<div align="center"><table border="1" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="0" bordercolor="#111111" bgcolor="#C9C0A7" width="414" height="66"><tr><td background="http://somd.com/news/inmyopinion/little_back.gif" width="56"><img src="http://somd.com/news/inmyopinion/trr.gif" width="56" height="56"></td><td width="358"><font face="Impact" color="#000000" size="6">In My Opinion</font><font face="Arial" color="#000000" size="3"><i><br><b> by Trevor Bothwell</b></i></td></tr></table></div>

Some Maryland parents were greeted with an unpleasant surprise upon their children’s return to school this fall. In addition to subsidizing free lunches and student medications, parents with high schoolers in Calvert County Public Schools learned that their kids now will be charged a fee to participate on a sports team.

Nor is this practice new or specific to Maryland. According to the <a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0902/p03s01-usec.html">Christian Science Monitor</a>, thousands of students from around the country are being charged in order to take part in extra-curricular activities ranging from singing in the glee club to being a member of the National Honor Society.

Patuxent High School in Calvert County, Maryland, maintains a <a href="http://www.paxathletics.com/">website</a> claiming that “budget cuts and fiscal deficiencies” are the primary reasons students will have to pay a one-time fee of $75 for playing team sports this year. Evidently, county officials originally wanted to charge these athletes $75 per sport, threatening to drop athletic programs altogether if they wouldn’t pony up. Ah, to compromise with the czars!

Unfortunately, it always seems to be the students who suffer at the hands of incompetent school officials. District administrators blame the need for these “pay to play” programs on shrinking budgets, or on new educational requirements handed down by the state. But in this era of entitlement, it’s laughable that public school budgets financed by taxpayers are in any way lacking.

Maryland’s per pupil expenditure has been rising steadily over the years, and the state currently spends on average about $9,000 per year on every student in its public schools. And this doesn’t even take into account state and federal grants. It seems the only thing lacking these days is the intelligence of public school bureaucrats.

Unlike many private schools, whose expenses are paid by private tuition and donations, if public schools were truly strapped for cash, charging students to participate in extra-curricular activities would make sense. After all, it’s better than blithely raising taxes, right? Not so fast.

For years we’ve been throwing more and more money at our public schools nationwide while student academic performance has remained virtually unchanged. For only one average Maryland classroom, the state compels taxpayers to foot about $225,000! ($9,000 x 25 students = $225,000) If we deduct $50,000 to pay for the teacher, even given the cost of health insurance benefits, the state still comes away with well over $150,000 to spend elsewhere. Where’s all this money going?

A simple glance at the Calvert County Public Schools 2004 <a href="http://www.calvertnet.k12.md.us/finance/budget.shtml">public school budget</a> yields any number of annual programs or entitlements that could be cut in the name of athletics, but this is assuming district educrats are more concerned about their students than themselves.

Calvert County allocates over $27,000 for “mileage reimbursement” for its administrators. Considering the county superintendent, deputy superintendent, and a handful of district directors and supervisors receive over half of this reimbursement, not to mention make almost or more than $100,000 a year, the county might be able to afford to cut this cost. After all, how many teachers making one-third the salary of these administrators are paid to drive to work?

But this is small potatoes. How about the state’s “Bridge to Excellence in Public Schools Act”? I know, I know. It’s for the benefit of “the children.” But this little “act” costs Maryland taxpayers almost $2.2 million per year for Calvert County schools alone. And part of the show includes about $450,000 in subsidies for “class size reduction.” This might not seem too bad until you realize this little ruse adds only six new teachers -- SIX! -- to a district that contains 22 schools.

Willingness to discipline students and remove from class the ones who refuse to behave is worth a helluva lot more than what this district is wasting on a fad. How many students do college lecture halls hold? 300? 400? Where’s the outcry for reducing class sizes here? Apparently, effecting academic improvement takes a backseat to basking in self-righteousness.

My favorite though is the “materials of instruction” costs, to the tune of almost a million bucks a year. (How much does chalk cost?) This doesn’t include textbooks and library books, by the way, but likely all those trendy instructional programs that inject politically correct ideology, self-esteem building, and psychobabble into classroom instruction.

Calvert County’s current predicament demonstrates the inefficiency of a centrally managed education system, where a handful of bureaucrats decides how best to allocate resources to each school within its district. Moreover, this situation reveals what eventually happens when schools aren’t compelled to ensure the effectiveness of programs they employ, since funding continues to roll in every year regardless of how it’s spent. This is communism at its finest. Competition with other schools -- public or private -- would shed light on how funds are most efficiently spent -- and most easily squandered.

