“Our children are our most precious resource.” As parents, we mean that 100%. We always have, and always will. We demand the best for them, including the best education, and today that education often continues through graduate and professional school to a career of life-long learning. We demand teachers who are not only professional, but high-quality professionals, highly educated in their fields as well as in the art of teaching. We demand state-of-the-art school facilities, parental input, a responsible administrative staff and school board.

But we always seem to have a problem with paying for all this. If education is the most important of all our concerns, why don’t we expect to have to pay for it, as we do for our homes and cars and food and entertainment? Why do we expect our teacher-professionals to work for salary and benefits so low they often cannot even afford to live in the county in which they teach unless they are married to someone with a much higher income? Why do we always seem to have the money to make war, but not to teach?

We have lost the belief that we had in the 1960’s that we are a society for all as well as for one, that we are all in this together, that what damages the least among us hurts us all. That sense of common purpose existed in the 1940’s and after 9/11 as well, but has been difficult to reclaim. We cannot heal all wounds, but we can each make an effort. Jewish tradition says that “whoever saves a single life is as if she has saved the entire world.” Let’s start with our children.

• Most importantly, since the state provides only 17% of education funding for the County budget, we must show leadership in making our case in Annapolis. Our County’s needs are changing, and our state colleagues must be informed and then reminded of this – the late Councilmember Marilyn Praisner considered this the most critical aspect of the school budget process, and the one to which we in the County paid too little attention. We provide 24% of the state’s GDP, pay 44% of its taxes, and deserve better flow of education dollars to our county.
• Begin a campaign to provide universal pre-K education – every dollar spent on the developing brain of a toddler will provide tenfold or greater benefits for that school-age child and adult. One bold, innovative solution is to end high school after 11th grade and use the money to fund pre-K.
• Offer quality public education for all.
• Obtain adequate funding based on the geographic cost index.
• Maintain the funding for new school construction, as maintenance is routinely delayed along with needed modernizations.
• Limit class size as much as possible.
• Raise teacher pensions above the median level.
• Support quality teaching by improving training and continuing education.
• Demand that teachers and administrators maintain and enforce high standards.
• Invite teacher and administrative input to craft creative proposals that would provide for merit pay and incentives.