The Diener School to celebrate grand opening of new Bethesda campus Sept. 12

The Diener School has outgrown its rental facilities since its founding in 2007, and this fall will finally have a campus of its own in Bethesda. A grand opening will be held at the new campus, located at 9312 Old Georgetown Road, on Thursday, September 12, 2024. Participating in the ribbon-cutting ceremony, and delivering remarks, will be Maryland state delegates Marc Korman and Sara Love, and Montgomery County Councilmember Will Jawando. The ceremony will be held from 9:30 AM to 10:15 AM, and be followed by an open house and light refreshments from 10:15 until 11:00 AM.

If you would like to attend the event, RSVP to Laurie Aaronson by September 5th at Laurie@thedienerschool.org or (301) 299-4602. Guests are urged to use a ride-sharing service, as campus parking is limited. Valet parking will be offered for those arriving by car. The J2 Metrobus also has a nearby stop.

“Our move to this new campus represents a transformative step for The Diener School,” Head of School Kathy Chumas said in a statement. “We are excited to expand our enrollment capacity while continuing our mission to provide a holistic educational experience for our students. Our commitment to fostering healthy self-esteem and supporting each child’s unique needs remains at the heart of our work.”

UP Robotics opens in Bethesda

UP Robotics has moved into the second floor space at 7801 Woodmont Avenue in downtown Bethesda, above Reddz Trading. Founded by parents and experienced robotics teams coaches, UP Robotics offers after school and summer camp programs centered on robots, drones and coding. Programs are available for Grades 1 through 8. Teams will compete in FIRST Lego League Challenge and FIRST Lego League Explore divisions.​

Walter Johnson student is National Honor Society finalist for 2024

Allison Xu, a senior at Walter Johnson High School in Bethesda, is one of the 25 finalists out of nearly 17,000 applicants who will receive a $5625 scholarship award from the National Honor Society. She is now also eligible for the $25,000 national winner scholarship, which will be awarded at a gala event on April 5. 

Xu is Editor-in-Chief of her countywide student newspaper, The MoCo Student, and her high school’s newspaper, The Pitch. She was named the 2023 Youth Poet Laureate of Montgomery County, and has performed at Kennedy Center, the National Cherry Blossom Festival, and the American Courage Awards.

"I feel incredibly honored to earn this prestigious recognition," Xu said in a statement yesterday. "Winning the NHS Scholarship also inspires me to continue striving for excellence and serving as a role model for others."

"Allison has gone above and beyond to excel academically and lift up her community through selfless service and leadership," National Association of Secondary School Principals CEO Ronn Nozoe said. "Her actions today exemplify the incredible leader she is, and I can’t wait to see what she accomplishes." NASSP is the parent organization of the NHS.

Davina Canagarajah of Sherwood High School, and Raei Tamiru of Wheaton High School, were named as two of the 575 semi-finalists yesterday, and will each receive a $3,200 scholarship.

Kumon relocates to Westbard Square in Bethesda

Kumon Math and Reading Center has relocated from 5450 Westbard Avenue at the Westwood Shopping Center to 5400 Westbard Avenue, Suite 260, next door at Westbard Square. It is accessible from the new Westbard Square building's parking garage. The afterschool academic program is one of the last tenants to vacate the strip mall, which is slated for demolition to clear the way for a new apartment building this year. 

Kumon was founded in Japan in 1955, when teacher Toru Kumon developed a set of worksheets that helped his own son, Takeshi, attain advanced proficiency in math. His worksheets inspired those used by the Kumon centers worldwide today. As the company says, "Right at this moment, someone, somewhere around the world, is learning with Kumon."

Montgomery County Board of Education candidate forum scheduled for March 16

A Montgomery County Board of Education candidate forum has been scheduled for Monday, March 16, 2020 at 6:30 PM at the Potomac Community Center, located at 11315 Falls Road in Potomac. Candidates vying for the three open seats on the board have been invited to participate.