One would think that a county superintendent making $135,000 a year would be able to figure out a way to relieve his students of the burden of arbitrarily paying $75 to participate on athletic teams in a well-funded school district -- especially if he joined minds with his deputy who’s hauling in $121,000.

But this isn’t the purpose of today’s public schools. It’s to continually implore government to subsidize programs virtually unaccountable to taxpayers -- and then turn around and use parents’ well-deserved outcries against ridiculous scams to elicit ever more taxpayer revenue to combat “budget cuts and fiscal deficiencies” the following year.

<p>
<center><a href="http://www.therightreport.com/articles/InMyOpinion/myopinion_home.htm"><b>In My Opinion Archives</b></a></center>
Trevor Bothwell is editor of <a href="http://www.therightreport.com">The Right Report</a>. Trevor can be contacted at <a href="mailto:bothwell@therightreport.com"> bothwell@therightreport.com</a>. </font>

A complete reprint of Trevor Bothwells columns is available in a Colorful Coffee Table Book found in the recent Cherrydale Farms School Fund Raising Catalog Item # 7811 for $21.95 and it comes with a complimentary collectors tin filled with .0004532 ounces of fine Belgian Chocolate.


:lol:This is a joke.

So if you pay your $75.00 are you guaranteed a spot on the team? or do you pay after you make the team. It has all ready cost me $100 (on top of buying school supplies) to have a child in public school in SMC, and it's only the second week.

So if you pay your $75.00 are you guaranteed a spot on the team? or do you pay after you make the team. It has all ready cost me $100 (on top of buying school supplies) to have a child in public school in SMC, and it's only the second week.


It's my understanding that students only pay after they are added to the roster. However, can't you see how this might cause problems with kids who don't get as much playing time as others? But that's just the tip of the iceberg...it's time our public institutions were accountable to those who fund them, instead of whining that they're constantly being underfunded. That's what happens when you "trust" socialists with a budget.

We, as parents, are increasingly being held hostage for these "extra" fees we end up paying for our kid's education. A week doesn't go by where my daughters bring home a paper from school asking for money for one thing or another.

It really made me mad this year when AFTER forking out big chunks of money for school supplies, the teachers gave us the "real list" the first day of school. They told us the list at the stores was generic and didn't have all that was needed. :twitch:

[QUOTE=Pete]A complete reprint of Trevor Bothwells columns is available in a Colorful Coffee Table Book found in the recent Cherrydale Farms School Fund Raising Catalog Item # 7811 for $21.95 and it comes with a complimentary collectors tin filled with .0004532 ounces of fine Belgian Chocolate


:killingme :killingme :killingme

who likes a little challenge.

Try this, get 5-6 parents together, visit any public school of your choice in the last two weeks of school or the week of teacher orientation.

DO NOT go inside...go to the dumpster: Inside you will find hundreds of textbooks, keyboards, moniters, desks, tables, chairs...etc.
Why? "Obsolescence"...maybe the Facility manager decided it wasn't worth the time to repair,..or not worth the hassle to ship it off to the computer store for a check-up. Textbooks that are out of "edition" get tossed instead of sold over Amazon.com used books. The list is tiny in comparison to all the things our county dumps every year (often twice a year!)

You could inventory ONE dumpster for just three days and the total waste would likely be in the thousands of dollars...whoa baby the fire-storm that would follow your publication of the losses. Bring a camera & a pick-up truck!
Software, teacher's chairs, reams of paper, buckets of office supplies..you name it....and our county is in "financial crisis."--
I taught in Calvert...

who likes a little challenge.

Try this, get 5-6 parents together, visit any public school of your choice in the last two weeks of school or the week of teacher orientation.

DO NOT go inside...go to the dumpster: Inside you will find hundreds of textbooks, keyboards, moniters, desks, tables, chairs...etc.
Why? "Obsolescence"...maybe the Facility manager decided it wasn't worth the time to repair,..or not worth the hassle to ship it off to the computer store for a check-up. Textbooks that are out of "edition" get tossed instead of sold over Amazon.com used books. The list is tiny in comparison to all the things our county dumps every year (often twice a year!)

