"It's hard to respond to a questionnaire you never received," said state Sen. Allan Kittleman, a District 9 Republican. He added that District 9 Republican incumbent Dels. Gail Bates and Warren Miller also did not receive questionnaires, nor did Republican candidates Kyle Lorton, in the District 13 Senate race, and Jeff Robinson, in the District 13 House of Delegates race.
DeLacy said the association didn't send questionnaires to incumbents Kittleman, Bates and Miller "because they have a very low percent voting record for educational issues." She called their support of education "abysmal."
I am not a supporter of Republicans nor public education, but even I am surprised that the teachers' union did not even send these three Republican incumbents questionnaires. They must have stopped caring about even appearing to be unbiased.
Ann DeLacy, the teachers' union president, went on to say that "our school and our library systems are probably the crown jewel of our county." This county would totally suck if that were actually true. The reason we can even afford to support the public libraries and public schools is the result of the private sector (although a large part of our local private sector involves catering to the Federal Leviathan in DC, but I digress).
Oh, and this comment from Greg Fox is interesting:
Fox, however, said he proposed only one cut to the education budget in the past four years, which was in the amount of $184,000 for the removal of three school system positions in 2007.
"I've actually proposed more increases to the Board of Education budget than any other council member," in those four years, he said.
I think the teachers' union would endorse a stuffed donkey.
Update: As I was typing this post, Allan Kittleman left the following comment on another post:
I wanted to respond to the people who criticized the Republican candidates for not returning the Howard County Teachers Union questionnaire.
If you read the Howard County Times article in yesterday's paper (June 10th), you will see that the Howard County Teachers Union intentionally did not send their candidate questionnaire to me or Delegates Bates and Miller. As I commented to the reporter, it is hard to respond to a questionnaire if you don't receive it.
Further, I have learned that the Teachers Union also did not send their questionnaire to other non-incumbent GOP candidates such as Kyle Lorton (Senate, District 13), Jeff Robinson (House, District 13) and Ed Priola (House, District 13). Mr. Robinson told me that he was looking forward to speaking with the Howard County Teachers Union because he had served as the student representative to the Anne Arundel County Board of Education when he was in high school.
How would the Teachers Union know the position of these challengers if they did not take the time to send them the questionnaire and arrange an interview?
Unfortunately, it is clear that the Teachers Union decided early on that they were only going to support Democrat candidates in the November election. The failure by the Teachers Union to solicit opinions from all the candidates does a disservice to all the teachers (and parents) in Howard County.
4 comments:
Good post. However, if someone has been in office for 4 years and voted against almost everything you believe in, why waste the postage? I bet the NRA doesn’t send to the Dem. Council candidates here in Howard. BTW, what about the local candidates? Did Kittleman, Flanagan, Jordan, Schrader, and D’Asto receive the questionnaire and go through the process?
Anonymous,
You make an interesting point, but I can assure you that I am not aware of any other organization that doesn't send their questionnaires to all candidates - even the elected officials who seldom support their causes. Any organization that does not contact all candidates seriously damages their credibility.
Also, what could possibly be the reason for not sending the questionnaire to the Republican candidates who are challenging Democrat incumbents? Those challengers have not cast any votes.
There is only one conclusion to make; the Howard County Teachers Union is simply another arm of the Democrat Party.
Anon- that is very narrow thinking. I am a Democrat who supports the right for individuals to own a gun. Pigeonholing does not progress make.
The issue I have with the teacher's union is that it's very effective at wringing out taxpayers and shutting down it's entire industry for each and every election day, thus ensuring that everyone in that one industry votes for the status quo, keeping on wringing out the taxpayers for jobs that actually have the students for less than half a year and enjoy full time salaries with the best benefits in our country.
This all results in one thing - subpar education. When the balance of power shifted from parents to teachers, the end result for the children is what too the hit.
Implement vouchers. It's simple, will save taxpayers, benefit all children (instead of just the affluent), and will raise the successes of public education without the additional tutors and other expenses parents in this county use to support their children where the HCPSS fails.
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