Please Follow us on Gab, Minds, Telegram, Rumble, GETTR, Truth Social, Twitter
It's a fact about humans. They usually don't react to government actions until they directly affect them.
Take the tragic fires in California. Most residents of the areas affected were fine with their state/city officials and the constant push for DEI over competence and for saving a small fish rather than having sufficient water to fight the fires that plague that area from time to time. Now that their neighborhoods and homes are involved, they are outraged. The scales have been lifted from their eyes.
On a much smaller scale, the taxpayers of Maryland, many of them parents, have not been paying attention to the monstrous, top-down legislation of the Blueprint for Maryland's future. Nether have county officials in many jurisdictions such as Howard, Montgomery, Prince Georges, Baltimore County and Baltimore City until NOW, when their residents are calling their offices and complaining about tax increases of up to 35%. Much of the increase is caused by exorbitant spending on needless state projects and programs, in particular the Blueprint for Maryland's Future.
Now, suddenly, people are up in arms. At least taxpayers are.
The other group, parents, haven't seen the full effect of the Blueprint on their local schools yet. They haven't seen the staffing changes from one school to another, the funding that will be taken from successful schools and put into less successful ones. When "Mary's" parents see that she can no longer take an AP course she had planned at her local high school so she can get into her college of choice, or that master teachers in that school will be replaced with teachers who may not even be certified yet, they will wake up.
One Superintendent was raising red flags almost two years ago. Carroll County Superintendent of Schools Cynthia McCabe said this in August of 2023:
Maryland Blueprint School Funding Creates Separate And Unequal - The Easton Gazette
From the Article:
On August 19, Carroll County School Superintendent Cynthia McCabe explained to parents that they were "not going to like the changes" the Blueprint would cause in their schools. As a consequence of the new funding formula, schools that were successful would lose staff, funding and programs to other county schools based solely on student demographics, causing large class sizes, fewer teachers, and undoubtedly lower achievement in schools that were doing well. Again, the students become a source of funding, not children in need of education. If the goal is system wide mediocrity, they will achieve it.
She echoed those words in a Carroll County School Board meeting on January 8, 2025 (her recent comment on the Blueprint begins as 27:59):
CCPS Board of Education Meeting 1-8-2025
What is interesting about her recent comments is that she points out that Governor Moore's "pause" on the Blueprint is really just an adjustment of the "timeline" for implementation and NOT a change in the financial reporting and responsibility for different Blueprint areas other than the teacher career ladder. It's like moving the deck chairs on a sinking Titanic.
In other words, it's a head fake by the Governor to convince people he is helping ease the huge financial hardship of the Blueprint. It reminds me of those furniture companies that will sell you a room full of furniture and promise no payments or interest for a year. Sounds good until you realize that you will eventually HAVE to pay for the furniture and the interest rate will be higher than it was a year ago. By then, your kids and pets have stained the furniture, and you don't want it anymore. But you will have to pay for it.
However, Moore is not putting your property tax bill or your state income tax bill on hold.
While other counties have recently joined in on the financial clutching of pearls, one wonders where they were when Superintendents like Ms. McCabe were sounding the alarm. Why were they bobbing their heads in agreement while the Kirwan Commission laid out a plan that is costly, cumbersome, and ineffective?
Many reasons come to mind. Lack of leadership, compliance with state government controlling local districts, laziness or even the possibility that they will get a piece of the false financial pie the Blueprint will generate. Or, like so many things nowadays, no one wanted to admit that the Blueprint is a scam to redistribute the wealth of some counties into the coffers of others. Who cares if the taxpayers in those wealthier counties got stuck in the process?
They went along to get along.
Except for one. She was the voice in the wilderness. The taxpayers should thank McCabe for that effort.
Is anyone listening? Are there other brave superintendents and county governments like her? We will find out. Then, the taxpayers can act accordingly.
