March 2009 Archives

School Scene

by Sue Katz Miller

A Montgomery County Public Schools teacher admitted to her class recently that she dreads March. This month features an unusual stretch of four straight weeks with no holiday interruptions, punctuated only by the bleak days of Maryland School Assessments (MSAs). For parents, this is often the time of year when we finally get a handle on what is going on in the school system, and there is a corresponding rise in outrage about lack of transparency and lack of what staff refer to as "parent stakeholder input."
Budget transparency

New school board member Laura Berthiaume had the guts to cast a dissenting vote on the school budget. She objected to the fact that the Board appears to simply rubber stamp the budget drawn up by MCPS and pass it on to the County Council, only making changes at the end of the process in the spring, when the budget is basically set. Berthiaume ran on a platform of greater school budget transparency. She explained her renegade vote this way: "If the Board will not do its job, then I will cast my vote against the budget because I believe we have a job to do." Of course, insiders are calling her naïve. The citizens who elected her in November are thrilled and gratified.

Q & A with Paul Weckstein

by Sue Katz Miller

photo by Julie Wiatt

Under the Obama administration, will there be substantive changes to the powerful federal legislation known as No Child Left Behind (NCLB)?

As Co-Director of the Center for Law and Education, Takoma Park resident Paul Weckstein helped to mold that law. His work has involved mild-mannered policy wonking, but also acting up and suing the government. Weckstein sat down with Voice columnist Sue Katz Miller to discuss the benefits and flaws of NCLB.

How did you end up as a lawyer working in education?

I started law school as an activist in 1969, but without a notion of being a lawyer in any traditional sense. In fact, after my first year I left and went to work in a mental hospital and was all set to go into a clinical psych program, when I thought of synthesizing law and education and returned for joint degrees in the two. I started working at the Center for Law and Education as an intern while still in school. I moved here in 1981 to open a DC office to give the Center a presence on federal policy.