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Adrion Howell has strong connections to the Prince George’s County public school system. The 43-year-old lobbyist’s mother taught in the schools for 35 years, and Howell attended school there and worked as a substitute teacher in the county before going to Howard University Law School.
But, like many other middle-class parents in Prince George’s and in urban school districts across the country, when the time came for Howell’s daughter, Aaliyah, to attend Glenn Dale Elementary School, he instead enrolled her in a private school.
With Maryland’s second-largest school system poised for a leadership overhaul and a reconfigured school board next week, one of the major challenges facing County Executive Rushern L. Baker III (D) is how to convince the county’s middle class that his approach to fixing the schools will be successful enough to lure their children back into the public schools. Parents, particularly those who have opted out of the public schools for what they think is a better education elsewhere, say they are closely watching the transition.
My question is that with the recent problems in Montgomery County schools why no one is demanding that the School Board be abolished and Ike Leggett take over the management of the system?
My question is that with the recent problems in Montgomery County schools why no one is demanding that the School Board be abolished and Ike Leggett take over the management of the system?
Probably because there is more to Leggett (and maybe more road blocks) to the MCPS system.
Currently working with administration, parents, teachers, and students of PGCPS... the biggest problems (so hard to narrow the long list down) are:
– The superintendent and everyone falling under him in Upper Marlboro
– A grossly incompetent, inept, lackadaisical school board and administrators
– Terrible principals / leadership
– Teachers that can't do anything to circumvent the bad administrations
– Teachers too scared to challenge the bad administration due to job security
– Lazy, apathetic, trifling, nonchalant parents who don't give a rats ass
I know a big time teacher in the county that has worked with one student for all four years in high school. They told me that to date, they've only met the parents TWICE. I was at the latest event where a group of parents were supposed to be present. Roll was being called for both parent & student. When the student in question was called, the parent was marked "absent." The parent spoke up, stating they were there. The teacher was shocked and had to apologize. They later told me I had no clue who they were, since they have only seen the parent one other time in four years. That's beyond pathetic, really said, and inexcusable.
I can say from firsthand knowledge of things going on inside a few of the county high schools, that THE biggest problems are—as hard as it is to believe—the principals. They have literally instituted policies and stipulations that literally limit, restrict, and even sabotage positive changes and steps their teachers want to do to help further the education of the student in Prince George's County. One ass of a principal wants to eliminate a highly successful program at one high school, for no other reason but not wanting to spend the money and resources on it.
I could literally write a novel on all of the issues plaguing the school district. It's nowhere near as black and white as a lot of people try to make it out to be. Lots of failures from some many corners.
I'll raise my hand on this one. Guilty as charged. I am a graduate of Prince George's County Schools, my wife worked for the school system and I even volunteered for the school system in recent years, but none of that did anything to keep us around. With two children, and one about to go to school next year, the decision was pretty easy for us....leave for VA. I have a long history with the county, especially the school system, which I have a ton of sentimental value in, but it just wasn't enough.
The article is extremely elementary because it doesn't address the fact that there are middle class neighborhoods within PG with low FARM rates that aren't really performing up to the standards relative to similar places in other jurisdictions. While, I do agree that having more middle class families would certainly help, PG in a lot of way is a victim of it's culture. It is an affordable place that has a rampant level of single-parent homes. These type of homes, are extremely detrimental to the success of the students. At the same time, I know for a fact that there were parents who were middle class in my neighborhood growing up, that didn't attend PTA meetings, didn't invest in their child and as a result their children didn't do very well. Too many issues come into play here. I don't doubt that children can be successful in the school system, but I'm not going to play Russian Roulette with my children's future. If I can give them better, I will, I am and I will continue to do so. I have no allegiance to PG if the system can't assure me that my child is going to get the best education that she can get. I'm sure many families feel this way, and I'm sure that if parents aren't paying the extra money for private school, they are likely about to me one of my new neighbors in VA or at least in another part of MD.
I can say from firsthand knowledge of things going on inside a few of the county high schools, that THE biggest problems are—as hard as it is to believe—the principals. They have literally instituted policies and stipulations that literally limit, restrict, and even sabotage positive changes and steps their teachers want to do to help further the education of the student in Prince George's County. One ass of a principal wants to eliminate a highly successful program at one high school, for no other reason but not wanting to spend the money and resources on it.
I could literally write a novel on all of the issues plaguing the school district. It's nowhere near as black and white as a lot of people try to make it out to be. Lots of failures from some many corners.
While I have my issues with Administration don't beat on that Principal too hard. SBB has scrambled school funding and hard choices are having to be made.
