Tag Archives: MCPS

Nancy Floreen, taxes

Setting the Record Straight on MCPS Funding

By Council Member Nancy Floreen.

Adam Pagnucco’s recent post on the County Council’s budgeting work made an astoundingly misleading claim: “The County imposed seven years of austerity on MCPS [in FY10-16] while lavishing double-digit increases on nearly every other function of government.”  While I ordinarily ignore this kind of online misrepresentation of Council activity, this goes too far over the top to let pass.

As Council President in 2016, I plead guilty to leading the charge for two tax hikes to support MCPS.  The FY17 property tax hike enabled us to reduce class size and focus on the achievement gap; we exceeded the State-required Maintenance of Effort level (MOE) for the MCPS operating budget by $89 million.  The recordation tax hike enabled us to fund key school construction projects that would otherwise have languished.  We did this in a historic partnership with the Board of Education, which agreed to channel more of its funds to the classroom, and, bravely, less to employee compensation.

Were the preceding seven years really a period of “austerity” for MCPS and “lavish” times for others?  Consider the facts.

1. The choice of base years matters. FY10 was an anomaly. From FY01-09, we had funded MCPS at a total of $576 million ABOVE the MOE level, thus creating a much higher required spending base.  But no good deed goes unpunished.  When revenues sank like a stone during the Great Recession, this higher base became an impossible burden, even after we approved a property tax increase in FY09.

2. During the worst years of the recession, FY09-12, only two agencies – MCPS and Montgomery College – saw increased funding. To be sure, the increases were small (1.8 and 3.2 percent, respectively) and relied on higher State aid. But during this same period, vital County functions like Police, Fire and Rescue, and HHS were down 3.4, 5.0, and 14.7 percent, respectively.  Recreation was down 23.5 percent, and Libraries was down 29.2 percent.  These deep cuts were without precedent.  The new spending base we were forced to create was so low that any later increase seemed disproportionately large.  We consistently prioritized funding for MCPS and the College during this period.  As the Rolling Stones would say, they didn’t get what they wanted, but they got what they needed. This we could not do for the rest of County government.  I was Council President in that awful time.  There were furloughs for all County employees, including first responders.  MCPS furloughed no one.

3. The “austerity” claim fails to account for massive additional County funding for MCPS that is not included in the MCPS budget or in MOE.  So, for example, in FY18, we approved total expenditures for MCPS that include $2.37 billion for the MCPS operating budget PLUS $317.5 million more in the County budget.  This pays for debt service on school construction bonds, pre-funding MCPS retiree health benefits, support services ranging from Linkages to Learning to crossing guards, and MCPS technology modernization.  In FY13-16 alone, this additional County support totaled $1.08 billion.  These dollars are not technically included in the MCPS budget, but they should be. To put the FY18 additional County support in perspective, this amount is larger than the total FY18 budget for Police, Fire and Rescue, or HHS.  Again, this massive support for MCPS is all ABOVE the MOE level. And not counted.

4. Is the flip side of this alleged “austerity” for MCPS in FY10-16 really “lavishing double-digit increases on nearly every other function of government”?  Tell that to one of our most important and beloved departments, Public Libraries.  The libraries provide our one million-plus residents of all ages (including students from MCPS) with an ever-growing wealth of materials and technology.  But the department’s budget of $40.3 million in FY09 did not reach that level again until FY16, seven years later, even in nominal dollars.  The FY18 level, $42.7 million, is barely equal to FY09 in real dollars. “Lavish” indeed!

5. One key fact is that 90 percent of the MCPS budget is for the salaries and benefits of active and retired employees. MCPS’ benefits cost much more than the County’s. If MCPS’ employee share of health insurance costs was the same as the County’s, the savings would be $24 million.  Add to this the fact we alone in the State fund a supplement to MCPS employees’ State pension benefit. This alone cost $25.3 million last year.  The regular pension cost in FY18 is another $71.8 million, plus $56.8 million more for the State’s shift of teacher pension costs.  We also pick up the tab for pre-funding MCPS retiree health benefits (paid from the County budget, not the MCPS budget).  This set us back $74.2 million in FY18 and is now projected to cost $547.8 million in FY18-23.  Is that what you call “austerity”?

