Guest Column: Maryland's school funding laws need to be revised

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Speaking of inoperable computer pro - 2012-01-27 17:10:01

How's that 911 system working out for us?

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John Munroe - Annapolis, MD - Karma: Neutral

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Mary Ann - 2012-01-26 14:18:57

Thanks for the vote of confidence. Although my other post was deleted because it exceeded the limit, I'm glad I made my point with at least one person. I would love to see creativity come back into the classroom vs. always teaching to the test. I would love to see more funding for field trips to sites that our region is particularly rich in. (It is shocking how many parents don't bring their children to the Smithsonian, for example.) I would love to see parents support their child's education and not pull them out of school for cruises and trips to Disney World. Generally speaking, which kids are maximizing their learning potential and coming to school ready to learn? Those kids whose parents CARE and who aren't leaving up the all-around nurturing and development of their children to the schools. Parents must teach and model the importance of education and reading. Parents must teach and model morals and values. Parents must teach and model a good work ethic and sense of perseverence when tasks are difficult. Parents make ALL the difference! And in terms of comparing us to other countries, we are the only country I know of who tests EVERY single child in the school system. Many other countries don't do that and don't hold themselves accountable. They "track" and label their students. We've got amazing teachers in this country and particularly in this county. Maryland is #1!!!

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Just Sayin'... - Annapolis, MD - Karma: Excellent

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@Just Sayin - 2012-01-26 08:13:18

Thank you for your post. It is well written and it certainly makes the frustrations of teaching more clear to me.

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Mary Ann Donnell - Annapolis, MD - Karma: Excellent

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Recognize Who UR Dealing With - 2012-01-25 19:33:09

Articles like this make me sick. It is filled with inaccuracies and misleading statements. This County Executive has an axe to grind with the schools. The last big "take down" that he is aiming for after his victory over the cops, paramedics, and firefighters.

It pains me to see some of my friends and neighbors who have been stand up county employees and then to see what Leopold has done to them and their families.

At the end of the day the cops, firefighters, teachers, paramedics, jail workers, highway crews, janitors and so forth are not our enemies. They are not the bad guys. On the other hand John Leopold is a politician and is nobodies friend unless your currently in the process of voting.

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Tim Copperbottom - Dunkirk, md - Karma: Excellent

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Mary Ann - 2012-01-25 18:49:22

In response to your post, teaching has changed a great deal over the years. Most teachers go into the profession with very high ideals. Of course teachers expect to have responsibilities. Teachers, generally speaking, are a little bit geeky--they love to learn! They love helping kids. They're hard working. But it seems like 90% of what the job has become has nothing to do with real learning, and the downside to what the profession has become is not taught in educational programs. Also, one could never understand the disparity between the workload & stressors of the job and the pay, until you get in the job. (Isn't that true with a lot of things?) Many teachers leave within 5 years of starting the job. You have to really own the job to understand what it's like. Teachers go into it with high hopes, but as they're forced to juggle more and more tasks and continue their own schooling (ad infinitum), reality sets in. I do believe that if every female educator were exchanged with a male, the whole operation would come to a screeching halt. Women are habituated to taking on more and more tasks. The level of multi-tasking is insane. The bright side of the job: The love, compassion, and creativity involved in helping young people learn and grow. Perhaps if NCLB is thrown out, teachers can get back to what they wanted to do in the first place: teach! A lot of teachers I know would forego a raise if they would only bring sanity back to the workplace...and be treated more nicely by administrators and parents. Let teachers do their jobs!!!

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Just Sayin'... - Annapolis, MD - Karma: Excellent

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Mr J - 2012-01-25 15:07:50

Teachers as well as other school board employees are required to put a percentage of their salary into a retirement fund account.

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Mary Ann Donnell - Annapolis, MD - Karma: Excellent

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Real Issue - 2012-01-25 15:00:01

Agree with those that comment teachers did not receive a COLA increase of 1%. Teachers actually received a pay cut, as they are required to contribute an additional 2% of their salary to their pension fund to receive the same benefits. That equates to a reduction in pay.

