The Gilded Cage persists, and your child is the captured, precious bird, in the middle of it. When the First Lady of Maryland, the State Superintendent of the MD Department of Education, and the Superintendent of MCPS visit our local elementary schools during the first week of the school year, publicly praising teachers for decorating their classrooms, we’ve got to be frank. The glittering gold of new erasers, of poster-papered walls, and of pencils perfectly pointed are not an indication of excellence prioritized. MCPS parents and Montgomery County residents must understand that our public education system’s currency is the perception it holds in your mind’s eye. It’s time for clear vision, folks. Keen insight. Patterns detected, investigated, and made plain to what must be rebuilt, a candid world. Their visit is their version of a dopamine kick to startle you— the parents and taxpayers— into upholding their charade that all is well and good.
If you’re happy and you know it, pull your ears? What game are they playing?
Listen, the entire purpose of a photo-op is to formulate an image that controls the brand’s value before its consumers. MCPS: The Elite School System. MCPS: Favored Amongst State Leaders. MCPS: You Can Trust Us with Your Children’s Education Because Look! We Are Smiling at Them in Adoration. Alas, as beguiling and spellbinding as these images might be, MCPS is also the system that required a Supreme Court ruling to institute the obvious: a pluralistic population’s parents’ right to protect their family’s values when their child is in the care of schoolteachers.
The “refrigerator curriculum” proposed by the Superintendent belies the fact at various points of the Mahmoud v Taylor case, both Dr. Taylor and the Montgomery County Board of Education could have had the case dismissed by working with parents and putting opt-out into place. So why didn’t they? If Dr. Taylor really believes that the case should not have gone that far (as he admitted to parents at a recent Moms for Liberty meeting), then why didn’t he stop it? To whom are Taylor and the Board of Education accountable?
MCEA President David Stein— Your teachers’ union leading ardent political partisan.
How is it that a school system mired by scandal after scandal, lawsuit after lawsuit, made worse by a Board, a County Council, and a County Executive unwilling to implement accountability, chose to completely ignore the pleas of families from different religious faiths and backgrounds? Are we not their constituency? If MCPS is not listening to the demands and protests of parents, then who leads this stubborn mule?
Why must the buck stop only with fines and fees in the millions of dollars and rulings that would embarrass even the impenitent? These are the questions Montgomery County parents and taxpayers must answer if we want to restore excellence in our public schools.
We know MCPS faces a number of challenges. Dr. Taylor must address serious concerns of infrastructure collapsing. He must rebuild trust amongst his administrative leaders in order to stop the bleed of invaluable institutional knowledge and community relationships leaving due to significant turnover in school principalship positions. But above all, Dr. Taylor must continue the work of improving reading and math scores for all of our students. In a way, I’m glad that he takes time to improve morale amongst teachers and students at the start of the school year with silly back-to-back back-to-school videos. Nobody wants to be a party pooper. They’re fun! But for us, the parents, let’s agree to end the charade. The act’s been up. Dr. Taylor, now is the time to embrace parents as an equal voice in the decision-making process in restoring academic excellence and to do so with a serious face.