6. What really matters is the total MCPS budget, not the State share versus the local share. The higher State spending for MCPS in recent years reflects that the State’s funding formulas, at long last, are starting to recognize our students’ actual needs, as shown in our higher ESOL and FARMS populations. The State aid increases, which were long overdue, enabled us to provide continued strong support for MCPS during the Great Recession without further decimating every other function of government.  Why is that not a good thing?

7. In fact, a more complete and accurate comparison of FY10-16 tax supported operating budgets by agency shows that MCPS received a 12.9 percent funding increase compared to 13.0 percent for Montgomery County Government, 15.9 percent for Montgomery College, and 8.3 percent for Park and Planning. In addition, a significant portion of the FY10-16 increase of 803.9 percent in pre-funding retiree health benefits and 41.5 percent in debt service benefited MCPS!

As we go into an election year of hyperbole and catchy phrases, know that the Council, on which I have been so privileged to serve, is committed to thoughtful fact and policy based budgets, responsive to ALL our residents’ needs. We are also constantly mindful of the burden that our decisions place on our residents’ pocketbooks.  MCPS will always need more support.  Has it been singled out for unfair treatment – “austerity” for MCPS and “lavish” increases for everyone else?  The facts say otherwise.

Nancy Floreen has served on the Montgomery County Council since 2002.  She was Council President in 2010, during the Great Recession, and again in 2016.

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Adam Pagnucco, MCPS

More on MCPS Funding

By Adam Pagnucco.

Word has reached Seventh State that the governing establishment in Rockville is displeased with our recent post on MCPS funding, questioning whether our data is accurate.  Let’s establish the data’s presence in the public record.

The assertion in our post generating the most unhappiness is that the county cut local support for MCPS while it gave most other functions of government double digit increases over the FY10-16 period.  Local funding for MCPS can be found in the County Executive’s recommended budget.  The table excerpted below shows a $33 million cut in local funding for MCPS between FY10 and FY16.  That happened at the same time that enrollment grew from 140,500 to 156,514, an 11% increase.  Another item of interest is how dependent the county is now becoming on state aid for school operating funds.  For much of the 1980s and 1990s, at least 80% of MCPS’s operating budget was financed with local funds.  Now, the local share is down to roughly two-thirds.

As for the other departments and agencies, actual funding for FY10 can be found here and approved funding for FY16 can be found here.  Those data points, along with the MCPS local funding history above, are assembled in the table below which shows how much of an outlier MCPS was during the FY10-16 period.  Three notes.  The Department of Environmental Protection’s big increase is due to a hike in the water quality protection charge, which is used to finance stormwater projects mandated by the state.  It does not reflect a significantly greater draw on property tax revenues.  The Department of Housing and Community Affairs’ budget drop reflects a significant one-time expenditure for the Housing Investment Fund in FY10.  It does not illustrate a slash in the department’s operating activities.  The Department of Transportation’s operating budget is not included in this data because it was subject to departmental restructuring in FY11, preventing an apples-to-apples comparison.

Data on the county’s local per pupil contribution to MCPS can be found in this Office of Legislative Oversight report appendix and in County Council budget packets like this one.  This information was the basis of our statements that the county cut per pupil local funding for three straight years and froze it for four straight years, as illustrated by charts we published a year ago.  The Maryland State Department of Education’s Fact Books are our source for the actions of other counties after the Maintenance of Effort (MOE) law was changed.  During the first three years of the new MOE law, most other counties – including ones controlled by Republicans – increased their local per pupil contributions while Montgomery County did not.

Let’s be fair.  There is an intellectually honest argument to explain these actions.  Here’s a statement from Hypothetical Council Member X, who has decided to level with constituents about the county’s history of funding public schools.

