Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hogan can propose all he wants. He still has to get it through the General Assembly.

The General Assembly can't add money to the budget.

IS this true? Can someone clarify?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Even though there are something like 24 counties in Maryland, MoCo provides a quarter of the tax base....when that tax base starts moving to Va for the better schools, you can blame Hogan.

I'm not a Hogan supporter but you have to be crazy to blame more shifts to VA from MCPS on him. This is already happening because of MCPS and 2.0. The tax base in Montgomery County is not keeping pace with Virginia or Howard. The schools are decline (put your head in the sand all you like but MCPS is no longer the place to move to the schools) and the more lucrative jobs are in Virginia and Howard.

Montgomery County is now famous for poor suburban planning, declining schools, horrible traffic into VA, and mismanaged money.

I keep reading this on DCUM, but I have never yet seen any data to support it. And in fact enrollment in MCPS is increasing every year. And it's not just "OMG THE ILLEGALS" either.

yes it is.

Not necessarily. Look at the boundary maps. They are not logical because they are trying to pull from diverse neighborhoods or for whatever reason. I beg you to look at Kensington Parkwood ESs map. They pull kids from as far west as Old Georgetown Road and Tuckerman Lane. Those kids get bussed right through Garrett Park to get to KPES and away from at least three schools that are geographically closer to the neighborhood. That same neighborhood is adjacent to the Tilden Middle School (i.e., on the same block on the same side of the street), yet those middle school kids are bussed to N. Bethesda MS because that is where KPES feeds to. I wonder how many other boundary maps are equally ridiculous. I bet Starr doesn't even know this is the case.

Anonymous wrote:
As for MCPS, it is a bloated bureaucracy in which students are merely widgets. The students do not come first. I don't even think the teachers do anymore. The school system has taken on a life of its own driven by the central office. Hell, the start time problem is all driven by the counties inability to actually meet all of the needs of the children because they so heavily rely on busses rather than neighborhood schools. Starr doesn't care, since this is merely a stepping stone. NY Times in December noted the reason Start didn't get the NYC job is because Arne Duncan scuttled it over Starr's opinion on testing for common core. I actually think Starr was right on this one, but the evidence is he is on to bigger and better things than MCPS. So, just like O'Malley, he is leaving others to mind the store.

Maybe hard budget cuts will cut some of the MCPS bureaucracy.

The start time problem is definitely due to the buses. But the buses are taking the students to their neighborhood schools. What percentage of MCPS students go to schools that are not their neighborhood schools?

Oh, don't get me started. Wait, it has happened.

We are in the financial hole we are in because O'Malley was too busy mugging for the cameras in an attempt to get the 2016 Democratic nomination for president than to tend to Maryland. The representatives in Annapolis are too busy admiring their self-importance than to realize that the budget has been running at a deficit. Hogan is taking on a tough problem, and it is just too bad none of us like how he trying to solve it.

As for MCPS, it is a bloated bureaucracy in which students are merely widgets. The students do not come first. I don't even think the teachers do anymore. The school system has taken on a life of its own driven by the central office. Hell, the start time problem is all driven by the counties inability to actually meet all of the needs of the children because they so heavily rely on busses rather than neighborhood schools. Starr doesn't care, since this is merely a stepping stone. NY Times in December noted the reason Start didn't get the NYC job is because Arne Duncan scuttled it over Starr's opinion on testing for common core. I actually think Starr was right on this one, but the evidence is he is on to bigger and better things than MCPS. So, just like O'Malley, he is leaving others to mind the store.

Maybe hard budget cuts will cut some of the MCPS bureaucracy.

Anonymous wrote:

Even though there are something like 24 counties in Maryland, MoCo provides a quarter of the tax base....when that tax base starts moving to Va for the better schools, you can blame Hogan.

I'm not a Hogan supporter but you have to be crazy to blame more shifts to VA from MCPS on him. This is already happening because of MCPS and 2.0. The tax base in Montgomery County is not keeping pace with Virginia or Howard. The schools are decline (put your head in the sand all you like but MCPS is no longer the place to move to the schools) and the more lucrative jobs are in Virginia and Howard.

Montgomery County is now famous for poor suburban planning, declining schools, horrible traffic into VA, and mismanaged money.

I keep reading this on DCUM, but I have never yet seen any data to support it. And in fact enrollment in MCPS is increasing every year. And it's not just "OMG THE ILLEGALS" either.

Even though there are something like 24 counties in Maryland, MoCo provides a quarter of the tax base....when that tax base starts moving to Va for the better schools, you can blame Hogan.

I'm not a Hogan supporter but you have to be crazy to blame more shifts to VA from MCPS on him. This is already happening because of MCPS and 2.0. The tax base in Montgomery County is not keeping pace with Virginia or Howard. The schools are decline (put your head in the sand all you like but MCPS is no longer the place to move to the schools) and the more lucrative jobs are in Virginia and Howard.

