Michael Bell
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My Dream Job
Read more: My Dream JobEvan Glass was in a Pride Parade on Rockville Pike that got lost and was stranded in Urbana. Will Jawando fled to Wyoming because no MCPD officer had an extension cord long enough for a defunded motorized scooter to respond to his emergency calls. Kristin Mink was trapped in a never-ending drum circle with her…
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Alternatives to the MCPS Model of Educational Resource Allocation
Read more: Alternatives to the MCPS Model of Educational Resource AllocationGiven the results of last month’s Board of Education primaries, in which incumbents or union endorsees (and also Brenda Diaz!) won the top spots, some in the opposition have come to the conclusion that getting the best education for our students is no longer possible through MCPS. People are already talking about “school choice” or…
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Which is a worse way to fund a campaign: self-financing or no-financing?
Read more: Which is a worse way to fund a campaign: self-financing or no-financing?Some political activists criticize David Trone and his recent Senate primary campaign because he attempted to buy his victory with his own money. That’s a fair complaint. Michael Bloomberg, Vivek Ramaswamy, Tom Steyer, Steve Forbes, and H. Ross Perot are also on the list of wealthy candidates financing their own sometimes successful but more often…
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OIG: Where Talented Investigators Do a Mediocre Job
Read more: OIG: Where Talented Investigators Do a Mediocre JobClean Slate MoCo and other opposition outlets hold paramount the responsibility and accountability for the county’s elected, appointed, and shadow leadership. Not everyone is comfortable taking the opposition outlets seriously, and for them there is the county’s Office of the Inspector General. The OIG is tasked with the following (source): Review the effectiveness and efficiency…
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JOBS: Spending money where it’s needed least
Read more: JOBS: Spending money where it’s needed leastCouncil Member Andrew Friedson, the closest thing we have to a moderate and reformer on the County Council, recently introduced his JOBS (Jobs, Opportunities and Business Support) initiative. According to the press release, there are three components to JOBS: $10 million for job creation, offering $10,000 per employee paid $100,000 or more ($12,000 if in…
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Montoya tries to play the anti-Semitism card—and fails
Read more: Montoya tries to play the anti-Semitism card—and failsMany of us received a mailer from the Rita Montoya campaign that conveys her concern about the anti-Semitism plaguing the county’s Jewish students and how she will address it. History is a powerful teacher. That’s why Rita Montoya will fight to implement mandatory Holocaust education in our schools, and use the power of knowledge to…
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MOVE Away From This Type of Legislation
Read more: MOVE Away From This Type of LegislationAccording to my count, Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations spans 360,586 words, or about 1,088 pages in a 12-point font. I read the entire work, comprehended about 324,527 (90%) of those words, and came to an important conclusion: the conservatives who praise Smith as a champion of unfettered economic freedom are as mistaken as the…
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To avoid ostracism, opt-in may be a better policy
Read more: To avoid ostracism, opt-in may be a better policyWe’ve run several stories on the opt-out movement (example), and to be honest I’m not entirely supportive of the opt-out objective. Standing up to the county’s progressives, whose sense of tolerance and respect declines with every passing day, is admirable where appropriate. Nevertheless, for the students’ welfare, I wonder if pursuing opt-in would be better…
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The 1% School Voucher Challenge
Read more: The 1% School Voucher ChallengeSeveral months ago I was at a parents’ meeting at an MCPS school. As so often happens at these meetings, nobody was happy. I mentioned to the group that instead of introducing one change or another to the curriculum or staff, we should ask for school vouchers. “What are school vouchers?” asked a young African-American…
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Christy Handy and Jennifer Martin’s opinion piece suffers from ethical bias and reversible short-term dementia
Read more: Christy Handy and Jennifer Martin’s opinion piece suffers from ethical bias and reversible short-term dementiaIn a MoCo360 piece Opinion: Full funding for MCPS is key to county’s future prosperity, Christine Handy (president of both Montgomery County Association of Administrators and Principals and Montgomery County Business Operations Administrators) and Jennifer Martin (president of the teachers’ union) make a claim that “fully funding” the school district results in prosperity. Regarding ethical…