""We like Allen Dyer," said Lemle." Of course they do, he's a socialist. The HCEA is endorsing a pile of leftists who will ensure the union gets it's "fair share" of your property. I think it's hilarious when the HCEA says it's not about Republicans or Democrats, and then it proceeds to meddle in politics. This is why we need to get rid of Teachers unions.

Hi Bill. The possessive form of the pronoun "it" should be spelled "its." "It's" is a contraction of "it is." When you get your spelling and syntax right, our next lesson will define socialism and political action. We want to get rid of something, too: ignorance.

Weird. Simply weird. But not an unexpected tactic from the left. Obfuscation is the order of the day for those who seek to take from us our property. They want to change the topic. But remember, the left will take as much of your property as you let them, and unions, such as HCEA are no exception. Ulman and his friends at HCEA have doubled the HoCo operating budget over the past five years such that spending is $5,400 per capita in Howard County, far more than comparably sized counties in Maryland. We pay the highest combined property and income taxes of any county in the state. And yet, the HCEA won't tell you that, nor justify it. They will simply dwell on the difference between "its" and "it's." Simply weird. This is what we're up against folks. The unions act with impunity and with no regard to your property.

“The current members hold each other in contempt. This dichotomy is an inherent contradiction; the two states cannot coexist.” This is not the problem. We have 4 members who function seperately from the public and 3 members who have gone out of there way to communicate with the public. This situation exists because the public chose to increase our presence in our schools and will continue to do so.

On the subject of ignorance. How did the HCEA come up with this list? Were union members who do not live in Howard county part of the decision of who to support? Why should the citizens of Howard county who are hcpss staff abdicate their right to vote in acceptance of the union choice? How is it all 3 candidates are teachers? Because a person is a teacher does not mean they have the ability to lead.

Mr. Gertler would probably do extremely well in an advisory position on technology with other like minded citizens and would probably move our schools forward significantly but the BOE is not his calling.

Jackie Scott, I do not believe we saw her speak out about Mr. Ulman's failed attempt to strip away our right to vote. You can not have it both ways.

Ann DeLacy, now this person is interesting however it all depends on the path she follows. She was once part of the system. The candidate the people seek will put her on a path at odds with the system.

What the HCEA calls ignorance, the rest of us call truth. The goal of HCEA is to extract from the taxpayers via the county the maximum economic benefit for its members. If the HCEA does not do this, then it is not doing its job. So if there were no teachers union, it follows that teachers would receive less economic benefit, and therefore, I would retain a greater share of my property. In advocating for the abolition of the teachers union, I am seeking to keep more of what I earn. These are facts, and they are not disputed. And yet, these same facts, truths, are labeled ignorance by the HCEA. We get cleverness instead of an honest response from the HCEA. The left believes that being clever trumps the truth when it comes to discussing the issues of the day. Disgraceful. Don't be fooled.

Beware of those with an entitlement agenda. We don't need more social engineers with special interest focus. The larger community needs to be represented not special groups that want to advance their own interests at the expense of the larger community.

Good schools raise property values. Good teachers are essential to good schools. It follows that paying teachers well puts money in your pocket by increasing the value of your home. Howard County has top rated schools, but if we can't compete with Montgomery in salaries and benefits, we will lose good teachers. That will hurt property owners more than taxes do.

Good schools are not a function of money. Good schools are a function of a culture that values education, and that holds teachers, parents and students accountable. HoCo could cut its education budget by a third and not appreciably affect test scores. If money were the answer then Baltimore City and D.C. public schools would have the best schools in the country. And Utah, which has among the best, would have the worst. It's about the families, not the redistributive statism. Cultural marxism has permeated the view of the left regarding education (as well as other topics).