You could inventory ONE dumpster for just three days and the total waste would likely be in the thousands of dollars...whoa baby the fire-storm that would follow your publication of the losses. Bring a camera & a pick-up truck!
Software, teacher's chairs, reams of paper, buckets of office supplies..you name it....and our county is in "financial crisis."--
I taught in Calvert...
thats a shame. What a waste

Ah, I put up a little review of the article on my site here:

http://sotu.typepad.com/state_of_the_union/2004/09/those_commies_a.html

I'd copy and paste it all over here, but if you're interested, it's easier to just go to the link. I don't wanna take up all your forum space. Feel free to give me feedback over there, or over here.

When I was a kid in Washington State.. from Middle School on we paid an activity fee every year.. it covered all sports.. the same as you are talking here..

It wasn't too much to ask, i don't think.. How much does it take a school to outfit a football player? or a baseball player.. ??

Don't think 75 is too much to ask.. and I;'m sure if there are financial reasons, the school would waive the $75.. and my son goes to Patuxent.. and haven't heard anything about it yet..

When I was a kid in Washington State.. from Middle School on we paid an activity fee every year.. it covered all sports.. the same as you are talking here..

It wasn't too much to ask, i don't think.. How much does it take a school to outfit a football player? or a baseball player.. ??

Don't think 75 is too much to ask.. and I;'m sure if there are financial reasons, the school would waive the $75.. and my son goes to Patuxent.. and haven't heard anything about it yet..

But you have to wonder where your tax money is going and if that tax money is being spent adequately.

But you have to wonder where your tax money is going and if that tax money is being spent adequately.

No, you don't. The opinion piece even says that they're "extra-curricular activities". I don't know about you, but around where I'm from, extra-curricular means "outside of the curriculum", and therefore shouldn't be covered by taxes. You wanna do something outside of regular school hours with school supervision? Pay for it.

If anything, you guys should be happy that schools charge fees for these sorts of things. Otherwise you'd have to pay every time ten kids got together to play a sport or sing in a choir. This way school funds only go to things the whole school uses, during school hours. I don't know what's more fiscally responsible than that.

- Alex T.
http://www.destinedfornothing.com

LFT:

The cost per pupil in public schools goes up and up and up, while what we're getting for our money goes down and down and down. Parents get a list a mile long of supplies that their child needs each year. Now we're paying athletic fees.

Our school athletic program up here isn't run by the schools - it's run by the Middletown Athletic Association. All of our coaches are volunteers. We pay a hefty fee for our kids to play sports AND we pay for uniforms and equipment. It costs a pretty penny if your kid wants to be involved in sports around here.

It's actually this way with all extra-curriculars. Our daughters are involved chorus and drama and we pay a fortune in participation fees, not to mention the special clothing they need, costumes, etc. And, PS, there's an $8 admission fee for all choral or theater events - so after coughing up all that dough for our kids to participate, we STILL have to pay to get in to see their performance.

This makes it prohibitive for kids from low-income households to participate in sports, chorus, drama or any other extra-curricular activity, not to mention get the school supplies they need. This is a damn shame because it's typically these kids that need the programs the most. How is some poor kid supposed to get a college scholarship if they can't afford to play sports, participate in the arts or even have simple school supplies?

One of the requirements of the calculus classes up here is that you MUST have a fancy calculator that costs over $100. And, PS, there's no such thing as a hand-me-down because the required model changes every year. So now kids whose families don't have that kind of money can't take advanced math classes.

Our whole public school system is so much elitist horse####, geared toward the wealthy among us and making sure the poor are excluded. But, by GOD, those administrators sure get their mileage allowance, don't they?

While critics of Trevor's article are scoping in on the minutiae - like, whether or not you should pay for extracurricular activities - I believe he is spot on with school waste. How can the state spend over 9000 bucks per pupil on average, and still do a worse job than a private school that costs half as much?

In DC, they spend something like 11-12 thousand per pupil - and it's one of the worst in the nation! Geez, for another 6 thou they could all go to Sidwell Friends!

Maybe Trevor didn't come up with the best examples, but schools have to start being financially accountable to *someone*.

No, you don't. The opinion piece even says that they're "extra-curricular activities". I don't know about you, but around where I'm from, extra-curricular means "outside of the curriculum", and therefore shouldn't be covered by taxes. You wanna do something outside of regular school hours with school supervision? Pay for it.

