By Barry Rascovar
For MarylandReporter.com
Watching elected officials punish school children for alleged sins of other public officials is painful and embarrassing.
Gov. Larry Hogan and Comptroller Peter Franchot should be ashamed.
They aren’t, of course.
Each is on an ego trip, enjoying the power they can wield in a vanity-filled attempt to humiliate and disparage political foes. All this is being done ostensibly to help these kids, though their actions will make school kids suffer.
The issue is a parochial one – the lack of air-conditioning in many Baltimore County and Baltimore City schools.
This has been a cause celebre for Franchot, allowing him to savage former County Executive Jim Smith and County Executive Kevin Kamenetz for not installing window air conditioners in thousands of classrooms so students won’t swelter in 100-degree heat on a handful of school days each year.
The two jurisdictions have been dragging their feet for a long time. Franchot is right to bring it to public attention.
But his solution isn’t a solution at all – it exacerbates the problem.
Punitive step
Franchot and Hogan voted last week to withhold $10 million in school building funds from Baltimore County and $5 million from Baltimore City – unless the jurisdictions install AC in 4,000 classrooms by September.
This punitive step accomplishes nothing.
First, it is mission impossible. This massive undertaking would take far longer and requires engineering studies to figure out if such a move would overload half-century-old electrical systems. Then what do you do and who pays for it?
Second, losing $15 million means fewer schools can get a permanent solution – central air-conditioning.
Their action amounts to pure hypocrisy.
Franchot went on a 20-minute rant at the start of Board of Public Works meeting with frenzied denunciations of legislative leaders and Kamenetz. Then he did it again later on. He spewed venom toward the Senate president, the House speaker, the state attorney general, the Baltimore County executive, the board’s own school construction agency, the Baltimore Sun, and even Wall Street bond counsels.
It was a Trumpian performance filled with sound and fury – but it did nothing to fix what’s broken.
Scripted anger
Hogan wasn’t any more reasonable.
He put on a self-important display of scripted anger, assuring everyone he was doing this for the kids.
He and Franchot played fast and loose with the facts so they could pummel Kamenetz and Democratic legislators. They were cheered on by a crowd filled with supporters, who were allowed to speak.
Anyone who might object or discuss the facts was denied permission to talk. Even State Treasurer Nancy Kopp, a BPW board member, was barely allowed to get in a word to counter the tag-team terrors.
She accurately called this “political theater” that was “outrageous and disgraceful.” Worse, it was “a travesty and illegal.”
Franchot and Hogan want to impose their will on Baltimore County and city leaders and determine education policy for them.
This is a dangerous precedent. Given complaints heard during the BPW meeting, the Hogan-Franchot duo could go after school board actions in other jurisdictions, too.
Easy solution
Here’s the ultimate irony.
The governor has the ability to solve this dilemma but he hasn’t lifted a finger.
Why? Because he doesn’t want to help Democrats out of a bind of their own making.
All Hogan or former Gov. Martin O’Malley had to do was include extra school construction money in his budget and earmark it specifically for air-conditioning-related engineering studies, window air-conditioners and long-term central air-conditioning projects.
It might prove expensive, but with a budget surplus in the hundreds of millions of dollars Hogan has had the cash to handle this problem. He opted not to do so. The reason is political.
He enjoys whipping up an emotional frenzy to humiliate and embarrass a potential Democratic opponent in 2018 – Kamenetz.
It has nothing to do with “the kids.” Otherwise, Hogan would have resolved the matter back in January.
Franchot knows this problem is ripe for gaining popularity with angry school parents.
It’s political for him, especially in his scripted display of righteous anger.
Abrupt cut-offs
Hogan and Franchot didn’t want to hear the facts. They were told directly by a deputy attorney general their action would be illegal. When she tried to explain the details, Hogan cut her off.
Baltimore County’s school superintendent was there, too. Hogan wouldn’t let him speak.
The state’s long-serving director of the school construction agency quit as a result of this crude power play. Hogan was publicly gleeful.
It was a pre-arranged nasty meeting.
School construction funds for any jurisdiction now could be at risk if local politicians get on the wrong side of the tag-team villains.
It was, as Kopp noted, “the politics of fear and demagoguery.”
