State education aid should go to schools only

The following letter to the editor ran in today's edition of the Gazette Newspaper.

The Gazette’s recent editorial, “Preserving local control over school funding,” misses the point. The issue is not local control — it is accountability in the use of state funds. If the state gives Montgomery County additional funding for education, that money should be spent on our schools. This year, our schools supposedly got $60 million in increased state education aid. But the county used $40 million of it to cover a cut in local funding. Instead of the state money supplementing local funding, it was used to supplant local funding.

Just consider the issue through a different lens. Montgomery County pays a disproportionate share of state taxes. The state sends a great deal of educational aid to high-need districts. The state money is intended to supplement what those districts can provide on their own for their schools. How would we feel if Baltimore city or Prince George’s County took millions of dollars in state education aid and used it to reduce what they spend on their schools so they could spend those local tax dollars in other areas? I expect most Montgomery County taxpayers would be outraged.

If we wouldn’t tolerate other counties diverting state education aid for other purposes, we can’t defend the practice here. The state Board of Education said recently that the current law “is becoming not only unworkable, but subject to manipulation.” We should heed that warning. Counties should have local control over the use of local tax dollars. But if a county gets additional state aid for education, it should be spent on schools, and not used to reduce local funding for schools.

Doug Prouty, Rockville
The writer is president of the Montgomery County Education Association