Reply to Why aren't MoCo Dems rallying around Jealous for Governor?

Forum Index » Metropolitan DC Local Politics

Reply to "Why aren't MoCo Dems rallying around Jealous for Governor? "

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Because he's a bit too socialist and wants to redistribute our money? And Hogan is a centrist so much closer to mainstream Democrats, especially the wealthy ones in MoCo. [/quote]

I'm a wealthy MoCo democrat and I'll be voting for Jealous.   I have kids in school, and Hogan has been terrible for public education (cue the Kirwan commission poster, who will scream that Jealous will take all our tax revenues and give it to poor kids in Baltimore, which is decidedly not the conclusion of the report.)[/quote]

In another thread asked about the Kirwan commission and the suggestion that Ben Jealous will adjust the current allocation in a way that hurts MoCo schools, but no one responded with specifics. Where would you suggest I look to understand why you feel okay that Jealous will not lower MoCo funding further and that Hogan is worse for MoCo public education?  Thanks - you sound like you have read up on these issues.[/quote]

http://dls.maryland.gov/pubs/prod/NoPblTabMtg/CmsnInnovEduc/2018-Preliminary-Report-of-the-Commission.pdf

Please read the Commission report.  The report is openly about adjusting funding formulas to provide more funding to "at-risk" or high poverty jurisdictions and less to what it refers to as "wealthy" schools.  The report only speaks about "districts" which suggests Montgomery County as a whole will be treated as one district, not as a county with extreme wealth and extreme poverty.  Here are some choice quotes from the report:

1) "Provide more resources for at-risk students than for others." (a "Building Block" for its ideal education system)
2) It came as a surprise to many on the Commission that Maryland does not do well on measures of funding equity. Although Maryland has the highest weight in the country for low-income students in its funding formula, the State spends 4.9% less money (state and local) on poor school districts than on wealthy ones, making it the State with the fifteenth most regressive funding system in the nation. By contrast, Massachusetts spends 7.3% more money on students in low-income districts.
The Commission endorses the basic structure of the Thornton funding formulas with a base funding amount per pupil and weights applied to the base for at-risk students, which includes low-income students (as a proxy for students at risk of failing
academically), English language learners, and students with disabilities. However, until the “costing out” of the preliminary policy recommendations is completed, the Commission cannot make recommendations on the amount of the base funding in the
formula, or the weights to be applied to that base for at-risk students. For the purpose of costing out the preliminary recommendations, the Commission recommends that the special education weight be increased. The final recommendations will specify the weight, which should be a placeholder until an in-depth study is conducted by experts. Implementation of the new tenth grade standard and early warning system described above should ultimately reduce the number of students identified as needing special education services over time except for the most severely disabled, which is the case in top-performing countries.  [b]The Commission also recommends that a new weight for schools with high concentrations of students living in poverty should be added. [/b]An analysis of what this additional weight should be and whether the weight should be differentiated among levels of high poverty will be conducted and included in the Commission’s final report. Wraparound services for at-risk students and their families must be significantly increased so that all students have the opportunity for academic success. To the extent that existing providers cannot meet the needs of students, the new concentration of poverty factor should provide the funding to support these services. These services must include incorporating a service coordinator at each school with the proportion of students living in poverty above a certain level to coordinate services provided by public and private agencies and expanding the community schools strategy. The physical and mental health needs of students and their families must also be addressed as well as the need for expanded learning time such as after school and summer programs.

3)  Additional aspects of the funding formulas for Maryland schools will be addressed in the final report after the costing out of the preliminary policy recommendations is completed. These include determining[b] (1) the base per pupil amount and weights for at-risk student populations; (2) the method for calculating local wealth; (3) the equitable distribution of funds; [/b](4) the possible inclusion of a geographic cost adjustment factor; (5) the proxy for estimating the number of low-income students; (6) the funding for prekindergarten; (7) the possible requirement for local school systems to fund their share of the at-risk funding formula; and (8) the impact on the local maintenance of effort requirement.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics