With a new school year underway, cuts made to teaching positions over the summer break are now in effect at most Harford County public schools. Cuts to 66 classroom and related positions were approved in June by the Harford County Board of Education in order to provide salary increases to all school employees, with school-specific cuts determined later by Superintendent Robert Tomback. The cuts affected 34 out of 54 Harford County Public Schools. All of the position cuts were accomplished through attrition, according to Teri Kranefeld, manager of communications for HCPS.
The teacher position cuts affected 15 elementary schools, while four elementary schools gained full or partial positions in the process. Among the schools affected, a net total of 30 elementary positions were cut. William Paca Elementary in Abingdon lost the most positions, which Kranefeld said was due to a projected decline in enrollment for this year. Bakerfield Elementary in Aberdeen and Churchville Elementary School each gained one teacher.
Teaching positions were also cut at each of the county’s nine middle schools and each of the ten high schools. One high school level position was cut in Alternative Education.
Also at the high school level, new teaching positions were cut that had been planned to support the department chair initiative. Kranefeld explained that, in core subject areas such as English, math, science and socials studies, department chairs in some schools are each teaching one less class this year. A total of eleven new teachers were going to be hired to cover their classes, but Kranefeld said that the extra student load is instead being absorbed by existing staff.
The 66 teaching position cuts totaling $3.9 million were approved by the Harford County Board of Education on June 11th to help fund a total of $10 million in negotiated salary increases that will apply to all school employees in the 2012-13 school year.
The $10 million will pay for a 1% Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA) for all 5,600 HCPS employees and a step increase and a longevity increment for those who are eligible. The increases were negotiated between the school board and the Harford County Education Association, the union representing the school system’s 3,200 teachers. As a result of “me too” clauses in their respective contracts, the increases also apply to all other HCPS employees, including Superintendent Robert Tomback.
In addition to the 66 teaching positions cut specifically to fund salary increases, eight “para-educator” positions and seven central office positions were cut for this year; two special education positions were also added. The overall position changes were approved by the school board to help balance the budget for this year with $428 million in school operating funds provided by county and state governments.
Announcing the list of schools affected by the 66 teaching position cuts, Kranefeld wrote in a in a June 26th email to school employees, “Careful consideration was taken to ensure that the classroom was affected last and least.”
Spanning a total of three pages, below is the list of schools affected by the 66 cuts along with the specific teaching positions cut at each school. The list was provided by HCPS to The Dagger upon request. A chart at the end of page one shows the seven cuts made to central office positions.
No story here. Student population decreases -> cut budget -> cut positions. Logical move by our honorable Board of Education.
The real question is why our student population is decreasing. Is the allure of the superior educational districts of Howard and Baltimore county poaching young, urban, and intelligent professional families? Is our county left with the unwashed masses? Can our county even compete in a modern information age economy?
Time to take a long hard look in the mirror.
Your welcome.
Your intellectual Savior,
Damien Sandow
To preempt the inevitable haughty grammar correction comment, the autocorrect from my IPhone 4S substituted “Your” for “You’re”.
You’re Welcome.
My apologies to the unwashed masses.
Damien, you need to look in the mirror and you will see UGLY!
Standard Alinsky tactics, when you can’t defend….you attack! What does “you are ugly” have to do with acknowledging the simple fact that your grammar is lacking?
Thank you for your support. The uneducated masses of this county are typically averse to efficacious thought. They resort to the typical mudslinging and illogical “don’t ya’ll raise our taxes and teach our chilluns right!” conjectures that destine to leave our county in the relative stone age of a fast-paced and global society.
Your intellectual savior,
Damien Sandow
Never understood why the salary money that is freed up cyclically every year (the difference between the salaries of employees retiring and employees starting) couldn’t be used for raises…
I believe there are 3200 teachers in Harford. Lets assume 5% retire per year, or 160. If each retiring teacher were the highest paid on the scale, $71k (neglecting longevity bonuses, since some teachers leave early for reasons other than retirement while others stay until they’re 80), and each hired teacher the lowest, $41k, the difference would be $30,517 per position. Multiplied by 160, you get $4,882,720.
But, that is not in a vacuum, you also have teachers getting steps or longevity increases. Assuming the average step is $1800, lets assume 80% are eligible for a step (or longevity increase, even though that is $2000, the numbers are rounded so its all close enough). 80% of 3040 teachers would be 2,432 teachers, each receiving a $1800 raise. That is $4,377,600, almost exactly a $500,000 difference. Divide by the number of teachers and your plan would result in a $156.25 surplus per teacher, before considering other salary-related expenses.
So it looks like $156 could be given to each teacher?
But, lets consider employer-funded retirement contributions. Assuming (I can’t find it in the negotiated agreement, so we’ll use a standard amount) the county must contribute 5% of all teacher salaries, the $4.3mil for steps would result in a $218,880 obligation for the county’s contribution. Take that from the $500k and you’re down to only $87.85 per teacher per year, without considering rising healthcare costs, new taxes, etc.
So, quite a long winded discourse on salary increases of large groups, but in the end, when everyone receives steps on schedule, its practically a zero sum game.
Mathematics is certainly not a strong suit of the uneducated and unwashed masses of Harford County. That is why we must herd them judiciously and scientifically to a more just and verdant progressive society.
Our investments and sacrifices will pay off.
Your intellectual savior,
Damien Sandow
Kharn – I’m not considering the difference between steps & COLAs; I’m simply considering a raise to be a raise. The $4,882,720 you mention divided by the 3,200 teachers equals $1,526 per teacher. I’m simply using that to point out that referencing “positions cut specifically to fund salary increases” makes it sound like salary increases couldn’t exist without the cuts… which isn’t the case.
But that money isn’t available for a COLA, its needed for the contractual steps.
But as you pointed out the Steps are taken care of simply by retirements in most cases. As we had 3 years of no steps but still retirements and an inordanant number of retirements this year the budget is in good financial shape.
Right – the BOE spent years saying there was no money for raises when indeed there was.
Makes perfect sense, we have less students so we need less teachers. The problem I see is that we need MANY less administrators as well. If we lost that many teachers, why aren’t we losing more teacher mentors, more assistant principals, etc. I believe Harford County is going to continue losing students until they can prove people with young families should move here because of the great school system. The problem is, we no longer have a great school system, we have a mediocre one, at best. And it’s getting worse.
The steps and COLA’s should be eliminated from future contracts, as well as so many other benefits. I cannot understand why the majority of teachers believe they deserve those, just for being teachers. You aren’t in a high risk job or a job that doesn’t allow you to work until a normal retirement age so why are these needed? Most people, in the private sector, haven’t received raises in years because of the economy, yet most teachers seem to believe we, the tax payers, have that extra money just lying around to hand over to them. Where, exactly, do you think that money is going to come from?
I suggest we get rid of MANY, as in 70-80% of upper management central office staff first. Then we take it from there. Some teachers could get raises, some could be given more for supplies, I’m sure the list is endless…..
I certainly hope we don’t get a large number of posts criticizing the number of positions cut! If you scream for raises then some are going to lose their jobs to pay for those raises. If we have less students, we need less teachers. I still don’t know why we are continuing to build more new schools. What is the percent of capacity at Fallston Middle and High and Edgewood High? Darlington and Dublin Elementary? What will we do with all those empty seats? Lay off even more teachers? We saw this coming more than 5 years ago, someone is either asleep at the wheel or bleeding the tax payers dry on purpose. Unfortunately, I think it’s option 2.
Sandy,
You could also just make it easier and do away with public education entirely. I’d advocate that. All things being equal my earnings would quickly approach a million a year (170 students at $25 a day for 180 days a year). Face it, private schools would get overwhelmed and private tutoring would rule the day.
I won’t scream about the numbers of teachers cut. I won’t scream about a BOE that doesn’t honor contracts its signs. I won’t even scream about a CE and CC that sit on about $100 million in surplus revenue.
I will shake my head when people like you seem to suggest that young people go to college, earn a graduate degree, and continue taking classes incurring out of pocket expenses for the hope of having a dead-end minimum-wage job with no future or reward. Tell me Sandy, how does that benefit the next generation of learners? How does that benefit society? I will ask myself how it is possible for some people to have an incredibly myopic view of education? So Sandy, how is it possible?
Of course, you could just be a troll like Damien…
hmmm – there was a time not too many decades ago that we didn’t have all the massive waste and layers of needless and useless bureacrats running “public” education. So many of the financial issues and taxpayer suspicions begin and end with the waste. When will someone with a pulse start cutting things that don’t belong and are not contributing directly to education? They won’t – this is a circular argument and nobody has the will to fix the problems so they just ask for more and more $$$ to solve their problems. Money is already their problem. Private schools are able to do more with less because they don’t have that lovely inverted pyramid to fund.
So if the debate begins and ends with waste… how exactly is compensating teachers competitively seen as waste?
Agreed 100%. Our educational professionals should be paid as such. In Finland educational professionals are compensated justly and what do you have? A progressive, forward-thinking, and wealthy society. If we continue to compensate our educational professionals as if they are a part of the unwashed masses, then they shall behave as such. Your children will suffer unimaginable deficiencies.
We must raise revenue and sacrifice, just as they do in Finland.
Your intellectual savior,
Damien Sandow
Let me get this straight – bloated teacher salaries and benefits equals a utopian world. So a single, drug-addicted, crack-head mom is irrelevant to the success or failure of a child; plop that kid in the classroom of a teacher with a big paycheck and all that other stuff goes away…got it.
Also Damien what you have in Finland is a homogenized culture to the extreme. Less than 5% of the population is non-Fin; of of that the bulk of immigrants are from Russia and freakin’ Sweden. Read whatever you want between the lines but that demographic would be a breeze to teach and almost preordained to success. Whatever that utopia you think exists there might be more related to the median age of the residents (the highest in all the EU), density of the population; given the residents aren’t crammed together like sardines. Older populations tend to be wealthier, less prone to violence and crime. Very poor example…high teacher salaries being responsible for the Finish culture is just as likley coincidental.
Hi Money Tree,
Not exactly sure how to answer this latest missive of yours.
First, teachers are professionals and ought to be respected and treated as such. Most professionals provide services that can be bid upon by customers and the price for those services are market driven. A teacher’s expertise, though, is not subjected to those market forces in the same fashion. Thus, in an effort to be as efficient as possible, though not utopian, salaraies are set against a scale. A scale that the prospective employee examines prior to accepting. In other words, I accepted this position understanding certain truths about my compensation. Under a completely different paradigm the market would dictate “my price.”
Right now a person having the same credentials as I do can demand, and receive, compensation at a rate of $45 per hour. People also pay $70 per hour for private tutoring through brick and mortar facilities. Therefore, I offered my sarcastic counter-offer to Sandy. Servicing the same number of students for the same amount of time (but at a reduced fee of $25) would drive my professional services near a million dollars. Suffice it to say my current income does not approach that figure. In other words, I’m a bargain right now.
Second, a child’s success in life is determined by a myriad of factors. One of the most significant factors is a stable and encouraging home life. The greatest teachers in the world cannot do much about a student who goes home and has to hide from abuse, care for a drug addicted parent or otherwise be saddled with responsibilities that other students would not have to endure. And the amount of compensation to the teacher would have no effect on those factors anyway. Not sure what you are suggesting there.
My memory is fresh regarding your hatred of teachers, despite your family’s past. I know you said you actually hate unions and not teachers, but your words indicate so much otherwise.
This article is nothing short of a continuation of this past spring’s unpleasantness. The truth is this – HCPS is in trouble. It is not in trouble from its teachers, but from the people who control the purse strings and the people who put them there. Our staff is down and class sizes are up. The effect:
-The kids’ needs in last year’s smaller classes are the same as this year. With more people to serve and fewer people to serve them; how is this favorable for students?
-Faculties have been reduced… Go back and review the attached documents. Ask yourself this question, “How many non-instructional positions at the top pay rates were vacated?”
Now the analysis, how will HCPS attract talented graduates to fill the vacancies to come at the end of this year? Do businesses want the lowest bidding and least qualified applicant to teach the rising work force? If I were back in the place of selecting which school system to work for, HCPS would not even be on my list.
I won’t argue that a serious look should be given to the ideas floated in this thread, e.g., combining bus routes, realigning schools with an eye to close schools under-attended, etc… I think all money saving ideas should be discussed. However, taxpayers, like you, ought to be more concerned about the waste – new logos kept while book purchases cut in half – instead of thrusting your anger and hatred toward the people actually doing the work of teaching your kids. Just a thought…
Wow…is that 5 or 6 paragraphs that have zero, absolutely zero to do with my objection to using Finland as some sort of proof to support excessive teacher compensation. The rest of that blather regarding how much money you think you can make; go do it. I’m inviting you to quit your public school job and seek the riches you know you can make tutoring students. I’m sort of flattered to have a stalker.
It was the previous post of yours that caught my attention and to which I was responding. I was attempting to strike a civilized tone with you and repsond in an articulate fashion that could provide points for further discussion. Since you responded rudely by considering my words “blather” and have not added to or detracted from them, I can only conclude a civilized discussion is not on your mind.
Don’t feel flattered… just a good memory.
Regaring that second post, though, I am curious… What exactly do you mean – “Read whatever you want between the lines but that demographic would be a breeze to teach and almost preordained to success”? I don’t think you are referring to the older person demographic since they are already done with school by an advanced age… What are you saying?
If you don’t think you are compensated fairly, why did you become a teacher? That was one of the first things we explained to our children when they were considering career choices, is it something that you can earn a living you will be satisfied with. It sounds like a lot of teachers didn’t think that part through.
Actually Money Tree she did answer your missive about your much hyped homogeneity of Finland. Different cultures have different values and the class playing field is a little more level than it is here. Americans are obsessed with material goods and narcissism; they have no problem paying to get something really cool to keep the little suckers occupied while mommy and daddy watch “Dancing with Stars” rather than sacrifice time spent doing free or low cost things with the kids, outside or inside the home, to inspire them. When was the last time you all sat down to play Monopoly together? When was the last time You took the kids to DC or Baltimore to see a gallery or Museum. Did you even know they are free? Culture and interaction with people are boring compared to “Call of Duty”
–> Because
Answering months old posts?
Slow day at the Fed?
Salary money well spent.
How do you figure? John Carroll, IND and Loyola Blakefield all cost more than the per pupil cost of HCPS and they do not provide their own special ed services they send the kid back to HCPS to fund those!
ANOTHERHCPSTEACHER I would love to know which school you are teaching at, if any. I will be sure that my children do not go there.
I would never suggest anyone get a college education for a minimum wage job, minimum wage jobs should be for those starting out and learning job skills. But I would DEFINITELY be in favor of getting rid of public education. The free market would do a much better job.
I have 3 children. 2 are going to college, one is a Chemistry major the other is a biochemical engineering major. My other child earned his HVAC apprentice license while in high school and is now working during the week and taking weekend classes to earn his journeyman license. All 3 work and all 3 earn more than minimum wage.
The problem with public education is the same problem with most government jobs, the employees have too much of an entitlement outlook. We have had some great teachers who are worth their weight in gold and some horrid teachers who should simply NOT be “teaching” anyone. The problem is they are all paid the same. There is absolutely no incentive for a great teacher to do a great job except their conscious. For those who do, I made sure to do everything I could to help them and thank them and make them feel appreciated. I made sure my children understood they were expected to do the same.
As for the teachers who simply could not or chose not to do a good job, there isn’t anything we could do about that. We taught them what they should have learned in school at home, but that teacher still got paid the same. We even saw one incredibly bad teacher lose her job, but it finally happened the year after my youngest had her.
I’m baffled why good teachers support this environment! It makes no sense and isn’t good for anyone except the teachers who are doing a bad job.
“The problem with public education is the same problem with most government jobs, the employees have too much of an entitlement outlook.”
The problem with public opinion is that they rely too much on other people’s opinions rather than facts. When a consumer has an encounter with a business, they are (depending on what study you believe) 10 to 15 times more likely to share a negative encounter with their friends than they are a positive encounter. I would suspect that the same holds true for parent encounters with schools. The negative stories, those about encounters with ‘bad teachers’, are circulated much more widely than those stories about the ‘good teachers’. There are far, far more good teachers than bad ones. In my previous school, out of a faculty of about 80 teachers there were probably 3 or 4 that we considered truly poor. Yes, we as a faculty knew who they were because they were a constant source of frustration and/or amusement for us. Often times it happened that a teacher got a reputation as a ‘bad teacher’ simply because the teacher didn’t cave in to a parent’s ridiculous demands about their angelic child.
If the general public would quit making blanket generalizations about teachers, would share their stories about encounters with good teachers as often as they do when they are unhappy, and quit spreading the nonsense that a teacher who called out your child on their makes them a bad teacher, perhaps public opinion might change. It probably won’t, because it is easier to complain than to praise, but it’s still a dream.
It sounds like you chose not to read my entire post, or you chose to quote the parts that benefited your opinion. I also stated we had some great teachers and did what we could to lend them extra support. A large group of us went in and did all of their “busy work” for them so they didn’t have to spend as much time out of the classroom preparing.
And no, I’m not one to believe much in public opinion or to jump to the conclusion that a teacher is somehow picking on my child. I volunteered a lot while my children were in school. I’m sure I attended more BOE meetings than any teacher and my opinions come from what I saw with my own eyes.
2 examples of bad teachers….. My daughter had a very bad asthma attack in high school and I had to pick her up. She had a physics lab report due so I walked with her, after she had a nebulizer treatment, to her classroom and physically watched her hand in the lab report. Her teacher insisted on giving her a zero for not handing it in until I went to the nurse and got the date that I picked her up and reminded the teacher I was with her when she handed it in. My son had a spanish teacher who was so bad that she was fired at the END of the year and the principal had to go in, put together as much of each student’s work as he could find, and change their grades! Not just my child, every single child that teacher taught!
As for good teachers, in 1st grade my son was having a problem sitting still. I tried to work with his teacher but after setting up a few meetings with her, after she complained to me, she decided it was too much trouble to work together and would handle it herself. She didn’t figure I would take the time to work with her, I guess, and didn’t want to spend the time talking to me. She was spoken to by the principal a few times for recommending different children may need ADHD meds. In 2nd grade I set up a meeting with his teacher to let her know what had happen the year before. She said she would see how things went and get back to me. A few days later she emailed me that she decided to allow him to stand at his desk and do his work as long as he stood still and didn’t disturb anyone. It worked like a charm, great problem solving skills on her part. I don’t know if all teachers would be comfortable with that solution, but he learned what he needed to learn and had a great year, so I have nothing but good things to say about it.
I most definitely have found that there are many teachers who like to complain about lack of parent involvement until they have an involved parent. Then they really don’t want the parent involved, they just want to have someone to complain about. So I guess your comment about parents can also be applied to some teachers. Notice I say some, not all, because I did point out, unlike you, that we do have good teachers (and parents) as well.
You point out little of consequence except your own sense of superiority and your lack of ability to get your own kid to sit at a desk. Standing at his desk while working is not a compromise it is a capitulation.
Teachers want parent involvement but helicopter parents need not apply. Be involved at home, not standing in a classroom appraising the performance of a teacher who is managing 20+ kids, a few of which demand most of the time.
Not all teachers are bad and not all kids are good.
Edumacation, I don’t understand your point. No, I couldn’t get my child to sit still at his desk, I wasn’t there, he had a lot of energy at 6 years old, and the teacher was incredibly boring. No other teacher had this problem with him, before or after. I don’t know that I would have wanted the same solution his next teacher chose, but everyone was happy and he learned well, so I’m not going to judge her negatively on something that seemed to work out well in the end. It was definitely unconventional, I agree, but sometimes you try something different and it works. When he got wound up at home I had him run around the house a few times, it worked. When I tried to work with the teacher, and I did everything she asked and did not tell her what I wanted her to do, she no longer had time to have meetings.
As far as superiority, no, I haven’t said anything about superiority. And I don’t know why you would consider volunteering to be helicopter parenting. I did volunteer in the classroom in the mornings for things like the Patriot Program and to work with children who needed extra help, outside of the classroom. Most of my volunteer hours were spent in the hallway between the kindergarten and 1st grade wing. We had copiers and office supplies set up, teachers would set out work for us to do that didn’t require their expertise. Cutting out and putting together booklets, laminating, endless copies, making posters, etc. All things we could do so the teachers didn’t feel they had to spend so much extra time doing that when they could be grading papers, working on lessons, or spending time with their families. The “little” things that are tedious and time consuming but certainly don’t require any teaching experience. Unjamming copiers!
I spent some mornings each week shelving books in the library and checking books in and out. There is a lot of volunteering that happens in schools that doesn’t require time in your child’s classroom. I definitely wouldn’t call that helicopter parenting and the teachers appreciated the help. I suspect you don’t get much help from parents, I wouldn’t want to help a teacher who called me names and didn’t appreciate the free help.
Sounds as though you are the one mindlessly believing in “public opinion” instead of getting your facts straight.
Sandy:
“She was spoken to by the principal a few times for recommending different children may need ADHD meds.”
As both a teacher and the parent of a special needs child, I am offended both by this principal’s attitude and your bringing it into the conversation as an example of why you feel this particular teacher was bad. Just because you as a parent don’t want your child labeled as special needs or put on medication doesn’t mean that he isn’t special needs or wouldn’t benefit from medication. When a parent talks to a pediatrician about their child and his or her potentially having a medical condition such as ADHD, they **ALWAYS** ask the child’s teacher for input. When a child is tested by a school psychologist, more often than not it is the teacher who made the suggestion first, not the parent. Calling a teacher bad because she saw students who in her experience were likely ADHD and would benefit from medication is like calling a coach bad because she noticed her player breathing poorly during a practice and suggested that she might want to consult her doctor about asthma. The teacher might have been frustrated with you because she saw something in your child that you didn’t (or didn’t want to) see. Maybe not, I don’t know. However, that is a lame reason for deciding that this teacher is “bad”.
Concerned Teacher, no you misunderstood. This teacher never recommended my son needed to be considered for ADHD. I was talking to the principal about my concern with my son, telling her that I wasn’t sure what my next step should be. I had a teacher come to me with a problem and was working with her. We set some ways to deal with the issue, such as keeping a chart, a weekly note, whatever the teacher was most comfortable and confident with and she chose not to follow through after about 3 weeks. My concern was that she presented me with this as a behavior problem and I wanted to take care of it asap. It had never been a problem before. The principal told me this teacher recommends at least 5 students a year be put on ADHD meds. She did not have them meet with a school psychologist, she did not speak to anyone else in the school about it, like other teachers the children have, she just decided she would give out medical opinion. 5 kids a year, out of 22, need ADHD meds because she, and only she, says so. The principal let me know that she would talk to his other teachers to see if anyone else had a problem, but didn’t want me to be concerned because that was what this teacher did, suggest medication instead of working. No other teachers agreed with her, I set up 1 dr appt, again, just to be sure, and no. It was simply a case of a teacher not wanting to be bothered. She retired the following year.
She also was not one of the teachers I used as an example of being “bad” as you put it. The examples I used were a physics teacher who constantly lost students’ work and a spanish teacher who was fired and the principal had to redo ALL of her students grades. I didn’t consider this teacher to be “bad”, I guess I would consider her worn out and ready to retire, which she did.
Since I am such a bad parent, what would you have suggested I do in this situation? Doctor shop until I found someone who would put him on medication even though no one, this teacher included, thought he needed it? I don’t understand your point.
If HCPS were doing such a great job at educating students, then the tutoring centers wouldn’t be able to charge so much, there wouldn’t be a need for them.
I don’t think that Harford is in danger of driving away young families. APG is only going to expand, and many families are fleeing Baltimore County for more affordable housing. Most people are not interested in driving over an hour each way to work, so Cecil County, DE and PA are hard to sell.
For Fallston and Edgewood’s capacity issues, the solution is as simple as closing Joppatowne and splitting the population. People are downsized all the time, at least in teaching the population demographics allow years of notice before radical changes in staffing happen, vs business where one quarter can spell death for a company.
good solution but I think some would have a problem with that. When they moved the MMS principal to FMS some members of that community got enraged until they actually got to know him. I suspect the Joppatowne population sent to Fallston would not be made to feel so welcome!
If the principal of the county’s junior gladiator academy moved to my kids’ school, I would be pissed until he proved himself as well.
I think his ten years at MMS proved his value as a principal!
Cdev:
I moved out of Joppatowne because of the schools, especially MMS. When every neighbor states “Its only one (or two) more year until my son/daughter moves up to JHS” you know there is a problem.
Kharn,
If only it were that simple. HCPS is already much under capacity. Yes, it makes sense to close schools and lay off teachers but here we are with teachers upset about being layed off. Edgewood High was at a bit less than 70% of capacity when they rebuilt it, with a higher capacity than it used to have. Patterson Mill is the only high school above capacity but I haven’t heard anyone complaining that they haven’t redistricted their children to the new Edgewood High School. I don’t expect that anytime soon either. If someone suggested closing Joppatown High, you would get complaints about long bus rides, etc.
The number of students is projected to continue decreasing yet we are still building schools. Teachers are complaining about pay but we are graduating more teachers from colleges than we need. I think it is more a matter of supply and demand and if teaching was such a demanding career where they were so underpaid, I don’t think we would have so many college graduates wanting to be teachers.
There is a difference between lack of demand and lack of need. You equate free market economic measures to a social construction emplaced to bring the general education level to a point higher than it would be otherwise.
Yes there is a lack of demand for teachers because the same society that created a need for teachers now sees them as expendable.
Lets just go all out on a home school/home tutor system and see what your willing to pay for a good teacher to come and personally proctor your kids.
The good ones will make more than they do now so you’ll get no complaints from me. The created demand for verified good teachers will skyrocket as will the hourly price. Teachers will contract for set pay and time with your child and you will have little say in the matter aside from finding a different teacher.
No half measures.
Either support the economy of scale of public education or go for broke with an individual plan and I’m not referring to vouchers. Vouchers are nothing more than a subsidy and redistribution to circumvent the current system to the benefit of few.
If you want to make changes then do so meaningfully.
Teaching is demanding in many aspects, particularly dealing with parental expectations for young children. When we can shift the parent mentality from that of viewing the teacher as a babysitter or on the other extreme as the kid’s personal one on one proctor then we can make the needed changes.
Teachers are teachers first and substitute parents second.
Parents should be parents and teachers to equal degree.
No one actually got pink slipped. Attrition ate all these positions!
@Kharn – just remember a few yrs ago how we all heard the sky was falling from the BOE and elementary school populations were exploding. After the following school year began, we all witnessed that the lengthy technical process of calculating enrollment was completely off. Why would we put any faith in anything other than numbers today in each school. There isn’t explosive growth in the county (fortunately)so this shouldn’t be that difficult for the powers that be to figure out. And you are right – run it like a business. Downsize if necessary and save all of us taxpayers the added cost of running an under used facility – staff, utilities, etc.
Can’t be run like a business… a business can raise its cost to the customer when operating costs go up, and that is unpopular around here. I’m actually quite in favor of privatizing education completely, I would do much better financially speaking.
So little you know about the business world. Businesses can not just raise prices as cost go up. They cut cost, trim waste, or lose profits or go out of business. I also doubt you would be better off financially. Again, that business thing, ya know.
Yes they can, they do it all the time. If you methodology was true food and gas prices would not be so dam high right now. Id doubt you have even ever run a lemonade stand.
Prices are set by the market not the cost. If the cost is more than the market allows then it is sold at a loss or the product disappears from the market (at least temporarily – remember the 1970s?). If the price is higher than the cost then there is profit. How much do you think we are willing to pay for gas? It doesn’t mean the cost has necessarily gone up.
Basic differences are between costs and prices. Take a business course or two.
JJ: The problem is that public schools, like most other government-funded entities, will never be allowed to “go out of business”. The public demands that their darling children get the best of everything and that new schools are built and that classrooms get modernized with all the latest and greatest in technology, yet when those costs come due they whine and complain about how their taxes are going up to pay for it. Is there waste? Absolutely. The bureaucracy that is HCPS is top heavy, no doubt. There are positions at the castle that could be eliminated with no adverse affect on education at all. There are costly programs that have been implemented solely to justify someone’s position that could easily be eliminated. For example, did you know that virtually every math class offered at the high school level has county-wide assessments? Every student in HCPS takes the same chapter tests, midterms, and final exams. On its surface, this makes sense. However, when this was implemented math teachers were told that this was being done to collect data for analysis that would be used to drive instructional practices, even though the data is statistically invalid, teachers routinely “teach to the test”, and no one in the castle actually does anything with the data. Moreover, midterms and finals are so insignificant in terms of their impact on overall course grades that students (and in some cases teachers) rarely take them seriously. The printing costs for exams and answer sheets and the technology costs for answer sheet scanners and the program to run the system could easily pay for the salaries of a few teachers, of that I have no doubt.
Hence the needs for cuts in all the waste. However, the original reply was to the statement was that “..a business can raise its cost to the customer when operating costs go up …” and that teachers would do “…much better financially speaking.” Neither is likely to be anywhere near the truth. As I had stated, trim waste. Waste is especially prevalent in most government organizations.
Unfortunately, those who hold the ability to trim the waste are often times those for whom the waste is most beneficial. When Dr. Tomback came to power, one of the first things he did was create a brand new (and unnecessary, therefore wasteful) position for his friend Bill Lawrence whose primary job is to make sure that no one gets to talk to Dr. Tomback directly. This position, if I recall correctly, has a salary of about $120,000, or the equivalent of $1,000 raises for 120 teachers.
Concerned Teacher, Don’t forget to include all the benefits when you calculate teacher salaries, insurance, days off, substitute pay, etc.
JJ,the problem goes way beyond teaching to the test. There was a time when HCPS was supposed to be proving Secondary Ed reform was working. Each principal was told if there were any children they felt unlikely to pass the HSA tests, they should not take it and not count their grade. Seriously, I couldn’t make this up. So, if they felt a child wasn’t able to pass the test, and I don’t mean special ed students because that may make sense in some cases, they didn’t count and the scores were falsely inflated from the year before and deemed a SUCCESS. Only in HCPS…….
I’d love to see every student offered a voucher and let the public schools compete against privates and charters, with everyone taking the same standardized tests and publishing the results. (Publishing Aberdeen and Edgewood’s magnet students’ scores separately from the rest of the student population would also be good for a laugh)
If given the opportunity, I’d also require each senior pass the GED to receive a diploma. Get rid of social graduation and make the diploma worth something more than a certificate of attendance.
Your voucher argument has a flaw. Would that esteemed private school have a higher level of success if it was forced to admit every student that applied? I think not. That student whose is performing poorly academically and has a history of behavior problems is going to have a tough time finding one of these elite private schools to take his precious voucher.
The Maryland Free State Academy is always an option for poor-behaving youth, or the public schools.
Why do you assume I’d require the private and charter schools accept everyone? They would retain the right to institute academic and behavioral requirements for admission and continued attendance.
But if they retain the right to maintain admission requirements, how can a public school compete when their doors must be open to all? It’s not an even playing field.
Kharn did you look at that school? It is a 22 week program. It is not a permenate school and is only for kids 16-18.
http://www.ngycp.org/site/state/md/node/2262
Who says public schools have to compete? They’d still be funded based on their enrollment levels – as they should be today. Under a voucher system, students and parents would have more choices, good teachers could maximize their earnings and not be weighted down by a union contract, and even if vouchers don’t save taxpayers all that much, they certainly wouldn’t have to cost more. So who would lose in this scenario?
Its simple:
Parents who care will assist their children in preparing for the enterance exams so those children will be better positioned for admission to the school of their choice.
The parents that see the kids as nothing more than an extra monthly plus-up on the EBT will continue their current behavior and their children will remain at the Rt 40 schools (segregated from the magnet students, since we do not want Bel Air Suzie to find out there’s weed or pills in the school where she is earning her math & science diploma).
Life is not fair, there is no gaurentee for equal oppertunity or equal outcome beyond everyone being born naked and hungry. Every parent is responsible for ensuring their child is best suited for success in this world, and children of those parents that take that responsibility seriously should not be punished, or have their educational oppertunities reduced, because another parent chooses to smoke and drink their way through the monthly assistance check and use Maury or Ricky Lake as a babysitter.
If a parent works with his or her child for an hour every day so they can read phonetically, write comprehensive sentences and do algebra by 5th grade, why should that child be in the same classroom as a child who cannot read at a first grade level or show 2×2 equals 4 when he’s ten years old?
In this scenario, the private and charter schools are doing what the public schools could never hope to do in today’s PC world: Segregate students into individual classrooms on the basis of aptitude so the better students can advance through the material without being restrained by the lowest common denominator.
Mike vouchers are not cut and dry. You can not give people the Per Pupil Cost. Likely if you removed severe Special Ed students from the equation would give you 4K to spend elsewhere. What private HS can you go to for 4 K?
Kharn
Bel Air Suzie most likely knows about drugs because her boy friend Fallston Freddie is using Heroin.
Secondly You forgot the garuntee of an outcome of eventual death. What Charter School is doing this in our county. Stats on charter schools is that most fail within the first 5 years.
Cdev – not sure how you come up with 4K. A @430M budget divided by 38K kids is around $11K per pupil. Granted that Special Ed costs do drive the average up and there are going to be fixed costs that probably wouldn’t/shouldn’t be figured into the voucher value calculation, but still… 4K and 11K are pretty far apart.
Mike you do not actually think that the school system spends the same amount on each kid do you? To send a kid to a non-public placement can run 100K plus a year. This is all paid for by HCPS. The average run of the mill kid with no special ed services etc. is much cheaper to educate than the perp pupil cost because SPecial Ed eats up the largest part of the budget. Most kids will not ever need a speech therapist, adaptive PE, extra IA’s and IH’s a dedictated itinerint worker, a special educator for IEP meetings , special transportation, etc. yet the school pays for these things. Not that these kids are not worth it and do not need it. A Dynavox can cost 10K yet most kids will not need them. This one expense for an Autistic kid costs more than the per pupil expenditure for the county. Simple Averageing says that average Joe with no services costs less than the average. Look at the actual budget. No one has addressed the fact that the per pupil cost is less than tutition at many of the prestigious catholic schools that are touted as doing more with less!
No, I don’t believe the school system spends the same amount on each child; that’s why I wrote “Granted that Special Ed costs do drive the average up”. I have looked at the budget and from what I remember, the Special Education subtotal was about 10% of the total? That’s not to say that all special ed costs fall within that category; some might fall under other budget sections but regardless… 10% of the budget total is somewhere around 43M. Whereby your 4K per student x @ 3800 students gets us to @152M for non-special ed… back that out of the 430M total and you get 278M. So your math implies @278M for special ed, and the budget is @43M. I follow your logic… I just don’t know how you came up with the 4K per student.
Mike not included in the budget for special ed are the people who have jobs in the system simply because of special ed students. For Example a deaf girl who requires a sign language interpreter. That is not listed in the special ed budget but the general salary category. When you shift those costs you start to see the number I am talking about. If John Carroll has a kid requiring a speech therapist they send the kid to a local public school to get that service at expense to the public school system.
I follow your reasoning. I’m sure there is much in the way of special ed expenses that fall into other budget categories…
We had a charter school in Harford County. It sucked! Those kids went back into the classroom woefully underpreforming when it closed. Additionally the PPC of a kid is an average. It includes the Non-public placement Autism kid at 100K and the average kid at 3K.
When I was in middle school, I had to attend a school board meeting for one reason or another. At the meeting I attended, I witnessed the parents of special ed children vehemently lobbying the school board to close the gifted program and reallocate that funding to the special ed programs. It was eye-opening.
The gifted and talented folks shot themselves in the foot when they did not want to be included in IDEA. That said my original point is that not all kids cost the same to educate….some cost alot more than others and that skews the Per Pupil Cost!
My daughter graduated from Edgewood with HONORS. No, she was not in the magnet program. Yes, she did take AP courses. I can say that Edgewood is one High School in Harford County that will not hold a child back from learning but help them go further. Her test scores where great and doing outstanding in college. Maybe you are the one who needs to be tested. Sorry, but Edgewood High School is a good school. Maybe your children didn’t want to learn, but those who do are given the gift of education.
Notice how nobody responded to this positive statement about Edgewood High School. That’s because people in this damn county can’t even comprehend that a school in Edgewood MIGHT actually not BE THE WORST PLACE ON EARTH.
Funny you say that. One of my wifes co-workers is a teacher/teacher couple and we went to dinner with them. He teaches on rt. 40 and came from DC Public schools. He said that his old school was far worse than his current school which is not a school that many people say positive things about!!!! I think people have trouble accepting that the top kids at Edgewood, Magnolia or Aberdeen are just as smart as the top kids at Southhampton, Fallston or Bel Air. Additionally the Rt. 40 kid is exposed to a good bit of diversity!
Kharn, interesting idea. I don’t know anything about the GED test, but I do know that more students than not have to take remedial math classes before they are allowed to take for credit math classes at HCC. Interesting idea. Clearly our math programs are lacking.
Both my daughters had the same math teacher in 8th grade. She told me, no matter what happens, lol, do not let them take AP Calculus. Both were on that math track, they took algebra I in 7th grade and took Trig and Pre Calc in 10th grade, so the only thing left was AP Calc and AP statistics for 11th and 12th grade. Or they could have skipped a year of math which seemed ridiculous to me. My middle daughter was at the SMA and was fine with other choices that included a lot of math. She did take AP Calc as well. My oldest daughter just took 2 english classes in 11th grade to finish her requirements and graduated a year early and went to Towson.
Their teacher’s reasoning was that Calculus in HCPS was calculator based and if they took the AP credit and moved on to Calc II in college they wouldn’t know how to do the work because they would never learn it without a calculator. We took her advice and although my middle child did take AP Calc she still took Calc I at UMBC. That was definitely right on, they were not allowed to have calculators. I have NO idea why HCPS would be teaching contrary to what the public universities in MD are teaching.
Fed Up, you are exactly right about the BOE projections being wrong. In fact, a group of us proved they were wrong, went back many years and proved they were never right, not even once. The projections are still wrong, lol, because if they admit just how much enrollment is falling they would have to stop building schools and lay off more/hire less staff. It’s all about keeping their jobs and nothing about what is best for the county or the students.
As someone who was involved with “balancing enrollment” when they built Bel Air High School, it was OBVIOUS to anyone and I mean anyone who knows basic addition that Bel Air High would soon be overcrowded and Fallston would be way undercapacity. They were trying to put a Medical Magnet and swore up and down (including Dr. Haas) that there was plenty of room. Well they got their “signature program” and the school is bulging at the seams while other schools are way under. What sense does that make? I even approached Joe Licata and told him his numbers were inaccurate and they needed to recalculate to show the Board members what was right. Lo and behold it never happened. And what happened to all the money that was supposed to go towards this magnet program. One of the Board members who was on the Upper Chesapeake board insisted they were giving the school system hundreds of thousands of dollars. Yep where is it??
A Signature Program isn’t the same as a Magnet Program. The former is generally open to students in that school’s attendance area while the latter is open to all students in in HCPS. Therefore, the funding is very different. The students do have to meet specific requirements and criteria to become part of either program.
Kate, I love how you have disagreement checks on this, lol. I wonder what they are for? At least he is no longer on the board of ed or the board he was on at Upper Chesapeake. No one has a clue what was going on back then. I am still wondering what is going to happen to the land across from HCC where they were going to build the elementary school. What a waste of money that was.
I am so glad my children are finished with HCPS!!!
And All Rectangles Aren’t Squares, it is a signature program now because they couldn’t get the magnet program passed. As soon as it was realized there was no room for the magnet program, everyone else withdrew their funding. So now they have a signature program INSTEAD of the magnet program they were planning. This happened about the same time as the BOE became a mostly elected board instead of fully appointed one.
There is a budget – run the system against the budget. That would be like a business. In this case the “price” can go up and down like a product, but within a school year it should certainly be known what the operating budget is and that is the limit of expense.
As for the privatization – you’d probably get little push back from taxpayers. The gov never belonged in this in the first place and the less control they have over these things the better (except those required under the Constitution of course).
The local govt. very much belongs in this and the State Constitution states that. A Free Appropriate Education is owed to all citizens can be found in the Maryland State Constitution.
Mea culpa – I was thinking bigger picture regarding Constitution (Federal) while referring to waste in education. I’m not against local involvement in public schools but there is so much bureacratic waste local, State and best of all, Federal, that it doesn’t take much thinking to see we can reduce our spending dramatically. And through this, it seems that many on this thread don’t understand that there are huges sums of dollars coming in for “education” yet there is clammoring for more, more. More money is not the answer unless the question is “How do we ensure continuing financial strife and struggling schools?”
Most federal involvement is through the ever popular unfunded mandate. NCLB is an unfunded mandate, Required teaching of Constitution on Sept 17 (even though it may not be curriculum appropriate on that day), etc. These unfunded mandates get complied with because they hold hostage FARMS money. Utah is the one state that realized complying with all of NCLB cost more money than they got in FARMS and funded their own FARMS and did what they wanted. That said the DOEd does very little for your school and is a whole seperate budget. Locally it is a requirement!
CDEV, My girls had a social studies teacher whose assignment every year on constitution day was to make the kids write a short paper on why constitution day was unconstitutional. He gave them all a copy of the federal constitution and let them go. Brilliant! And very enlightening for many students and parents.
Great way to demonstrate this unconstitutional over reach by the federal government passed in 2004.
HONK IF YOU SUPPORT MUSTARD ON YER HOT DAWG
Uneducated, unwashed. You need an intellectual savior my friend.
Your intellectual savior,
Damien Sandow
This now explains why my Harford Tech Student was put into a US History-CC class that not only has a teacher but a special ed teacher. My daughter is sitting in a class where they are learning how to write a complete sentence and then she heads to Trig class. She is with friends who were in Honor classes last year and now in a CC class. So sad.
Thank the laws that do not allow segregating special ed students into classes where they could learn at their own pace, without slowing down the average students. At least they’re not getting into AP classes, so there is some refuge. But, then an average student is slowing down the AP-qualified students and the administration wonders why AP scores are down…
You may have just proved a point. I know many special ed students who take AP courses and score 5 or 4 on the test. You may know some too and not realize they are special ed. LRE is the policy you seem to complain about most. It is all a matter of appropriate placement. A kid who can not write his name does not have an LRE that can call an AP course appropriate. If however with the appropriate accomadations they can be successful then they belong in an AP class.
The reason CC classes exist at the high school level is the definition of “highly qualified teacher” in No Child Left Behind. Special Educators are not considered “qualified” unless they have a degree in the specific subject area-since most have special ed degrees and not individual degrees in math, science,etc. they are now part of Cooperative-Collaborative classes. They are expected to co-teach with the subject specific teacher who is certified as well as nurture the special ed students in the class. This works only to the level that the two teachers can work out-they are expected to plan together and work out who is teaching what facet of the lesson, who guides which components and who grades what.
I’m surprised you’re getting dislikes for posting the truth about CC classes.
I have no problem with Special education classes, I sub in a local elementary school and love working with these children. My frustration is that my daughter clearly does not belong in a class like this and she and other students were thrown in there because of the loss of a teacher. The school could have enlarged the other classes. I keep telling her to look at it as an easy “A”, her response is yes it is an easy A but she feels like is not going to learn as much as the students in the other US History classes. I really feel for the students who were in Honors World History last year and now in a CC class.
Why not Honors or AP US History?
From what I’ve heard, honors classes are being eliminated and the only choice is CC or AP. Which also leads to the questionable practice of 10th graders in AP classes…
CC is a choice????
CC is a class in which a special educator is placed in their to help assist the impact of the special needs students in the general classroom and the class is kept to a smaller size. The other students are the same as the run of the mill US History Class. I do not totally think the heterogenous grouping is always beneficial but in many cases this works. So there should also be some non CC US History courses at the school. If we are at a point that we place a special educator in every non AP course than we are not making effective use of the special educators.
I also heard it said special educators are not highly qualified. This is false. A special Educator must be certified in a second area as well like math or science or social studies. Good special educators are hard to come by and it is a major need area for us. Luckily HCC seems to be stearing many ed majors towards a special ed cert as well.
Its a choice for the non-special ed kids, but the trade offs are constantly disrupted learning environment vs life consumed by homework.
@Kharn
There is no “choice” for students to be in CC classes. They are placed there at will by a scheduling program if they are not in AP. It’s a matter of making the master schedule work. The only time it becomes a ‘choice” is if a student is unhappy enough with the pace/students of the CC class to get their parent involved to wrestle with the guidance department to get their schedule changed. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard from guidance “well, we’ve got to put these kids somewhere”.
On a personal level, years ago, my child took the test math and english test for honors classes in middle school. Based on her scores it was recommended she enroll in honors government as well. She balked, not wanting to take on the extra work load. I insisted. As a senior she elected to be a mentor for one of her former teachers who taught regular and CC classes as well as honors. One night during the year, she said to me, “You know how I didn’t want to take honors and AP classes because I was lazy but you said it would be better in the long run? I’m really glad now that you did. If I’d been in a class like the one I’m mentoring in I would’ve hated it. They don’t listen, they don’t do the work and they don’t get anything done. I don’t know how Mrs……….. puts up with it. I’d be sending them to the office all the time.”
Those moments when you’re child admits you knew what you were doing….Priceless.
The fact that it points out a problem even a 17 year old can see….not so good.
CDEV, my kids went to 3 different high schools, 2 because of redistricting and one because she chose to go to the SMA. All 3 schools were different. At BAHS, there were honors classes in 9th and 10th grade. After that it was either College Prep or AP. No honors option at all.
At FHS, they chose between CC, CP, honors, or AP from 9th-12th grades. I think AP History was the only AP choice in 9th grade and I’m not sure if CC and CP were offered in all classes.
At AHS, they had CC, rigorous, honors, and AP. I don’t know a lot about what was offered when because my daughter was in the Science and Math Academy and there were not many choices, they either took honors or AP. Some AP classes were strictly SMA classes and some were with the general population. I know she took AP English with the SMA and AP History with the general population. I depended on what was available and how many kids signed up. They had a major overcrowding issue at the time. I still have no idea how rigorous compares to CC, CP, or honors.
CDEV
What school are you teaching at that keeps CC classes smaller? Since each high school has lost what amounts to 3 teaching position (1 as payback for our 1% raise and 2 for the 1 extra period off each of the 4 new dept chairs get per day) they are just as large as any other class in the department.
As for special ed teachers being certified in an additional subject area, you make the assumption that they will only be assigned to a CC class in that subject area. That’s great in theory but special ed teachers are not placed with a classroom teacher according to their expertise…it’s all about what makes the master schedule work.
I teach at a non public placemnet institute my wife teaches at MMS and teaches CC classes and non-CC classes. They routinely have less than some other classes. For example a CC Algebra A class at her school has 16-18 kids while the non-CC Algebra A classes have about 22-25 in them. The Algebra B classes have about 25 and the Geometry class has about 30. The idea behind CC if done correctly is that they have less kids (many more needy of attention) and an extra adult in the room. Only a certian percentage can be Special Ed.
If the class size was reduced to only the special ed kids and the non-IEP’ed trouble-makers, CC would be great. The problem is the normal kids that get caught up in the social experiment and their experience suffers.
So Kharn your solution is to put problem students (behavior issues) in with the special ed students? How does that do anything other than send a message that we are going to give up on you because you are special ed. CC works if done right. Based on what I read from some people it sounds as if CC is not being done correctly at some schools. CC classes should not be big and not an excuse to dump a child who is only a discipline problem in a room with two adults. If we got rid of CC and, as some suggest, put the special ed kids in special classes by themselves. Discipline problem Dave is now going to be in a regular ed class with Semi-smart Sally and she will find a way to “get involved in the social experiment.” I think some of you have a narrow mind of what special ed actually is. You seem to think All Special Ed kids are simply kids who will never amount to much. My Father-in-law works with a very gifted engineer at TASC. He does however have a severe case of ADHD, so bad that they have to give him a squeeze ball during client meetings to keep him from jumping out of his seat.
Cdev:
I was in inclusion classes in the late 80s/early 90s in elementary and middle school (gifted, regular and special all in the same room), I know how special ed students slow the rest of the class first hand. Its not about dumping the problem students together, it is about maximizing the performance of the average and high-performing students, even if that goes against the PC mantra that all children are equal.
Aptitude segregation is the easiest path to boosting America’s worldwide standings in education.
Aptitude segragation as you call it is one thing. However not all special ed kids meet the low aptitude point. You all are tossing around special ed as if all of them are slow and incapable of learning. A deaf child who in all other capacities is achieving well is still special ed. Should she not be in AP Calc if she can do the math? By the method you propose or seem to be advocating for she would not be!
Kharn, Special Ed kids are a very wide spectrum. My son is special ed due to an LD. He is never disruptive in class, in fact his teachers always compliment his behavior. He is an extrememly hard worker. He is intellegent and scored above the county average on his MSA. He just needs a little extra attention for his reading and certain math concepts, therefore he is in CC classes. I thank God that his teachers do not have your additude of writing off all the special ed students.
cdev:
If the deaf student is holding the class back, he/she should be moved to an individual tutor program. Calculus is a fast moving class, and ASL has a very low transmission rate.
OK so are you willing to pay extra for this as a tax payer? My original premise is that the deaf student is capable of handeling it with the accomadations.
CDEV, deaf children are not considered special ed. It is seen as a culture and in no way a disability. My daughter started as a deaf studies major, loved it, but the deaf, as a community, have decided they no longer want hearing people working with their children. She is fluent is ASL, has met many friends, was going to do a “study abroad” program at Galudette University in DC, but they had a big protest and fired the hearing president only because he was hearing and instead hired a deaf president. Same is happening to the teachers, if you are hearing you are not wanted.
I do not speak for every deaf person, but for the deaf culture. They would never accept the label special ed or attend special ed classes strictly because they are deaf. They also do not cost the school system any extra money. The state provides any interpreters or other extras they may need and it does not come out of the school budget. If the deaf child was in some other way special needs that would be a different situation. I’m surprised you haven’t come across this.
My daughter is now a Chemistry major. No sense completing a degree if she couldn’t get a job. Such a shame. She has worked at local preschools since she was 16 and is VERY good, she really wanted to work with deaf children, maybe through infants and toddlers. This all happened in her 3rd year of college. She loves chemistry and is happy so that is what is most important, but what a loss to a lot of young children!
Sandy, You aree WRONG. Hearing loss on any level is considered a disability and may require a kid to need an IEP!!!! This makes them special ed. I can tell you that the money the state provides does not equal the cost. The schools system still hires the person and their benfits etc. factor in. Furthermore not all students I am refering to have 100% hearing loses. The adaptive technology to allow these students to remain in the general classroom cost a pretty penny. They have wireless mics which will tap into the students hearing aide. This student which I used as an example is not a 100K kid but is far more then average joe. I think Sandy you are out of touch with exactly what qualifies a kid for either an IEP or 504! Any kid recieving one will have a case manager (not included in the special ed budget) and will require regular IEP/504 meetings!
I am aware of the fact most deaf people prefer to be looked on as a culture but that does not change the fact that they are covered by IDEA.
This year Tech got the students schedules out so late. Then we received a call that there would be no scheduling changes unless it was for graduation requirements. The administration is sticking to their guns on this. I am so tired of the Board of Education telling me what specific courses my kids have to take! Don’t even get me started on high school math courses.
Actually the State of MD sets the graduation requirement. With the elimination of LCWA our only extra local requirement is an extra credit of Math. For all the complaining about how unprepared our college kids are for math this would seem like a no brainer. Are you suggesting the board of ed should not be setting curriculum?
No, just wish there more options for Math. When I went to school we had the fast track Math classes then we had business math and accounting. Wish they would bring them back.
There are lots of options. The state requires 3 credits through Geometry. We require a 4th credit after Geometry is Alg II and than trig. The choice comes in does someone want to persue Calculus or take Statistics which in my opinion is far more benificial to the not so math inclined student.
CDEV, they have been promising more math classes for years. What about the student who takes Algebra I in 7th grade, Geometry in 8th grade, Algebra II in 9th grade, and Trig and Precalc (each a 1/2 year course at this level) in 10th grade. The only option they have is AP Calc and AP Statistics in 11th and 12th grade.
AP Calc isn’t such a good idea because of the calculator problem I wrote about before. Granted, that is 4 math credits and they can still take a year off. 2 now since they are counting the middle school math credits. Do you think it is best to send a student on to college who hasn’t had a math class in 2 years? I think that’s a big mistake.
HCPS definitely needs some additional upper level math classes.
Trig and pre calc are each one credit so the AP stats or AP calc are each choices. That said Calc II via the community college is also an option. Had a friend who did that his senior year!
The MD. legislature, Governor, and MD. State Board of Education are responsible for setting graduation requirements for obtaining a MD. high school diploma. Local school boards do have authority to add limited requirements but cannot eliminate requirements set at the state level. You should be thankful that the Harford Co. BOE pressured the superintendent to eliminate LICW as a graduation requirement. A fourth year of math is an additional requirement adopted by many Maryland counties (and likely to become a state mandated requirement in the near future). If you are talking about the blocks of classes students must take as part of their tract/pathway selection I would tend to agree, but this is also a state requirement.
Although since Kim’s Child is at Harford Tech she voluntarily took on a certian block of classes relating to her field of study at Harford Tech.
@CDEV Yes her child accepted a schedule of classes based on the program she applied for in order to be at Harford Tech. I was making reference to the pathway courses students must take in the general high school student population and not those in magnet or signature programs.
Those pathways are very similar to magnet pathways and oriented towards one particular interest area. There are tons of ones to pick from. The difference between that and say Tech is that those are availible every where. But the one at Tech her daughter is in is only offered at Tech. This is why we pay extra money to bus her kid there.
My daughter is in the cosmetology program at Tech and wants to eventually own her own salon. I guess she did wrong by passing her algebra HSA in 7th grade. I have since learned that Tech does offer a consumer/business math class and will be pushing hard for her to be in that class next year. I don’t care about this fast math track she is on. Now my 6th grader, who is proudly attending MMS, will be on the same math track and will have no problem because she has shown a high aptitude for numbers.
I read a comment above that the state is now accepting middle school math credits for graduation? Is that correct?
If the course is a high school level course (algebra B and geometry) and the local BOE issues the credit. The problem is our BOE will only issue the credit if a final exam is incorporated into the course grade like HS. To date this is not the case. The other point is the grade must be placed on the transcript.
Well the County Council just voted 6-0 with Shrodes abstaining to give the council administrator a raise while at the same time cutting her staff and job duties. If they have money for that, they should have money for teachers.
There is money for teachers. It’s not the Council’s fault that the BOE squanders it.
I can see that the teachers are all over this one. Is this their view or the union? Or maybe all those thumbs down are the fat that we’re talking about – bureaucrats? Get your head out of the sand – of course the school system can be run like a business, and it must be. If we continue on our current course, it will be bankrupt, just like the towns and cities that refuse to abide by a budget! Your budget IS the tax dollars coming in – there is a total amount to work with, not X+whatever you feel like or feels good, just “x” and that must fund the service (i.e. public education).
This wouldn’t be an issue if we allowed a corporation such as Omni Consumer Products to regulate school activities.