Yes, we cut MCPS during the Great Recession.  We had to.  Our reserves were being drained to zero and we were about to lose our bond rating.  We were raising the energy tax, breaking our collective bargaining agreements, furloughing county employees and laying some of them off.  State law prevented us from cutting MCPS like the other agencies, so we did what we had to do.  The state also shifted a portion of its responsibility for paying teacher pensions down to the counties and now we are paying $60 million a year for that.  But it’s true that we squeezed MCPS longer and harder than any other part of county government and that was a mistake.  We tried to reverse that with the 9% property tax hike.  Going forward, we should give MCPS small and steady increases so we don’t run into problems with our schools again and we will pay for it by restraining growth in the rest of the government.

There’s a reason why intellectually honest arguments are not often used in politics: they are not pretty!  But it’s time to be honest about where we have been and where we are headed.  That SHOULD be what the next election is about.

One more thing.  The establishment may choose to respond with a guest blog.  We welcome fact-based debate.  But we caution anyone who responds that they must acknowledge and address the data we present here that appears in the county’s own budget documents.  Failure to do so will be perceived as political pap and puffery by Seventh State’s discerning readers.

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Adam Pagnucco, MCPS, taxes

Lessons Learned from the Giant Tax Hike, Part One

By Adam Pagnucco.

Unfortunately for those Council Members who voted in its favor, last year’s 9% property tax hike won’t go away.  The issue came up at the first County Executive forum, at which the three Council Members who voted for it defended it under heavy criticism from their Republican rival, Robin Ficker.  It is sure to be mentioned again as several County Council candidates, including some Democrats, are openly wary of more tax hikes.  And there is a general sense that the 40-point passage of term limits last year was driven at least partially by the tax increase.  All local politicians have taken notice.

There is no question that the Giant Tax Hike is widely unpopular, but it cannot be undone, so let’s learn from it.  Next year, the county will have a new Executive and at least four new Council Members.  All candidates taking office will assume responsibility for a county with needs that have not abated and a budget that remains challenging.  What lessons can these new office holders learn from the Giant Tax Hike?  In this series, we present three of them.

Let’s start with Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS).  Tax hike supporters point to MCPS’s needs as a reason for the increase and they have a point.  MCPS has enormous and permanent needs.  The school system is a huge asset that requires continuous large investments to maintain.  But while all of that is true, the sad fact is that the county imposed seven years of austerity on MCPS while lavishing double-digit increases on nearly every other function of government.  Once MCPS’s problems became too large to ignore, then and only then was the tax hike passed.

MCPS’s funding issues began when the Great Recession started impacting the county’s budget in 2009.  The County Council has significant power to cut most parts of the budget but the school system is an exception.  MCPS is covered by the state’s Maintenance of Effort (MOE) law, which establishes local per pupil contributions to school districts as a floor for funding levels in future years.  The intent of the law is to prevent counties from supplanting state aid for schools by cutting their own local school funding and moving that money to other functions.  Under the old MOE law, when a county wanted to cut its own local per pupil contribution, it needed a waiver from the State Board of Education or it would forfeit any increase in state aid for public schools.  This penalty did not deter several counties from cutting local per pupil spending during the recession.

In Montgomery’s case, the county cut its per pupil contribution three times.  In FY10, the county’s cut was forgiven by legislation passed in the General Assembly.  In FY11, the county obtained a waiver for a cut from the State Board of Education, who warned the county not to cut again.  In FY12, the county cut its local per pupil contribution for a third time without even asking for a waiver.  Egged on by the teachers union, the General Assembly got fed up and changed the MOE law.  From now on, if a county tries to cut its per pupil contribution without a waiver, the state would send the county’s income tax revenues directly to its school system to make it whole.  There would be no more messing around with MOE.

This presented a budgetary challenge for counties.  From now on, increases to local per pupil contributions would be almost locked in and very difficult to escape without the cooperation of local school boards.  The new law was a risk factor that had to be managed.  MoCo’s County Council reacted by freezing the county’s per pupil contribution for four straight years after three years of cuts.  By FY16, the county’s per pupil contribution was $9,759 – well below the prior peak of $11,249 in FY09.  Factoring in inflation, in real terms, the county’s per pupil investment in MCPS was 24% lower.  That caused huge budgetary strain in the public schools.

