School Funding

Harford County Executive David R. Craig misses the mark in his discussion of Maryland's Maintenance of Effort (MOE) law in his recent op-ed piece ("A school funding solution," June 21). Contrary to his arguments, the new law passed during the 2012 legislative session greatly enhances the ability of counties to fund a quality education for their children. As we entered the 2012 legislative session, loopholes in MOE were being widely exploited, severely jeopardizing the impressive gains in student achievement that our schools have made in recent years.

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder will visit Baltimore Wednesday night to announce $63 million in federal grants awarded to study school safety to reduce gun violence across the nation. Baltimore County Public Schools and the University of Maryland, Baltimore will receive nearly $2 million of that money to focus research on students with emotional and behavioral health issues, according to the National Institute of Justice. Holder will also announce the expansion of the National Forum on Youth Violence Prevention to Baltimore; Long Beach, Calif.; Louisville, Ky.; and Seattle.

It is more than unfortunate that Anne Arundel County Executive John Leopold continues to imply that funding our school system is like throwing money into a bottomless abyss with absolutely no return on investment ("School funding mandate hurts counties," Jan. 19). There are certainly flaws with the state's maintenance of effort law, but the bigger problem in our county is Mr. Leopold's ongoing disparaging comments and his desire to control our school system in a dictatorial fashion.

As someone whose career in public service was launched from the trenches of community activism, I could not agree more with Yara Cheikh, who wrote in the May 10 issue of this newspaper that citizen advocacy was the driving force behind school reform ( "Sen. Jim Brochin doesn't serve big government" ). The voice of parents and neighbors is and has always been the prime mover behind education in this county. I am only sorry that I did not make that as clear as I might have at the Idlewylde Community Hall senatorial forum to which Ms. Cheikh referenced.

I definitely agree with the principals who wrote to suggest holding forums for charter versus traditional school funding ( "Baltimore principals call for funding forums," May 22). Students, parents and the general public should know how their tax money is being spent. They should be aware of what it is being spent on and how resources are being divided among schools. The school board should be open to hearing the opinions and ideas from principals, students and parents because both charter and traditional schools serve Baltimore's children.

Recently, Harford County engaged in a public conversation with its teachers about pay and classroom spending. This problem is not unique to Harford County and is symptomatic of a statewide problem caused by increased state mandates, lack of control over educational spending by the county's funding authorities and increased strain on public dollars in a down economy. On one side was the Harford County Education Association (HCEA), which represents the interests of teachers. They bemoaned that a county that is already spending half of every general fund dollar on K-12 education (this includes operating spending, debt service and other capital expenditures)

Republican former Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. says he would chop $126 million in education funding that goes primarily to Baltimore and Montgomery and Prince George's counties and use the savings to offset a penny rollback to the state's sales tax. Ehrlich, who is campaigning to win back his old job, said Wednesday that he views spending the money as "discretionary" — a position similar to the one he held when in office. He would prefer to lower the state's sales tax to make it more competitive with Washington and Delaware and encourage consumer spending.

Darius Johnson says he's just an ordinary student, presented with an educational opportunity in his freshman year of high school that led him to extraordinary choices: Johns Hopkins, Columbia, Duke, Princeton, Harvard, Cornell, Stanford and Washington universities, the University of Pennsylvania and Dartmouth College. The senior at Polytechnic Institute is among the gifted students who have worked their way through the Ingenuity Project, one of two programs that have given Baltimore students a competitive edge in college admissions but now face funding cuts in the city's tightest schools budget in decades.

State education leaders have offered legislators their recommendations for fixing the state law that requires local governments to fund their public schools at a minimum level. The state's superintendents, teachers union and local school boards released a plan Tuesday that would tighten a law meant to require that counties fund their schools at the minimum per pupil amount that they did the year before. The law was weakened last legislative session, they say, and must be fixed. They want to ensure that governments do not decrease the money they spend on schools.

Gov. Martin O'Malley joined legislative leaders Friday in saying they will take action this General Assembly session to make county governments live up to their responsibility to fund public schools at a minimum level required under state law. Seven county governments in Maryland are failing to fund their schools this year at the minimum per-pupil amount they did the year before, according to preliminary state numbers. O'Malley said it does not make sense for state taxpayers to be spending billions more for education in the past decade while some counties are "defunding" their schools.