Maryland, a state which has 71,000 union educators, has had the number one public school system in the US for four years in a row. I don't know where Texas and Florida rank as complete systems, but the odds are they have school district lines drawn very carefully to perpetuate the segregated neighborhoods and towns of the 20th century. The great educators of Finland, Japan, and Korea are unionized, as are the highly profitable automobile companies abroad. The logic that educators take your property is facially absurd. So too would police officers, fire fighters, the DPW people who cut the grass in parks and keep your water supply clean. These services benefit everyone, as education does. It's also baffling to me that commenters here label this fundamental truth as belonging to the political left, when every political group that's held office in this country has provided similar levels of government service and similar levels of taxation. And there's no mention in these posts of the political right. No problem there? Taking your property and dropping it from a drone over Pakistan is cool with you? For the record, teacher bashing doesn't deserve a response. I comment here to extend the life and reach of the article above. HCEA has recommended three great candidates for the Board of education: career educator Ann DeLacy, tech guru David Gertler, and getting everybody's endorsement Jackie Scott.

So sick of union-bashing. And no, I am not a union member. I am a teacher, and a parent, so I see every day how hard teachers work and how much they care. You can show your true support for education in Howard County by really learning more about it and by ceasing your demoralizing attacks on those who are at the front lines with our kids. Enough.

Maryland has some of the easiest assessments in the country. HCPSS curriculum is watered down and geared to the test. Hcpss teaches to the test which is a far cry from providing an education. Half of our graduates need remedial education, with many needing several courses to several years. Colleges can not lower their standards any further and remain accountable. HCPSS does very little in the way of real world education, technical or vocational training. 90% of our graduates go on to college where the drop out rate is phenomenal. In reality our K-12 graduates in the K-16 environment gives us a graduation rate of just about 35%. We all know 35% is an abysmal failure. Everyone in the system failed. The teachers who agreed to do substandard work were compensated for their failure. The PTA who cheered mindlessly how great our schools are failed. The BOE who touted our greatness and blindly defered to so called experts failed. The community with self serving partnerships failed our children. A grossly overpaid, bloated administration who marched lock step with a deteriorating American education system while concocting schemes to continue their failure. The hcpss has for many years failed to educate the majority of Howard county's children. This is nothing more then a charade to collect government funds and lure unsuspecting and hopefully affluent families into the county. The system feeds upon itself at the children's expense. Everyone must be held accountable.

I believe I have a solution. We hire our out of work college graduates at $10 an hour without benefits and place a team of 2 in each class in place of union teachers. It is cheaper, we do not have to give extra time for planning or grades. 2 people can produce twice the work as one person . The teacher to student ratio is cut in half. Now if these college graduates are not qualified to teach what they just spent 17 years learning then our education system is an absolute failure. I believe we have a challenge Mr. Lemle and I have nothing against teachers. I just believe we can do far more, far better for a lot less. It's just how people in business think. The teachers union seems to think a teacher is the natural choice to lead the system and I believe every student can teach. Prove me wrong

Jack, why don't you volunteer at one of the schools on a weekly basis? Or, if you like, shadow me when I volunteer at Longfellow Elementary on Monday mornings or at Lucy Barnsley Elementary in Montgomery County on Wednesdays. I know you have had eight children go through HCPSS, but when is the last time you volunteered at a school?

I am not even welcome in my own children's school. I have a police escort. When was the last time a principal threatened to have you arrested for asking why a teacher assaulted your child or for asking why a teacher falsified the grades of every student they teach or for asking why a teacher told a few students they belong over there with the dark side and pointed to the African American students and then failed them or for asking why an Assistant Principal with severe memory loss was allowed to wander aimlesly through the school or I could go on for days.

If you want me to see something then speak up and I mean you no disrespect. How broken are our schools? This is what people need to know and then all of us who have had enough can stand up together regardless of if we are parent or teacher.

Here is the problem 95% pass the assessments, 90% graduate and 90% go on to college. Those numbers draw money to the system. Now look at HCC where many of our children go and the graduation rate is below 20%.

We failed miserably to educate these children, all of us.

Now look at the candidates speak of our quality schools and how hard it is to go those last few feet. The illusion is so deep we can not even get educated candidates.

Andrews, Delacey, Dyer, Kornreich, that is about it, only these few people speaking out publicly. A few other candidates spoke well at the forum but constantly and publicly, only a few.

The illusion of our great schools is damaging to our children. Where we are in education in America is very simple, we failed the parent, we can not again fail the child.

Now let's look at these endorsements.

