Reply to So who are the reasonable candidates for the BOE?

Forum Index » Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS)

Reply to "So who are the reasonable candidates for the BOE?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Question is what will Sally do with her capability.  She got the Apple Ballot nod, so might be beholden to the union leadership, and doesn't seem eager to rock the boat.

Cassi Sung seems to get that we like little-"p" progressivism -- the kind that doesn't play favorites.[/quote]

[B]The problem with our system isn't that we have board members who genuflect to the teachers' union if they received a previous endorsement. The problem is the boards of education in the State of Maryland have too little power. Other than hire and fire superintendents; vote on overall budgets and contracts over $25,000; and boundary recommendations, all they can do is advise superintendents. [/B]

What we need is state reform, not somebody named Cass Sung who, from her website, has the following to recommend herself:

Chamber of Mothers co-facilitator
Election Judge 
Local Buy Nothing admin
Co-Lead Allyship Affinity Group at work
Mom of two
Neurodivergent
Multiracial marriage and biracial children
Dog mom
Big sister
Girl’s girl
Amateur Potter

A dog mom, big sister, and a "girl's girl" (is that last one code for something?). Seriously, this is someone that deserves consideration for elected office? I don't think so.[/quote]

This is not true.  The Board of Ed can take a much more robust role in governing MCPS than they do.  They can set and revise policies that would dramatically change all sorts of things at MCPS.  And if they chose to lean into their power and influence and make it clear that they won't provide the votes for things Central Office wants unless they get their way, they could probably also influence many additional things as well.

But the Board has a culture of going along with whatever Central Office wants, and Board members for some reason seem to be sucked into that once they join the Board regardless of what they said when they were running. (Montoya seems to be a slight exception to that, although even she goes with the flow the majority of the time.)[/quote]

This is such an interesting and important debate that I've heard and I don't which is quite true.

The first argument aligns with what the first poster said: The BOE already has the oversight and supervisory powers it needs. That it's not doing more is a failure on the part of the BOE members. This talking point is especially prevalent when you talk with those on the County Council, who have limited oversight powers over MCPS compared to the BOE.

The second argument, which aligns with the second poster's POV, is that the BOE is constrained and limited in its ability, since they strongly feel their scope of oversight is limited and can't and should not undermine the superintendent's role and purview. This manifests in the form of a culture and norms that are overly deferential to the superintendent and the system.

So which is true? I can't tell. I have yet to see an example of a more muscular BOE in the state of Maryland, so it's not like MCPS is an outlier in that regard. But that just might more of a cultural implication of how boards have run than any truly structural limitations?

My guess is the truth lies somewhere in the middle. But I'd love a legal analysis on this tension.[/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