Thirteen candidates are competing for the At-Large seat; the two top vote-getters in that April 28 primary race will advance to the General Election in November. The two candidates running in each of the District races are unopposed, and will face-off in the General Election. Key issues are the school system's funding and budget, the achievement gap, academic decline over the last decade, student safety and a highly-controversial redistricting study now underway that some on the current board have openly said should include the forced busing of students to schools outside of their communities.

The forum's sponsors include the Montgomery County Federation of Republican Women and its four clubs, as well as the GOP Asian-American Association and the Republican Legislative District 15 Political Action Committee.

Kumon coming to Westwood Center II in Bethesda

The Westwood Center II mini-mall at 5110 Ridgefield Road is adding another Japanese after-school learning center to its tenant list. ENA has operated a Japanese juku school at the retail center since 2013. Now Kumon, a Japanese-founded company that has been boosting children's reading and math skills since 1954, will soon operate a location here.

Primrose School coming to downtown Bethesda

Primrose School of Downtown Bethesda, a private preschool, is coming soon to 8101 Glenbrook Road. Founded in Georgia in 1982, Primrose School is a nationally-accredited private school system with franchises around the country.

Mike Patel, the owner of the new Bethesda location, decided to open his own Primrose School after researching school options for his own two children. Primrose is now enrolling. As Montgomery County Public Schools continue to decline, and with forced busing now on the table at the Board of Education, private schools here will likely experience a surge of growth in the coming years.

MoCo school board approves new redistricting criteria that would force busing of students from "W school" clusters

Move to disconnect

home address from 

coveted school districts 

would reduce home values

Your vote in November's election will now literally determine the future value of your home. The Montgomery County Board of Education this week approved new criteria for redistricting of public schools that would force the busing of students from affluent school clusters in Bethesda, Potomac and Rockville. In their comments prior to the 5-3 vote, some board members specifically cited students in the "W school" clusters in the southwest part of the county as having to be bused to other schools around the county. Because the new criteria puts the heaviest weight on diversity, the policy as written could only be achieved by busing students out of their currently-assigned Walt Whitman, Walter Johnson, Winston Churchill and Thomas S. Wootton clusters (the districts to which the term "W school" are most commonly applied).

Montgomery County Council President Hans Riemer
has made no secret of his desire to change who gets
to attend the most coveted schools in areas like
Bethesda and Potomac

Montgomery County Councilmembers Hans Riemer and Craig Rice have openly endorsed the idea of detaching homeownership or residency from school cluster assignment in the affluent southwest of the County for several years. But the BOE move this week is the first formal codification of this desire in County regulations. Rice mocked Whitman parents from the Council dais in 2016, declaring in an entitled-sounding voice, "I moved to the Whitman cluster, and therefore I must go to Whitman High School! People lose sight that somehow you attending Whitman is better than attending Gaithersburg or Northwest. That should not be the case," Rice said. "It should not be about what your zip code is."

On Monday night, BOE members took aim at those same parents. Jill Ortman-Fouse, who ran unsuccessfully for the Council and doesn't face reelection for the Board, also criticized the idea that "when you buy a house, you buy a school. And [parents] even said that in their emails. They said 'I bought my house for that school.'" Chiding those parents, she said, "all of those schools are owned by all of the taxpayers. They aren't owned by certain neighborhoods." She denounced the belief that "only certain kids get to go to those schools." Jeannette Dixon added that "an easy commute to school" should not be a criteria for school assignment.

Board member Judith Docca explicitly called out the "W school" clusters, and said that busing of students must include those students from more affluent families. Of those who spoke during the public comment period prior to the vote, Docca noted, "only one speaker mentioned a W school. And that's where some of the students are that need to interact with some of our other students. That is not happening. When we talk about all students, we mean those students as well. I know that it's not going to be easy to do."

That could be the understatement of the decade. If there's any doubt this move is coordinated between the BOE and councilmembers like Riemer and Rice, note their similar talking points. In 2016, Rice declared that "boundary changes used to be a third rail." Monday night, Ortman-Fouse called redistricting "the third rail."

