LTE: School Survey

While there's no mention of it in Sunday's (6-17-07) huge feature on the school budget battle, there is a link on the Union-run Anne Arundel County Public Schools website to a ridiculous poll purporting to seek input from parents, taxpayers, etc. about how the budget should be allocated and how taxes and fees should be raised. This is supposedly a, taxpayer-funded website of the county government. See for yourself:( http://www.aacps.org/html/press/budget/08budget/budgetsurvey.asp)

I like the lead-off question for the What-Taxes-Should-Be-Raised section: Q#17: "I want Anne Arundel County Public Schools to be the best school system in the state of Maryland." Who would Strongly Disagree? Me. Why? Because I can just see the Headline: 'Parents' want best schools; for free.' Then it starts: Q#20: "I would support a property tax increase dedicated solely to school funding to help Anne Arundel County Public Schools move toward its goal of becoming the best in the state." Your own 'reporters' can tell you this is misleading, at best. State and County and tax revenues cannot be "dedicated" to anything.

So the Teachers Union is at it again. Trying to bamboozle our elected leaders, friends, neighbors, the rank and file and the voters. I am begging you: Find someone with the guts to confront the school system union on this poll, how much taxpayer money is being used to pay for a blatantly political tool, and why the public school web site is being used, once again to further a political agenda.


Mike Netherland

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Mike Netherland
netherman79@gmail.com
Date: Mar 12, 2006 2:53 PM
Subject: The Teachers....Again
To: "Letters, Kapital"capletts@capitalgazette.com
Cc: mailto:ThePublicSquare@yahoogroups.com

Dear Editors,
I read your latest flak-piece for the Teachers Association (Union) of Anne Arundel County (TAAAC) in Sunday's edition. And I am resigned to the inevitable caving-in of County politicians to the irresistible and relentless, thanks to you, union propaganda campaign. If only every special interest in this county had a daily newspaper in its pocket.

So I read with awe, about the guaranteed union dues...er, salary increases being etched into the granite tablet just after 'XI.' But I wasn't shocked. What I did find amusing, though, was the editorial's assertion that after achieving the second highest salary in the state, "...a multi-year agreement would avoid the yearly squabbling...." over salaries. Fat chance. I can just hear those poor serfs of the public school system now: "We must be Second-Class citizens; our salaries are Second-Rate!"

And we, the electorate, the "friends and neighbors" of our children's teachers will be tarred as union-busters again and again until all teachers can afford a NEW Mercedes, a house in Severna Park, have a free and fully-funded pension at 100 percent of their salary, teaching in classes that are regularly reduced to "manageable sizes" and are made up of child prodigies.

Mike Netherland