2014 Maryland dossier: part 1 (education)

Last month, in the midst of ongoing controversy over the foibles of one particular Maryland campaign, I put up a post reminding people it’s about the issues. And while I have a favorite in the race just simply based on that which I’ve heard him say and the fact he’s a very convincing speaker, I thought the time had come to look at his and the other campaigns in a much more critical light. After all, our nation elected a guy who had a very positive message for hope and change – now many are hoping we survive as a nation to change things back.

As part of that I also resurrected a feature I used to determine my presidential picks over the last two cycles. Perhaps it’s the curse of an overly analytical mind, but I like to break things down into numbers so I devised a point system to rate individual candidates. Granted, this is still somewhat subjective and arbitrary but it’s the best I can do.

What I will do over the next few weeks is look at a number of issues I feel are the most important in the race. Some of them are covered well in-depth among the several sources I cite, and I may even expand this exercise as I find more information and the campaigns roll on. In terms of having a plethora of source material, I thought the subject of education would be a good place to begin. While it only ranks in the middle among my key issues, it’s much higher on the list for many so I thought it a good entree.

The first part is worth 9 points on my 100-point scale. I’ll begin with the source material, add some compare and contrast with Democratic opponents (who have written quite a bit on this subject) then wrap up with my thoughts. David Craig will be covered first, followed by Ron George and Charles Lollar on the GOP side.

**********

David Craig: MDEd’s budget has increased from $265 million in 2007 to $307 million this year.  The state agency employs 1600 government workers.  That money would be better spent in Maryland classrooms where it would buy much-need (sic) supplies and enhance teacher salaries.

(snip)

As Governor, I will reduce the administrative budget of the state education department and pass the cost-savings on to local schools. I will end common core, return the money to Washington and let teacher’s (sic) teach.  The sound budgeting practices I will apply to the K-12 system will be required of the University System of Maryland to make college tuition affordable.  I will support school choice, charter schools and other proven measures to increase competition to ensure no child is trapped in a school that does not work.  (campaign site)

*

Craig’s answer to the problem: “We don’t need statewide testing,” and as governor, he would advocate for their abolition. Instead, he said that tests should be developed at the school and classroom level, “That’s why we hire teachers.”

Dagger: Some states have delayed mandatory implementation of the Common Core. Should Maryland follow suit?

Craig: “The only reason Maryland [adopted the Common Core] was they saw they could get all this money. How much went to teachers? How much went to the classroom? None of it.”

As for a statewide delay in implementing the Common Core, put Craig down as a “definite yes.” (interview with The Dagger, June 25, 2013)

*

But there’s duplication, so much duplication, in government – county government and school board government. I have a capital projects committee, they have a capital projects committee – why do we need both? I have the same guys that do the investigations, the inspections and all that stuff, I have a procurement department. I don’t buy chalk and all that stuff, but they have a procurement department. That’s duplication. I have a lawyer, a law department, they have a law department – duplication. They have a human resource department, I have a human resource department, duplication. Now, do I get rid of all those employees? No, but at least get rid of the top person. The person who’s making $150,000, instead of having two of them, you only have one. And you can probably merge a lot of things together and only have office – and none of that takes place in the classroom. (monoblogue interview, June 11, 2013)

Ron George: Grading each school’s educational success only on outcome based measures, not on the amount of money spent on education and construction or pay.

Create a “scholarship” system where students that pass an entrance exam to a non-public school will receive money to attend without the state having to pay a penny more.  Currently it costs Maryland $13,900 each year to educate a student, the national average is $10,400.

By allowing a “scholarship” of up to one quarter that amount, our public school teachers will have smaller class sizes, better pay, more planning time, and the state saves some money while all students receive a more tailored education according to their abilities.

By creating a Baltimore Children’s Zone in the failing high crime areas modeled after the effective Harlem Children’s Zone where grades and attitudes have improved immensely.

By the creation of charter schools where immigration numbers are high and test scores are dropping such as in Montgomery County so that the immigrant population can receive education tailored to help them get acclimated into their new society, addressing language and other needs while other students can concentrate on their needs.

By promoting Government Civics Courses and Financial Literacy courses.  Students need to understand the form of government and the economic system they will be a part of, otherwise they will graduate unprepared. (campaign site)

*

“I have opposed Common Core from its onset,” said Delegate George. “Parents have the right to have their voices heard in all matters concerning the education of their children. This is a vast overreach by the federal government that should not even be considered until it has been thoroughly vetted by parents,” continued George.

“It is very clear to me that Common Core is nothing but an attempt by the federal government to take control over our children’s education and to force parents to sit on the sideline. It is outrageous and I intend to fight it with all of my energy,” said George. (press release, September 23, 2013)

*

As Common Core has been in the news, Ron weighed in on how Maryland adopted it. The package of bills was fourfold, he explained, with the first two not being too obnoxious – but once they passed the fix was in for the bad portions. Ron stated he was “very much against” the mandates in Common Core. It’s being forced on the counties, he later said, but was “totally dumbing down” students. (WCRC meeting, monoblogue, September 23, 2013)

*

George even floated the idea of $4,000 state-funded scholarships for students who pass private school entrance exams. He said the measure would reduce classroom sizes and save the state $6,000 off the nearly $13,900 price tag attached to each public school student, with the remaining $3,900 going toward pay raises for public school teachers. (SoMDNews, June 26, 2013)

Charles Lollar: What we should try to do is reward teachers whose students comprehend the subject matter. We should give more local control to teachers and parents, while taking it away from the educational bureaucracy. We should allow parents to choose the schools they want to send their children to and not punish them for doing so. We should allow a stronger voucher program offering them the chance to compete with public institutions. We conservatives want what’s best for all of our children and have learned from experience what we shouldn’t do. Having blanket standards in a “one-size-fits-all” approach is NOT what we should do. (release quoted on monoblogue, July 1, 2013)

*

He is committed to joining with leaders and law enforcement officials to create more community centers for at-risk youth that will help them learn the life and business skills necessary for healthy lives and careers. (campaign website, “Platform“)

*

As Governor, Charles Lollar will fight for children’s education with a suite of policies – more economic opportunity offering the hope of more jobs, more resources in the classroom instead of in the administration building, innovative ideas that will engage student, parent and teacher in a rising tide of educational achievement.

He will fight to remove obstacles to learning.  He is pro-innovation, pro-school choice, and pro-educator.  With their parents and teachers, he will fight to remove obstacles that deny children the opportunity to achieve and be valued.

Charles Lollar will strengthen the weakened charter school system and promote the successful methodologies in education.

Charles Lollar will strongly advocate to the State Board of Education, County BOEs and individual districts to embrace charter schools, private schools, and home-schooling as excellent and alternative paths for the children of our state to learn and achieve to the benefit of all Marylanders.

Charles Lollar will work with local school boards to reward dedicated teachers in ways that encourage and inspire them to continue working in Maryland school systems.

(snip)

(W)e know that Common Core will not work.

We know from experience and repeated tries that “one-size-fits-all” government does not work. We tried No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top, but have you visited the schools in Baltimore City or Prince George’s County lately? How are these programs working out for those precious children and their hard working parents? We shouldn’t continue down a road of failure.

