Posted on by arotherham

Montgomery Burns

More from the WaPo about the teachers’ union in Montgomery County.  The inside baseball angle here is that this particular union has long been held up as an example of why the critics have it all wrong…If I were in their shoes I’d be on the phone with the Eduflak!

5 Replies to “Montgomery Burns”

  1. Montgomery County schools are among the best in the nation and “the system’s teachers–well qualified, professional and highly committed — are its driving engine.”

    With this kind of success, I imagine the people of Montgomery County are very supportive of the teachers and their professional organizations. In my own state, teachers are also held in very high regard, second only to the clergy. Teachers have earned very strong support from the public and therein lies their political strength. Most citizens trust teachers and for good reason. These public servants serve and protect the nation’s children and for relatively modest salaries.

    The most serious danger to education right now are not teachers or their unions but the “managers” and “consultants” who are poised to line their pockets with Race to the Top money. Hopefully, teachers and their supporters will keep their eyes on the money that is meant for children.

  2. As a parent in Montgomery County, I have been deeply disturbed by the Apple Ballot political machine not just here but in Maryland as a whole. The Washington Post article exposes something you might expect from the old days when political patronage and corruption ruled. I’ve watched Linda’s comments here, and I strongly expect that some of these payments to unions are funding her activities.

    Montgomery County continues to gloss over persistent education inequities. Our per student costs are the highest in the state, and unsustainable given the current fiscal climate. The union lock on things has also resulted in one of the worst charter laws in the country. Parents and community members have still not been successful in launching charter schools here despite a very strong campaign.

    Are Maryland’s schools strong? Yes, for now, but so were California’s. Are schools here strong because of the union or despite them?

  4. Shut Up and Teach
    Why Montgomery teachers won’t stop advocating for schools
    By Doug Prouty

    Do teachers have a right to be involved in politics?

    Since Feb. 5, The Post has seen fit to run three editorials attacking the Montgomery County Education Association and its political activism. One has to wonder why The Post, given its stated support of reform efforts in public education, chooses to single out the local teachers and union that have done more than any other in the area to bring such efforts to fruition.
    …
    When the economy crashed last year and a contract we had bargained in better economic times was no longer feasible, MCEA members voted overwhelmingly to forgo $89 million in pay raises for the current school year. ….

    So why is The Post so vitriolic in its smear campaign against MCEA? Josh Kurtz, a senior editor at Roll Call, concluded that The Post’s “unbridled ferocity” was an effort “to reassert its power over Montgomery County elections . . . by tear[ing] down the institution it sees as its biggest rival for winning the hearts and minds of county voters.” John Farrell, a contributing writer at U.S. News & World Report who is married to a Montgomery teacher, wrote that The Post’s editorials were “semi-hysterical” and that the paper “owes the teachers a correction, if not an apology, for recklessly tossing around words like ‘corrupt’ and ‘shakedown.’ “

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/12/AR2010031203770.html

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