I definitely agree with the principals who wrote to suggest holding forums for charter versus traditional school funding ( "Baltimore principals call for funding forums," May 22). Students, parents and the general public should know how their tax money is being spent. They should be aware of what it is being spent on and how resources are being divided among schools. The school board should be open to hearing the opinions and ideas from principals, students and parents because both charter and traditional schools serve Baltimore's children.

Baltimore's school board is scheduled to vote Tuesday on a $1.3 billion budget that has drawn backlash from schools and lawmakers for its program cuts, and has led the board to consider overhauling a local funding formula that left some high schools with as much as $450,000 in cuts. The proposed budget - which shows dwindling financial support for two high-profile programs for gifted students, Ingenuity Project and International Baccalaureate - has spurred petitions, political outcry and a citywide debate about the investment in advanced students.

After reviewing your budget in brief and associated comments, I find myself once again obliged to respond. You cite several statistics to justify your lack of commitment to our public schools. You state that Harford County ranked 13th in local funding to public education. This is true but Harford County also ranked 12th in wealth per pupil. Citing these rankings as justification for your administration's perpetual under funding of our schools highlights your fundamental disregard or misunderstanding of the state formula for school funding.

Darius Johnson says he's just an ordinary student, presented with an educational opportunity in his freshman year of high school that led him to extraordinary choices: Johns Hopkins, Columbia, Duke, Princeton, Harvard, Cornell, Stanford and Washington universities, the University of Pennsylvania and Dartmouth College. The senior at Polytechnic Institute is among the gifted students who have worked their way through the Ingenuity Project, one of two programs that have given Baltimore students a competitive edge in college admissions but now face funding cuts in the city's tightest schools budget in decades.

Editor: HCPS Does Not Work Ms [Barbara] Canavan and the Harford County Board of Education officials elected not to attend the Board of Public Works appeals hearing in Annapolis, Feb. 5. The hearing was to appeal decisions that denied Harford County Board of Education Maryland funding. Apparently, the entire Board had to be in the county to handle weather related issues rather than having someone attending the appeal. With school funding flat lined, the Board imposed and revoked "Pay to Play" and a bus policy forcing children living further from school to walk; I would think every effort would have been made to attend the funding appeal.

County Executive Laura Neuman, House of Delegates Speaker Michael E. Busch, state Sen. Edward Reilly and other Anne Arundel County lawmakers joined school officials this week in petitioning the state Board of Public Works for more funding for school projects, namely $25 million to begin reconstruction for Severna Park High School. At the so-called beg-a-thon for statewide school money, state comptroller and Public Works board member Peter Franchot read from emails he'd received that depicted Severna Park High as "unsafe, unhealthy for children … and literally falling apart.

Maryland's 24 public school systems have been recognized once again by Education Week as the best in the nation. Maryland's boards of education, superintendents, teachers and students are clearly doing outstanding work from pre-kindergarten through high school graduation. Maryland students are being prepared to enter school ready to learn, given rigorous classroom instruction so that they are reading at grade level, achieving the high standards and goals set by the No Child Left Behind Act for proficiency for all students in reading, math and science, and entering the workforce and higher education ready for the challenges of the 21st century.

After reviewing your budget in brief and associated comments, I find myself once again obliged to respond. You cite several statistics to justify your lack of commitment to our public schools. You state that Harford County ranked 13th in local funding to public education. This is true but Harford County also ranked 12th in wealth per pupil. Citing these rankings as justification for your administration's perpetual under funding of our schools highlights your fundamental disregard or misunderstanding of the state formula for school funding.

Baltimore City Councilman Bill Henry this week announced he plans to run for the state senate seat currently held by longtime senator Joan Carter Conway. Henry, 45, who represents North Baltimore, said he is running in the 43rd senate district to be address to address "important issues" on the state level, including liquor regulation and school funding. “I love the job I have now ... but I believe I can help even more in the State Senate," Henry said in a statement. During his tenure on the City Council, Henry has gained a reputation as an active and independent voice.

A few years ago, Franklin Square Elementary/Middle School Principal Terry Patton was trying to figure out how to get more of her students to attend school regularly when she hit on a novel idea: Get a washing machine and dryer. From talking to her students and their parents, she had learned that many children didn't come to school every day because they were ashamed of wearing dirty uniforms, and their families don't have laundry facilities at home. So Ms. Patton got a non-profit group to donate a washer-dryer to the school and told her students they could use it. Soon, children who had been skipping school two or three days a month started showing up regularly for class.