Liberty High School Closing?

If you stay in touch with local politics, you know the pain that the counties in Maryland are suffering right now that was handed to them compliments of Governor Martin O'Malley.  For decades the state has managed and funded the state pension system for teachers.  Now the counties are being forced to fund the state pension for the county teachers without any say in the matter.  As a result, now the counties are forced to take drastic measures.

In Carroll County, local leaders have trimmed the county budget as far as they think they can reasonably cut it without critically impacting county services.  Now, still several million dollars short of meeting the new requirement to fund the state pension, the county is now forced to make some very uncomfortable decisions that will have long-term implications.  Carroll County is now seriously considering closing schools in an effort to make more funds available to start funding the state pension.

My sources say that there is a tiered approach to which schools may be closing.  Tier 1 (schools that are most likely to close) are Liberty High School in Eldersburg and The Carroll Springs School for special needs children.  If this does not close the budget gap that Governor O'Malley has passed along, then several more schools will be on the chopping block, including North Carroll High School, one of the middle schools in Westminster, and another elementary school, whose name I cannot recall.

The county is seriously considering these options because, despite going on a building spree the past 10 years, thanks to massive funding for education by Martin O'Malley, the school populations are predicted to decline for the next several years before starting to increase again in 2018.  If the schools are closed, the Carroll County Public School system is required by law to hand the property back to the county, who retains the right to determine the fate of the property and the facility.  This means that the county can find an alternate use of the facility, such as another senior center or community center, or they can sell the property to a private interest, or they can demolish the school and sell the land.

Martin O'Malley - you keep saying that education is a priority, but it sounds like your spending habits are conflicting with your education priorities.  Rather than find ways to reduce the inflating state budget, you passed along a cost to the counties that the state has funded for many decades.  These counties are now forced to make decisions, based on your inability to control spending, that are now going to severely impact schools, teachers, children, and education.  Even worse, at the front-line of your careless decisions are the special-needs children that rely on us, children that you seem content with streamlining back into an education system that will not provide them with the care and services you need.  But that's the kind of governor you are.  And you know the teachers' unions will still blindly support you.

My children were really looking forward to going to Liberty High School.  Sorry kids, it looks like Martin O'Malley is taking away your dreams.

Harford County Teachers Cry Foul

Teachers in Harford County Maryland are crying foul to a plan to reduce the budget for salaries by 2%. The Harford County government is facing a $12 million budget shortfall and cuts need to be made somewhere.

Teachers reacted with outrage saying that a cut in pay would be demoralizing. However, I find it difficult to have any sympathy for them. Here at American Amalgamated Corrugated Conglomerates of America, we went through an 8% reduction in staff last year. 8%!!!! Several hundred people were laid off. When private companies do not have enough revenue to support the staff levels, then staff must be reduced. It's a fact of life. No one wants to fire employees. But in order to save everyone else's job, some people must be terminated.

I have been laid off twice in my life and don't get me wrong - I was angrier than an ugly TV reporter whose romantic advances were rejected by a Maryland governor. It sucks. And I hated those companies. But I know they had to do it. And I'm better off for it now.

Unfortunately, when dealing with unions or public sector jobs, or in this case both, there is no understanding, just outrage when the budget must be balanced. And the best part is that I'm pretty sure that Harford County will not be able to get rid of the teachers that suck. Union rules probably prevent that. Instead they will have to get rid of young teachers - regardless if they are awesome teachers or not. Merit does not matter in a union. Good luck!

Teacher Retention

A recent article in the Charlotte Observer (the newspaper for Charlotte, NC) noted that they are having a teacher shortage in high schools. It appears that some of the schools were not meeting the standards set by the No Child Left Behind Law. A judge then demanded that the scores go up.

Charlotte, pictured to the right, in their infinite wisdom, took that to mean getting rid of bad teachers, hire better teachers, and then the quality of the education would then be reflective of the better teachers. However, this method backfired. Dozens of bad teachers were fired, which is amazing in itself. Where's the ACLU when you need them to stand up for mediocrity or failure? Anyway, since many teachers were fired, this decreased morale within the school system, causing good teachers to quit. Now the school system cannot hire enough teachers to fill the vacancies left open by the quitters.

Now, if this had happened in Baltimore, the outcome would have been different. If a judge had demanded that the test scores increase, former Baltimore Mayor and Socialist advocate, Martin O'Malley, would have returned to the judge 20 minutes later showing that the test scores were now higher and that graduation rates were up, too.

How is this possible? The solution is simple. Once you redo the grading scale, someone who previously was failing is now getting a C or D. Someone who was average is now getting A's and B's. The students are not anything differently. They didn't need to retake any tests. (For God's sake, he only had 20 minutes!) And the wonderful thing about this method is that it can be applied retroactively. So 19 year old kids who thought they failed the 7th grade again suddenly find themselves in the 8th grade with their peers.

And since we're making up grades, let's enhance our graduation rates. Now Baltimore, pictured to the right, shows graduation rates near 70%. That's kind of funny when you look at the classrooms and see 11 seniors in it. Did only 12 seniors start their freshman year in this class? Of course not. Prairie Dog O'Malley just changed the graduation calculation to say, "How many kids started their senior year divided by how many graduated." This is a clear bastardization of the calculation method used by everyone in the industrialized world, but O'Malley wanted to be Maryland's first Socialist governor, so he had to do something and he had to do it fast. He wasn't going to allow some educated Republican to see the poop through the forest. Official graduation rates for Baltimore City, as calculated by organizations outside of the Socialist State of Maryland, are closer 24%.

So, Charlotte, NC, what can your town learn from this? Stop trying to do the right thing for the children and obeying the law and start doing what will make you look good in the short-term so that your politicians can bask in their glory and wisdom. It worked for O'Malley, it can work for you!