BOE members acknowledged the new criteria, which would certainly reduce home values in the "W schools" communities, will be a hard sell. Ortman-Fouse referred to parents hitting the "panic button." "There will be unintended outcomes," MCPS Superintendent Jack Smith - who declined to take a position for or against the new criteria - warned, "and we will all live with them."

Smith is usually dead wrong on most topics, having failed to keep students safe or reduce the achievement gap during his term, but he made one of the best points during the discussion. In regards to what most determines student achievement, "the secret is what happens in that classroom," he said.

The superintendent is correct. Busing did not lead to equal education. Instead, we have an achievement gap that persists to this day in America. You can bus a child to another school, but they still come from the same income-level family as they would have in their neighborhood school. If diversity of race or socioeconomic background were the top factor in academic success for a school, Whitman or any number of elite private schools in the area would be among the worst-performing. They are not.

Some proponents of the new criteria are predictably quick to call opponents "racist." In reality, the new criteria is what is racist. This is a dodge by MCPS to avoid the actual challenging work of improving the worst-performing schools in the County. The Council has wasted yet another term, failing to reduce the achievement gap and geographic educational inequities in areas like East County and the Upcounty. 

Dropping final exams has already led to MCPS gaining an "Easy A" reputation across the country, according to the Washington Post. This will hurt Montgomery County public school students in the college admissions process over time, if not reversed. Now MCPS is dropping the PARCC tests, for the same harebrained reason that the kids can't pass the tests. Can't pass the test? Get rid of the tests, our County "leaders" say. Can't improve failing schools? Bus kids around to try to artificially-but-slightly boost test scores, even if it causes scores at the top schools to drop.

This is the definition of "the soft bigotry of low-expectations."

As Jaime Escalante proved three decades ago, student groups of any racial or economic background can perform at the highest levels. It's the teacher and the curriculum that make the difference. Contrary to Riemer's claim that there must be rich, white students in a classroom for black and Latino students to excel, Escalante's students achieved high scores without "Richie Rich" sitting at the next desk.

How do we know "the secret is what happens in that classroom," as Smith said? After Escalante left Garfield High School in East Los Angeles, student math performance tanked. Kind of like Algebra test scores in Montgomery County in recent years.

Redistricting and busing could be a post-election surprise for many parents, especially with no accurate media coverage of Monday night's change. Several schools are already due for new or changed assignments before the end of this year, such as those impacted by a new high school opening for Downtown Crown in Gaithersburg. The clusters affected in that redistricting will be Wootton, Richard Montgomery, Quince Orchard, Northwest and Gaithersburg. Clarksburg Village #2, another new school, will also be districted this fall. Development pressures in Bethesda and Silver Spring make boundary changes inevitable in those areas, especially with elected officials showing a new boldness to touch that "third rail."

According to board veteran Patricia O'Neill, who voted for the new criteria, boundary changes will be "happening pretty darn soon." Docca referred to the implementation of the new criteria as "the operation."

Impacts of the changes are clear: reduced home values when a particular address no longer guarantees entry to coveted schools, perpetuation of failure at failing schools countywide, longer bus commutes for already-tired students, and a continuing achievement gap. 

Can "the operation" be stopped? Yes. By electing Council candidates who oppose this dodge of the County's fundamental responsibility to provide good schools in every neighborhood. If elected, I would use the ultimate power to force the BOE to drop the new criteria. It is the County Council that funds MCPS. The BOE would have a hard time operating with no funding.

If you currently live in an area with coveted schools, your vote on Tuesday, November 6 will literally determine the future value of your home, and the futures of children countywide. We need leaders who won't sidestep the major challenges we face for another four years, including failing schools and an unacceptable achievement gap. The failed solutions of the past won't move us forward into the future.

Humiliation: No MCPS school makes 2016 National Blue Ribbon School list

Just months after the Montgomery County Council hiked property and recordation taxes to record highs, and falsely claimed it was to benefit schools (but without any major change in education strategy, meaning we're going to keep going the way we've been going - a.k.a. the definition of insanity), there is more alarming evidence that your tax pain is in vain. The U.S. Department of Education has just released its list of 2016 National Blue Ribbon Schools - and not a single Montgomery County Public School is on the list.