Mr. Gertler We need a tech developement department run by volunteers and in the early stages we include our students both to contribute and to learn. We take Mr. Andrews idea of a roaming BOE and apply it here. This is Mr. Gertler's passion, this is his calling. not the BOE. Listen to him at the debate, what stood out about him was not serving on a board but his passion for technology.

Ms. Scott, you can not have it both ways, you would have allowed Ullman to strip our voice out of our schools.

Ms. Delacey,
"Jack, I have been at odds with the system for years because it is broken."

You know I will hold you to this. Teachers began jumping ship at Craddlerock in the mid 90's. Some spoke of poor administration in the school. The hiring and seperation reports combined with school demographics showed me there was a race problem. I believe these children were treated unfairly, posibly discriminated against and the senior administration of the hcpss knowingly ignored and hid the problems for over a decade until the parents screamed loud enough to force the issue. What really happened there and did anyone ever come forward to help those children?

Education Week, a lobbying group promoting higher spending on education did in fact rank Maryland number one. But getting behind the ranking, most of the metrics used to make this assessment relate to spending, in other words, most are not a measure of outcomes. As previously noted, SATs and ACTs are the most objective measure of performance across the states, and by those measures, it can't be said that Maryland is number one. The CATO Institute notes that since 1970, education spending per pupil has more than doubled but test scores have not improved. CATO estimates that Big Education is overstaffed by some 2 million people, human resources that could be deployed more productively to other industries. The blogger, Iowahawk, did an excellent study comparing student test scores between Wisconsin (as we know, heavily unionized) and Texas (a right to work state). What he found was that, breaking out the scores by race, Texas beat Wisconsin in nearly every category. Education is not about money, it's about family, culture and accountability. Unions are a roadblock in the efforts to improve student performance.

Regardless of where you stand on the candidates, please make sure you vote. Voting takes place during Spring Break, a time when many Howard County families are away from home. Early voting is available. Make your voice heard!

My personal experience with Ms. Wise in the late 90's at Glenelg was extremely bad and left me with the opinion she should have been fired. In fact the principal of Glenelg and the superintendent both apologized for the incompetence of their staff. The superintendent justified Ms. Wise's position by saying her education qualified her to hold it. This and her promotion to central office convinced me the problems in our schools are both wide spread and because of the lack of quality of the administration are unrepairable, becoming a festering cancer. When I look at Cradlerock, Mount Hebron, Reservoir and on and on I see similarities. The length of time the issue was allowed to deteriorate, the lies to conceal the problems, the deceit and damage to the parents and children as well as an orchestrated effort by the administration. I see absolute incompetence on the part of the hcpss which allowed this neglect and this atmosphere continues to this day. It is absolutely ludicrous to allow the very people responsible for this cancer to remain in the administration and it is completely laughable for any member of the BOE to defer to them. If these people had any morals we would have a race to resignation between Mr. Cousin, his senior staff and the lifers on the BOE.

People look and say the 90's, a long time ago. They need to understand this represents a generation of children who were denied a quality education. They need to understand the same people who allowed this are still at the feed trough with their face in the slop. It is so bad I actually knew a math teacher in the 90's who stood in the hall in tears because her class was too disruptive to teach and our children suffered. Two years ago she was still in the hall in tears because her class was too disruptive to teach and our children suffered. Ask Ms. Wise who the assistant principal at glenelg was a generation ago who lied to me and said there was nothing wrong with this classroom.

Paul Lemle has asked a question at Howardpubliced of candidates Andrews and Ballinger as to what their position is regarding appointed vs. elected members of the BOE. Since in part it was Ms. Scott's views at Mr. Ullman's public forum which became his basis for the need to appoint members and we heard nothing from Ms. Scott durring public testimony which favored elected members it is imparitive Ms. Scott publicly explain her position and silence.