The first thing you do when building a schedule is set up your "must haves" that allow all students to earn a diploma. In addition to the required core classes you have to plug in Fine Arts, Tech Ed, Health/PE and enough free electives to get the kids to 21 credits. You also have to make room for AVP for kids to do projects if they can't pass one or another HSA. After that you get your "nice to haves". Each high school also has to have a minimum of eight AP classes. That one has gotten a bit easier, under Deasey the schools were told what eight they have to offer, now as long as the school has eight they can be any of the AP offerings.
You also have had staffing cutbacks at the school level the last few years. It may not seem like much but if the student/teacher ratio goes from 25:1 to 27:1 that means a minimum of four teachers gone per 1000 students. Principals can buy teachers through SOR funds (School Operating Resource) but that amount has been drastically cut, too.
An example I know of is College Summit. The cost for that is around $200/student, none of which is part of the SBB. That has to come out of SOR and then there goes the money for other things like copy paper and Staff Development.
I'll raise my hand on this one. Guilty as charged. I am a graduate of Prince George's County Schools, my wife worked for the school system and I even volunteered for the school system in recent years, but none of that did anything to keep us around. With two children, and one about to go to school next year, the decision was pretty easy for us....leave for VA. I have a long history with the county, especially the school system, which I have a ton of sentimental value in, but it just wasn't enough.
The article is extremely elementary because it doesn't address the fact that there are middle class neighborhoods within PG with low FARM rates that aren't really performing up to the standards relative to similar places in other jurisdictions. While, I do agree that having more middle class families would certainly help, PG in a lot of way is a victim of it's culture. It is an affordable place that has a rampant level of single-parent homes. These type of homes, are extremely detrimental to the success of the students. At the same time, I know for a fact that there were parents who were middle class in my neighborhood growing up, that didn't attend PTA meetings, didn't invest in their child and as a result their children didn't do very well. Too many issues come into play here. I don't doubt that children can be successful in the school system, but I'm not going to play Russian Roulette with my children's future. If I can give them better, I will, I am and I will continue to do so. I have no allegiance to PG if the system can't assure me that my child is going to get the best education that she can get. I'm sure many families feel this way, and I'm sure that if parents aren't paying the extra money for private school, they are likely about to me one of my new neighbors in VA or at least in another part of MD.
So you want to move before she goes to middle school? From what I have read and seen elementary school is not as much of a problem as middle school/high school. Also not all VA schools are equal. If you decided to go there the living cost of living in the zone of a good school is going to be steep.
So you want to move before she goes to middle school? From what I have read and seen elementary school is not as much of a problem as middle school/high school. Also not all VA schools are equal. If you decided to go there the living cost of living in the zone of a good school is going to be steep.
Who said we were going to wait? We already moved. The way we looked at the situation, we believed we could do better for our children, especially as far as the environment is concerned. There are some nice parts of PG, but for the price that you pay (taxes, housing costs in nicer areas, substandard government service for tax cost) it's not worth it, to us.
Elementary schools aren't as a much of problem compared to what? What about the test scores? Why do you think kids struggle on testing so much in middle school? It's not like I'm pulling this out of thin air. My wife says kids are struggling because the curriculum is severely flawed. Kids aren't learning the things they need to in elementary school and as a result, they struggle often in middle school and high school. Why do I NEED to find a decent elementary school in the county, when there is a chance that schools can be re-districted and my child can easily be sent to another school? How many areas have a cluster of schools in one area where the education is on par with one another? It seems that for every school that is good (i.e. Fort Foote Elementary), you stand a chance of having your child re-districted to a school that performs much worse (i.e. Oxon Hill Elementary). Why take that chance?
Of course all VA schools aren't equal, but honestly you are generalizing the entire area. There are plenty of areas with affordable housing that have BETTER schools than PG. It's not just about Fairfax. You can easily move to Prince William, Spotsylvania, or Stafford Counties and have much better schooling for kids and on top of that the transportation options are better too so it's not like you have to sacrifice an insane commute just to move to those places. In all those places you can get a single family home under $300k, schools are in the top 25-30% of schools in the state of VA and they are generally much more family friendly. What is this allegiance to PG that people have? Is it really worth giving your child a substandard education just to maintain pride in where you live? I'm certainly not blind to believe that schools in VA don't have issues, but I think anyone who said that PG can offer better opportunities than those school districts, isn't being objective.
An example I know of is College Summit. The cost for that is around $200/student, none of which is part of the SBB. That has to come out of SOR and then there goes the money for other things like copy paper and Staff Development.
NBP and Khemistry, is College Summit the program that the principal wants to end?
EdwardA, yes, the Post does some variation of the same story often. I would like for the Post to dig deeper for the people that it interviews for these features, like some folks the reporter hasn't interviewed before.
And, I think if the test scores in MoCo were historically as low as PG's, there likely would be calls to get rid of the school board.
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