THAT DOESN'T EVEN CONSIDER HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS IN FRAUD.
Equal Protection Under The Law is the backbone of a Rule of law democracy and as we see it has been suspended as regards criminal justice by class and now civil liberties such as democratic public education. ALL OF THIS IS ILLEGAL AND WOULD SEIZE IF CHALLENGED IN COURT. In Maryland the task for that challenge is the ACLU-MD but that organization has been captured by corporate interests and is actually working to move these policies forward.....a civil liberties organization working against civil liberties!
I want to take today to focus on the details of a school funding scheme that makes a complex financial instrument look like a plain vanilla wrapper. Remember, all of this unnecessary administration is put in place merely to circumvent and hide illegal transactions just as Wall Street does, it has nothing to do with charitable donations. As I showed in my past blog these animals have the school employees paying to support their own schools as the idea is to make individual schools businesses and businesses must be regressive and efficient to be profitable.
Baltimore City Hall and Mayor Rawlings-Blake with our state assembly and O'Malley have allowed for the complete takeover of public policy by NGOs and private non-profits and they have made corporate taxes profits and not liabilities. So in Baltimore the wealthy and corporations simply donate to a school of their choice whether it be in their affluent communities or a vocational school attached to their businesses.......any other starve for revenue. Winners and losers is the 'public' school policy in Baltimore......AND EVERY TIME THE LABOR, BE IT TEACHERS, ADMINISTRATORS, OR CROSSING GUARDS FOR SCHOOLS ARE THE LOSERS.This policy hits the underserved communities hard now as Baltimore is mostly poor and working class. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to foresee the future were the middle-class schools are the same. THE GOAL IS TO HAVE ALL PUBLIC EDUCATION PRIVATE, ATTACHED TO A BUSINESS, AND CHILDREN TRACKED AND MONITORED BY THE CARTEL AT THE TOP.
THIS WILL NOT BE INTERESTING READING AS I WILL LIST THINGS, BUT IT IS GOOD TO SEE JUST ONE SMALL SNIPPET OF THE NON-PROFIT INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX IN BALTIMORE.
Funding from the state and city is tiered so most schools in the city involve the lowest tiers of funding designated as underserved and disabled students. The few schools slated for affluent families and upcoming affluent communities are the ones targeted with Advanced Placement designation and receive copious private funding in addition. IT IS DISGUSTING IN ITS DISREGARD TO NEED AND JUSTICE.
Below you see one one large corporate private non-profit organized as an umbrella for other non-profits to contribute to individual schools. You see the breakdown in funding for these schools almost always looks like this: school's staff, schools community contributions, non-profit contributions, and special government funding over that allotted by the funding statutes. This list is not complete. It is all arbitrary and selective and it creates huge inequity in how all schools in the city are funded. We have many schools in the city slated to close for refusal by the School Board to fund many in sustainable neighborhoods. Regardless of these closings, there are obviously large numbers of schools failing to receive these special donations. Almost all of those that do are in Enterprise Zones slated for affluent development.
What would happen if Baltimore simply had a normal tax structure with a normal, transparent distribution of city revenue? ALL SCHOOLS COULD BE FUNDED EQUALLY AND ADEQUATELY!!!
First, let's look at the schools getting all of the private donor attention:
Bay Brook Elem Frederick Douglass High
Barclay Elem William Pinderhughes Elem
Calvin Rodwell Elem Callaway Elem
City Springs Elem Samuel Coleridge Taylor
Guilford Elem Lakeland
Hilton Elem Tench Tilghman
John E Howard Elem Patterson Park Charter
Wolfe St Academy St Frances Academy
Arlington Elem Arundel Elem
MLK Harlem Park Park Heights-US Dream Academy
Patterson Park Charter School (PPPCS):
To pay for more staff:
PPPCS general operating fund---$7,500
PPPCS, INC 16,000
Creative Alliance 1,600
State Farm 4,000
Henry and Ruth Blaustein Found 1,500
Enoch Pratt Library 2,300
M and T Bank 2,800
Dresher Found 2,800
Hoffberger Found 3,000
Higher Achievement Baltimore for PPPCS,
East Baltimore Achievement Center ----
Citi Bank $5,000
Blaustein Found 14,000
PPPCS matching 1,700
Future Economic Environment
As with this 2012-2013 budget, the school has demonstrated resilience in the face of decreasing
revenues and increasing costs. The budget has been developed to limit the impact on the
school’s academic programs.
However, all forecasts that we are aware of, even if speculative, predict that future federal, state
and local revenues will not improve in future years, after a per-pupil reduction of $311 for the coming year and $106 for 2011-2012. YOU WILL HEAR GOV O'MALLEY CAMPAIGN ON HIS COMMITMENT TO EDUCATION FUNDING...ALL HIS FUNDING HAS GONE TO DEVELOPING CORPORATE/COLLEGE PROGRAMS.
New union contracts will be negotiated for FY14 and we expect that cost of living increases will be modest as in the recent past, 1-2%. The biggest
unknown will remain the increase associated with promotion from one interval to the next.
Interval promotions are based on receiving 12 achievement units (AU’s) during the year and that
can be achieved by a proficient evaluation or a satisfactory evaluation plus 3 AU’s from other
sources. In the last two years, interval promotion increases were approximately 4%.
The net effect is that per pupil revenue will have to increase by 5-6% in order to maintain the
existing educational program. That is the driving force behind the school’s decision to establish
a serious fundraising/development effort. That effort will have to bear fruit relatively quickly to
mitigate the expected per pupil revenue shortfall.
Budget Assumptions and Considerations
1. Per pupil funding is assumed to be $9,007 as specified in the BCPS budget. This number is
based on a city-wide total enrollment projection that will only be certain on September 30.
However, the forecast will be revised before then, and we can reduce enrollment if per pupil is projected higher. We are explicitly budgeting so that any increase in per pupil will translate directly to a smaller enrollment.
THIS MEANS IT IS THEIR GOAL TO MOVE FROM AN UNDERSERVED STUDENT POPULATION THAT RECEIVES LOW PER-STUDENT FUNDING TO A MIDDLE-CLASS/AFFLUENT STUDENT POPULATION GETTING MORE FUNDING. IT IS VERY CONFUSING WHEN THERE IS SO MUCH DISCRIMINATION.
This is my point. I do not hate charters that are used for innovative education....we have had them for years. I hate charters that exist for development purposes and are selective and are categorized as public. They are getting all of the public funding all schools get plus all of the private donations listed above and that list is only for one Umbrella non-profit.....there is no doubt much more being targeted to this one school.
Patterson Park is a majority underserved minority community of primarily black and Hispanic families now but the push is for the affluent community development of East Baltimore Development Corporation----Johns Hopkins. That is why you hear of the expected structural deficit being relieved by per-pupil funding increases as the ratio of underserved moves to middle-class and it is why these schools are getting the private funding. These underserved families have been denied good schools for decades as city schools received even less in funding and resources. Now that the focus becomes building good schools, many of these families are seeing their children unable to get in to the school or finding encouragement to leave.
Future Economic Environment
Total teacher compensation is budgeted to be $49,000 less for teachers hired to replace teachers who are leaving. Administration believes this can be accomplished without compromising teacher quality, e.g. three new teachers will be interns from this year whose quality is known.
The plan is to move more teachers with experience and equity out of the system. Right now the teacher's unions have held on to charters but we know the objective is to end the union requirement and all it takes is one law passed by the general assembly......COMING TO YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD SOON. TEACH FOR AMERICA. Also, the pay raise scheme that is happening all across the country of 1-2 % is almost nothing and will not sustain a professional educator. Good people will not be tied to $25