My wife recently overheard another woman talking into a cell phone in a restroom.
“If your mother gives us $50, and if we don’t put our little Cyrus in day care this week, then we’ll be able to pay the phone and electric bills.”
This is heartbreaking. While some DC power couples grossing $500,000/year also have these conversations because they are reckless and entitled, most likely this interlocutor is very close to the poverty line. That’s the bad news. The good news, though, is that this distressed woman was acting responsibly, prioritizing a need over a want, and setting an example for her little Cyrus on how to succeed with household budgeting.
Setting a good example is something the teachers’ union fails to do every day. They don’t behave like responsible households negotiating this month’s expenses. They behave like an entitled DC power couple, and if they don’t get what they want, they demonstrate and whine and fume.
That’s exactly what happened on June 11, when union president Jennifer Martin sent her supporters to MCPS headquarters to protest and demand 100% programming on a budget funded at 99% of their request. Specifically, the union is upset at the denial of $30 million out of the entire MCPS request, with the impact being mothballing the COVID-era Montgomery Virtual Academy (MVA) and increasing class size.
Let’s be clear. The $30 million isn’t a budget cut. After deducting the $30 million, the school budget is still $158 million higher over last year’s budget. Furthermore, the budget has grown by $500 million dollars since 2021 to a crushing $3.3 billion for FY2025.
If the union reps wanted to set a good example, they or the principals behave like the distressed caller in the restroom. They would make the routine utilitarian decisions as to what programs serve the most students. If only a few hundred students need the MVA out of a student body of 162,000, then yes that program must be reduced or cut. Maybe more students use MVA than the International Baccalaureate program, so the latter should be cut. That is the way public education is supposed to be allocated. That is also why public education is so distorted. If you have a child with a special need that is not met by the school system, go suck an egg and pay your property taxes anyway so someone else’s child receives a tailored education.
(Incidentally, MCPS makes many decisions completely detached from a utilitarian model. Maybe we don’t need so many students in the school system, so we can offer early graduation with a vocational certificate. That would free up resources for other needs. You can also ask the opt-out parents about misallocation of school resources.)
As ABC 7 News reported, Germantown parent Barbara Galasso is particularly affected by the cuts, because three of her children attend the MVA. “MCPS sucks!” she reportedly shouted.
Ms. Galasso, 95% of the people reading this post would agree with you. (The other 5% are establishment politicos tracking the opposition.) What you need, what we all need, is to start the march toward school vouchers. That way your children, who are every bit as deserving as any other child to a tailored education, will get what they need.
(Lead image based on a video available at WUSA 9.)