Popeye,

Befor you continue with your endorsements which you admit benefits the hcea because in your opinion is "that this happens because of the relatively high salaries" and your attempt to tie it to student achievement. Would you care to explain how your members sat silently for years accepting those high salaries while our children were taught to the test with watered down curriculum designed to manipulate test scores instead of educate? Why your members were silent while our curriculum was watered down to the point where colleges now find your graduates unprepared and difficult to educate? Why 50% of our graduates need remedial education and for many it is extensive, resulting in failure in college? Why the dropout rate in college is phenomenal with schools like HCC which enroll the lions share of hcpss gradduates posting less then a 20% graduation rate? Why your members have sat silently knowing hcpss offers almost no real life skills, no technical training or vocational training? How can your members sit silently knowing hcpss children are destined for college where the graduation rate is only about 35%? Popeye, 35% is an abysmal failure. The hcpss has failed to educate the majority of the children in Howard county and your members sat with their faces in the trough while it happened. Now you want to cast blame, make endorsements and turn your shameful face from your fair share of responsibility for the failure. Just pitiful.

Jack

Still waiting on Ms. Scott to explain her silence and position on elected vs. appointed but I doubt we will ever here the truth. The last thing our children need on the BOE is a person who lacks the integrity Ms. Scott's silence has demonstrated.

I feel for the candidates the hcea has endorsed because they lack the balls to speak for themselves. This is not what our children deserve. If any of these candidates have any qualities it is not leadership, it is subservient follower.

Popeye the union man

After wrongly acusing Mr. Andrews and Mr. Ballinger of teacher bashing at Howardpubliced Mr. Lemle returned to offer a lame apology. Perhaps the hcea will never clean up their organization but they should at least attempt to elect a competent representative befor they attempt to disguise their propaganda as a qualified endorsement.

"You probably weren't expecting a civics lecture, but as Popeye would say, I am
what I am (a social studies teacher). To Bob: I apologize, and I look forward
to our ongoing dialogue."

Paul Lemle
President, Howard County Education Association

Wrong Popeye,

You live in an area where the wealth of the nation slops the trough you have your face in very well. Our schools are not great, they are not even good. You have seen a few of the fortunate but you have failed the majority.

You are right about 1 thing, your job is to represent the trough and keep the slop coming. You do not represent our children or their needs. You do not speak for them.

Now for your enlightenment, 10 years is a generation in education whether it is crawling to the point we are now in or embracing common core which is a basement floor not a standard to achieve, we are already 89% there and 10 years to implement the rest of it is another generation lost.

Popeye the union man let me be real clear. The union was never about holding out their hand while defending and producing inferior work.

I don't get the Popeye references. He was a sailor, not in a union. Also, please provide evidence for your arguments. You could post links to the statistics you use in your comments, such as for college drop-out rates of Howard County students. The unceasing union bashing is offensive to a number of people that work hard, every day, in Howard County Schools. If that's what you're going for, nice work. But your arguments would be more compelling if you included evidence rather than simply attacking a group of over 5,000 educators.

There is no union bashing but there is an illusion of the quality of our schools. Offensive is the lack of quality education our children recieve. 95% of hcpss children score well on assessments, 90% graduate and 90% continue their education in college are the numbers the hcpss spoon feeds the public and people like you apparently suck it down without question. The only thing more offensive is blindly defending it especially from a computer where the truth is a click away. It is one thing for the unsuspecting parent to be tricked, it is another to believe we are stupid.

The school quality here in Howard County is no illusion. It is real. Virtually all families, educators, real estate agents, and outside observers will confirm this! Obviously some commenters have had negative experiences. Is the system perfect? No. But we need to be honest--we are fortunate to be here, and the educators (even the union ones!) are part of the reason why.

Popeye you are still reaching in denial. Our great schools is an illusion conjured by charlatans like yourself with far more then smoke and mirrors. These children are instructed to the test not educated. The need for remedial education has strained our colleges who can not lower their standards any further to accomodate what our schools send them. Ask any child and they are all going to college, 90% of them says the hcpss so what do we expect? Not the phenomenal dropout rate which leaves these children in debt, disillusioned and unable to support themselves in the county they grew up in. I am sorry Popeye but the people you represent are just as responsible as the BOE and the administration for this failure. The hcpss has failed to educate the majpority of the children in Howard county. Stop posting your propaganda Popeye and do what we hired you to do, educate our children, not pass them out the door to become the working poor.