Ouch.

We've been told by the Montgomery County political cartel that, while we don't enjoy the booming private sector economic growth of states like Texas, we should still feel superior because we "invest in our schools." Fact check: Montgomery County suffered a humiliating shut-out on the list, while red states like Texas, Alabama, Georgia, Virginia and Louisiana cleaned our clock, with multiple public schools making the cut. In fact, 26 Texas schools in all made the 2016 list. Even a red county in Maryland like Anne Arundel has public school representation on the new list.

It turns out that the excess money spent on MCPS without a plan has been money down the toilet. Ironically, you can be almost certain that grades will rise in MCPS schools in the future - but only because the school system recently adopted an easier grading system for that very reason. Elected officials impotent to solve MoCo's education decline? No problem! Just get rid of final exams and inflate everybody's grades. God help us.

#MoCoTermLimits
#ThrowTheBumsOut

P.S. Congratulations to Montgomery County's St. Patrick's parochial school, which made the 2016 list as a non-public school.

One-room schoolhouse to take over old Bruce Variety building in Bethesda

The Mysa School, a modern re-imagining of the one-room schoolhouse, is the new tenant at the former home of Bruce Variety at 8011 Woodmont Avenue in downtown Bethesda. Opening this fall, the school will be enrolling boys and girls in Grades 6-9. As it grows, it will eventually go up to Grade 12 - a full high school education.

Mysa calls its new model of the famed American one-room schoolhouse a "micro school." In a hybrid approach, Mysa will combine hands-on, group project work directed at solving the problems of today's world with a customized learning platform tailored to each student, who will select from a menu of options. The result the curriculum is designed to produce is one that draws from around the internet and the world, while helping students develop strong interpersonal relationships with their classmates. A "globally-connected one-room schoolhouse," in their words.

The school won't offer cafeteria meals, but will order in from downtown Bethesda restaurants several times a week. Sure beats cafeteria food.

You can find out more about the Mysa School, and if it is right for your child, by attending an information session at Pizzeria Da Marco (right across the street from the school) on June 12, 2016, from 5:00-7:00 PM. Or visit their website. I have to say, this sounds like a fascinating concept for those seeking an alternative to public or traditional private schools.

BCC Cluster boundary change discussion begins in Bethesda

The process to decide which students will attend Westland Middle School, or an under-construction alternative on the site of Rock Creek Hills Park in Kensington, will begin this coming Monday, February 1. Montgomery County Public Schools will hold an informational meeting that night at 7:30 PM, in the cafeteria of Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School at 4301 East-West Highway in Bethesda.

MCPS staff will make a presentation, and then take questions from attendees.

The school system says a Boundary Advisory Committee will examine several different sorting schemes, consider public feedback from Monday's meeting, and present its findings at a second meeting on May 12, 2016.

Whoever is named the new Superintendent of MCPS will then make a recommendation in mid-October, and the Board of Education will officially adopt the new middle school boundaries the following month.

Bethesda-Chevy Chase Middle School #2 is scheduled to open in August 2017 (unless the current statewide drive to start the school year after Labor Day is successful before then).

Documents and materials generated during the February-May study period will be available to the public on this site.

Interpreters will be available at the meeting for Spanish speakers.

Intérpretes estarán disponibles en la reunión para hispanohablantes .

Black students more likely to be suspended by MCPS than by Texas schools

Everything's bigger in Texas - except racial disparities in public school discipline policies, apparently. A new study by Texas Appleseed helps provide further context to a recent report that showed African-American students in Montgomery County Public Schools are 3 times as likely to be suspended from school as white and Asian students.

In Texas, there are also racial disparities in school discipline. But the Texas Appleseed report, titled "Suspended Childhood", found that black students in that state are less likely to be suspended than black students in Montgomery County. Black students in Texas are more than 2 times as likely to be suspended as whites - not laudable, but lower than in MCPS schools.

Montgomery County should consider this comparison, and some of the recommendations in this report, as it continues to struggle with a growing achievement gap. A 2014 County Office of Legislative Oversight report confirmed that MCPS had declined, and the achievement gap had widened, since 2010.

