A Letter to Maryland State Legislators

Dear state representative:

I'm a resident of Howard County and a teacher with Montgomery County. I'm not a union apologist- in fact, I believe my union is largely a failure when it comes to representing the average teacher- but I do have a question for you.

Are you really planning to increase my retirement contribution to 7% from 5% then use that benefit for the state's general fund instead of the retirement system? Is this really true? Is this legal? I'm sure you've consulted your lawyers already, but my goodness. I'd like to invite each of you to attend my AP Government and AP Economics classes- perhaps you could go over this plan with some of my students. I'm quite confident they could teach you a thing or two.

Please- if this be your plan- if you can't find it in you to locate sound judgement- or if no such judgement exists- let me manage my own retirement. Let me opt out. Send me whatever scraps you have left over for a sucker-teacher like myself and I'll go it alone. It's abundantly clear you have no intention to live up to your end of the "bargain," however unsubstainable that bargain may have been. After all, you haven't fully funded the pension since 2001. But now you're going to increase my personal contribution to the pension WITHOUT increasing the total contribution?   Raise your hand if you came up with this idea!  The pension is 60% funded.  Ladies and Gentlemen, this is an EMERGENCY!

I believe I sacrificed enough money when I decided to become a teacher.  I don't need a bunch of hopeless politicians specifically taxing me and other teachers because they don't have the chutzpah to a) raise taxes on EVERYBODY in order to properly fund the general fund or b) take austerity measures that will impact the services provided to all citizens. Then you wouldn't have to hide a tax increase on teachers from the rest of the state in efforts to make believe everything is just fine so that you can claim victory and get reelected. Either of those options- the 2nd of which would likely be very painful for education- would be a more honest thing to do.

Real leadership is equally measured as it is bold. It does not hide from difficult or unpopular decisions. And it takes responsibility for past mistakes.

I think it's well past time that we see some of that leadership in our state capital.

In the inbox

The Baltimore Sun said this in their thursday editorial:

Maryland hasn't even taken up some of the more sweeping reforms that other states already have adopted, such as creating greater opportunities for charter schools or alternative certification for teachers. But the Montgomery County school district and several local unions are balking at even the relatively modest changes — particularly, tying teacher evaluations to student test scores — that the General Assembly approved this year.

To which I had a reply in my inbox:

A modest change??? That would change everything, IMHO.

Let there be no doubt, as far as institutional change goes, what the state of Maryland is asking of localities is substantial. But I remember reading somewhere, or maybe I was talking about it with some collleagues, that perhaps what MCPS really has up its sleave is its own RttT application, which would likely come about in a sort of 3rd round of applications.

Maybe the key statement is later down in the Sun editorial:

Montgomery County may turn up its nose at the new standards, believing that its system is better than anything the state could possibly come up with, but what it's objecting to really amounts to ceding control over 30 percent of the evaluation.

I've never been much of a power guy; but I suppose this could be the issue. It'd be a lot easier if we made decisions based on the best ideas. But I suppose that's the same reason why I blog about evaluation instead of making decisions about it.

MCPS: a summary

So it's all quite fascinating, really. Teacher pay in Montgomery County is frozen. The County is fighting itself over furloughs. Montgomery County teachers are now voting on a contract that freezes pay for at least one additional year after that. And now the Obama administration could be sending money to help. Meanwhile, the state of Maryland wants to become another Race to the Top state, which the state's largest county, Montgomery, is happy to support so long as they don't actually have to change.

My head hurts.

Did MCPS get the memo? About the change? Notice what New Haven, CT titles this page -school reform documents. That's more catchy than school stay the same documents.

From the MCPS page

Their title: MCPS, MCEA Agree on Use of Student Performance Data in Evaluations


My title: Weast and Prouty agree state law doesn't require any change! Rejoice.

Weast on Race to the Top

So I read this, and from what I understand, Jerry Weast's main point is that MCPS already does evaluation of teachers so well that it would have to be wary of changing anything that is already so good. He was almost dubious that Maryland could have a better idea than his. Ok then.