If anything, you guys should be happy that schools charge fees for these sorts of things. Otherwise you'd have to pay every time ten kids got together to play a sport or sing in a choir. This way school funds only go to things the whole school uses, during school hours. I don't know what's more fiscally responsible than that.

- Alex T.
http://www.destinedfornothing.com
I dont disagree with you that a small fee be paid by the students, but I do remember that the new football stadium at great mills HS wasnt to be used by anyone but the football team.....not even the gym classes.....also the uniforms for most sports and activities are paid for by the students as well....the schools dont foot the whole bill on them.

Well, for one your figure of $9,000 seems to be off a bit, as the school budget is $131,189,234, and the student count is 16,866. That comes out to a bit over $7,700 per student.

http://www.calvertnet.k12.md.us/admin/district_profile.shtml

Seeing as the national average is $6,857 (according to the CATO Institute), and seeing as Calvert County has a much higher median income than most of Maryland and even the US... I guess I just don't see the need to be so offended by a small hike in school fees. Everyone, everywhere pays extra fees to go to public school. It's the way the system works. It's been like that since I went through the system, it's still like that now. People (like you especially) don't like being taxed to help benefit our schools because you see a small charge for administrators to drive to work every day and flip out that the whole system is run by commies.

The whole article just reeks of desperate knee-jerk reactionism which offers up no real discourse or solutions - it just tries to anger and offend. As to the charge that you're paying "more and more" and getting "less and less", well, if paying an extra $900 per pupil gets you results like these:

"Calvert County's 2001 composite index for 3rd, 5th, and 8th graders placed the Southern Maryland system second among the 24 school districts in Maryland in this last year of fully mandated MSPAP testing in these grades."

I don't see the reason to get angry. But let's do the math.

Calvert County, according to its Chamber of Commerce has 42,339 people in the labor force. I'm assuming that this is a smaller figure than the total population, but we'll use this number as these are the people working, earning money, and caring where their tax dollars go.

So, we have 16,866 students x $900 extra = $15,179,400 a year. Yeah, that's a decent chuck of dough, right?

Divided amongst the 42,339 people in the labor force we get:

$358.

You pay $358 a person extra, to get kids that come out ranked the second best in all of Maryland. Again, I don't see why there's all the indignation about it, seems to make perfect sense to me.

- Alex T.
http://www.destinedfornothing.com

who likes a little challenge.

Try this, get 5-6 parents together, visit any public school of your choice in the last two weeks of school or the week of teacher orientation.

DO NOT go inside...go to the dumpster: Inside you will find hundreds of textbooks, keyboards, moniters, desks, tables, chairs...etc.
Why? "Obsolescence"...maybe the Facility manager decided it wasn't worth the time to repair,..or not worth the hassle to ship it off to the computer store for a check-up. Textbooks that are out of "edition" get tossed instead of sold over Amazon.com used books. The list is tiny in comparison to all the things our county dumps every year (often twice a year!)

You could inventory ONE dumpster for just three days and the total waste would likely be in the thousands of dollars...whoa baby the fire-storm that would follow your publication of the losses. Bring a camera & a pick-up truck!
Software, teacher's chairs, reams of paper, buckets of office supplies..you name it....and our county is in "financial crisis."--
I taught in Calvert...

I agree. It is overwhelming when you see the waste in the school system. They want new textbooks every year, but the material is just about the same as it was in the previous textbook, and as a Catholic school student for many years, I used textbook that many people old enough to be my parents used. I know this because their names were in the front of the book. :lol: Hey, I have your mom's old math book.

Now, I don’t know if it is still this way or not, but back then, we had better test scores than the public schools.

The thing with the school system is parents go and beg for more money, more resources, more equipment year after year. It seems everyone has a story about that one-day when they didn’t understand something and there wasn’t a teacher to help. We need more programs, better books, better equipment, more teachers, better pay so we can get better teachers, come on folks it is for the children. We cannot let the little children suffer, they need us, they are our future, damm it, give us money, unlike other state and county funded jobs which are not mass in numbers nor have a sob story to tell.

Come on, lets face it, I doubt our legislators will ever hear, thank gawd that officer wrote me a ticket, or my Probation Officer changed my life, so glad we have those Tax Assessors, what would we do without them or what about those clerks in the court house, they process paperwork quickly and efficiently, yet these are the jobs that you cannot find 1 single ink pen, a bottle of white out, or a stapler, but thank gawd for duct tape, it holds a whole lot of equipment in these offices together.


I just think the school system needs to economize better. I have said that for a long time.