Now we know that Montgomery County students also fared poorly on this year's PARCC exams, the scores of which determined less than half of MCPS high school students are ready for college-level work.

And that superintendent search? Yeah, that search. They'll get around to it. Maybe some of the WMATA runners-up will give it go. The Montgomery County Council and Board of Education have made slouching a science.

Report has more bad news on MCPS decline, achievement gap

The troubling results of a new survey of Montgomery County African-American youths highlight the failure of the County Council and Board of Education to close an achievement gap that has grown since 2010. Connecting Youth to Opportunity was produced by The Community Foundation for the National Capital Region, BETAH Associates, Inc. and Montgomery College.

Survey results showed that black students are 3 times as likely to drop out of Montgomery County Public Schools as white and Asian students. And black students are 3 times as likely to be suspended from school as whites and Asians.

The report also showed that Montgomery County's moribund economy, and weak job creation rate relative to Northern Virginia and the District, are disproportionately hurting African Americans. According to the survey results, only 8.7% of black high school students surveyed are employed, and only 30.7% of black high school dropouts have been able to obtain employment.

Even Montgomery County's young black high school graduates are being hard hit, with only 39.7% of those surveyed currently employed.

My suggestion for years has been to attract high-wage aerospace, defense and tech companies (and their accompanying research facilities) to the County - and have classroom space in those facilities as a provision for receiving County financial incentives. This would create internships, and high-tech skill acquisition, that would lead to high-wage jobs for students in our worst performing schools. We also need universal Pre-K.

Instead, our County leadership is doubling down on decline. What are we hearing the MoCo political machine's next moves are on declining schools and record exam failure rates? "Soft bigotry" moves like building more luxury apartments on top of demolished affordable housing complexes, putting more rich white people in places like White Oak and Wheaton while displacing lower income residents, redistricting school boundaries - the third rail of MoCo politics, and, by golly, just getting rid of those pesky exams the kids can't pass.

Let's hope this report provides them yet another wake-up call.

MoCo slouches away from solving MCPS achievement gap

Score another one for "the soft bigotry of low expectations" in Montgomery County. The achievement gap between white students and their African-American and Latino classmates has only gotten worse over the last five years, according to the County's own study of its public schools:

"Since 2010, the economic, racial, and ethnic stratification of students among MCPS high schools has increased."

And since 2010, the County Council and MCPS have spent much money, but have failed to take any substantive action - and most certainly have failed to achieve results.

Now we have the latest example of how the impotent Montgomery County political machine "tackles" the tough challenge of the achievement gap - it runs away from it.

Three out of four students can't pass the Algebra I Final Exam? Just get rid of the exam!

That's right. No new strategies, no hard analysis of what's going wrong. Just get rid of final exams, and replace them with those nifty "extra credit" projects, and other age-old tricks used to push struggling kids through the system for decades, cheating them out of a quality education.

Anybody can do a project. Only a student who has learned can solve the math equations on an exam at the end of the semester.

Try handing your college professor or office supervisor that nifty math-themed collage, instead of your final exam or the economic analysis project you were assigned. The results won't be quite as whimsical as they appear to be in the "leadership" realm of our racially and geographically-unequal school system.

A rudderless system prepared to identify a new superintendent "when they get around to it," MCPS is eerily similar in leadership, money-down-the-drain-spending, and results to the ever-popular WMATA (which can't find a leader, either).

The previous superintendent, Joshua Starr, started his MoCo career with a gaudy champagne toast at the Potomac estate of Mitch Rales, a pioneer of outsourcing American jobs to China; spent much of his time hosting an Oprah-style book club TV program at taxpayer and cable customer expense; and was unceremoniously run out of town as a finisher. "Heckuva job, Brownie."

So they have this idea to get rid of final exams that ensure you actually learned what was taught (assuming parents and education advocates stand by and allow the policy change to go unchallenged). What else do they have in their "toolbox"?

A paltry, pitiful $250,000 Children's Opportunity Fund, with no clear mandate or specific uses for that taxpayer money. A fund led by one of the very school board members who presided over the growing achievement gap, by the way. You can't make this stuff up, folks.