Want me to be clearer for you Popeye,

Does 50% of the children who need remedial education before they can move from K-12 to K-13 adequately express the number of people who have had a negative experience in the hcpss? Perhaps the 65% or more of the children who thought they were going to succeed in college more closely expresses the number of children who have had a bad experience. Then again how could they have a bad experience if they were lied to and believed all the garbage they were force fed. I wonder what the real number of problems in our schools are? Hard to say Popeye when we have the administration hard at work with the white wash. How do we even discuss this when we have the entire east side of the county overcrowded, more developement on the way and no where to put the 6 more schools they need? Negative experience, not the kind of thing the hcpss cares to publicly discuss is it Popeye?

Honestly, it's hard to take anything you (JacK) are saying seriously.

1) Your consistent use of the term "Popeye" (as if it's derogatory) is an ad hominem attack... one that isn't even understandable as I don't see the association between a cartoon sailor and your target. Regardless, how about referring to your opponent by their proper name? To constantly throw a label on them, often multiple times in the same post, shows inappropriate behavior on your part... not their part.

2) You keep throwing out statistics, yet you have been asked for the source of these statistics. Can you please provide any reports or investigations that support your claims to the matter? This is not an attempt to stall, this is an honest request for facts.

Note that I am not attacking you or supporting any side of this debate; I prefer to research things before I make decisions. However, this ~is~ a criticism of your argument as anyone with a modicum of common sense would be hard put to take anything you're saying seriously.

Jack, don't you have (or had) something like 8 kids in our public school system? For someone who has taken so much from others you sure do sound entitled.

A little history is perhaps in order . . .

I moved to Columbia (from Seattle) in 2003, when my wife got a government job. Educators can work anywhere, so I interviewed in Frederick, Baltimore Co, Anne Arundel, DC, Howard, and Montgomery. Being a special educator, I received job offers from all of them. Howard was a very easy choice to make.

http://www.hceda.org/life.aspx?details=overview
One of the reasons I like the Economic Development Authority's site is the links--all the source information is documented so you can see it for yourself. We've been referring to HCPSS as a great school system, and it is, but it's not the only reason to live here. Literally everything is in place--the best schools in America, high levels of public service and accountability, community involvement, prosperity/job security, absence of crime, access to DC and Baltimore, etc.

Perhaps this line of argument is getting tired, but denying the successes of our school system puts one in a pretty lonely condition. Every bit of evidence is to the contrary.

But Popeye you do realize it is this illusion of our great schools which is repeatedly touted as the engine which drives the county.

What is getting tired is how you keep insisting we have such great schools and choose to address any of the issues. Simply pathetic.

Jack

1:59 am on Thursday, March 22, 2012

I feel for the candidates the hcea has endorsed because they lack the balls to speak for themselves. This is not what our children deserve. If any of these candidates have any qualities it is not leadership, it is subservient follower.
Reply

Ann Delacy

1:15 pm on Thursday, March 22, 2012

Jack, I am NOT a coward and have spoken for myself on many occasions. Fortunately, being a female, I do lack the male organs you specified in your post.

No Ms. DeLacey you are not a coward. You have been purposely drawn into a discussion about the problems in the hcpss.

Would care to address some of the issues Popeye has chosen to avoid?

Jack, please try not to spam the board with comments, otherwise you will be banned. Also, as other commenters have asked, please try and provide links/ sources to prove your argument.

A wealth of information exists at American Math Forum in New York, Frederickpubliced, Parents-Coalition of Montgomery county and various other parent organizations throughout the country. Simple searches such as remedial education which in Howard county may be more specific by searching Algebra/data analysys or Jerome Dances University of Md. The hcpss does not track our children's success rate in college, providing only a small glimpse such as Brown's statement HCC recieves 25% of their freshman from hcpss of which 50% need remedial ed in math. This does not address the large number of students who for various reasons transfer back to HCC or the number of students which need remedial ed in science, history and english. At one point HCC's website claimed 50% attendance from hcpss and a 50% need for remedial ed. The best I have been able to determine is a college graduation rate of about 35% for hcpss students is probably generous. For the hcpss to simply state 90% of our children go to college is completely inadaquate.