The budget was only one reason for the county’s behavior.  There was also politics.  Over the years, former Superintendent Jerry Weast had constructed a machine combining the school unions, the PTAs and the Washington Post editorial board to aid him in obtaining budget increases.  Increasingly, the council viewed him as going too far.  That perception became more acute when he held a meeting with union leaders at his home in 2008 and directed them to endorse Nancy Navarro in the District 4 special election.  Further strains appeared when Weast threatened to sue the county over MOE and the council accused the school board of lying about its budgetary needs in Weast’s last year.  Weast’s successor, Josh Starr, was caught in the aftermath.  He was unlucky enough to serve during MCPS’s austerity years and the budget squeeze effectively sabotaged his tenure.

While MCPS starved, the rest of the county government was well fed.  Between FY10 and FY16, the county cut local funding for MCPS but increased it by double digits for most other government functions.  The police department, the fire department, the libraries and almost every other department recovered nicely from the recession.  The council itself enjoyed a 19% increase for its own operations.  MCPS was almost alone in austerity.  (Housing had a significant decline only because of a one-time large expenditure to the Housing Investment Fund in FY10).  This profligacy throughout county government made it harder to afford an increase for MCPS without raising taxes later on.

MCPS might have collapsed if it were not for state aid increases.  Over the FY10-16 period, the county cut local operating funds for the schools by $33 million, but state operating aid went up by $192 million.

Meanwhile, many other counties reacted to the new MOE law differently.  While MoCo froze its local per pupil contribution to its schools, fifteen other counties increased their contributions during the first three years of the new law.  Nine of these counties were controlled by Republicans.  That’s right, folks – supposedly progressive MoCo lagged Republican counties in increasing local support for schools.

After seven years of squeezing MCPS, the county finally relented and increased its per pupil contribution, but it did so with a 9% property tax increase.  And it wasn’t just the schools that got more money – once again, nearly every other department got a bump.  There’s a lesson here for the next generation of county leaders.  MOE does indeed present a risk for the county budget, but it’s a risk that can and should be managed.  Seven years of austerity for MCPS cannot be imposed without major strains on public school operations.  A far better approach is to implement small but steady increases to per pupil funding while moderating growth in the rest of the government to pay for it.  That’s the best way to maintain one of the county’s greatest assets without imposing giant tax hikes.

In Part Two, we will look at another lesson to be learned.

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Adam Pagnucco, MCPS, State Aid, Teacher Pensions

Hell No!

By Adam Pagnucco.

A state commission charged with examining changes to Maryland’s public school funding formulas is sifting through recommendations for improvement.  And in the early deliberations, one big loser stands out:

Montgomery County.

The State of Maryland is a major player in public schools funding.  In FY17, the state will send $5.5 billion in operating aid to local school districts, about a third of its general fund budget.  MCPS gets 28% of its operating budget from the state.  Prince George’s County Public Schools gets 57% of its budget from the state.  In total, state aid accounts for 48% of Maryland public school budgets.

The state’s generous K-12 spending is driven by formulas dating back to 2002, when a state commission led by Howard University professor Alvin Thornton (commonly known as “the Thornton Commission”) proposed massive new investments in education.  These investments have helped rank Maryland’s public schools among the nation’s best.  Now another state commission chaired by former University of Maryland System Chancellor William E. Kirwan is reexamining the state’s funding formulas to see if they can be improved.  And here is where things are starting to go badly wrong for MoCo.

A consultant paid by the Maryland State Department of Education recently completed a two-year study on the state’s funding formulas.  In the interest of promoting “adequacy” in public school spending for students across the state, the consultant made several recommendations for changing the funding formulas which are now being examined by the Kirwan Commission.  One of them is that Montgomery County should get a 63% cut in state aid (a reduction of $354 million) while local taxpayers should pay 60% more (an increase of $842 million) towards MCPS.  Montgomery County Council Member Craig Rice, a member of the commission, said “that would be devastating” and termed the suggested local dollar increase for MCPS “impossible.”  Indeed, the County Council just levied a 9% increase in property taxes in part to increase funding for MCPS.  The consultant’s recommendations don’t just apply to MoCo: they would phase out all state aid for schools in Kent, Talbot and Worcester Counties while sending massive increases to St. Mary’s, Harford, Charles, Calvert and Prince George’s.

