May
25, 2016
County Executive Isiah Leggett ocemail@montgomerycountymd.gov
County Council County.Council@montgomercountymd.gov
Interim Superintendent Larry
Bowers Larry_Bowers@mcpsmd.org
Board of Education boe@mcpsmd.org
President Christopher Lloyd, MCEA,CLloyd@mceanea.org
President Merle Cuttitta, SEIU
Local 500, cuttittam@seiu500.org
President James Koutsos, MCAAP, JKoutsos@mcaapmd.org
Re: Education First Budget
Honorable Sirs and Madams:
I very much
appreciate your focus on the needs of our community, culminating in the
Education First budget. Thank you for your personal and institutional
sacrifices, and leadership. This appears to be truly an unprecedented
partnership, with several institutions making big commitments.
I appreciate also your undertaking that
residents/taxpayers will see the results of their investment. Through your
sacrifices, elected County officials have at last put skin in the game--a
necessary condition for school board and system accountability, and thus for
progress (after four futile decades) in narrowing the achievement gap. This
narrowing is the result that I expect to see, to justify the tax and the
permanent MOE annuity. East County schools must significantly improve in
relative performance to be recognized throughout the County for their quality. Such
recognition is crucial to the development and wellbeing of our East County
community.
The County and school system press
releases, with their carefully mirrored initiative itemizations, indicate the
specificity of your bargain. Therefore, I am concerned that of eleven agreed
initiatives, only two are explicitly targeted to impacted schools, and nine are
intentionally generalized across all system schools.
|
Schools targeted?-
Initiatives:
|
Impacted
|
None
|
|
Reduce
class sizes 2 students--add teachers
|
|
“in many schools”
“Across the
board”
|
|
Lower
student:staff ratio-paraeducators
|
|
x
|
|
Add focus
teachers: literacy, math
|
x
|
|
|
Professional
development
|
|
x
|
|
School
counselors
|
“larger, impacted
Elementary Schools”
|
|
|
Community
coordinators, psychologists, pupil personnel workers
|
|
“most
vulnerable students and their families”
|
|
Minority
achievement programs
|
|
x
|
|
Achieving
Collegiate Excellence and Success (ACES)-2 more highschools
|
|
x
|
|
College and
Career readiness and dual language programs
|
|
x
|
|
Achieving
the Promise Initiative-mentors, coaches
|
|
x
|
|
Chromebooks
$27.4 million
|
|
x
|
|
Summary:
11 initiatives total
|
2 initiatives targeted to impacted
schools
|
9 initiatives not targeted to impacted
schools
|
Targeting should be an integral
aspect of the community bargain to which you commit us. Absent targeting the
most impacted schools, I do not see how the East County gap will narrow; the
futility will persist for more decades and generations; your sacrifices and
leadership will have been wasted; and your commitment to recognizable results
unfulfilled.
Subject to my concern over
omittedtargeting, your leadership revives my faith in this peculiar mixed
structure of County and school system governance.
Very truly yours,
Frederick Stichnoth,
Colesville, Silver Spring
East County
One Montgomery
