Please do the right thing and tell the whole story. Explain the source of the funding that is in question, its history and why the BCPSS, Montgomery County and PG County got additional funding in the first place. This all goes back to the UNFUNDED Thornton bill.

In addition, tell the truth about the graduation rates and the fact that 8% or almost 5000 students would not graduate without the safety net of the bridge projects.

O'Malley has never been the advocate for City Schools that I had been hoping for - either as mayor or as governor, but Ehrlich has consistently been horrible. It started with those adds talking about fair school funding for all with a subtext of too much money has been going to, you know, them. Those city people. You know. It's despicable. Now he comes right out and says Thorton should be thrown out. Clearly no one who cares about City Schools will vote for him. The important thing is for all of those people to get out and vote against him.

@realteacher,

you mean the Thornton bill that was passed in large part because of the mandate in state of Maryland's Constitution?

Maryland is one of the only states in the country that hasn't had to settle this in the courts, which has saved us millions in tax dollars. But don't mention that in your comments.

If Thornton wasn't passed, the state would've been sued, and lost. Or we could just change the Constitution and not guarantee all of Maryland's citizens a free and proper education.

Back to the point of the article, I'm not a fan of either. But shame on Ehrlich. When he was elected, he RAN ON THORNTON. And promised not to tie it to slots. So much for those promises.

Realteacher, are you talking about the "unfunded" Thornton bill that O'Malley was able to fully fund for two years? How does this compare with Ehrlich's funding of Thornton? He didn't. Rather he raised spending by $8 Billion during his tenure (and taxes went up that much to fund this spending spree) without funding Thornton.

@Hamilton Parent
In order to pass the final Thronton bill, Montgomery and PG County insisted that extra funding be alotted to their jurisdictions or they wouldn't sign it. This amount was deemed discretionary, was in addition to the amounts stated in the bill and as the bill reads, can be eliminated based on the financial state of Maryland. It is all very confusing and complicated which is why the publin needs to be exposed to ALL of the details and not just sound bites like "Ehrlich is cutting education funding."

As a veteran teacher of almost 20 years, I can say with full conviction that a shortage of $$ is not the problem - its that fools and criminals are handling the funds once they are sent to the systems.

I worked in a city school a few years back and found $200,000 worth of science textbooks still in the boxes that had been delivered two years prior and nobody in the building knew about it!

Considering career teachers in Baltimore County toward the top of the pay scale earn well in excess of $80k and some in Mont. Co. over $100k regardless of teaching effectiveness, there's plenty of room to start cuttng, but before doing that, most citizens would be SHOCKED to see how many central office jobs there are which do NOTHING for kids in the classroom. Likewise, while schools scrimp for some things, there is so much waste in the systems that can be eliminated.

For decades, more and more money has been sunk in MD schools and they've gotten worse, not better. I used to teach in the County and saw it first hand.

Hamilton parent said: "Or we could just change the Constitution and not guarantee all of Maryland's citizens a free and proper education."

DONE! Students in Montgomery County don't receive a free public education, haven't for YEARS! They PAY to attend public school classes. If they don't pay, they can't go to homecoming or other activities.

And not a single elected officials will defend their right to a free public education.

@realteacher You're absolutely correct. Except it was mostly Moco (Doug Duncan). The original Thornton amount was 1.1, not 1.3 bill. But Baltimore got screwed regardless. They didn't get that extra, and they didn't get GCEI. And they're the most taxed citizens in the state.

Let me add that I certainly don't think money is most of the problem. But it doesn't hurt. What the city and poor rurals actually need more is funding for facilities. Which is the 800-pound gorilla in education today. Since we need so much to get schools in good shape, people just ignore that and focus on other issues.

HOWEVER, Ehrlich ran on "full funding of Thornton, including the GCEI". He promised it. And he promised it without slots. Like I said, I don't like either of these guys much. But he flat out lied on education.

It was actually one of the ways he got elected in this mostly liberal state, because KKT refused to fully endorse it without a funding source (ironic, eh?).

@Janis, you think kids in the city don't pay those fees too? Seriously? Wow.

@ This board in general, anyone could go anywhere and find waste and corruption. It doesn't mean it is happening in most places. Remember when banks and accounting firms were supposed to be trusted? Wasn't that long ago.

Taking your personal experience, and attributing it to widespread practice across schools and systems is a really limited view. It doesn't help informative discussion. Just my two cents.

First, Janis - while I feel your pain, homecoming is not considered part of the free and public education. It is an extracurricular activity, for which additional funding must be sought because few, if any, schools have enough funds in their budgets to cover that expense. When they limit the amount of copies that teachers can make or have students working on outdated computers (if they have computers), it would be unrealistic to expect them to fund something like homecoming.

Secondly, the comments about central offices are obviously made by people who don't know any of the tireless workers in those offices who make sure systems are up and running, school buses stop on the right corners, and budgets are populated with actual dollars. Like any profession, there may be a few who could stand to work harder, but to make a blanket statement such as the one made by Rob is an insult.

Lastly, lets cut to the chase - don't we all want successful schools and educated children - no matter their location or their race? Well, sorry, but that costs money. You can't cut taxes and then spending on education and expect that our schools will continue to improve. This will lead to higher class sizes, less differentiated learning (raising disciplinary incidences), higher absentee rates, and a lower graduation rate.

As a state, we must take a stand and not allow anyone, regardless of political affiliation, to damage the educational opportunities for our children.