MoCo is already short-changed on state aid because of wealth formulas that disadvantage the county because of its high property values and high incomes but don’t recognize its high cost of living.  The result is that MoCo taxpayers get back just 24 cents for every dollar in taxes they pay to the state.  The state average for all residents is 42 cents.  Howard County, which has a higher average household income than MoCo, gets 30 cents.  Only Talbot and Worcester Counties get back proportionately less than MoCo.  If anything resembling the consultant’s report winds up being recommended by the Kirwan Commission and passed into state law, this imbalance will get a lot worse.

Your author has been told that the report is merely a “conversation starter” and thus is irrelevant.  But we are reminded of the last conversation the state had about public school funding.  For decades, the state covered the cost of teacher pensions as part of its commitment to K-12 education.  The program was particularly valuable to MoCo, which has higher teacher compensation costs than other jurisdictions because of its high cost of living.  A decade ago, state leaders began to have “conversations” about having the counties pay these costs despite the fact that Boards of Education, not county governments, set teacher compensation packages.  A spokesperson for the Speaker of the House said it was “a philosophical argument that we definitely need to have.”  In 2010, almost all MoCo state legislators promised to oppose a shift in their election campaigns.  But just two years later, Governor Martin O’Malley proposed a partial pension funding shift, backed by both the Speaker and the Senate President, and most MoCo lawmakers voted to support it.  The cost of the shift to the Montgomery County Government increased steadily from $27 million in FY 2013 to $59 million this year, with $6 million offset by the state.  This far exceeds the cost to any other local government and is more than a third of the amount collected by the county’s recent 9% property tax hike.  The county government now pays more for teacher pensions than it does for libraries, recreation, courts, IT, housing or environmental protection.  Its teacher pension payments easily swamp any money earned from the liquor monopoly, which will return $21 million to the general fund this year.

So goes these conversations.  Now that this new conversation has started, here is a suggested response from all of our state legislators and county leaders to this consultant’s report.

HELL NO.

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Adam Pagnucco, Montgomery County Public Schools, schools

Five Facts About MoCo School Construction Funding

By Adam Pagnucco.

School construction has been one of the hottest issues for years in Montgomery County.  Enrollment in Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) has been increasing by close to 2,000 students a year for a decade with no sign of stabilizing.  The result is crowded schools throughout the county.

According to the Superintendent’s FY18 Recommended Capital Budget, 109 of MCPS’s 197 schools were over capacity in the 2016-2017 school year.  Of those, 35 had enrollments of at least 120% of their capacity.  Even if the Superintendent’s request is fully funded, by the 2022-2023 school year, 87 schools will be over capacity and 29 will be at least 120% capacity.  Overcrowding will continue because construction will not keep pace with enrollment, which is projected to grow by nearly 10,000 students over that period.  MCPS is using 388 relocatable classrooms this year, a number that has not changed much over the last five years despite significant spending on school construction.

Over 80 percent of MCPS school construction costs are paid by county taxpayers with the remainder coming from state aid.  Here are five facts about school construction that all MoCo residents should know.

  1. MCPS enrollment is growing faster than the rest of the state COMBINED.

According to the Maryland State Department of Education, September enrollment in MCPS grew by 15,036 students between 2005 and 2014.  Over that period, public school enrollment in the rest of Maryland SHRANK by 543 students.  MCPS’s absolute increase and its growth rate (11%) were both first in the state.  Other systems are growing too (notably Howard and Anne Arundel) and all counties have maintenance requirements.  But in terms of new capacity needs, MCPS is in a category of one.