For the Love of God do not judge the outcomes based on the MSPAP's!!!

Calvert county has for years (decades!) been trying to come up with more work books, review activities, practice tests, pep rallies...all to get those scores as high as possible...some kids take them over & over again.

We are producing a generation of students who HATE subjects like History, literature, writing because they were so saturated with more "prompts."

Calvert county deserves the A+ ...for teaching toward the test, and a D for motivating teachers to be innovative, challenging, and inspiring.

My Private school outscores the Stanfords consistently and we charge about 1/2 what PG pays per pupil. I will never let a MSPAP in the door. :boxing:

For the Love of God do not judge the outcomes based on the MSPAP's!!!

Calvert county has for years (decades!) been trying to come up with more work books, review activities, practice tests, pep rallies...all to get those scores as high as possible...some kids take them over & over again.

We are producing a generation of students who HATE subjects like History, literature, writing because they were so saturated with more "prompts."

Calvert county deserves the A+ ...for teaching toward the test, and a D for motivating teachers to be innovative, challenging, and inspiring.

My Private school outscores the Stanfords consistently and we charge about 1/2 what PG pays per pupil. I will never let a MSPAP in the door. :boxing:

Hessian, hell must be frozen over because I FULLY agree with you!

Patuxent High School in Calvert County, Maryland, maintains a <a href="http://www.paxathletics.com/">website</a> claiming that “budget cuts and fiscal deficiencies” are the primary reasons students will have to pay a one-time fee of $75 for playing team sports this year. Evidently, county officials originally wanted to charge these athletes $75 per sport, threatening to drop athletic programs altogether if they wouldn’t pony up. Ah, to compromise with the czars!

To say they needed 75 dollars per sport, and then change it to 75 dollars for everything, is proof enough for me to say they don't have a clue what they need for a budget.

For the Love of God do not judge the outcomes based on the MSPAP's!!!

Calvert county has for years (decades!) been trying to come up with more work books, review activities, practice tests, pep rallies...all to get those scores as high as possible...some kids take them over & over again.

We are producing a generation of students who HATE subjects like History, literature, writing because they were so saturated with more "prompts."

Calvert county deserves the A+ ...for teaching toward the test, and a D for motivating teachers to be innovative, challenging, and inspiring.

My Private school outscores the Stanfords consistently and we charge about 1/2 what PG pays per pupil. I will never let a MSPAP in the door. :boxing:
Funny i did some research prior to moving here about schools.. since I have THREE in school here.. and Calvert County was rated one the top districts Patuxent High School scored a 9 out of 10 where the school district we were in scored a 2.5.. even State College PA, another option for employment, was only scored a 7.. and it takes tests VERY little into account for a score.. They scored, drop-out rate, college acceptance rate, curriculum, how many students that went on to college actually finished their first year.. SAT scores.. Faculty qualifications// education.. and in all the places I have lived i have NEVER seen a more motivated faculty then the one in Patuxent.. they are mostly young aggressive innovative teachers.. and they are doing GREAT things by my son..

ANd not familiar with private schools around here so I can't speak to that point, but the private schools we had in NH, were FULL of the kids that the public schools couldn't handle, even had been expelled from public so had no other place to go.. Drug use was rampant, but the parents were blind to it.. "It ony happens in those PUBLIC schools, not in our PRIVATE schools!"

I was involved with the planning for the stadium. Unless things have changed in the last 4 years, you are wrong about the GMHS stadium. A great deal of research went into choosing the type of turf to lay down so that the field could endure many sports and activities. Bermuda grass was chosen because the bulk of the field recovery could occure during the summer (Bermuda thrives in the hot humid weather of June, July and August and goes dormant during the winter months). The field was designed to handle, football, soccer and field hockey in the fall and lacross during the spring.

I was involved with the planning for the stadium. Unless things have changed in the last 4 years, you are wrong about the GMHS stadium. A great deal of research went into choosing the type of turf to lay down so that the field could endure many sports and activities. Bermuda grass was chosen because the bulk of the field recovery could occure during the summer (Bermuda thrives in the hot humid weather of June, July and August and goes dormant during the winter months). The field was designed to handle, football, soccer and field hockey in the fall and lacross during the spring.

You are correct. And, while football gets priority over the other sports if there is a conflict, it is used for all of those sports. At least one of my children has been a student at GMHS since 1996 and have never heard of a family having to purchase an athletic uniform.