As Governor I will give more local control to teachers and parents, and reduce the role and size of educational bureaucracy. I will institute a strong voucher program. We will work to allow parents to choose the schools they want to send their children to and not be punished for doing so. And we will reward teachers whose students comprehend the subject matter. (campaign website, “Education“)

*

“If we’re spending $6 billion a year on education, why in the world can we not provide pens, paper, and pencils for our students in the classroom?” (blogger interview accessed via Red Maryland, June 24, 2013)

*

Lollar would pave the way for school choice by allowing tax dollars to follow the child, and do more to ensure that taxpayer dollars are aimed at teachers rather than administrators. “We have to demand academic excellence,” Lollar told me. (Real Clear Markets, September 3, 2013)

**********

On the Democratic side, all three candidates (Anthony Brown, Doug Gansler, and Heather Mizeur) have focused on education as well, with the key issue uniting them all being an expansion of public education to the pre-kindergarten level. Gansler, however, would include “targeted achievement grants” to schools serving immigrant families, more data collection, mentoring programs, and “learning bridge” programs to address after-school and summer breaks. Meanwhile, Mizeur would match Gansler in “investing” in after-school and summer programs, but also greatly expand the child care subsidy plan and revise the funding formula she complains is “out of date.”

**********

There’s no doubt we have a difference in philosophy here between Republicans and Democrats, but it also helps in this cause to explain my own.

It’s been a little over a year since I completed my book, and tucked within is a chapter on education. I’ll not blockquote the entire chapter, but the main thrusts of my argument fell into two categories:

  • financial issues, where I advocate an approach of “money follows the child,” the idea of for-profit schools, and the insistence that Uncle Sam “butt out” of the education business so more local control can be established, and;
  • curriculum issues, such as the lack of focus on basic subjects and critical thinking in the rush to score well on standardized tests, as well as the fading focus on vocational education

But I will steal one sentence from Chapter 11:

As it stands in America today, those environments for learning which tend to show the most success (namely, private schools and homeschooling) generally have the least to do with government regulation and the most to do with educating children through more rigid discipline, a course of study emphasizing classical subjects, and a greater sense of morality through faith-based studies.

Therein lies the rub. I understand there are only limited resources in a campaign and candidates can’t address every concern, so I can definitively say none of these guys is my perfect candidate insofar as education is concerned. But which ones are better?

Obviously the Democrats are in a headlong rush to put the government in control of your children – particularly those of the poorest among us who qualify for all the subsidies – at an earlier and earlier age, even collecting data on them from birth! Some might say this is to condition them for government control throughout their lives, fostering a sense of dependence. As is often the case, government seems to be the sole answer for the Democratic candidates; regardless of the question, I hope Marylanders are smarter than that.

Many will argue, though, that a child is not a commodity, and education is not a business. Yet there are inefficiencies in the system, and David Craig has the advantage of knowing the system as an educator himself. He also notes he will eliminate Common Core and refuse the federal money for that, which is a good start from weaning ourselves from the federal teat. He also advocated an end to statewide testing, vowed to enhance school choice, and suggested money should indeed follow the child (in another quote I now cannot source), all of which suggests a good beginning. The next steps, though, are to convince a skeptical public.

And this is key with what he says: he will create the budget. Yet there are some gaps in this financial approach: what about maintenance of effort? Will the counties be forced to account for any state shortfall, or will be give fiscal control back to the counties? One start would be sending up a repeal of the bill forcing counties into ever-increasing maintenance of effort despite locally-enacted revenue caps.

Based on the experience and the promising start, I give David 6.5 points of 9.

On the other hand, Ron George seems to view a larger state influence in several respects, although he joins his fellows in opposing Common Core. I interpret his call for “outcome based” measures as some sort of testing mechanism; unfortunately, we already suffer from overly “teaching to the test.” I will say, though, properly taught civics and financial literacy courses would be a plus. Just strike the environmental education requirement and substitute these classes.

Yet he advocates a limited dose of “money follows the child” with his scholarship program, with the savings going to teacher raises. The devil’s advocate in me asks, though: why give raises to the teachers who are already failing children enough to drive them to private schools?

Ron also advocates a program for inner-city Baltimore based on the Harlem Children’s Zone. In doing a little bit of research on the initiative, though, I came up with two questions: one is of leadership, since the HCZ notes a program takes 10-15 years to develop, so it will require leadership spanning gubernatorial administrations. The other is the 2:1 mix of private to public funds it had in 2008, when the white paper was developed. At the time the HCZ budget was $67 million, so presumably the state would need $20 to $30 million annually to run this program.

So I have to ask: if it was such a good idea, why isn’t it already in effect? Why wait for a particular governor?

Meanwhile, while Ron is for charter schools, the emphasis he has is on immersing those who aren’t native English speakers.

What I sense with Ron George is the willingness to try new things, but not those which step far outside the Big Education comfort zone we have now. I don’t get the sense of demanding parental and local control I get with Craig and (as you’ll see) Charles Lollar. Ron receives 4 of 9 points.

If you haven’t figured it out by now, Charles Lollar is an advocate for local control and money following the child. We get it, and I like the idea. In many respects, he and David Craig walk the same ground. And as I noted with David, he will have the bully pulpit of creating the budget to enact his wishes.

In fact, Charles seems to be a very strong advocate for charter schools, which is a good beginning to opening up the educational market. But the question is what strings will be placed on a “strong voucher program”?

I also have to ask: why is it the school’s responsibility to provide pens, paper, and pencils for students? If parents can make a school choice, don’t they also have the charge to send their child to school prepared?

Of the three candidates, Charles seems to have the most fleshing out of his policy to do. It’s something where I can give him 6 of 9 points but he can help his score out (or hurt it) depending on how he follows through. The mantras of school choice and local control are great, but more specifics would help voters understand how we get from point A to point B.

Because it’s early in the process and we have one more potential major candidate, I’ll hold off on the running total for now. I think my next subjects to tackle will be the first two I listed: election/campaign finance reform and illegal immigration.

 

 

Picking on homeschoolers

It appears that Wicomico County is trying to bully those who choose to homeschool their children into conforming with how they think it should be done.

Homeschooling parents received a letter from the county school board asking for information they weren’t legally entitled to, according to Scott Woodruff, Senior Counsel of the Home School Legal Defense Association. “(Y)our letter is out of line with state policy in a number of respects,” wrote Woodruff.

In particular, objections were raised about requests for contact information, including mailing address, cell and home phone numbers, and e-mail address. There’s noting in state law which requires this.

The letter also attracted the attention of the Maryland Liberty PAC, which restated that:

The Wicomico County Board of Education recently sent a letter to area homeschool families that misquoted and misapplied the Maryland homeschool regulations and made improper demands.