  1. MoCo gets less school construction money from the state per student than all but a handful of other counties.

Over the five-year FY13-17 period, MoCo received $201.7 million in state aid for school construction, just ahead of Baltimore County and tops in the state.  That’s a substantial amount of money.  But relative to its September 2014 enrollment, MoCo’s construction aid per student ($1,306) ranked 18th of 24 jurisdictions.  MoCo had 18% of the state’s public school students but received just 13% of state construction dollars, the biggest gap in the state.

  1. The state’s funding formula discriminates against school construction in MoCo.

The state finances a percentage of eligible costs for school construction projects approved for state aid with the local jurisdiction paying the rest.  MoCo is one of seven jurisdictions for which the state covers 50% of funding for school projects approved by the Board of Public Works, the lowest rate available.  Other jurisdictions including Prince George’s (63%) and Baltimore City (93%) receive much higher cost splits.

  1. State legislators from the City of Baltimore extracted a billion dollars from the state for their school construction program.

In 2013, Governor Martin O’Malley and the General Assembly’s presiding officers made passing a revenue increase for transportation a high priority.  Despite the fact that one of the projects to be funded was Baltimore’s $2.9 billion light-rail Red Line, city legislators withheld their votes until they got more money to rebuild their aging schools.  (City school enrollment fell between 2005 and 2014.)  The result was a new seven-year billion-dollar state aid program for city schools that greased the wheels for the transportation funding hike.  The city delegation’s work shows that significant progress can be made on this issue.

  1. MoCo residents are now paying a new tax hike in part to fund school construction.

Last May, the Montgomery County Council approved a recordation tax increase on home sales projected to raise $196 million over six years.  The council justified the tax hike on the grounds that $125 million of the money was supposed to be spent on school construction.  No recent media reports indicate that any other Maryland county has raised local taxes for the explicit purpose of financing school construction.

Disclosure: Your author’s son attends Flora Singer Elementary School in Silver Spring.  Despite opening just four years ago to relieve overcrowding at nearby Oakland Terrace, the school is already over capacity.

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Adam Pagnucco, budget, MCPS, Montgomery County, Montgomery County Council, Property Taxes

MoCo’s Giant Tax Hike, Part Two

By Adam Pagnucco.

The County Council is calling its recently passed budget an “Education First” budget since it included an increase above the state-required minimum level for Montgomery County Public Schools.  Let’s evaluate that claim.

The council and the school system have had strained relations for a decade.  The problems began under former Superintendent Jerry Weast, who antagonized several Council Members with his hard-charging, overdriven style.  Nevertheless, Weast won several major budget increases for MCPS during his tenure.  Then came the Great Recession, which forced the county to make substantial spending cuts across all of its agencies.  One obstacle to cuts at MCPS was the state’s Maintenance of Effort (MOE) law, which sets a local jurisdiction’s per-pupil contribution to public schools as a base which cannot be lowered in future years unless a waiver is obtained from the state’s Board of Education.  In Fiscal Years 2010, 2011 and 2012, the county cuts its per-pupil contribution to MCPS, and in 2012, it did so without applying for a waiver.  As a result, the General Assembly changed the MOE law to force counties to apply for waivers or else have their income tax revenues sent directly to school systems.  At the same time, the General Assembly shifted a portion of teacher pension funding responsibilities, once solely the province of the state, down to the counties.  The combination of these two changes provoked outrage from county officials, some of whom vowed to never support a dime over MOE for MCPS in the future.

The chart below, which shows the recent history of Montgomery County’s local per-pupil contribution to the schools, illustrates the effects of these events.  After rising through FY09, the per-pupil contribution fell for three straight years and then was frozen for four straight years.  This year, the Executive proposed and the council approved an increased per-pupil contribution.  (Roughly $300 of the increase is accounted for by the county’s payment of teacher pensions.)  This is why the County Council is calling its budget an “Education First” budget.

County Per-Pupil Spending on MCPS Nominal

But three items of context apply here.

First, the above chart does not include the effects of inflation, which erode dollar contributions over time.  The chart below shows per-pupil contributions in real dollars using 2017 as a base.  (Inflation in 2016 and 2017 is assumed to be 2.1%, the average of 2007-2015.)  Adjusted for inflation, the county’s current per-pupil funding is nowhere close to what it was before the Great Recession struck.

