Voices From The Readers – December 16, 2022

Voices From The Readers – December 16, 2022

Challenges For Worcester County

Editor:

Elections were recently completed in Ocean City, and Worcester County and the contrast between the two remains starkly in my mind. Although I got in Ocean City in 1954 this past election was the first time, I was directly involved with county politics and politicians. The petition on the sports complex put me in direct contact with all the county politicians and I was so impressed and with their contested elections. There were at least two, and in some cases more than four contestants in every race. In a democracy it takes at least two in or-der to have a contest and the public always benefits, even if the discourse is not savory. Each candidate will expose the weaknesses of the other for the public to make a better informed decision. The county elections were so exciting, they embodied the essence of the Democratic process.

In Ocean City, where much of the county’s wealth originates the elections lacked candidates. Of six electable positions in OC only one had a contest. Mr. Ferrante ran unopposed for the school board, Mr. Mitrecic once again ran unopposed for County Commissioner, Mr. Meehan once again ran unopposed for mayor and of three council seats there were only four candidates, so two seats for council were also uncontested. In total five out of six elected officials were not contested. This is not healthy nor does it reflect the democratic process. The apathy of Ocean City elections stands in sharp contrast to the total involvement of county contests. Politics in Ocean City has been this way for the better part of this century.
When over time individuals are anointed or appointed repeatedly to public office without the accountability of
a competitive election, their behavior changes. They become less sensitive to the electorate. More on this later. The county is dependent on Ocean City for over 60% of its revenues. The lack of accountability in Ocean City for the citizenry is a problem for the County going forward.
From 2011 through 2015 before starting my children’s Christmas Concert I used to volunteer at Sonspot, preparing food for the hungry and the homeless. As the apathy in Ocean City politics increased so did the numbers of hungry and homeless that frequent Sunspot. Last century we never had a hungry or homeless problem in Ocean City! The rich are getting richer, and the poor are getting poorer and nowhere is this difference greater than in Ocean City itself.
In 2012 I had a number of conversations with Mr. Andes, the then superintendent of schools, who made him-
self very accessible. Worcester County along with Montgomery are two of the richest counties in the state. During those conversations I was concerned that achievement was declining and costs for public education were out of control. I compared Worcester County HS graduates in 1970 with Worcester graduates on 2010. I found that over 40 years after inflation the county is spending 300% more to educate a Worcester County public school student. Why? I also found that four-year college enrollments had significantly declined. My hope was to persuade Mr. Andes to not take the Maryland state money and not abide by the state education mandates, instead focus on reading, writing arithmetic and history. Although Mr. Andes was amicable and accessible, I made no progress. It seems the more we spent on public education the dumber the students get.
This is confirmed by the International PIA tests, administered to 15-year-old’s the 2015 results placed the US 37th in Mathematics. We used to be first in the world, pierless. This failure of public education nationally is reflected in the county where it is an unnecessary tragedy. Although the administrators/-educators today will always find other education systems in the US that are worse to compare us too, they fail to compare us to ourselves, years ago. The tallest midget in the forest is still a midget. I have met so many single moms in the county who have to work at least one job and feel so badly when I see their total reliance and dependance on the county’s failed public education system.
In my opinion these are the County Commissioners’ two biggest challenges – 1. dealing with a political class that is unelected and controls the majority of the money in the county and 2. fixing the failed public education system.
In closing I left the United States two times in my life, once was to Tanzania, where I observed a class of 50 students in a village, ages 8-12 talk in English, do numerous math problems and remain quietly attentive all day. They were all dressed in white shirts with blue shorts for the boys and skirts for the girls, many had no shoes. It’s not about the money.
Tony Christ
Falls Church, Va.
Ocean City

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Opposition Shameful
Editor:
On Nov. 10, it was shameful to see that our State Senator Mary Beth Carozza went before the Maryland Blueprint for Maryland’s Future Accountability and Implementation Board to advocate against vital education funding for the Lower Shore.
To start, Senator Carozza advocates against raising salaries to properly pay our teachers a $60,000/year starting wage. The Lower Eastern Shore has struggled to recruit and retain high quality teachers in our school system because we have some of the lowest pay rate for teachers in the state, despite having a premier university for educating teachers in Salisbury University. The result is Salisbury training some of the best teachers who then have no choice but to leave for living wages elsewhere. Senator Carozza’s opposition to paying our teachers a
decent wage will result in detrimental consequences of continuing the vicious cycles of our area of losing qualified teachers to other areas and being unable to attract quality educators to teach our children.
The second concern is Senator Carozza’s rants against National Board Certification. National Board Certification provides national standards for what accomplished teachers should know and be able to do and receiving this certification is no small feat. We should be encouraging and incentivizing our teachers to get the skills needed to be world class teachers. That is a key step in ensuring our students get the best education possible.

Finally, Senator Carozza advocates against expanding pre-kindergarten on the Lower Shore. This unreasonable opposition is reckless and will delay the development of children in our region. A recent study from the National Bureau of Economic Research showed that kids who attended preschool were: less likely to get suspended from school; less likely to skip class; less likely to get in trouble and be placed in a juvenile detention facility; and they were more likely to take the SATs and prepare for college.

The study also shows that kids who got accepted into preschool ended up having a high-school graduation rate of 70% — six percentage points higher than the kids who were denied preschool who saw a graduation rate of only 64% and 54% of the preschoolers ended up going to college after they graduated — eight percentage points higher than their counterparts who didn’t go to preschool.
The benefits of pre-school are overwhelming and Senator Carozza’s opposition is nonsensical. Any state sen-
ator worth their salt would be working to get more funding to improve school construction and make it easier for our local daycare providers to provide services for our community, not attempt to exclude us from the project.
Throughout her career in Annapolis, Senator Carroza’s entire schtick has been advocating for the Lower Eastern Shore to have less than the rest of the state. She advocates for Lower Shore educators to be paid less than the rest of the state for the same work despite having inflation and other bills hurting their families bottom line. She advocates for Wicomico children not receiving Pre-K education. We need representatives that when they see a problem, they work to fix it, not advocate our region go without and get left behind.
Jared Schablein
(The writer is the chair of the Lower Shore Progressive Caucus.)

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Christmas Carnival Success
Editor:
Ocean City Development Corporation (OCDC) would like to express our appreciation to Trimper Rides, Worcester County, Funny Farm Petting Zoo and all the business and volunteers who helped make the Christmas Carnival on Nov. 19-20 a success.
The Ice Rink, donated and set up by Worcester County Recreation and Parks, was a huge success, allowing many kids the opportunity to try out their ice skating skills for the first time. Thank you to Dough Roller Restaurants for proving the food and keeping the pizza and the hot chocolate flowing.
Thanks to the following business for decorating trees and wreaths and donating gift cards for our raffle: Atlantic House Bed & Breakfast, Big Wave Marketing, Cambria Hotel, Cork Bar, Crawl Street, Dandy Dons Bikes, Kohr Brothers, Mary Kay Cosmetics, Nicks Mini Golf, OC Beautification Committee, OC Florist, Ocean Pines Chamber, Oceans East, Park Place Hotel, Ripley’s Believe it or Not, Tides & Vine. And, a very special thanks to Alan Beres (aka Santa) for helping hundreds of children get their Christmas list on the way to the North Pole and making memories for hundreds of families with Christmas photos by the carousel.
We truly value all the community support we receive for our downtown e-vents and wish you and yours the merriest of holidays and a happy healthy new year.
OCDC Board and Staff