This issue is just another example of the politicians getting the middle class to fight with one another. In good times everyone is ok with public sector compensation, in bad times they want to tear it apart. The real issue is middle class wages have been declining for decades. All the while the rich get richer and control our political system. Is anyone really happy for the candidate choices for 2012, or are we compromising again? The middle class needs to create a new political party and raise the wages of the middle class (private and public). Our economy cant thrive without it, the mega weathly simply can't purchase enough!

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Sal . - Annapolis, MD - Karma: Excellent

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Income - 2012-01-25 12:03:45

for myself has dropped over 35 percent in the last three years. I wish it had stayed the same. At least the teachers have not lost income like most Americans have. Their pay may not included COLA but at least your'e not going backkwards. And is it true that the teachers pensions here in Maryland are funded 100% by tax payers? Anything that goes into my retirement is also funded 100%, by me.

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Mr J - Baltimore, MD - Karma: Excellent

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Teachers - 2012-01-25 09:30:53

To @Just Sayin, yes teachers understand that we won't be appropriately compensated for the amount of work that we do but we did not go into it thinking we would be making basically the same amount of money for the last 4 years without a raise in sight.

I am currently in my 6th year of teaching and I am earning just slightly over what I made in my 2nd year. If I had taken my college degree to a private company I would be making at least 2x as much with bonuses and other things.

I choose to teach because I want to reach students but not being able to adequately support my family means that many teachers such as myself are considering leaving the profession so that we can earn both respect and a larger salary.

In what other profession do people work 60 hour work weeks, take work home, spend hours being told they are the reason the country's youth are not performing, and be told they are the "fat in the budget" and yet still have measly paychecks and no hope of seeing any more money for a long time?

No raise ever made it to my pocket or on my family's table so Mr. Leopold is sadly mistaken.

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Kelly Falloni - Glen Burnie, MD - Karma: Neutral

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@Just Sayin - 2012-01-25 08:19:01

I do agree that teacher's are underpaid. This has been an issue since I was a kid and that was a very long time ago. In your post, you give an accurate description of what is involved being a teacher. Don't teacher's know this going in to the job? Don't they ask how much they are going to make before they take the job? Don't they know that they are responsible to teach children when they take the job?

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Mary Ann Donnell - Annapolis, MD - Karma: Excellent

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Leopold - 2012-01-25 07:21:48

Regardless of what he claims, the man wants control of the school budget in order to gut it. Oh, it's top-heavy and needs re-balancing, but would I trust the CE and his minions to do it? Time and again, he has proven himself unreliable for keeping his promises; that fact has nothing to do with Maxwell or the schools, and no one's political rhetoric but his own.

God forbid he should run successfully for higher office. We will have only seen the beginning of hard times in Anne Arundel County.

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John Munroe - Annapolis, MD - Karma: Neutral

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Part I: Either you get it, or you d - 2012-01-24 21:51:10

I agree that there is inefficiency and waste, but you cant use that as an excuse not to properly compensate teachers. Sure, plenty of other workers have not received raises. How many of them have had to deal with the following:
--exponential increase in workload
--10 month job/10 month pay, although its stretched out over 12 months (No summer holiday given there, folks! Often teachers have to get 2nd and 3rd jobs.)
--50 - 60+ hour work weeks
--truckload of work to do in the evenings and on weekends
--requirements for ongoing education, which teachers must at least partially pay for out of pocketthis requires more time outside of work to attend classes and do homework (How many people out there get their ongoing required training on the job and get paid for it?)
--little to no financial support for materials outside of books, etc. (Teachers buy most of their own office and classroom supplies, and they often pick up the ball for students whose parents do not provide them with what they need.)
--responsibility for the absolute academic success of each student (no matter how little support is given at home) and test scores
--communication with parents who increasingly defy the professional judgments of teachers
--increasing behavioral issues and lack of respect on the part of a great number of students who do not come to school prepared to learn
--increasing violence in schools
--teaching, developing lesson plans, preparing the classroom environment; performing daily am duty, lunch duty or pm duty; attending weekly data, teams, curriculum, and other professional development meetings (continued)

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Just Sayin'... - Annapolis, MD - Karma: Excellent

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Comment removed by HometownAnnapolis staff. - 2012-01-24 21:43:55

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Its only a million? Math isn't righ - 2012-01-24 16:59:34

"Stated otherwise, Anne Arundel County provided its school system $1.94 for every $1 it was required to give. That's nearly twice as much as the law requires."