County Per-Pupil Spending on MCPS Real

Second, while MCPS was living under austerity, other county departments were receiving sizeable funding increases.  The chart below compares funding increases across several county departments and agencies including MCPS between FY10 (the pre-recession peak year) and FY16.  In terms of county dollars only, MCPS’s budget was cut from $1.57 billion to $1.54 billion over this period, a 2% cut, while many other departments enjoyed double-digit increases.  Can one good year make up for seven years of austerity for the public schools?

Change in County Spending FY10-FY16

Third, while county officials criticize the General Assembly for tightening the MOE law and shifting teacher pensions, it is the state that has been pumping substantial funding increases into MCPS’s operating budget.  The chart below shows that while county funding for MCPS was cut by $33 million between FY10 and FY16, state aid to MCPS rose by $192 million.

MCPS Local Money vs State Aid

The bottom line is that the new FY17 budget does add $110 million in local money to MCPS, an amount which exceeds the state-required maintenance of effort by $89 million.  But this one funding increase comes after seven years of reduced and frozen per-pupil contributions, a period during which the rest of the government enjoyed double-digit increases.  Council President Nancy Floreen has described the budget as “a historic partnership with the Board of Education” and “a plan for the future.”  Does that mean that the council will continue to exceed maintenance of effort and give the school system increases that match the rest of the government in future years?  Or will this be a one-year respite, after which austerity will return?

We will have more in Part Three.

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Montgomery County Board of Education

Sebastian Johnson Announces Wave of Endorsements

Former Student Board of Education Member Sebastian Johnson is  seeking an at-large seat in the 2016.

Advantages and Challenges

Johnson’s strongest asset is his impressive resume. After graduating from Montgomery Blair, Johnson received his B.A. in Economics and Government from Georgetown and a Master’s in Public Policy from Harvard’s Kennedy School. Johnson has already worked with kids in the classroom as a teacher and in the community. He’s done a lot at a young age.

Johnson’s biggest campaign challenge is that he is not an MCPS parent. As a result, he doesn’t have experience with MCPS from that perspective. Nor does he have links to the PTA network that often produces successful Board of Education candidates.

Endorsements

Today, his campaign was pleased to announce endorsements from seven elected officials:

Maryland State Delegate David Moon (D-20)
Maryland State Delegate Marice Morales (D-19) Maryland State Delegate Will Smith (D-20)
Montgomery County Councilman George Leventhal (D-AL) Montgomery County Councilmember Nancy Navarro (D-4)
Takoma Park Mayor Kate Stewart
Somerset Mayor Jeffrey Slavin

Some of the positive comments from elected officials included:

Nancy Navarro: I had the privilege of serving on the Board of Education with Sebastian, and I witnessed his steadfast dedication to public service. He has a keen understanding of the current issues facing our school system, and he brings a fresh perspective to the Board table. I am proud to endorse his candidacy.

George Leventhal: I’m very excited by the prospect of Sebastian returning to the Board of Education, where he served as student member. Sebastian’s life story embodies the success that we seek for all students. I wholeheartedly support his candidacy.

Kate Stewart: As mayor, an advocate for young people and a parent, I trust Sebastian to do what’s right for all of our kids. As a product of Montgomery County schools, he brings a keen insight to the challenges we face today. I can’t think of a better person to serve on the Board of Education, and I strongly endorse his candidacy.

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Montgomery County Public Schools

Addressing the Achievement Gap

The achievement gap between White and Asian students compared to their Latino and African-American counterparts has received increasing public attention. The County has a real interest in making sure all students perform well–not just because it’s right but also to assure that the County remains economically competitive. That’s not going to happen with an unskilled workforce.

Today, I thought I’d take a look at some of what Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) is already doing as part of its effort to make sure all kids have the skills to succeed. This is the first in what I hope will be an occasional series on public education. My thanks to Andrew Zuckerman, the Chief Operating Officer of MCPS, for providing so much of the information included here.

Choices in how we use our resources make a statement about what we value as a community. Traditionally, Montgomery County has been very supportive of MCPS, which accounts for roughly 50% of the County budget.

