60 West Gude Drive - Rockville, Maryland 20850
301-294-MCEA - Fax 301-309-9563
Mark Simon, President
Thomas Israel, Executive Director
Testimony of Mark Simon on the FY99 MCPS Operating Budget
April 6,1998
Members of the County Council,
I have made this presentation on the MCPS Budget to you many times, as has Phyllis Robinson, my immediate predecessor, and I won't repeat what you can easily read in previous testimony - about the changing demographics of MCPS and about the difficulty of doing more with less. What I have to say to you this year is different. The Montgomery County Education Association has taken a big and risky step, because we believe that MCPS may be on the verge of an important change in how the system utilizes and taps the creative energies of its employees. And with your support, the quality of teaching and learning will be hugely impacted by the things I want to describe to you.
When the budget was designed to continue business as usual, it may have been appropriate to fund 98 or 99% of it and ask the Board to find economies to make up the gap. If the current commitment to change is real, however, and we're banking that it is, then the money you allocate this year will support greater accountability and a deep realignment of resources toward a "Total Quality Management" approach that will garner greater productivity and more of a focus on quality on the part of each employee. If the climate of cutbacks that has characterized the 90's had continued, we couldn't do it, but with the modest increases proposed in this budget, I believe that the bang for the bucks will be significant.
Last summer we proposed, and the Board agreed to engage in an interest based bargaining process, instead of the usual positional negotiations. What came out was a contract that speaks in detail to a culture change that asks more of each employee, increasing responsibility and accountability, and focuses the energies of the system on truly creating success for every student, not just saluting the mantra of SES. The end result of the process, once implemented, will be an unprecedented level of ownership and investment in improving the quality of teaching and learning.
Our contract has been received with excitement in the national press, by the business community, and by the administration in MCPS. I look forward to talking in more detail with each of you about the new labor agreement. It is far from business as usual.
A thoroughgoing culture change will not take place instantaneously. All we've done is set the wheels in motion. People have to change. But I'm here to tell you that the union is truly excited about what we have wrought.
Unfortunately, the County Executive has proposed a budget that fails to recognize what is taking place in MCPS. To his credit, Mr. Duncan has supported the class size initiative and the negotiated agreement, but then says to find the money to do those two things by eliminating other proposed improvements. The Executive's budget proposes a smaller percentage increase in the MCPS budget than any other agency, while declaring education the highest priority.
The largest part of the improvements in the budget, outside of class size and salary costs, is in professional development. The low level of professional development in MCPS is a disgrace. We compared Montgomery County to 17 other comparable districts across the Country, and MCPS is dead last. We're number one in the percentage of the budget that goes to the classroom, but in providing our classroom teachers with training and support, we are dead last. At a time when private business has increased its investment in training and development from $30 billion in 1990 to $55 billion in 1996 (Washington Post, April 4, 1998), it is a travesty that Montgomery County has decreased its per employee commitment in that same period and is dead last among comparable school districts.
Part of that professional development involves revising the teacher evaluation system. Part involves training in teaching reading and math. Part involves training in collaborative processes to further the continuous improvement culture change.
In all, the MCPS budget is too modest.
The class size initiative creates smaller class sizes in grades 1 and 2 for reading instruction only. It should have lowered class size in grades K-3 for all instruction, but the BOE evidently felt you wouldn't have funded anything that significant.
The negotiated contract provides a 2% cost of living increase - less than that provided in Fairfax County and many Maryland jurisdictions - and further offsets that cost with health benefit cost containment totaling $4.55 million. The BOE evidently felt that you wouldn't fund COLAs equal to Fairfax.
The proposed staff development monies focus on reading, math, and "gifted and talented" programs, but don't even ask for money to support new teacher mentoring that we know works, or needed intervention and coaching systems for veteran teachers. The BOE evidently felt that the Council wouldn't support the creation of a real professional development system.
The proposed budget increases the number of alternative placements by 45 students which hardly makes a dent in the waiting list for alternative placements. Evidently the BOE felt that asking for what we need would not be favorably received.
We are no longer a great school system. We've managed to consistently increase test scores, which is a testament to the determination of teachers and administrators to affect that high stakes outcome measure in spite of less than favorable circumstances, but MCPS does not, any longer have the hallmarks of a truly great school system.
We are not asking for money to support business as usual. We are embarking on a re-tooling mission. The teachers' union is solidly on board, and that fact has made national headlines. We are confident that the public wants, and is willing to pay for the improvements in this budget, and more.
The commitment I bring to you tonight, from the 8,500 educators I represent, and the additional 900 who may be hired by next year (including new positions and turnover in existing positions) is the kind of exciting focus on change and improvement that I believe will earn every last cent of new money in this budget.
Montgomery County has under projected its revenues by $1 00 million each year for the past two, and it looks like it is doing it again for next year. Clearly, the revenue is there to support real change toward improved teaching and learning outcomes and an increased culture of responsibility for quality.
I am asking you to do something unprecedented, tonight, and that is to fully fund the BOE budget, and to do it in the name of re-tooling and re-inventing MCPS. In this request, we join with the MCCPTA and other organizations and individuals who have not been this united in years in calling for full funding. It is possible for you to support and fully fund the BOE budget as a modest step in the right direction, still provide a modest property tax cut and carry over to future years an unprecedented amount of money in unallocated reserves.
Reward our restraint as employees, and our genuine focus on taking responsibility for the quality of teaching and learning, by fully funding the BOEs request.