FYI FROM THE HOGAN CAMPAIGN: EDUCATION PRIORITIES Maryland has doubled K-12 education spending since 2002 - we’re now spending about $6 billion a year and results are mixed at best. The notion that Maryland schools are number one in the country is based on fuzzy math. The disparity between wealthier students and poor ones and white and minority students is terrible and these achievement gaps Larry is troubled by and will work to close Maryland’s worst-in-the-nation school performance gap between the wealthiest communities and the poorest, this gap has grown under the O’Malley-Brown Administration. Maryland tax payers pay more per student than nearly any other state, yet most of this money is wasted on bureaucrats and never makes it to the classroom. In fact, the jurisdictions in which we spend the most money are often the worst performing. Overall, our children’s education requires more local control by parents and classroom teachers – not organized labor. I will work to ensure that our educational funding makes it to the classroom and actual teachers, not vast numbers of “educators” in far removed administration buildings. It’s unconscionable that state leaders put teacher unions ahead of meaningful reform to address the deplorable conditions of many inner city schools. Larry supports rewarding teachers and principals with exceptional results and removing those who have failed our children. Larry is a strong supporter of school choice and charter schools which have shown exceptional results in other states. Common Core: Parents and teachers agree that Common Core is a mess. Even the Maryland State Teachers Union has called it a train wreck. Its roll out has left students confused, parents out of the loop, and teachers scrambling to learn a new curriculum just hours before having to teach it. Larry Hogan believes we need to hit the pause button on common core and give control back to teachers and parents. It really reminds us of the healthcare. Another example of the incompetency of this administration. Teacher salaries: I am concerned that all too often increases in education budgets go to administrators and bureaucracies rather than into the classroom. The recent roll out of Common Core in Maryland has been a train wreck and teachers have been asked to shoulder much of this burden. Better planning, more local input from teachers and parents, and more time to prepare the curriculum would have relieved much of this workload on teachers. Pre-K: Anthony Brown has no plan to fund future Pre-K programs that under his proposal will cost hundreds of millions of dollars. In fact, the federal government’s Pre-K funding pays 90% in the first year to get states hooked then drops this to 10% leaving states like Maryland with another huge program we simply can’t afford. We’ve seen what blindly grasping for federal money has led to with the Health Exchange and Common Core. My concern is that if we take federal Pre-K dollars we are going to have to slash funding on other programs and I believe our focus needs to be on improving education for our elementary and high school aged students first. Maintenance of effort: “Maintenance of Effort” should go because education decisions should be at the county level and the current system discourages counties from spending education dollars effectively. For example, one year might have higher than average costs because of a major project, leaving that high level of spending every year after encourages bureaucrats to figure out how to spend extra money and not focus on educating our children.
Posted on: Mon, 15 Sep 2014 14:23:19 +0000
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