Impressively, despite enormous pressures due to tough economic times, the County has largely maintained that commitment. However, increases in the student population have nonetheless forced reductions in spending per pupil. The following graph shows the County contribution per pupil:

MCPS Spending per PupilSource: MCPS

This one reveals the total spending per pupil with state aid:

MCPS total spending per pupilSource: MCPS

Accordingly, it become all the more important that we use the money we have wisely, as is hardly a secret at MCPS. An examination of how MCPS directs it resources reveals that it is spending significantly more in those schools with more disadvantaged students.

The following graph reveals the teaching and staffing allocation to three different types of schools with similar numbers of students:

MCPS teacherSource: MCPS

To help disentangle the argot, Title I schools have high percentages of low-income families and qualify for federal assistance via the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. In this Title I school, over one-half speak English as a second language and 82% receive free or reduced price lunches.

Focus schools receive extra attention from MCPS despite not meeting threshold for Title I schools. Eighteen percent of students in this Focus school speak English as a second language and 50% receive free or reduced price lunches.

Low FARM schools have few students receiving free or reduced price meals (read: more affluent). In the low FARM school in the example, just 6% receive free or reduced price meals and 6% speak English as a second language.

As the graph reveals, Title I schools have 59 teachers and staff members while Focus schools have 51. In contrast, the low FARM school has 39.5. The difference is due overwhelmingly to the allocation of additional teachers to Title I and Focus schools.

So even as we continue to discuss additional ways to close the achievement gap so that all students are performing as high as possible, we need to acknowledge that MCPS has directed meaningful resources towards this problem. That doesn’t mean it’s solved, doesn’t merit significant attention, or we don’t need to attack the problem in a variety of ways, but it also means that MCPS is taking real actions to address it and the gap in opportunity between more and less affluent areas of the County.

 

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education, Larry Hogan, Montgomery County

Crossing Swords on Education

The battle has already been joined between Democrats and Republican Gov. Larry Hogan on education:

Fissures between Hogan and Democrats had already started to emerge over a budget proposal he submitted Jan. 23, two days after being sworn in. Hogan has stressed that his proposal includes record funding for K-12 education, even though it would provide counties with $144 million less than expected under existing education formulas.

Gov. Hogan says that education is his “first priority” and brags that his budget spends more than ever on education. Only addled Democrats who want to increase spending at out of control rates could think that his mild slowing of spending increases could constitute a cut. Democrats say he is taking an ax to schools.

So Who is Right?

Unfortunately, Hogan’s claims are so much political pap and every bit as reheated as the annual credit taking by legislators and governors alike for having balanced the state budget–something required by our Constitution.

Due to inflation and an expanding student population, spending on education always increases. One has to spend more just to stay even in real terms. This year, Gov. Hogan’s budget proposal reduces spending per pupil by $189. That’s no small amount.

Taking from Public to Fund Private

Hogan wants to further cut spending by making donations to parochial and private schools tax exempt. Sounds nice except that by reducing the tax take, Hogan cuts the funds available for education, effectively shifting spending from public to private schools. How letting me make a tax deductible gift to a DC private school benefits Maryland children remains a mystery to me.

Impact in Montgomery

Hogan would like to become the first two-term GOP governor in a very long time. Towards that end, he wants to appeal to small business owners and people sensitive on taxes in order to chip away further at Democratic margins in Montgomery. Hogan has also targeted Asian Americans, heavily concentrated in Montgomery, through his wife and family as well as substantive appeals.

Except that attempts to cut education will undercut all of these efforts, so he has to mask the cut as an increase. Education is Montgomery’s brand and there is universal commitment to maintaining it. Some may rail against immigration but when people move from around the world and struggle to live here to send their children to our schools, we’re doing something right.

In Montgomery, Hogan’s cuts will drop per pupil spending by $144–a cut that will reverberate through an already burdened school budget. Many moderate Montgomery voters who might be attracted to Gov. Hogan’s other proposals will have trouble getting past that one to even take a look at them.

 

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