It could result in a lawsuit the attorney general says Hogan and Franchot could lose.
It could make Maryland bonds for school construction impossible to sell, according to Kopp, who handles all of Maryland’s bond sales.
Franchot’s future
It now looks likely that Franchot will face a strong Democratic challenge in 2018. He essentially severed ties last week with the state’s top legislative leaders and Kamenetz, who is term-limited.
Alarmed Democratic lawmakers could feel an urgency to pass veto-proof legislation next year to strip Hogan and Franchot of their ability to further politicize the state’ school construction allocations.
This could turn into a Pyrrhic victory.
There’s no doubt Baltimore City and Baltimore County failed for over a decade to confront the lack of air-conditioned classes. Local leaders never found the courage to raise taxes to pay for immediate, multi-billion-dollar school improvements.
But that is a local dilemma for local voters to address. It is not a state matter.
For Hogan and Franchot to dictate school system decisions is troubling. It could signal more moves to intervene in local matters when they think it helps them politically.
Barry Rascovar’s blog is www.politicalmaryland.com. He can be reached at [email protected].
During the 2016 Legislative Session, Republican Delegates Robin Grammer and Bob Long voted AGAINST the passage of the Capital Budget which provides funding for air conditioning at Bear Creek and Grange Elementary schools in Dundalk. Vote em out in 2018.
I wonder how students made it through school without air conditioning in the early, mid, and late 1900’s?
I remember using fans when it got hot and dressing light on hot days…
I also don’t remember having “winter breaks” and other days off outside the holidays… Maybe eliminating them would get in the “magic 180” days before the hot days start in earnest… Given the output of the “educational racket”, going to school online would be the answer to weather caused lost days, hot classrooms, and buildings that should be condemned… Speaking of… Where does the state funds given annually go ?
As for air conditioning, maybe ductless systems should be looked into …
I went to these schools in the 70’s – 80’s and they were hot then, but certainly not as hot as they are now. We NEVER started school before Labor Day and we always got out BEFORE Father’s day. The climate now is hotter than it used to be. Add all the heat from all the added technology and it is a sweltering mess. Windows that don’t open/close. There is no reason that teachers and students should have to spend that much time in classrooms that are over 100 degrees. Building construction funds should have taken care of this years ago, but shiny new schools are what get politicians elected. Some of these schools should have been rebuilt years ago but they get passed by year after year. It’s a sin.
I’m sorry, but this has been going on for years, first with Smith and now Kamanetz and they have stalled long enough. Something or someone needs to hold them accountable for the health of students and teachers in these buildings. There have been millions pumped into the building construction fund year after year but there never seems to be enough money to add the air conditioning to these old schools. Instead, they decide to build new schools in affluent areas because that is where their voter base resides. I’m surprised that this has NOT become an OSHA issue with the teachers union. Just think about it…..even the characters in Disney World are given breaks every 45 minutes so that they don’t overheat in their hot costumes, but yet it’s expected that our students and teachers stay in hot classrooms for over 6 hours every day with no break. This is the world we live in and it’s a crying shame!
You mean as opposed to the OSHA violations of not having working heating or the building not being up to fire safety code? Because that’s what the building construction money is supposed to address.
Franchot’s vote violates his Comptroller-stewardship duties over taxpayer monies, and Hogan’s tactics and post-vote criticisms of David Lever are repulsive. This is the type of abuse which should lead to debate over a constitutional amendment to dissolve BPW.
Focusing on egos and power struggles is about all the “major” news media
can think about – and it’s always all about the “children” isn’t it?
A more serious issue is the whole deplorable state of psychological
conditioning in the government schools – the massive, unrelenting
control and indoctrination of the youth under the guise of “education”.
The solution for this is pretty simple also – but strangely no one seems
to be talking about this — simply repeal “compulsory schooling”. Let
parents decide whether they value what the government is pawning off as
“education” for their children. On-line in home classes are virtually free, and
technology makes the best teachers and curriculum available to all, at
practically no cost at all.
But I guess it’s more exciting to talk about “air conditioners” and who
gets to make the decision on these “important” educational issues that
really get the attention from so-called “reporters” as yourself.
kindest regards,
Lee Havis
College Park