Panicked-Parents Profile #1

The first profile in panicked parents of public school children describes a member of the Anne Arundel County Council. Since the profile is based on an e-mail message not expressly meant for the blog I will make it anonymous.

Panicked Parent No. 1: Anonymous
Occupation: County Coucilmember
Comments:

Mike,

This time you are wrong. We moved money around in the budget to see that the construction and renovation projects that Leopold refused to fund were funded. I am always disturbed when I am told my [child] will have 40 kids in a class that physically and educationally can only handle about 25. Maybe that is OK with you, but not me. Your [Councilmember] held the line on taxes. Your [Councilmember] worked to bring the state in on the conversation so as to better leverage our county dollars and get more construction dollars. The day after the budget amendments made by the council, the state awarded an additional 10k to the County based on their spending commitment.

What would you have rather I did? The students were left out of this budget and the council put them back. I won't apologize for that. Neither should you condemn us for doing what was right. Why is it that if education gets funded, you automatically go on the offensive and seem to indict the council and suggest we are beholding to the teachers. They are mad at us just as often as they are pleased. As it was, they did not get their negotiated 6% raise, they got 5%, but I guess that does not matter.

Issue: Seems to believe that 25 is the magic class size number for teaching. Also seems to believe that tax dollars coming from the State are not also coming from County tax-payers.

Conclusion: Has swallowed hook, line and sinker the Union's single-most effective line of propaganda, that class-size is scientifically linked to effective teaching.

Notes: PP#1, you must disabuse yourself of the notion that TAAAC and the TAAAC-fed public school bureaucracy have your child's education at heart in negotiating for anything. What it has is a body of education law within which it must work to increase its ranks. Basta. That's it.

Did you read my letter to John Leopold? Are you not concerned that what you are saying is exactly what your 4th-grade teacher (and 5th and 6th, etc.) told you was true? And you have done exactly what they have counted on: you have risen to power and influence under the belief that bigger classes are bad and more teachers are good. You probably even wrote to your County Executive, a heartless miser who lived only to see teachers, your teacher, suffer!

But Mike, I believed in Santa Clause, too, and I grew out of that, didn't I? Perhaps. But there is something very tangible about your 4th-grade teacher, more tangible than Santa Clause.

What would I have you do? Make them prove it. Make them work for their $13 million! For that much cash I want to see hard evidence that 26 or 40 students are impossible to teach. I want you to make the hard choices like Baking Class versus Reading; to explain to the panicked parents, that they can't have it all. And If they can't have it all at least they'll have kids who can read and write in English, better than kids from any other County in Maryland.

I DON'T want that money spent on teachers to indoctrinate MY kids in liberal theology! YOU can't guarantee that, now. That means I have to work harder.

I want you to STOP giving these blood-suckers another second of stage time for the Union hacks down at the Annapolis Fish Wrap. Stop giving these public school prima donnas more reasons to keep coming back for more. Stop giving them, on a silver platter, another Democratic campaign slogan they'll use in county and State races: A Vote for a Democrat is a Vote for the Kids!