Consider that New York City is now ponying up $400,000,000 a year to provide universal Pre-K, widely-accepted to be one of the most obvious and promising ways to reduce the achievement gap, and the contrast couldn't be more clear.

And MoCo's political machine couldn't look worse.

Kids can't pass exams? Get rid of the exam.

Don't like the increasingly-ghastly traffic congestion numbers that might make it impossible to keep approving new development without finally completing the County's unfinished highway system? Just stop counting the cars accurately.

Getting killed by Northern Virginia and DC in job creation? Just use taxpayer money to buy a fake report from EMSI, with fake job numbers that magically show you ahead of NOVA and DC.

Unable to attract a single major corporate headquarters in over a decade? Just use taxpayer money to buy another fake report declaring suburban office parks dead, even while top companies like Google and Facebook are currently booming in suburban office park headquarters.

Farmer's markets and microbreweries; mixing lattes and folding jeans - these are what you imagine your child doing for the rest of his or her life, right? Well, that's what your elected officials imagine them doing, as those are the only private-sector jobs they've created over the last decade. Then they ask, "Why aren't we able to attract young professionals to Montgomery County?"

This isn't leadership. It's slouching. And continuing to deny an equal education to many children in the county isn't just bad politics; it's immoral.

It's easy to ban things. It's easy to tax things. It's easy to politically grandstand with self-promoting legislative resolutions. But leadership and solving the achievement gap are hard. They are difficult. And our current elected officials are clearly not up to the task.

Our leaders have failed their final exam. Rather than get rid of the final exam, maybe it's time the voters get rid of the "leaders".

HISPANIC ENGINEERING GROUP HONORS 3 LOCKHEED MARTIN ENGINEERS WITH AWARDS

The Hispanic Engineer National Achievement Awards Conference (HENAAC) recognized 3 Latino engineers from Bethesda-based Lockheed Martin at its annual event in New Orleans on October 3. One of the world's largest defense firms, Lockheed is also one of the few Fortune 500 companies left in Montgomery County and the state of Maryland.

The 2014 HENAAC Scientist of the Year award went to Sergio Torres, Ph.D., a Lockheed Martin Fellow with Information Systems and Global Solutions (IS&GS). Most Promising Engineer or Scientist – Advanced Degree Award went to Edward Jimenez, Ph.D., senior member, Software Systems Research and Development at Sandia National Laboratories. And the Information Technology Award was bestowed upon Ruben Herrera, operations and maintenance development lead at IS&GS.

Lockheed supports HENAAC's program called VIVA Technology, to promote careers in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) among inner-city and rural students from kindergarten through high school. Lockheed Martin Chairman, CEO and President Marillyn Hewson spoke of that challenge at the conference, noting that "the United States is facing a serious shortage of STEM talent. Recent projections estimate a potential shortfall of one million STEM professionals in the next 10 years. If we as a nation are to maintain our position as a global leader in innovation and discovery, we must face this challenge head on." Lockheed was a founding sponsor of HENAAC.

Montgomery County has its own STEM challenges, with six of the county's high schools not even offering computer science courses. Out of 45,132 high school students in MoCo, only 2,746 were enrolled in computer science courses, according to MCPS data in 2014.

The HENAAC awards not only recognized the engineers' work and achievements, but also their contributions to the Latino community. Last week's conference took place during Hispanic Heritage Month, which ends on October 15.

EDUCATION

IS NOT A

"BUSINESS"

I have to disagree with Jay Mathews' argument that schools are businesses going through tough times like the newspaper industry.

Mathews made this assertion in a Washington Post column on the situation at Baltimore's KIPP Ujima Village Academy. Ujima Village is one of the highest performing schools in Baltimore, and is a majority-black charter school. Now of course, there are all kinds of arguments about the KIPP program nationwide. Some believe that those scores are inflated by keeping the school's population limited to the best students.

But right now, I'm just talking about his offhand comment regarding schools as businesses. Especially when we have an education crisis, and a minority achievement gap nationwide.

