April 8th, 2024 – This testimony was given to the County Council on the FY2025 operating budget Hello my name is Jason Makstein and I run the blog Moderately MOCO but today I am testifying as a community advocate about various items in the operating budgets. My focus will beContinue Reading

March 10, 2024 – Anonymous Op-ed What does MCPS have in common with the old Soviet Union? Both were or are good at “disappearing” top staff. The USSR was famous for air-brushing the disfavored out of photographs or even paintings. MCPS simply wipes their names from the organizational chart withContinue Reading

Background and Source Data The state of Maryland reports on per-pupil expenditures Maryland reports on per-pupil expenditures and defines them as follows: “School-level per-pupil expenditures are local education agency (LEA) operating expenditures directly attributed to schools or allocated to schools based on certain criteria and reported as a per-pupil orContinue Reading

March 1, 2024 On 2/27/24 MCPS went over some upcoming boundary study updates at the board of education Facilities and Boundaries work session meeting. See the full video here or read below for a summary and to see the images. Note that as this was a discussion and work session,Continue Reading

February 26, 2024 – Opinion submitted by an MCPS elementary school special education teacher of 10 years Once upon a time, in the summer before we returned from COVID, the county pushed a new initiative. Rooted in peaceful ideals, restorative justice (RJ) was sold as a panacea for hate andContinue Reading

February 25, 2024 Background and Source Data Public school enrollment numbers by Maryland county and by school level was determined for the school years: 2019-2020 was the last pre-pandemic school year, 2023-2024 is the current school year. School levels are: Data sources are official enrollment from the State of Maryland.Continue Reading

February 23, 2024 “We need you to succeed, the taxpayers need you to succeed, and more importantly, our kids need you to succeed” That was said by Councilman Evan Glass to MCPS Board President Karla Silvestre on February 8th. The key phrase there is “our kids”. As an employee ofContinue Reading

February 22, 2024 – MCPS Enrollment by Grade for the Past 5 Years Background and Source Data MCPS enrollment numbers by grade was determined for the school years: Data sources are: Results and Conclusions Enrollment numbers are shown. Enrollment varied from 10,348 (grade K, 2020-2021) to 15,262 (grade 9 2022-2023).Continue Reading

February 13, 2024 – Employee that allegedly hindered OIG’s Investigation and was allegedly a key source of cronyism and retaliation in MCPS is back from Administrative Leave Update 2/13/24 11:30pm – This article was updated to correct the title (and subsequent details) which was originally written as “Chief of DistrictwideContinue Reading