EDUCATION

Insider's Knowledge of the School System

I am very familiar with Montgomery County public schools and our
education system.   I was a 5th grade teacher at Rolling Terrace
Elementary School in Takoma Park for 17 years and have experienced
first-hand the best and most challenging aspects of educating our
children for a brighter future. I graduated from Einstein High School.
 I received my BA in History from the University of Maryland and my
Masters in Teaching from Johns Hopkins University.  I raised my
children in Montgomery County, where they also attended our
neighborhood public schools. We have much to be proud of in Montgomery
County, and our schools are at the top of that list.

But we cannot be satisfied as there remains much work to be done. We
have yet to make the kind of impact we need to on the achievement gap
which leaves large segments of our student body by the wayside with
little hope for a better life. One of the best things we can do to
give all children a fighting chance from day one is provide them with
high-quality, thoughtful and fun preschool experiences. Although we as
a county cannot afford to do this on our own, I am optimistic that
with help from our delegates at the state level, pressure from parents
and citizens, and a cooperative national environment, we are heading
in that direction.   These experiences will help us build and
strengthen our work at the elementary school level.

Follow Through to Graduation

There is also a lot of work to be done with middle and high school
students, including a critical examination of the programs we
currently fund to determine which are proving effective so we can use
our resources well and duplicate those successes throughout the
county. There is also a need to reevaluate how we are tracking
drop-outs so we can more accurately determine where we are losing kids
and why.

The MCPS budget accounts for over half of the County’s budget, and I
would like to see far greater transparency and accountability from the
MCPS administration so we know our limited resources are being used
well. When times are tough, as they now are, we need to be sure we are
preserving teachers in the classroom, keeping class size down, and
providing proper support services to our schools. Our teachers work
very hard to help our children become all they can be. We need to
support them and trust their judgment.

In my time on the Council, I have tried to maintain open and on-going
discussions with Board of Education (BOE) members. I have facilitated
providing more access for them to budget briefings once I discovered
that had not been given an overview of the budget and the related
issues.  We need more collaboration with the BOE.  All of County
government will need to review our operations and find ways to provide
services more efficiently.  We need to talk with our colleagues about
how to implement cross-agency saving measures.

Before we can identify those efficiencies, we need a time-out from the
state's Maintenance of Effort (MOE) requirements to allow the Board of
Education to conduct a thorough review of the school system.  The
original intent of the state's MOE was to provide a financial
incentive to local jurisdictions, not to supplant local education
funds with funds the State adds to the education budget.  But now,
perversely, because of MOE, if the school system finds savings that
did not harm student instruction but reduced spending below MOE
requirements, the State would then take tens of millions of dollars
away from the school in addition to whatever cuts were identified.
This does not make sense and does not help education or finances in
our County.

With limited financial resources, it has become clear that there's no
way to separate out school funding from the funding challenges in
general.  Those funds compete directly with funds for social services,
public safety, libraries, parks and recreation.    We need to work
closely with the school board before the budget is developed so that
we can allocate funds in the way that makes the most sense and helps
all our residents.