Yet, while at least one parent objected to the requests made by the Wicomico County Board of Education, how many unthinkingly returned the form? And now that Lori Batts, the Supervisor for Counseling for Wicomico County Public Schools, has this information, what are the chances the families may come under additional scrutiny? Even the slightest hint of abuse – or behavior which could be interpreted as such – may be used as an excuse for authorities to intervene, especially as they already know the child is receiving an unapproved course of education. I’m sure that’s the concern of the Maryland Liberty PAC and those who brought this up – as one observer noted:

It is…an example of the kind of thing we might expect from a school board that is Governor-appointed and therefore not responsive to the people of Wicomico County whom they are charged to represent.  With little to fear from voters, this kind of overreach should not come as a surprise.  The big question, of course, is what we can do to stop it.

So let me remind you that the only people standing between you and an elected school board in Wicomico County are County Executive Rick Pollitt and Delegates Rudy Cane and Norm Conway. The County Council has twice requested the state take the steps necessary to bring the issue before voters and they have been rebuffed twice because Pollitt wasn’t on board. So don’t blame the County Council.

This can be rectified in 2014.

Two candidates speak out on Common Core

After the arrest of and subsequent publicity over Robert Small’s unauthorized questioning of Common Core at a Baltimore forum, the incident has attracted statements from two GOP gubernatorial contenders.

David Craig mentioned the arrest in a preamble to his statement, but refrained from directly referencing the incident in his official remarks:

The value in public meetings – whether it is about Common Core or any other policy issue affecting a community – is giving people the opportunity to speak. It is a long tradition that goes back to the founding principles of our country and occurs in county and municipal forums to this day. When speech is limited or meetings are overly scripted, it tends to cause angst among all who are involved.

The Common Core national education standard is controversial and for good reason. It slipped under the radar in Maryland three years ago and there are serious concerns about it, many of which are being raised for the first time. School administrators should be holding public forums like the one in Baltimore County, but these officials will actually learn more by encouraging a robust debate and the exchange of ideas. Their ultimate constituents are students and their parents and those voices must be heard.

Angst? I would have to say Mr. Small was a) pretty upset and b) had a good point, not to mention pretty solid grounds for legal action of his own. It was noted at our meeting last night (which, by the way, no one was ejected from) that it was fortunate someone was taping the meeting or we may have never known fully about the incident because it would have been excused by the mainstream media as never happening.

On the other hand, Delegate Ron George is going to try more definitive action as only he (among the contenders) can do:

I have opposed Common Core from its onset. Parents have the right to have their voices heard in all matters concerning the education of their children. This is a vast overreach by the federal government that should not even be considered until it has been thoroughly vetted by parents.

It is very clear to me that Common Core is nothing but an attempt by the federal government to take control over our children’s education and to force parents to sit on the sideline. It is outrageous and I intend to fight it with all of my energy.

It’s very clear to me, though, that whatever bill George introduces, it will be locked in the committee chairman’s drawer. He’ll be lucky to get a hearing after all the controversy, which Democrats aren’t going to want going into 2014. (Of course, once the bill is introduced we can freely call the committee chair and demand action. Most likely a bill such as this would land in George’s Ways and Means Committee and its Chair Delegate Sheila Hixson, but they may switch it over because George is a sponsor and it would be a hot potato.)

But then the question comes from the vetting process. Unfortunately, out of a public school classroom of 15 to 20 kids, you might – maybe – have one set of parents who follows Common Core and cares enough to ask questions, Hopefully this arrest will startle a few more, but it’s worth mentioning that only one other observer complained at that poorly-run meeting. Many of those who protest Common Core don’t have kids in the public schools, so they don’t have a say at the PTA meetings and other events where those parents might attend.

So the question to ask is really: what was wrong with the curriculum we had? One thing which bothers people about Common Core is that it prepares children for community college as opposed to a college-prep lesson plan. Parents – at least the ones who care and don’t use their kids as a means to milk more freebies out of the government while they watch Dr. Phil – would just like to have their kids taught the basics, like reading, writing, and arithmetic.

Pink Floyd once sang “we don’t need no education.” But what they truly meant was “we don’t need no thought control.” Double negatives aside, let’s teach kids critical thinking and not how to pass a standardized test.

Coming up: activism aplenty

As a new school year begins today (for some in our area, including my fiance’s daughter) I think it’s time to ask a lot of hard questions, particularly if you’ve done the research. Not only would it benefit those who happen to attend to hear the questions, but just how they are answered by the public education monopoly at this upcoming forum. (Ours will be in Easton next Tuesday, but others are around the state.)

Obviously it can be a day full of activism for some, as the Exempt America rally is the same day in Washington.

[gview file=”http://monoblogue.us/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/EXEMPT.AMERICA.FLYER_.pdf”]

Still, those who want to participate in both should be able to make the timing work out.

I’ll admit I’m not as attuned to Common Core as I probably should be because we all can’t be experts on everything. But I know a number of people – particularly those with school-aged children – fret about what’s being imparted into those young skulls full of mush, as Rush Limbaugh likes to say. And it doesn’t matter which school your child attends, as the state says it applies to ALL schools. (We will see.)

But in the little bit of reading I’ve done on it from various stakeholders, it sounds like we’re trying to conform to a global standard in reading, English, and mathematics, “in order to be prepared for success in college and the workplace.” Presumably to me that’s in order, making the assumption that a college degree is essential for success but forgetting the market dictates the number and types of jobs needed; it’s not based on the number of people with particular in vogue and politically correct college degrees. If I need an engineer I’m not hiring someone with a Womyn’s Studies degree no matter how much academic expertise she has in that field.

Another intriguing piece of the puzzle came from the NEA, which is among the largest teacher’s unions. Of course, they are all for Common Core, saying that it “has the potential to provide teachers with far more manageable curriculum goals.” Manageable for who? The teacher? It sounds to me like they’re shooting for the minimum amount of effort here.

On the other hand, opponents also bring up some interesting facts. Did you know Common Core is licensed? It seems to me that sort of takes away the freedom of local institutions to come up with their own interpretations which work best. But the real goal, of which Common Core is a part, seems to be in a report which came out earlier this year called For Each and Every Child: A Strategy for Education Equity and Excellence, which bemoans, among other things:

Our education system is a diffuse amalgamation of 100,000 public schools of varying types operated by countless state and local school boards in 15,000 school districts and 50 states, subject to state and local political shifts and economic volatility.

Hint: that’s called “local control.” Nearly all of their so-called “solutions” involve more federal involvement in our daily lives – Common Core addresses a portion of the second bullet point regarding teachers, principals, and curricula.

Moreover, one would think that the idea would be to emulate the outcomes where we find the most success, but unfortunately those tend to be worked out at the local level in places which aren’t as politically correct or controllable, such as Christian schools or homeschooling. Talk about school choice to this group and you might bring on a collective heart attack.

So perhaps the best question to ask is how Common Core will emulate these successes we see on a daily basis outside the public school environment. I’ll bet they can’t come up with a compelling answer.

A loss of discipline

The original intent of this post was to discuss onetime educator and current candidate for governor David Craig’s thoughts on Common Core, which were the subject of an op-ed in the Washington Times yesterday. We had touched on the subject of education in an interview I did with Craig when he announced his campaign last month, and Common Core has become a whipping boy for those concerned about government intrusion on our children’s lives. Craig points out this phenomenon of an expanding federal role:

It used to be a teacher’s primary goal was to “reach” a student. That will never happen as long as politicians and education bureaucrats in Washington insert themselves between teachers and students. Common Core is a backdoor way of nationalizing education, one based on a notion that children are to be churned out of schools on conveyor belts and into the workforce. It will never work.