In education, a product is not being produced for profit. Instead, human beings are being given the tools and opportunities to advance themselves in life. We all know that success in America also involves luck, who you know, etc. But a good education gives everyone a chance if they have the determination and are willing to work. We have to control costs and have a fiscally responsible budget. But we can't take the position that schools are a place to cut big when our politicians have mismanaged the county budget. There is plenty of other wasteful spending to eliminate elsewhere. Yet our county council took $80 million away from schools this year, in defiance of state law.

Often today, the scope of education goes beyond the classroom. The Montgomery County Public Schools program to provide free meals to disadvantaged children this summer is an example. Many students in the county are not even receiving the nutrition they need to be successful in school. This and other early childhood education programs will reduce the number of those living in poverty, the number of juveniles in our criminal justice system, and increase the number of Americans attending college.

Proper nutrition, free access to internet resources from home, more assistance to parents who wish to home school their children and other initiatives will help to close the gap. Searching for profits, or charging kids for the budgetary failures of the county council, will not.

INCOMPETENCE

WITHOUT

CONSEQUENCES

New County Budget Method: "Punish the Kids"

County Council Cuts $79.5 Million from

Public Schools; Washington Post Applauds,

Endorses Council's "Inspired" Budget Disaster

Leventhal on Charging Schools for Council's

Budget Mistakes:

Let's Do This Again in the Future!

Can a county executive and council run the county's budget into the ground, take COLAs and step increases from teachers and public safety employees, take away senior citizens' dentures (I'm not making that up), slash education by $79.5 million dollars...

...and avoid media criticism, public outrage, and possibly civil unrest, in a county supposedly obsessed with services and public schools?

The answer, so far, is apparently "Yes!"

Witness yesterday's bizarre editorial in the Washington Post.

After defying state law which requires the county to maintain a minimum level of education funding, the county council then turned around and charged MCPS $79.5 million dollars. Essentially, the council and executive decided to "punish the kids" for their own fiscal incompetence (kind of like how they tried to punish disabled police officers earlier this year).

Over a barrel, Superintendent Jerry Weast agreed to a one-time deal of this sort. This was probably a mistake, in light of the state mandate.

But realizing what a boon this could be, to move school funds over for general kickbacks to political allies and developers, the council soon backed away from the original deal.

In fact, member George Leventhal (D - At Large) was quoted in the Gazette days ago on his enthusiasm for repeating the "punish the kids" practice in future budgets.

The Post's response to the council's disgraceful actions?

The Post says derelict councilmembers should take "justified pride" in their final budget. You know, the one that not only introduced this new "punish the kids" budget method; but also the one that cut compensation for teachers, police, and firefighters.

"Justified pride?!" As Bill Clinton would say, "Give me a break."

Of course, in making such a shady budget move, the council has now risked not only Wall Street's wrath, but a $40 million fine from the state.

You would think that such hubris, such brash disregard for the law and the welfare of the children of Montgomery County, would bring about a tragic end. Schools would lose not only the $79.5 million, but then the county would take another $40 million blow.

And then, you would also think, there would be heck to pay for the county council among parents, the media, and eventually, the voters.

But the Post thunders, Don't you dare punish our county council! in so many words. The Post attempts to shift blame to Dr. Weast, stating that he is "grandstanding," taking "jabs at the council," and "feuding" with our hard-working councilmembers - the same councilmembers that just ran the county into the ground!

In truth, you could argue that Dr. Weast has actually accomplished some things over the last 3 years, unlike our "justifably proud," do-nothing council.

The Post subtly endorses the "punish the kids" accounting method, mainly by stating that the council "didn't want to limit future options." "Punish the kids" is a future option, according to the liberal Washington Post.

As long as there is more money for the developers, special interests, partisan non-profits, and political allies, the Post and assorted Chambers and Boards will heartily endorse our council's "Punish the Kids" budget method.

It's outrageous.

The state board of education should absolutely hold the council accountable, so that their hubris and self-serving contempt for the law - and the residents of Montgomery County - can be known to all.

And shame on the Post for another despicable display of politics-as-usual.