Montgomery County is now famous for poor suburban planning, declining schools, horrible traffic into VA, and mismanaged money.

This is really no surprise. Hogan got like zero votes in Montgomery County, PG, or Baltimore City, and he knows he never will get any votes there -- his whole schtick is reversing the so-called favoritism towards those counties. The MCPS voters can blame themselves for not bothering to show up to vote. We are going to get royally hosed, and can kiss the much needed school construction for our over-crowded schools goodbye. (I don't have the stats on this, but I think that the county money pays things like salaries, while the state money goes to the school construction and infrastructure.)
Even though there are something like 24 counties in Maryland, MoCo provides a quarter of the tax base....when that tax base starts moving to Va for the better schools, you can blame Hogan.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Good for Hogan. There is so much waste in MCPS.

Start with layoffs at the Carver Center to make up for the budget shortfall. Is Starr really worth what he is paid? Do we really need to spend so much money "investigating" the school start time debate? What about the BOE Credit Card fiasco? Etc. MCPS is an over bloated bureaucracy that has room for fiscal scrutiny. Is Starr up for the task to trimming costs? Heck no. He should be the first on the chopping block.

Starr is in charge of a school district with 153,000 students, 202 schools, 22,392 employees (including 12,698 teachers), a $2.28 billion operating budget, and a $1.53 billion six-year capital budget. Plus the weather closing decisions. For this, he gets paid $250,000 per year. Do you consider this salary inappropriate?

(For what it's worth, I wouldn't do the job for less than $500,000 a year, just because of the inevitable complaining about the weather closing decisions.)

What's more, his entire salary makes up 1% of the $17 million less that MCPS will get from the state under Hogan's proposed budget, and 0.01% of the annual operating budget.

The way he is working out, I'd say he is not worth much. So, no 250k is not too much for that position but it's too much for Starr's performance.

Anonymous wrote:Good for Hogan. There is so much waste in MCPS.

Start with layoffs at the Carver Center to make up for the budget shortfall. Is Starr really worth what he is paid? Do we really need to spend so much money "investigating" the school start time debate? What about the BOE Credit Card fiasco? Etc. MCPS is an over bloated bureaucracy that has room for fiscal scrutiny. Is Starr up for the task to trimming costs? Heck no. He should be the first on the chopping block.

Starr is in charge of a school district with 153,000 students, 202 schools, 22,392 employees (including 12,698 teachers), a $2.28 billion operating budget, and a $1.53 billion six-year capital budget. Plus the weather closing decisions. For this, he gets paid $250,000 per year. Do you consider this salary inappropriate?

(For what it's worth, I wouldn't do the job for less than $500,000 a year, just because of the inevitable complaining about the weather closing decisions.)

What's more, his entire salary makes up 1% of the $17 million less that MCPS will get from the state under Hogan's proposed budget, and 0.01% of the annual operating budget.

Good for Hogan. There is so much waste in MCPS.

Start with layoffs at the Carver Center to make up for the budget shortfall. Is Starr really worth what he is paid? Do we really need to spend so much money "investigating" the school start time debate? What about the BOE Credit Card fiasco? Etc. MCPS is an over bloated bureaucracy that has room for fiscal scrutiny. Is Starr up for the task to trimming costs? Heck no. He should be the first on the chopping block.

Anonymous wrote:Hogan can propose all he wants. He still has to get it through the General Assembly.

The General Assembly can't add money to the budget.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:$17 million less for MCPS, as a result of cutting the budget for the Geographic Cost of Education Index in half. The GCEI goes to Montgomery County and 12 other counties, but it mainly affects MCPS, PGCPS, and Baltimore City.

http://www.bethesdamagazine.com/Bethesda-Beat/2015/Hogans-First-Budget-Has-Some-Bad-News-for-Montgomery-County-Schools/

Ahh, the largest and most Democratic districts. How convenient... If this is how he starts, I wonder how surprised he will be when people from these areas come out and vote against him in force.

They did last Nov.

No, they didn't. They stayed home in force. Voter turnout was very low.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:$17 million less for MCPS, as a result of cutting the budget for the Geographic Cost of Education Index in half. The GCEI goes to Montgomery County and 12 other counties, but it mainly affects MCPS, PGCPS, and Baltimore City.

http://www.bethesdamagazine.com/Bethesda-Beat/2015/Hogans-First-Budget-Has-Some-Bad-News-for-Montgomery-County-Schools/

Ahh, the largest and most Democratic districts. How convenient... If this is how he starts, I wonder how surprised he will be when people from these areas come out and vote against him in force.

They did last Nov.

No, they really didn't. Voter turnout in Montgomery and PG was abysmal.

Hogan can propose all he wants. He still has to get it through the General Assembly.