I agree with David’s sentiment insofar as it goes, and he brought up much of this in our discussion. It’s also worth pointing out that education is the lead issue on Craig’s issue page on his gubernatorial website.

Unfortunately this passion he shows in his op-ed and interview doesn’t seem to come through there. After explaining his career choice, initiatives in magnet schools, and new school construction, the curriculum receives short shrift:

As Governor, David will leverage his experience in public education to ensure that, at all levels schools are centered on one priority: to prepare children for careers of their choice. Too often, kids are coming out of college and advanced degree programs saddled with debt. The debt burden is so high, that parents and students are questioning whether the programs are worth the price. There must be tighter coordination between the academic community and the job market.

Craig states the problem well enough, but “tighter coordination” is really a platitude. Instead, what’s really needed is tighter competition between public schools, private schools, and homeschooling by allowing money to follow the child.

As it turns out, though, this run-of-the-mill op-ed comes on the heels of an unforced error on the part of the Craig campaign, something for which I will share a little bit of inside information. It’s nothing earthshaking to be sure, but necessary for context.

Let me freely admit up front: I’ve never run a political campaign, so a lot of what I’m saying comes from being a simple observer of how some political operations seem to run like well-oiled machines while others stumble their way to the election – generally those are the losing ones, but there have been a few which managed to overcome missteps.

But I was made aware (and sent a copy) of the op-ed a day in advance, most likely in the hopes of posting and discussion on my website. Among the active campaigns, I probably have the best professional relationship with David Craig’s because I know some of the players from many months back while others made an effort to introduce themselves to me. A little respect goes a long way.

And while Friday is already a little bit of a handicap for news coverage, the fact that David had an op-ed placed in the Washington Times is still good, basic free media for the campaign despite the fact that nowhere in the piece is it stated that Craig is running for governor or would have more to do with the Maryland educational system should he prevail. But those Maryland residents who read the Times probably know he’s in the race to be the state’s next chief executive.

In a perfect world, this op-ed would have been discussed on the social media and maybe drawn more coverage on background. (One could argue, though, that the campaign should have held off on it until August when school is more on people’s minds. We’ll see if the back-to-school sales start this weekend, in which case the timing isn’t so bad.) It would provide a lead-in to a more major series of events slated for Tuesday that most in the Craig campaign were building up anticipation for.

Instead, though, I may be the only person in Maryland paying attention to this op-ed from David because it was absolutely blown out of the news cycle by the announcement that Jeannie Haddway-Riccio would be Craig’s running mate. That, my friends, was supposed to be Tuesday’s big news, which would have given him additional attention coming into the Tawes Crab and Clam Bake down in Crisfield that’s generally the state’s most-covered summer political event.

And when I later found out some of the circumstances of the running mate discussion, my thoughts about a leak? Well, they may not have been officially confirmed but I would bet a stack of money as to how the news got to John Wagner and I am not a betting man.

What you have here is a classic example of giving a heads-up vs. a potentially damaging leak. No, in the long-term scheme of things it’s not a big surprise that Craig named Haddaway-Riccio – she’s an attractive young female candidate who’s worked her way into qualification for such an office. As a local party official I’m glad Craig did it early so we can see how other dominoes fall locally now that the seat has likely opened up. But losing control of the narrative can be a larger problem later on, depending on what comes out of an undisciplined staffer’s mouth. It’s hard enough to find good help in this state, as other candidates have painfully learned.

The Tuesday events will thus be somewhat anticlimactic because there aren’t all that many who pine to hear from the second banana on the ticket, particularly now that the surprise is gone. And who knows? Perhaps that will be a day for one of the competing candidates to make a major announcement of his own, truly burying Craig in the news cycle.

I may not be a campaign veteran, but it seems to me that controlling the narrative and not trying to be the big man on campus would serve the boss best. It’s a lesson I’ve learned in eight years of doing this job, and it serves me well to remember it.

Saying no to the pile of money

It’s not the most exciting read, but a white paper by State Budget Solutions delves into the question of whether states will be able to resist the pile of money dangled by the federal government to adopt Common Core educational standards. Obviously there are states like Maryland which won’t say no to anything handed out by the federal government, regardless of quality or need, but there are a few which have not adopted Common Core or want to reconsider it. The argument made by SBS was that, despite the fact most states have adopted this “voluntary” change in standards, it’s unlikely that all states will have to because a recent Supreme Court decision found that the threat of withholding all Medicaid funding was unnecessarily “coercive”:

In NFIB v. Sebelius, the Court upheld the Affordable Care Act (ACA), including the individual mandate for health insurance. But seven justices also agreed that the federal government was not permitted to expand the joint state-federal Medicaid program by threatening states that it would eliminate all of its financial support for Medicaid that the states had previously received. The Court determined that such a penalty was unconstitutionally coercive.

Because of that decision, as well as a 1987 SCOTUS decision (South Dakota v. Dole) regarding the reduction of federal aid to states not adopting a legal drinking age of 21, it appears the permissible limit of federal reduction lies someplace north of five percent, but Uncle Sam cannot take away all money.

Still, given the fact that federal transfers comprise between 1/4 and 1/2 of a state’s budget – very scary in and of itself – the claim that just 12.3% of education dollars come from the federal government doesn’t mean there aren’t other, more devious ways to punish states for non-compliance. Moreover, local jurisdictions – particularly in Maryland – have a very difficult time declaring their financial independence from the state. Nowhere was this more evident than in the passage of 2012’s Senate Bill 848, which in essence invalidated locally-adopted property tax caps if the state deemed too little money was being allocated to education. The difference in our fair county was a staggering $14 million, and I expounded on this at the time.

This doesn’t address the philosophy of Common Core, which is also controversial and a reason to waive participation, but it makes the case that states can refuse the money dangles before it by Uncle Sam.

Common sense on Common Core

I haven’t featured a whole lot from the draftee into the gubernatorial race, Charles Lollar, but I thought his brief commentary on Common Core was worth delving into. Here’s what he wrote:

What I always find interesting is if we conservatives oppose a certain program, liberal interest groups and politicians attempt to distract and dissuade the public on the real issue at hand. Take for instance the Common Core agenda for education that Maryland recently adopted. On the surface it appears to focus heavily on the positive educational outcomes in the areas of math and reading for our children. But in reality, as much as we all want to have strongly positive educational outcomes for all of our children, we know that this system will not work. When we oppose this potentially failing agenda for our children, we are instantly labeled as either racist, not caring for children, or any other form of hatred they can think of.

We don’t rely on platitudes of promises and false educational standards that the current O’Malley/Brown administration adhere to. No, we conservatives rely on history and experience of the failed promises of a “one-size-fits-all” government. We’ve tried this before, both as a state and a nation, but we know that it never works. We tried No Child Left Behind and we are trying Race to the Top, but have you visited the schools in Baltimore City or Prince George’s County lately? How are these programs working out for those precious children and their hard working parents?