Here is an idea. You know how NH high and Middle students use the same busses? Maybe we should do the same at other high and middle schools on the same campus. This would save transportation money. Imagine if the bus pulled up between edgewood high and middle and the kids went to the respective building instead of one run to get high school kids and then a seperate run to the same stops for middle school kids!
My (non-Harford) MS and HS weren’t even on the same campus, but we rode the same bus. They were about 4 miles apart. The HS kids off-loaded first and boarded second, so their school day was longer than the MS kids.
That would work in the case of a Havre de Grace or a Joppatowne Magnolia too.
Here is another transportation idea. Could we allow upper classman, with liscences who are going to drive to school, to opt out of a bus seat and thus possibly shrink the need for some buses? It might only save a bus or two here or there but it would help.
The problem is that the law states that anyone not living in within walking distance of the school must have a bus (or other school-provided transportation) available to them. What would happen if a student who opts out of the bus and chooses to drive to school suddenly finds themselves needing to replace their transmission? They must have a way to get to school.
Then they can call transportation and get opted back in.
Even with opting out, there will still be enough bus stops for the non-drivers for the car-less student to get himself to one and find a seat. Even if he has to ride his bike a half mile and chain it to a tree or street sign.
It’s a great idea but most schools don’t have enough parking. The students have to apply for parking passes and they are expensive! First choice is given to students who are in sports programs and work learning because they have to leave school early or late. I think students who have after school jobs come next. Not sure of the order after that.
Students at FHS pay over $100 a quarter to park at the volunteer fire station next door and that is quite a walk!
We would have to invest in a lot more parking for this to be a viable option.
Something that would help is not having a bus stop at the end of every court! My daughter, who went out of district to the SMA had her bus stop at the beginning of our development. Harford Tech works the same way. The students who were in district got picked up at the top of each court, sometimes every other court. We live in a development with sidewalks. They couldn’t have saved busses, they were packed in like sardines, more than 3 to a seat! High schoolers with backpacks and sometimes musical instruments, projects, etc. It was ridiculous, really. But they certainly could have saved some time and maybe made the bus routes more efficient. There is a lot to go into that that I don’t completely understand.
I’m a huge believer that elementary schools should go in earliest, too many studies have proven that high schoolers learn better when they aren’t made to get up so early. I learned that this would cost more in bussing, I had no idea. The bus drivers can start their routes as early as necessary and the high schools have the biggest attendance area. So the bus drivers can leave very early to get in place and start their runs picking up students at the appropriate time. If we started elementary first, with the smaller attendance area, this isn’t a help at all. I still think that may be worth the money, but it’s something I didn’t know to factor in. Thanks for teaching me that, you know who you are!!
Not thinking we add parking I am simply thinking for the few kids who drive or ride everyday it might save a bus or two.
Sandy as far as your elementary first idea, too many studies show Elementary students are two small and get hit by cars by starting earlier when you add darkness into the equation.
I am thinking of ideas other than what some districts in Texas do and charge a transportation fee.
Although it might make biological sense to send the elementary kids in first and save the high schoolers for last, it would be an economic disaster for families who rely on high school students to watch their younger siblings after school and for high school students who have after school jobs, as well as a logistical nightmare for high school after school activities.
This school year the stops for Tech and SMA have been consolidated, at least in Joppatowne. Last year our kids got picked up outside our development and this year the bus stop was moved to a central location in between 3 stops. The kids were complaining at first but once they heard that in Baltimore County you meet your magnet school bus at your home school, it calmed them down. I don’t know why the kids were complaining they aren’t the ones having to ge them to the bus stop.
Here is another idea- instead of cutting positions and having 30 plus in most classes maybe HCPS should get their priorities in order. How much money did they spend on the new logo?
Not nearly enough to save even two teaching positions, from what I’ve read. I agree that it appears to be misplaced priorities, and I questioned the costs when the information first came out, but apparently it wasn’t a big budget item.
Still, for an entity struggling to pay its bills, it looks bad.
The point is that there are more important issues for the school system to be addressing than something viewed by many as an insignificant logo and raises questions about decisions made by Dr. Tomback, Ms. Kranefeld (communications director), and the school board members that supported making the change. We will never know the total cost of the logo but this decision has certainly brought criticism to the school system. The greater cost my well have been to their credibility to lead which is already a subject of much debate.
According to the audit recomendations, which many accused them of not paying attention too, it was something that was needed!
You mean the report that was generated by a local company that would have a vested interest in the outcome. If instead you are making reference to the original report from a few years ago there are several other recommendations in that report that have not been put into place, nor should they be as was the case with replacing the logo. What classroom technology, classroom supplies for needy students, needed repairs to school facilities, the salary of an aide to help a special needs child, could have been made with the money wasted on the logo. Just because a recommendation is made by self interested parties does not mean it should be done. In the grand scheme of things there are more important things to be doing in the school system. It is actions like this that give people legitimate reason the question the decision making skills of HCPS leadership.
I am making the dual arguement. People hold the BOE out for not doing something in the audit recomendations. They do something in the recomendations and now get crap.
@CDEV And sometimes the BOE is wise enough to ignore those recommendations. Unfortunately this was not one of those occasions. Those of us that pay attention to these things will remember this the next time the BOE comes up for election.
The reason for student decline is many parents are now opting to home school their children.
The new logo is a waste of money
AB – absolutely! When I moved here every single child in the neighborhood went to public school. Today, nearly half of the kids are either home schooled or attend private schools. The buses leave our neighborhood empty. Many of these kids were factored into our great math formulae that indicated school overcrowding ahead – shuffle the deck, redistrict, the sky is falling. Another waste of our cash – for what? It scared some into private schools altogether so there’s another empty chair in our fully funded schools.
The CC classroom is a failed experiment. It is doing nothing to close the achievement gap. All students, regardless of ability, suffer as a result of this arrangement.
Kharn –
I don’t know how long it’s been since you left Joppatowne, but please don’t rag on my schools. JES and Riverside are wonderful schools with dedicated and talented faculty. While MMS does have it’s issues, most of them come from the Edgewood portion of it’s population, and teachers who have spent too much time there being unable to counteract what some of these kids have to deal with at home. JHS, while it’s no John Carroll or CMW, has plenty to be proud of.
On top of that, MMS is the ONLY middle school with any semblance of any kind of a G/T program.
Unfortunately, you’re prejudices are still pervasive here; I had a friend just sell his home (he’s moving this weekend to Mt. Airy) because he didn’t want to send his kids to MMS.
Rather than running away from a ‘problem school’, why not stay and try to help make a difference there?
Jeff
Well, JTOWNEJEFF, there’s a good reason people are not willing to stay and try to help make a difference there. It simply is an impossible task to make the needed changes in a timeframe that would be beneficial to school-aged children.
Decent schools become better over time when parents get involved and stay involved. But troubled schools aren’t likely to see the type of dramatic improvement that’s needed in a short enough time frame because there are too many competing interests.
Parents generally want their kids to be able to get the best available education in a safe environment. That’s reasonable. Some parents expect the school to go way beyond that and cater to their little darlings in ways that public education was never intended.
Teaching used to be considered much more of a vocation rather than a job. That’s what many of us experienced growing up–teachers who responded to a calling and really touched our lives. Sure there are quite of few who fit that description today but, their voices are drowned out by the vocal few who whine about everything. There simply isn’t enough money, work rules, or help to satisfy them.
Then there are the teachers unions. They don’t really do a great job of representing teachers as they once did. These days they are far too political and end up detracting from the education of our children.
While we’re on politics, we need to consider our wonderful government which continues to feed the notion that more money equates to improved education. State and local governments had the education thing kinda figured out until the Federal government decided it was smarter than everyone else and created a massive bureaucracy that does nothing to educate our children but is quite adept at mangling the process.
Then, there’s the Board of Education. This hapless group cares so much about our children that they bestowed upon us all a magnificent new logo which with the power enlighten all and improve standardized test scores immeasurably. It’s a committee, folks–formed by politicians. They don’t have a prayer!
The students are the ones who lose out in all this. One of the reasons that private schools generally yield better results is that they have fewer competing interests and can focus more easily on what’s best for student education. Now, there’s a novel concept!
HOTFAVAJACK –
I’m not really sure what to make of your comments. You did point out several obvious factors that contribute to the success (or failure) of public schools. However, stating that a lot of parents don’t get involved because it would take too long to see a meaningful impact is a copout. Maybe for a family with one or two kids, but that’s still a poor excuse. The bottom line, though, is that when parents and others in the community decide to invest their time and energy in helping the that community, it needs to be done for the ENIRE COMMUNITY, and not just for their own personal benefit. That’s like being a volunteer firefighter, but only responding to the call if it’s YOUR house on fire.
What that amounts to, IMO, is a bunch of selfish parents that only want to help if their kid will benefit from it, and if the benefits will be immediate and life-changing. That’s the attitude that has hastened the decline of ‘sense of community’ that helped to make America great. Sadly, I fear, until our mindset changes to refocus on family and community, nothing will get better.
Jeff
The face of the BOE is changing. With the transition to a predominantly elected school board those “politicians” determining the makeup of the BOE will be the voters. As for the logo, not all members of the BOE were in favor. If you don’t like the decisions made by some BOE members be sure to vote them out of office at the next election. It is easy to see which can think for themselves and which are just rubber-stamps for the superintendent.
