Now it is March, and the recommended funding for instruction in MCPS is on the table.  Home sales are heating up, county revenues are growing, construction cranes are moving overhead; a local economic recovery, unmistakably, is in full swing.  Montgomery County is getting back on track. 

So what about our children and the actual daily instruction they receive in their schools, even as the system moves to new curriculum and new state standards?  What about the achievement gap that the County Council's staff spent time (and money) researching last year, finding that work needed to be done?   What about county support and funds for that school instruction next fiscal year?

Will our schools and teachers have the resources to meet the needs of a student population that is increasingly poor, increasingly not speaking English at home, and close the gap while raising the bar of achievement after a decade of dramatic year-after-year cuts?  If you are a Montgomery County leader with revenue and appropriations authority-our County Executive and our Council Councilmembers-you can make that happen by supporting the modest increase in spending requested by the Board of Education and find and back full local funding for our schools.   

Our county executive and members of the county council will soon demonstrate if they deeply support schools and students or not.  Not only when state money is involved, but when the local money over which they have sole authority is on the line.  Parents and children don't want to hear arguments about ceiling and floors, at least not in the context of budgets; we want to hear about responsible restoration, starting in FY 2015, of funding slashed over the past decade.  We want to see an alignment of rhetoric and revenue. 

I am optimistic that our local leaders will do right by our children and school.  And I know the conclusions I am going to draw before I head to the ballot box in June if the school budget is not fully funded or if the conversations turn back again to MOE (Maintenance of Effort) this spring.  And I know 50,000+ Montgomery County PTA members-and registered voters-who will do exactly the same.