No, we shouldn’t continue down this road of failure because we should learn from our experiences. What we should try to do is reward teachers whose students comprehend the subject matter. We should give more local control to teachers and parents, while taking it away from the educational bureaucracy. We should allow parents to choose the schools they want to send their children to and not punish them for doing so. We should allow a stronger voucher program offering them the chance to compete with public institutions. We conservatives want what’s best for all of our children and have learned from experience what we shouldn’t do. Having blanket standards in a “one-size-fits-all” approach is NOT what we should do.

I can name that tune in four notes: money follows the child.

Think about this: for all that Charles pointed out about the failure of federal programs which provide a small fraction of the money invested in education – most funding in Maryland comes from the state, with counties spending a varying fraction followed by the federal government – they sure seem to have an outsized role in calling the tune. Unfortunately, local districts are so hooked on money from higher government sources that they can’t resist its siren song, regardless of the strings which are attached.

If Baltimore City, Prince George’s County, or hundreds of other failing public schools truly had to compete on a level playing field with parochial schools or homeschooling, they would be forced to adapt or perish. Why do you think parents in the District of Columbia annually jump at the chance for Opportunity Scholarships to send their children to parochial schools?

Nearly a year ago, I made many of the same points Lollar did in one chapter of my book. But I went farther, noting that the idea of for-profit schools made sense because they could reward teachers appropriately:

(I)t’s my contention that if we can get money to follow the child we would also solve another issue which bedevils the educational world. Teachers who are really good at their craft would have more demand placed for their services; theoretically it could be possible for them to create their own cottage industry blending the best aspects of homeschooling and school-based education by becoming independent contractors. In fact, using this concept I could easily see a private or charter school attracting the best teachers in a particular area, or even teachers becoming entrepreneurs by leasing their own space in a larger school building where the teacher could educate in a way they see fit while reaping full rewards for their excellence.

Imagine a news story along the lines of a star athlete signing a new deal, but instead it’s your state teacher of the year making headlines by signing a long-term big-money contract with some charter school. Even a public school could do something like this, but it would likely take a complete streamlining of administration and decertification of the union that bends over backwards to have teachers treated equally regardless of ability or results. I realize this free market idea that doesn’t rely on a large union is a stunning concept, which is why the National Education Association and other teachers unions fight against these sorts of proposals tooth and nail.

The problem with Common Core isn’t just the wretched educational failure it’s sure to become, but the idea that all of us can be taught in the same way, to regurgitate the same platitudes about whatever the politically correct mantra of the time will be. Teaching to the test doesn’t teach critical thinking, which was one thing I lacked until I reach maturity. I could easily pass all my academic classes in elementary and secondary school (and even much of college) but I really didn’t learn a lot until I enrolled in the University of Hard Knocks and saw how life worked. One needs a moral compass to guide his or her way, but public schools fail to provide such direction.

In fact, I would argue that the lack of such restraints is commonplace among the students who slide through these failing schools – the generally single parent is too tired or overwhelmed to care, the teachers are in it for the paycheck after dealing with class after class of kids meaning more to socialize or to be disruptive than learn, and administration simply needs the excuse of poor parenting to maintain their cushy sinecures and salaries – otherwise, if they try to discipline or suspend too many of a particular group, all hell breaks loose in the press. Once the bloom comes off the rose, it’s hard to keep a good teacher motivated to stay in these schools – they’d rather escape to the relative safety of a suburban school district.

There’s no question that wholesale reforms to our public (and to some extent, private) educational system are needed. But it’s going to take more than one governor to accomplish the needed change. Charles has a reasonably good grip on the problem, but the solution will be elusive and it will likely take another generation before we know if we’re on the correct path.

How to deliver budget testimony: a primer

I have written testimony on bills before, but never have I done so for a budget hearing. But when Jackie Gregory, a friend and supporter of this website from Cecil County, wrote up her ideas on her county’s budget and posted this to Facebook, I asked her if I could share and she kindly gave permission. This is as she prepared it for delivery:

I do not believe that the current budget proposed is a responsible budget. I lay that at the feet of the council since one of your few powers is to appropriate funds. I do not advocate a slash and burn approach, but as a citizen and taxpayer, I expect the council to go through the budget line by line, find points of agreement on what can/should be cut, and make those decisions for the benefit of taxpayers. I haven’t seen that process play out with the council or any real collaborative effort to actually delve into the budget. This is very disappointing to say the least.

From the perspective of an average middle class citizen: There are many things in my house that need improvement, which I can’t afford to do all at once; they require me to break up the projects over the course of a couple of years. Yet I see the library asking for a $400k increase on a 4 million dollar budget in one year, because they have a lot of improvements they would like to do at once. They should decide what is necessary to do now, and what they want to defer until the next budget cycle. Also, I can’t afford to send my son to camp for a week overnight, yet this budget asks me to pay for other people’s kids to go on vacation for a week (North Bay). I don’t believe the current budget is responsible as written.

A rule for using the fund balance should be that only the amount gained in the fund balance over the course of the previous year should be used. Otherwise, it will be quickly depleted. You don’t want to adopt G.W. Bush’s economic policies: low taxes, increased spending, increased debt and deficits. Any new spending should be paid for by cuts elsewhere.

Also, new mandates beyond your control such as WIP compliance and the teacher pension shift need to be explained to the public with dollar figures attached to them so that the citizens understand what portion of new spending you control, and what portion you do not control. I believe that the teacher pension shift accounts for over 3 million dollars of the new spending in this budget.

In addition, I am aware that spending does not happen once a year, and that many taxpayer dollars have been wasted/lost due to poor decision making in the past. We lost millions and gained a continuing financial burden due to the sabotage of the sale of waste water plants to Artesian (by Councilwoman Broomell). That act alone adds 300k of unnecessary spending to this year’s budget, for upgrades to those facilities. The last board (Broomell, Mullin, Dunn) voted to waste half a million taxpayer dollars buying up development rights from a farmer to give them to the federal government. Citizens need to realize that the budget is not a one day event, and I encourage citizen involvement in government beyond just the final budget passage.

This board needs to vote down the current budget or delay it until you can come up with more significant cuts.

Suggested cuts:

For the new capital road improvements, have bike paths been added into the design features of the roads in compliance with the new bike plan? If so, that should be stripped. It’s not something we need right now.

Getting rid of the turf field and replacing it with something else should eliminate a couple hundred thousand.

The sick leave issue should be dealt with.

I would cut the library budget significantly; they should defer half or more of the projects until next year.

I would give Cecil College flat funding. We already subsidize the majority of a Cecil College student’s education. At the post secondary level, the amount asked of taxpayers for the purpose of funding a college education should be much less than it is. College students are not small schoolchildren, and they and their parents need to take more financial responsibility for their own education.

Improvements on Oldfield Point Road are slated for 800k. I know that has been on the CIP for awhile, but I live near there and there really is no dire emergency to upgrade the road. It is fine. I would defer that till next year.

I don’t think there is any great emergency with the Rolling Mill Bridge either; if it isn’t vital, it should be deferred until next year too. (Those two road projects alone would save a million.)

