.

Teacher's are not found of him either. He bought off the teacher's union several years ago exchanging class size explosion at average to higher performing schools for a teacher's raise that he couldn't afford to sustain. Teachers hate 2.0 and its worse for them. Not only do they have dish this crap out but they bear the brunt of the problems from it. Now, he has to pay the price and the teacher's union will back off support if he continues to move to replace teachers with substitutes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Local property taxes go back to the state and the county. The higher SES areas of Montgomery County subsidize the rest of Maryland as well as the lower SES areas of Montgomery County. Most people in Montgomery County would be OK with this if Starr was leading the school system better. Constant hiding of sex abuse scandals with not one principal held accountable, horrible curriculum, gutting the math program, wanting to end magnets and HGC centers, placing over 30 kids in an ES classroom because they could perform average even without instruction, and his constant self promoting PR and tweets all add up to this school system not being worth funding. Parents have had enough.

Teacher's are not found of him either. He bought off the teacher's union several years ago exchanging class size explosion at average to higher performing schools for a teacher's raise that he couldn't afford to sustain. Teachers hate 2.0 and its worse for them. Not only do they have dish this crap out but they bear the brunt of the problems from it. Now, he has to pay the price and the teacher's union will back off support if he continues to move to replace teachers with substitutes.

I think Curriculum 2.0 is an improvement, I don't think the math program has been "gutted", I don't think that MCPS wants to end magnets and HGC centers nor would be able to even if it wanted to, and 30 kids in an elementary school classroom is nothing now. So this parent has not had enough. On the other hand, I don't live in Bethesda or Potomac, so maybe I'm a taker instead of a maker, and my opinion shouldn't count.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No one is bussing anyone anywhere...it's waaaaaay too costly, so it will never happen. Period.

And you really can't blame the budget issues on immigrants. Wanna know why the budget is so high? Pensions and healthcare for retired teachers...it is what it is. They did away with pensions, so many of the current teachers won't have them. And they scaled back a teeny tiny bit on the healthcare coverage (no longer Cadillac...more like Accord).

Are you trying to deny our retirees these benefits?

I'm on the new system, where I'll receive about 60% of my three highest years averaged. My colleagues earn about 80%. They worked hard - harder than most people I know outside of the profession. They deserve it. Find a way to cut some of the waste in central office. How about that?

Let's focus on treating our employees well - those on the front lines- who deserve the salaries made by those in the upper ranks.

60% is still really good. How many years do you need to work to qualify?

60% is still a crazy high percentage but it's 60% of what? 60% of relatively low salaries is not that high. I don't know what the high 3 is for the average MCPS retiree. All I know is, Starr is really well compensated.

A MCPS teacher w/ 25+ years of experience range from 98-105K. 18 years ranges from 93-100K. 60K +/- in pension. Not bad.

http://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/uploadedFiles/departments/ersc/employees/pay/schedules/salary_schedule_november_fy2015.pdf

6 figures to work 9 months and tons of vacation days?? Wow - so much for thinking teachers are underpaid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

6 figures to work 9 months and tons of vacation days?? Wow - so much for thinking teachers are underpaid.

Yes, except for the 9 months, tons of vacation days, and not-underpaid parts.

[Anonymous]

They should be paid more and we should demand excellence because of it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They should be paid more and we should demand excellence because of it.

Then I demand excellence in parenting. When parents send children to school who are unavailable to learn then the parents should be held accountable. No electronics or other forms of leisure enjoyment for the parents until the child is taught to be respectful. I can teach a child academic content but they will become behind very quickly if I need to teach manners, basic courtesy and how to be a student prepared to learn for weeks or even months in some cases. I receive no compensation for teaching these skills that should have been taught at home.

But with merit pay, my pay will be tied to how parents decide to raise their children. I'm all for merit pay with controlled variables but there are very few controlled variables in teaching. There are usually 2: the first is students will be in the classroom and the second is that you will teach them something. The rest can vary substantially.

-teacher

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They should be paid more and we should demand excellence because of it.

Then I demand excellence in parenting. When parents send children to school who are unavailable to learn then the parents should be held accountable. No electronics or other forms of leisure enjoyment for the parents until the child is taught to be respectful. I can teach a child academic content but they will become behind very quickly if I need to teach manners, basic courtesy and how to be a student prepared to learn for weeks or even months in some cases. I receive no compensation for teaching these skills that should have been taught at home.

But with merit pay, my pay will be tied to how parents decide to raise their children. I'm all for merit pay with controlled variables but there are very few controlled variables in teaching. There are usually 2: the first is students will be in the classroom and the second is that you will teach them something. The rest can vary substantially.

-teacher

I don't understand this. We shouldn't demand excellence in teaching? I think we should.

I don't think, however, that merit pay is the way to go. Merit pay is not going to get good people to go into teaching, and it's also not going to improve teacher education and teacher training. The only person I've ever known in the education field who favored merit pay was one of my education professors, who said, "I support merit pay, because I would get it!" Not if I were awarding it, he wouldn't have.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They should be paid more and we should demand excellence because of it.

MCPS teachers are already very well compensated. YOu have to give them effective tools and a shitty cirriculum is not it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Local property taxes go back to the state and the county. The higher SES areas of Montgomery County subsidize the rest of Maryland as well as the lower SES areas of Montgomery County. Most people in Montgomery County would be OK with this if Starr was leading the school system better. Constant hiding of sex abuse scandals with not one principal held accountable, horrible curriculum, gutting the math program, wanting to end magnets and HGC centers, placing over 30 kids in an ES classroom because they could perform average even without instruction, and his constant self promoting PR and tweets all add up to this school system not being worth funding. Parents have had enough.

Teacher's are not found of him either. He bought off the teacher's union several years ago exchanging class size explosion at average to higher performing schools for a teacher's raise that he couldn't afford to sustain. Teachers hate 2.0 and its worse for them. Not only do they have dish this crap out but they bear the brunt of the problems from it. Now, he has to pay the price and the teacher's union will back off support if he continues to move to replace teachers with substitutes.

+1000 ... I completely agree with all your points.