That doesn't appear to be true... according to the article below, the county provided 6.3 million less (not more) for 2012 than for 2011. I guess the loophole is in the "unrestricted"

In fact in one paragraph it states "$206 million in excess of the minimum funding requirements." and in the next "That $207 million excess amount accounts for..."

When Mr. Leopold runs for office next, I wont be surprised if it was $208 million". Perhaps a difference of a $1-2 million is only insignificant to a politician like Leopold, but to the rest of us, its real money.

http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2011-06-17/news/bs-md-ar-final-school-budget-20110616_1_president-patricia-nalley-budget-class-size

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Lynn Strauss - Tracys Landing, MD - Karma: Excellent

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What raises? - 2012-01-24 15:40:57

I am sorry to say that this article is incorrect. Anne Arundel County teachers did not receive a raise or cost of living adjustment this year. I wish I could say that we did and I look forward to the day that we will.

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Jacqueline Wilford - Pasadena, MD - Karma: Neutral

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Enough political bickering! - 2012-01-24 11:07:38

It seems that the superintendent and the county executive are determined to out-bicker one another in public forums showing us the worst in stubborn leadership. YES, many county residents and employees of AACPS would agree that there has been egregious spending on certain programs and materials during a time of fiscal crisis, however, it still remains a FACT that county teachers have had frozen salaries for 4 years straight and that our county has extremely low tax cap for generating revenue for schools. The 1% that Mr. Leopold mentions has not been put into place for county teachers and even if it had, let's face it, 1% is a trivial amount for hard working employees facing a much higher cost of living in the county than four years ago. We are all living here together, supporting the #1 school system in the nation but how long can teacher's justify working for a county executive that lashes out against them and a superintendent that would rather fund programs/materials than secure excellence in employees. The residents of Anne Arundel County deserve more from our leaders than a immature bickering contest. We deserve real solutions.

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Emma Dorchester - , - Karma: Neutral

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1% Raise - 2012-01-24 09:09:18

A COLA raise did not appear on my paycheck.

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L King - , - Karma: Neutral

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Where does the money go? - 2012-01-24 09:05:01

I must agree with both Leopold that there is an incredible amount of money wasted within this school district- it seems as if every year we are under attack by new initiatives (thinking maps?), curriculum, textbooks, and other various mandates.
Spending millions of dollars on new reading materials for elementary students is not going to improve test scores, nor produce a generation of students who are independent thinkers and college or career ready. All of this money that has been thrown around on new materials would be much better spent if used to retain quality, highly effective teachers- especially in schools that do not meet AYP. The easiest way to retain teachers is to offer a competitive salary and some glimmer of hope that a pay raise will eventually occur.
Teachers in AACPS have not received a raise in four years. It is not a mystery that the cost of living has increased drastically during that time. We are charged with the task of maintaining the image of AACPS and creating future leaders, but we are also forced to pick up part-time jobs to help fund the Master's degree (required in order to maintain a teaching certificate in the state of Maryland) that will inevitably go unrecognized by the district.
Yes, spending $4.5 million on a computer system is ridiculous. So is spending anything more than $20 on a book if it does not have a highly effective teacher who knows his or her students.

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E L - , - Karma: Neutral

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cola - 2012-01-24 08:10:34

Teacher's received a "temporary" 1% raise.

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Mary Ann Donnell - Annapolis, MD - Karma: Excellent

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Misleading... - 2012-01-23 19:44:23

Teachers did not receive a raise of any kind this year. Mr. Leopold is misleading the public to indicate otherwise.

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T B - Crofton, MD - Karma: Neutral

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RAISES? - 2012-01-23 19:21:10

Apparently one really can print whatever they want. Teachers did NOT receive COLAS or raises. Leopold of course needs to cover up all of his benefits by blaming it whoever he can. He disgusts me.

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deborah hunter - , - Karma: Neutral

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Hey Kettle, this is Pot.... - 2012-01-23 18:25:20

You are quick to condemn the superintendent for a broken $4.5 million computer system, but have no problem wasting $6.6 million on a broken public safety computer system that put lives at risk. In my opinion, you are both hypocrites.

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M Q - Odenton, md - Karma: Good