The auditor can be cut/scaled down. An outside auditor to deal with particular issues that may arise may be legitimate, but we should not be paying a full salary and benefits to do the job members of the council are supposed to do. If a council member feels incapable of doing the job you were elected to do without the help of an in-house auditor, then it is time for you to find a new line of work.

The school budget has increased drastically. They should not be expanding preschool beyond the state mandate, and the North Bay trip is back in the budget. When I was a child, most kids, including me, did not attend preschool, and my parents never took the time to teach me anything. Yet my peers and I did just fine. I understand that there is a preschool mandate for at-risk kids, but the district should not be expanding preschool beyond that. Given the number of new mandates, I would offer the schools flat funding plus the cost of teacher pensions. That would probably save about 1.4 million. Remember, they also have a fund balance they can dip into if they believe their budget requests are crucial enough.

What I have listed above is probably close to 3 million in cuts. I’m sure there are others who can offer other suggestions. Please consider them.

If you choose to rubber stamp this budget without offering up significant cuts, then there will be a lot of citizens, including this one, who will feel like we were duped into supporting folks who were going to use their business experience to run the government in a more efficient, taxpayer conscious way. I sincerely hope you use your skills to cut the budget to a responsible, reasonable size.

Obviously I’m not a resident of Cecil County – although its politics are perhaps the most interesting in the state, particularly for a county of its relatively small size – so I don’t know the lay of the land that well. Yet I could well understand exactly what Jackie was talking about in a larger sense, and her points were well taken because she not only advocated for a more limited government, she spelled out a lot of specifics on what could be pruned from her county’s financial docket.

Oftentimes I’ve gone to Wicomico County’s dog and pony show, although I skipped this year’s rendition because I don’t have the confidence anymore that my County Council will go to the wall for fiscal conservatism since the Bennett Middle School debacle. Meanwhile, our County Executive whines about not having enough money but obviously doesn’t mind adding millions in debt while convincing the bonding agencies that our situation is better than it really is.

But I digress. One problem we’ve had is that everybody and their brother can say “we can’t afford this budget” but they’re quick to exclude their pet project from the chopping block. Instead, Jackie sacrificed a road repair near her house, telling her County Council that the road was in decent enough repair to last another year.

She also brought up a very, very important point – one rarely mentioned by those who create the budget. Just how much do state mandates cost us as a share of the budget? It would probably be an eye-opening experience to see this; for example, one state mandate cost Wicomico County taxpayers $1.3 million (see page 8 here) although it may have “saved” us from a $14 million hit. No one would call the bluff, though, and now the County Executive wants to go $1 million above and beyond maintenance of effort, meaning every year we will have to come up with an extra million dollars because the bar will be raised – by yet another state mandate, since maintenance of effort is a state law.

So if your county (or city, or state) is going through its annual budgetary battle and you have the opportunity to have your say, use this as a guide: know your facts and come prepared with alternatives. This was an outstanding effort.

Lessons from Sandy Hook

While he has a pretty good bully pulpit and a rapt audience of those he won over during his ill-fated U.S. Senate run, another thing Dan Bongino has is expertise in law enforcement and criminal study. So it was good information he passed along in a release yesterday regarding the Sandy Hook massacre:

There are simply no words appropriate to describe the tragedy at Sandy Hook.  As a father to two young daughters I can’t help but ask, “What if it were my daughters?” I am sending you this email because there are experiences and lessons I learned while working with the Secret Service that may help assist in preventing another tragedy.

In 2002, the Secret Service, in conjunction with the Department of Education, conducted a research study on school shooting incidents called the Safe School Initiative. The study sought information about the shooters’ pre-attack behaviors and communications. Their stated goal was to “identify information about a school shooting that may be identifiable or noticeable before the shooting occurs, to help inform efforts to prevent school-based attacks.” Although this email is not an appropriate forum for an exhaustive list of their conclusions I have highlighted a few of the study’s main conclusions below with a link to the complete report at the bottom.

According to the Secret Service website, the study highlights include the following:

  • School shootings are rarely impulsive acts. Rather, they are typically thought out and planned out in advance. In addition, prior to most shootings other children knew the shooting was to occur – but did not alert an adult.
  • Very few of the attackers, however, ever directed threats to their targets before the attack.
  • The study findings also revealed that there is no “profile” of a school shooter; instead, the students who carried out the attacks differed from one another in numerous ways.
  • Almost every attacker had engaged in behavior before the shooting that seriously concerned at least one adult – and for many, had concerned three or more different adults.

You can view the report here.

Obviously there’s been ten more years’ worth of data to compile since the report came out in 2002, although many of the domestic mass killings of late have occurred outside the school setting: examples include Fort Hood, the Aurora theater shooting, and the Safeway attack in Arizona where Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was seriously wounded and six others lost their lives. Like the school incidents studied, though, there was no real common denominator involved aside from the willingness of someone to break whatever laws were required to get the point across, whether it be for religious reasons, to get even with someone for a perceived slight or wrongdoing, or acting out a drama on a stage of their own creation.

One finding in the report Bongino cites was that incidents “were stopped by means other than law enforcement intervention and most were brief in duration.” Some reports of the Sandy Hook massacre indicate the shooting stopped when Adam Lanza knew he was cornered by police and chose to take the cowardly way out by killing himself. Given the fact he was the only one with a weapon in the school until police finally arrived, this seems like a logical explanation.

But that assertion brings up the old adage that “when seconds count, the police are just minutes away.” While many schools at junior high level and above have law enforcement officers who work at the school, the practice is relatively rare at the elementary level. It’s unfortunate that the Sandy Hook killings may lead to more police officers in the schools, but that may be the next step in the eyes of those who don’t mind the implied police state schools are becoming.

Maryland legislators like Delegate Mike McDermott are already working on the problem:

 

He Tweeted that last evening just before I wrote this piece. Knowing that the Annapolis majority would never go for arming teachers, this may be about as much of a middle ground as we can get in our General Assembly. I’d be inclined, though, to make arming the teachers the bill and have this in my pocket as a compromise.

Yet the clamor to do something – anything – in response to the Sandy Hook murders is a strong one. We could very easily slip and go the wrong way by enacting more gun control laws murderers like Adam Lanza will laughingly ignore as they set about their business of carnage creation; or, we can take the right approaches like I discussed the last few days. We still have a choice, but time is running out.

Curious: MSEA fails to endorse Question 7

According to this story by Matt Connolly in the Washington Examiner, the Maryland State Education Association – the state’s largest teacher’s union – opted not to endorse Question 7. This has to be a severe blow to the hopes of supporters who are basing much of their argument on the assertion that a new casino and table games would benefit Maryland schools to the tune of millions of dollars a year.

But the MSEA could not get the slim majority required to endorse the bill, instead remaining officially neutral on Question 7. This failure reflects the skepticism of many rank-and-file members who have heard the argument before that lottery money would be a surefire ticket to increased school funding.

While various local units have endorsed the measure – many of them in areas benefiting from either an existing or proposed casino – the lack of support from the 70,000-strong teachers’ union continues a bad week which also saw the release of a poll showing Question 7 heading for defeat by a projected margin of 15 points.