Jeff:
I actually moved this summer, so I was receiving the latest news from my neighbors with MMS-attending children.
I decided that a decade of banging my head against the MES/MMS walls was not going to make any improvements to the culture of the Edgewood students or separate the nice kids from the bad kids, so I found a new place where I don’t have to live with the effects of a neighborhood in freefall towards trashiness. Ironically, my new place just happens to be in CMW’s attendance area and I like that the kids are more respectful, do not cut across my yard, wave and say hi, etc, and I don’t have to hear them drag racing down Joppa Farm Road every night.
Where in the MES attendance boundary can you live and hear the drag racing on Joppa Farm road at your house????
Is this the same J-Town Jeff that responded with “That is a good idea for MMS. I wouldn’t want to spend any extra time in that cespool either. my kids will be in private school before we get there. or maybe just move to PA.” on June 5th when it was announced that MMS was working to rule? If so, interesting. I am going to believe that you have finally come on board in being part of the solution instead of the problem. Welcome! We’re glad to have you. Maybe Kharn will join us soon.
As far as Joppatowne High being no CMW…Harford County doesn’t want Joppatowne to be a CMW. Pay attention to policies and funding — ex: that transfer station.
Again, I teach in the community. I would put the teachers in this area up against the best. We have some kick-ass teachers and some amazing kids. With the counties true support, our limits would be endless.
yes, this is the same jtownejeff who made that remark months ago. and then, instead of relying on public opinion, i did my own homework.
As it is, MMS still has plenty of room for improvement, but my bigger fears have been alleviated.
I have become more involved in my children’s education. PTA memberships, volunteering at school when I can (which is only after-school events because i work during the day), i’ve joined committees, I go to teacher conferences, and I try to keep an open line of communication with all of the teachers.
I am inclined to agree with you about the teachers and students in the Joppatowne/Edgewood community. The funding issue I’m not so sure about. JES was just rebuilt, as was EHS, JHS just had their track replaced, and the pool at MMS is being repaired (so I’m told).
At any rate, I spoke too soon back in June, and now i’ve been forced to eat those words. Thanks for holding me accountable. Please, anyone in the community, do what you can to help your community. That’s what I’ve learned in all of this.
Jeff
Jtowne-Jeff why don’t you share some of the things you found out that made this epiphany happen If you don’t mind. If not that is OK but people like Kharn do not have the benefit of knowing what you have discovered.
CDEV –
One of my biggest ‘enlightenment’ moments came from volunteering for a citizen advisory committee for G/T programs. I discovered through that group that MMS is the only middle school in the county with some sort of a “transition program” for students identified as gifted in elementary school on their way to honors or AP courses in high school. At every other middle school, these exceptionally bright students who have been mentored at a challenging level for the last three years, find themselves mixed back in with average students, or students with less desire to excel, and then when they make it to high school, none of the faculty even know that these kids are (were) identified as gifted. Credit must be given to MMS for making at least an effort to further nurture these kids.
(FULL DISCLOSURE: My 2 oldest children are identified as gifted, so this is an issue of personal concern to me.)
Furthermore, I’ve sought out and spoken with teachers/faculty at these schools. The resounding theme is that the kids who want to learn, gifted or not, are getting the same education as the same type of kids at CMW, Fallston, or anywhere else. There is a disproportionate amount of ‘non-achievers’ at the RT 40 schools, but that’s a demographic/culture issue, and can’t really be pinned on the schools in that area.
Ultimately, what it really comes down to is parental involvement. Children in these ‘troubled’ schools are more likely to come from lower income homes, single parent homes, etc., That is not the school’s fault. That is why I have made it a point to be as involved as possible in my kids’ education. And why I am encouraging other parents to be more involved. It doesn’t even have to be volunteering. Read with your kids every night. check over their homework. Ask how their day was. Know who their teachers are. go to back to school night and teacher conferences. When the kids know their parent(s) care, they tend to put forth more effort. Similarly, when teachers know that they have support from the parents, they tend to be a little more relaxed and feel more appreciated. And the kids and the teachers need and deserve that.
Jeff
Thank you Jef for these comments. That is good to hear since my youngest is in 6th grade at MMS, she has been involved in G&T since “k”. We have been involved since 1999 with our oldest. And yes you can tell at the pre-k level who has parent involvement at home.
After looking at the list of reduced positions it becomes very clear that the people on the bottom end (those that do the real work and have the most direct impact on student learning) are disproportionately displaced. Missing from this list is any serious attempt to cut away unnecessary bureaucratic administrative positions in the school system.
I’m confused… you can search right here on the Dagger and find the Casino report that indicates $94 MILLION dollars has gone into the “education trust fund” – year to date… why are these folks scrabbling after nickles and dimes? Does money ever actually come OUT of the “education trust fund” or will it be raided at a later date? What exactly is the “education trust fund” anyway?
Amazed,
Much of that trust fund is for colleges and universities. Those are the primary state schools for state funds. “Education” is floated about because it sounds really good during political campaigns. And the public education primary and secondary levels don’t get the lion’s share of that money because they don’t vote like college aged students can. Saying that casino money is going to rescue the education system is just plain stupidity of the highest degree. It’s nothing more than a ploy to part the taxpayer with more of their hard earned money. What amazes me is how teachers are seen as the villains in this drama.
Okay, let me take a crack at that “why are teachers seen as the villain?” Not saying they ARE but answering why they are SEEN as villains.
1. Cerveny and the HCEA. Has there been in the past decade a more poorly led organization that has been in the local headlines weekly? They couldn’t even accept a bonus for their members when offered by the local CE, an elected leader, whether you like him or not, whose eye they spit in to constantly and publicly. Burbey’s track record indicates he will be the same but that is yet to be seen.
2. Teacher performance. The vast, vast majority of teachers perform at an acceptable or better level yet they allow their representatives to continually shield those teachers who don’t perform from any remedial action. The recent local teacher accused of biting who was reinstated by the BOE only proves the point. Where was the HCEA outrage over that? Missing because they were too busy whining in the press about bonuses and raises or was it because they simply didn’t care because he wasn’t a member. He was smart enough to be represented by his own counsel and not the HCEA. So even when there is a legitimate case the HCEA is absent.
3. Work to rule. If you are going to do it just do it and don’t blast it all over the local press so that parents see you as harming their children by not providing the same level of service as before.
4. Politics. Their union very strongly supports every liberal party, candidate and cause. Yet nationwide about half of their members do not. About half. And about half of the taxpayers who pay them do not.
In summary, if you don’t want to be SEEN as villains then you have a lot of work to do and a lot of mess to clean up.
2) He was not a member of HCEA. HCEA was not able to represent this gentleman because he choose not to join. What happened to him is one of the very few reasons, as well as the liability insurance for joing HCEA!
The union is not the only option for teachers looking for liability insurance and legal protection. There are several professional organizations that provide this service, without the high costs of union membership. Check out the Association of American Educators as just one such option. Your money pays for what you want, and does not get sent off to help fund political races that you may not choose to support.
True but realative to cost it is worth it.
4) Is David Craig liberal???? He got an HCEA endorsement. Is Dan Riley Liberal? He got an HCEA endorsement.
Alex,
I’m not going to argue all of what you say. At the end of the day, though, we are left with two camps using the people responsible for educating the next generation as pawns in political ideological battles.
HCEA is poorly led – in my opinion unions typically are poorly led. I believe the leaders do believe in equity and fairness, but when it counts they lack the skill to do a decent job. They also lack the courage to call their own out for doing a poor job. When you lack skill and courage, well, not much to a leader lacking those traits.
Work to rule… I advocated it and did it. I’ll do it again if need be. I think sharing the reasons with the parents and taxpayers is a wise move. When you can get more than 4% of my students’ parents here for back-to-school night I’ll have confidence they are paying attention to other details of their kids’ academic lives.
Liberals… I think this is the real issue. I think your estimate of half may be correct, but in Harford County slightly more conservative than you think – me included. The endorsement of candidates is a joke… once you step up to the ballot you vote your conscience. A secret ballot ensures it and it is no one’s business whose name I select. I’ve never been asked and I’d never answer if so.
But, I’ll go back to where I started… Does it make sense to villify teachers in general for waste they cannot control; raises they cannot earn; teach class sizes they cannot set; and otherwise have a voice no louder than any other individual taxpaying, voting citizen?
If it is political silliness preventing HCPS from being competitive… If it is waste in the administration ruling the wallet… If it is the poor teaching of about 3% of all teachers preventing steps from being honored… I’m left to ask: really?
No, it doesn’t make sense to vilify ALL teachers but it doesn’t have to make sense. Teachers and their unions have to deal with what is not what ought to be. And here is a Reader’s Digest condensed version of what the PERCEPTION is:
Teachers are represented by ultra liberal labor union leaders who have no organizational leadership skills and who spend a lot of the dues financially supporting ultra liberal political candidates/causes and shielding poorly performing teachers. When they aren’t doing that they are busy getting the teachers to demonstrate for higher wages and working to rule. They say they care about the students but everyone knows they don’t and so they look hypocritical as well.
And that, AnotherHCPSTeacher, is what you as a non-liberal teacher who performs (I assume) at a better than average level are dealing with. That, plus parents who don’t have time to meet with you when they really should but always have time to complain, especially when their complaints are bogus. And an administration that is focused on itself and a BOE that won’t do what it should do to fix it.
I appreciate what you do and you deserve to make a realistic wage for doing it.
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