That perception of politicians not being able to keep their promises is perhaps the strongest argument opponents have in their bid to defeat Question 7, but there’s also the controversy over the entire Special Session made necessary because the two sides failed in a last-minute push to resolve the gambling issue (or even pass a budget to their liking) in the regular session last April. That disastrous ending led to both the “doomsday” and gambling Special Sessions and may have sown the seeds of mistrust for anything sponsored by this edition of the Maryland General Assembly.

Unfortunately, while we can defeat Question 7, we are pretty much stuck with the cast of misfits and miscreants we call the Maryland General Assembly until 2014. Of course they will probably come back with a second attempt at building the National Harbor facility, legalizing table games, and allowing 24-hour operation on the next general election ballot in 2014, but perhaps the better thing to consider would be the repeal of Article XIX of the Maryland Constitution. But that won’t happen because common sense is as rare as the MSEA looking past a projected pot of state money.

Odds and ends number 59

You know them, you love them…bloggy bits of goodness I expound upon which run from a sentence to a few paragraphs. Here’s my latest batch from a chock-full mailbox all but neglected over the weekend.

Actually, the first item doesn’t come from my mailbox but was shared with me on my Facebook page by Jim Rutledge, who urged me to read and share this piece by Diana West about how we’ll never win if we kowtow to Islamic radicals.

West writes about the saga of Marine Lance Cpl. Greg Buckley, Jr., who was killed in a “green-on-blue” attack last month. Chillingly, Buckley predicted, “one day they are going turn around and turn those weapons on us.” And so they did.

Of course, that leads to the obvious question of why we remain in Afghanistan, which has no clear-cut answer. At this point, it truly makes no difference to the most radical Islamist whether we stay or go as we’re the Great Satan just the same. Right offhand, I have no idea what the body count is on their side, but I’m sure it could be a lot more if we didn’t pull our punches. Once we bombed Tora Bora back to the Stone Age to get Osama bin Laden, but it was a more precise Seal Team Six which sent bin Laden to those 72 virgins, with Obama trying to heist the credit. Certainly there are those Afghans who love the accolades they receive from their comrades when an American is cut down as well.

All in all, the Patton rule still applies: “The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his.” Just substitute “religion” for “country” on their part.

Another old saw from the Left is that not throwing money at education produces inferior results. But that theory is debunked by a study recently released by State Budget Solutions. If the liberals’  theory was correct, then states which spent the most per pupil would have the best results – but the numbers suggest otherwise. In announcing the results, SBS noted:

From 2009 to 2011 the national average for state educational spending as a percentage of total spending dropped from 30 percent in 2009 to 29.3 percent in 2011. The top state spenders across all three years were Texas, Vermont and Arkansas, all spending at least 4 percent more than the national average. Michigan made the top five in 2010 and 2011. Virginia earned the #4 and #5 position in 2009 and 2011, respectively.

The states that spent the least as a percentage of total spending during 2009-2011 were Alaska, which came in last all three years, Hawaii and Tennessee. New York and Massachusetts also made the bottom five in 2010 and 2011.

For states that spent the most, only Vermont saw significant results from 2009 to 2011.  In fact, four out of the five states spending the most on education failed to produce correspondingly high graduation rates or ACT scores. Arkansas remained in the top five states in spending for all three years, yet Arkansas’ average ACT scores consistently fell below the national average, and continue to decline annually. In 2010 and 2011, Texas ranked first in the nation in spending, 36.9 percent each year, but fell below the national average in graduation and ACT scores.

One can have whatever educational Taj Mahal the taxpayers willingly – or begrudgingly – pay for, and teachers who receive the highest pay around, but if they can’t teach then all the money is essentially wasted. Otherwise, why would bright homeschooled children be the academic leaders of this country?

At this time in the election cycle, endorsements are always news. Recently the Conservative Victory PAC added two new Republican hopefuls to a growing stable of CVPAC-backed candidates as Second District Congressional hopeful Nancy Jacobs and Third District candidate Eric Knowles got the CVPAC blessing.

On Jacobs the group wrote:

CVPAC supports Ms. Jacobs’s education reform agenda, including expansion of Charter Schools in failing school districts, means-tested tax credits for parents with children in religious schools and other private schools, and tax credits for Maryland businesses that invest in schools or hire graduates from local schools.

CVPAC Treasurer Ruth Melson had this to say about Knowles:

Let me tell you why Eric Knowles must be your next United States Congressman from Maryland District 3.  Eric knows about defending the United States Constitution against foreign enemies and he will defend it at home the same way; he is a US Air Force veteran.   He knows about our terrible economic plight; he works as a bartender talking to regular folks every day.  In the United States Congress, he will always represent the interest of Marylanders like you and me.  He is not an ivory-tower politician building castles in the air; he is pragmatic.  Government, he says, must stay within its constitutionally enumerated powers; government must be rolled back to what we can afford.

Along with U.S. Senate candidate Dan Bongino, the Conservative Victory PAC has endorsed four of Maryland’s six Republican Congressional challengers: Ken Timmerman, Faith Loudon, Jacobs, and Knowles. I suppose they have a few weeks to add Fifth District challenger Tony O’Donnell and Seventh District aspirant Frank Mirabile to the list.

Bongino, meanwhile, keeps adding to his national profile by getting key endorsements of his own; most recently Lt. Col. Allen West added his vocal support:

The differences cannot be any clearer in the race for United States Senate. Ben Cardin has been an elected official for 45 years and you need to question ‘Is Maryland better off than it was in 1967?’ It is time the people need to elect someone who has some real experience, and that is why I am endorsing Dan Bongino for U.S. Senator for Maryland.

We need someone who has walked a police beat and not someone who all he knows how to do is walk into a chamber and vote aye and nay all day long!

West is a conservative darling who some believed would have been a great VP pick.

On the other hand, “establishment” Republicans may have been enamored with an endorsement closer to home – former Governor Bob Ehrlich:

Dan has the unmatched integrity and unique depth of experience necessary to defeat an entrenched incumbent like Senator Cardin. His background in law enforcement and federal investigations, combined with an entrepreneurial spirit and business acumen, afford not only a broad overview of the political arena but also personal expertise in job creation, fiscal responsibility, and community involvement.

We cannot continue down the same non-productive road we’ve traveled for the last 45 years. It’s time we elect someone new – someone who can relate to the needs of the average Maryland family. Dan’s message resonates strongly with both Democrats and Republicans alike, and he is the right person at the right time to represent Maryland and shake things up in Washington.

Gee, Bob, that sounds a little bit like your 2010 primary opponent I voted for. While it’s nice to have the endorsement, honestly I’m not sure the Ehrlich name carries the cache it formerly did among rank-and-file Republicans, let alone those who call the TEA Party home. They were more enthused by the Allen West statement, I’m sure.

Speaking of those who have spanked Ehrlich electorally, Martin O’Malley is once again getting beclowned by Larry Hogan and Change Maryland as they point out Maryland’s unemployment rate is rising as the national percentage drops:

Maryland’s unemployment rate inched up to 7.1%, marking months of consecutive upticks since January’s rate of 6.5%,  in the latest state employment picture released today by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The preliminary August numbers show a slight gain in employment due to July numbers that were revised downward by 1,600 jobs.  In August, Maryland payrolls increased by 1,400 over July.

The slight change in employment numbers, however, is not enough to lift Maryland out of the doldrums when it comes to competing with neighboring states.

“We are lagging in job growth in the region and are simply not competing with our neighbors,” said Change Maryland Chairman Larry Hogan. “This year’s performance on job growth is abysmal as it has been since 2007.”

On a percentage basis of jobs lost, Maryland’s decline of 1.4% since January of 2007 is the second-worst in the region after Delaware.

And Change Maryland had even more fun at O’Malley’s expense, reminding its audience that each and every Republican governor berated by DGA head O’Malley scored higher on job creation than he did:

In recent remarks in Iowa, O’Malley said, “We are the party that grows our economy; they are the party that wrecked our economy.’ This false statement is borne out today in the latest August employment numbers released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics that show Maryland’s loss of nearly 7,000 jobs this year is worse than Florida, Ohio, Louisiana, Wisconsin, Virginia, Texas, New Jersey and Maine. In some cases it is much worse.  For example, under Gov. John Kasich, Ohio has created 68,300 jobs this year; Florida Gov. Rick Scott, 50,500 jobs; and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, 26,200 jobs. So far this year under Gov. Rick Perry, the Lone Star state has created 140,000 more jobs than Maryland, which some have dubbed the “Fee State” as opposed to the official “Free State.”

“Martin O’Malley has no credibility whatsoever talking about jobs,” said Change Maryland Chairman Larry Hogan.  “What he can talk about, but chooses not to, are the 24 taxes and fees he has raised since taking office which remove $2.4 billion annually from the pockets of struggling Marylanders.”

I know Jim Pettit doesn’t necessarily write these releases to be laugh-out-loud funny, but when you consider the material he has to work with, you have to laugh to avoid crying – particularly if you still live in Maryland. As I’ve put myself on the record saying, take away the nation’s capital and Maryland is Michigan without all the lakes – or the jobs. (By the way, even that state is creating jobs much faster than Maryland.)

A surefire way to curtail job creation, however, is to overregulate land use to a point where no growth is possible. Whether consciously or not, the effect of new state rules may be the eventual death knell to the Eastern Shore’s economy.

There is an upcoming “Growth Offset Policy Meeting” Thursday morning to discuss these proposals, dryly described as follows:

The meeting will include a presentation by staff from Maryland Department of the Environment about the draft Growth Offset policy and the proposed timeframe for acceptance and implementation of the policy. Following the presentation, the remainder of the meeting is dedicated for a question and answer period. Participants are invited to ask questions and express concerns to staff from Maryland Department of the Environment, Department of Agriculture, and Department of Planning.

The Harry R. Hughes Center for Agro-Ecology is organizing this event and would like to thank the Town Creek Foundaiton (sic) for their generous support which allows the Center this opportunity.

You can register here; it’s no surprise that plenty of seats are still available. I’m sure the Radical Green in this area will take time off their public-sector, taxpayer-funded jobs to try and convince these people that every acre in Wicomico County not already developed needs to return to its pristine, pre-settlement state.

If we were to take a path, I say join the one being blazed by Cecil County and say “to hell with the maps.” If Rick Pollitt wants to do something useful for a change, this is something to consider when you think about how similar Cecil County is in population to Wicomico.

Finally, turning to the national race: there’s a constituency group out there which is always assumed to be a solidly Democratic bloc and that’s the Jewish vote. But according to this ad from the Republican Jewish Coalition, voters are turning away:

Perhaps borne out by this ad, a survey by the American Jewish Council of 254 registered Jewish voters in Florida showed only 69% would vote for Obama. It’s noteworthy the survey was conducted prior to the 9-11-12 Islamic attacks on our embassies in several Middle Eastern countries, most notably Libya. On the other hand, they didn’t ask about the respondents’ 2008 vote so in that respect the survey has limited value – we have no basis of comparison to truly determine a trend.

But another number from the AJC survey serves as a way to tie this post together: 62% of those Jewish voters surveyed either strongly or moderately support U.S. military action against Iran’s nuclear program. 74% of them would support Israel doing the same.

It all comes back to wars and rumors of wars, doesn’t it?

Who really gets the Maryland casino jobs?

One of the selling points proponents of Question 7 have tried to stress is job creation, claiming that 12,000 positions in the areas of constructing the new facility, working inside, and tourism in general would open up once the issue is passed.

But a serious question has been raised on the construction job aspect: who will get them? It’s a question posited on a mailer I obtained yesterday.

If you’ll notice in the first box on the back side (the second page of the .pdf file), there’s a question as to who can actually take these jobs. Quoting from the mailer:

Given that developers will operate under a ‘Project Labor Agreement’ that limits who can be employed during construction, most able-bodied Maryland workers will never even have a shot at getting a job there.

In other words, non-union contractors need not apply. Is it any wonder it was the building trades union who sent me a letter to convince me to support the measure passing the Special Session? (They dropped a lot of money on that effort, according to the Baltimore Sun.) The most cynical among us might do the math: more union jobs = more union dues = more money into Democrats’ coffers.

And then we have the promise of permanent jobs. Certainly there will be jobs to be had at a new facility, as it will host its share of service workers to maintain the video slots, run the table games, and serve food and drinks. Yet there’s a legitimate concern about jobs being lost in other nearby gaming venues such as Maryland Live! in Anne Arundel County. The opening of Maryland Live! has already prompted the management of the Hollywood Casino in Perryville to ask for the removal of 400 slots so their facility doesn’t look too empty and unused.

While the National Harbor facility may draw some business away from the Hollywood Casino in Charles Town, West Virginia and perhaps entice a few gamblers up from Virginia and out of Washington, D.C., the net effect on Maryland’s existing facilities is likely to be detrimental as the overall gaming participation growth is only predicted at 1 to 2 percent. Adding more Maryland facilities will shrink the pie for existing casinos more than it would add to the market, and as business declines elsewhere facilities like Maryland Live!, the Perryville Hollywood Casino, and Ocean Downs will have no choice but to shed jobs.

And let’s talk money. Oddly enough, arriving in my mailbox yesterday was another mailer which pointed out an obvious flaw covered in several other venues: money spent by gamblers in the hope of garnering a better education for our crumb-crunchers is really only replacing what’s already taken out of the general fund. So the net effect of Maryland’s education system may well be zero.

Yet the Diamondback piece also has some interesting quotes from Comptroller Peter Franchot, who chastises his fellow Democrats for hopping aboard the gambling train:

It’s a sad exercise to watch Democrats approve gambling, which everyone knows is a regressive tax. [Gaming] is a predatory industry.

It’s also likely to be another failed effort in a state which tried and failed to enact punitive taxes on millionaires, who simply laughed and moved to a state with lower taxes. Unfortunately, poor people – who are already stuck with underperforming schools which won’t see any true benefit from the money they’re wishing away – don’t readily have as many options aside from not gambling at all. And who’s going to pass up the allure of easy money?

If only they could get more benefit from the money being spent on passing or killing Question 7.