On any given Saturday in October, drivers can take Maryland 297 into Worton and pass by a scene that plays out in most counties across the country. Teen and tween aged girls play field hockey on the first field they pass. A peek into the park yields a view of tiny mites trying to tackle the opposition from the next county. As the park fades away and they head towards the intersection with 298, boys and girls of all ages chow on orange slices at halftime of their soccer games.

On this coming Saturday in April, drivers will be able to take Maryland 297 into Worton and pass by another scene that plays out in most counties across the country. Teen and tween girls and boys will take turns on the lacrosse field. A softball team will find some turf they can use for practice. Of course, hundreds of tee-ballers and little leaguers will open their season.

Presumably, many of the children seen at each of these scenes are at both places. For girls, there seems to be a link between playing field hockey and lacrosse. For boys, that link is typically between football and lacrosse. There also seems to be a soccer/baseball circuit.

We can also presume that these children exist between October and April. Sure the weather is cooler, but their energy is no less nervous on those months. In fact, cabin fever probably creates more nervous energy. Certainly these children need a place to go in the winter months, but where?

Kim Welch, manager of the Kent Athletic and Wellness center has an answer. Each weekend in January and February since 1995, parents have loaded up their cars and vans, and navigated the speed bumps in the Dixon Valve parking lot en route to the KAWC where youth indoor soccer action takes place. The program is available to children aged 5-10 for a nominal fee, which coincides with the fees charged by other programs. The center also hosts a volleyball league for adults.

The mission statement is also similar to what you might find from KCYSA or Kent County Babe Ruth:

“The youth indoor soccer program at Kent Athletic and Wellness Center strives to provide an outlet for children to further develop their soccer skills and to improve their overall level of play. We are committed to developing a competitive program which will enhance these objectives, while maintaining an atmosphere which will increase the children’s enjoyment of the game. While having fun and promoting health and safety…we also advocate good sportsmanship and team camaraderie via the coaches, parents, and children.”

This past season, 110 children participated in the program. The highest number of participants in a season was close to 250. Welch believes that an ideal enrollment for the program is around 175. The game is demanding and each team needs enough players to account for substitutions. At the same time, all the teams are sharing the gym which means that over-enrollment may lead to reduce playing time.

As we re-visit the notion of youth baseball’s impending opening day at Worton Park, there is a puzzling fact worth mentioning. Twenty-six teams will begin their season this weekend, which translates to roughly 300 kids playing for the next two months. Within the town limits of Chestertown, no games will take place.

It could be said that Worton Park is Chestertown’s de facto home field for baseball and soccer games. While that could be said, is that any comfort to a child who lives on Edge of Town Drive, Morgnec Road, or Calvert Heights?

In some sense, the KAWC soccer league, Kent County Babe Ruth, and the other leagues that serve the area share somewhat of a connection. There is a supply of youth sports and recreation programs in the area. Not all potential users of these programs have a clear understanding of the inventory that exists. Or perhaps there are some other barriers that keep children from hooked up with these various programs.

Last summer, the Chestertown Recreation Commission conducted a survey in the hopes of assessing the recreational needs of the town. In the coming months, the Commission will be making recommendations based upon those results and communicating some longer-term goals. Access to recreational programs and facilities is a key component to Chestertown’s quality of life and even has economic implications.

Much hand wringing has been done over how to (or maybe whether to) lure upwardly mobile families who will strengthen the tax base and boost public school enrollment. For some, it may be a swing set. For others, it may be proximity to an athletic facility to play indoor soccer or volleyball. Either way, I’m guessing there weren’t many “none of the aboves” on that survey.

 

With four months remaining in the interminable contest to become chief occupant at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, we are finally seeing where the candidates can draw their battle lines. How telling is the tale of the tape so far?

On the left, President Obama has been criticized by his base for not being liberal enough when called for the most. On the right, Mitt Romney has been criticized for his lack of conservative credentials. On the left, the base thinks that electing the guy on the right would send the country back to the days of rugged individualism. On the right, the base thinks that re-electing the President would send the country careening into the sea of socialism.

For all of their perceived differences, they each have similarities. Both have ties to Massachusetts, with the President an alum of Hahvid and Mister Romney once the governor. Both politicians passed a health care reform package that included a mandate to carry health insurance, lest one wishes to pay a tax (or a penalty depending upon who’s asking). Mitt Romney is a multimillionaire. So is President Obama. If the President’s ads are to be believed, Mitt Romney is a corporate raider. What the ads don’t tell you is that President Obama is also a corporate raider.

It’s true folks, the President is just as guilty of being a corporate raider. In fact, I could argue that since his campaign has decided that this is the winning issue, the President could be said to have a worse record in this area.

Perhaps the President’s ads could be geared towards the female college freshman demographic. Mitt Romney, the dapper venture capitalist and father of five, grows fangs under the glow of lower-Manhattan moonlight and sucks the blood, sweat, and tears from the Holson Burnes picture frame factory in “swing state” New Hampshire. Various ads allude to this theme, and most of the claims in the ads have been debunked. Even the Washington Post, allegedly a sympathetic publication, is saying that it’s time to shift the sails.

Private equity firms certainly have invested in companies whose survival is dependent upon finding alternate means of manufacturing or routing of services. Isn’t the deal in general designed to provide firms with an infusion of capital in exchange for a return on investment? Sometimes the businesses still fail, and domestic plants are shuttered. People eventually lose their jobs.

But What if there were no capital infusion? Wouldn’t that simply accelerate the demise of the subject company? Capital is a necessary component that helps secure faith in America’s firms. We should be encouraging more venture capital, not vilifying it.

Even Newark mayor Cory Booker, a surrogate of the Obama campaign, understands that some of his constituents creep along the Lincoln Tunnel to get to work at their respective firms, some of them likely invested in Newark’s revitalization. Frederico Pena, formerly Secretary of Transportation and currently a surrogate for the campaign in Denver (where Obama was nominated in 2008), is a partner with Vestar Capital Partners. Vampires are everywhere nowadays!

But even the President himself has a record as a corporate raider. While Governor Romney was heavily involved in private equity, President Obama has performed the very same tasks with public equity.

Among his accomplishments, the President lays claim to saving America’s auto industry. But how was this done? The US government took a 61% common equity stake in a reformed General Motors Company LLC. Bondholders, ordinarily preferred in these proceedings, were told to wait in line. Immediate restructuring aside, long-term plans for this company were to reduce its dealerships by roughly 40 percent (1,600 in all) and to close 13 plants while shedding four brands. All told, that is a loss of 22,500 jobs.

As with any equity firm, there are failures (assuming the auto deals are successes). The government used funds created by the Energy Policy Act of 2005, which was later rolled into the stimulus of 2009, to provide California solar panel manufacturer Solyndra with more than $500 million in loans. The firm’s revenue for 2010 was $140 million. The government was trying to make chicken salad from inferior ingredients. Other firms in this sector like Nevada Geothermal and Abound Solar have seen $160 million in loans evaporate in the sweltering summer heat.

So while the President assails Governor Romney for his supposedly spotty record in private equity, has he done any better with public equity at his disposal? In any event, we aren’t likely to see an end to the Bain attacks. Despite all the Pinocchio awards and hand slaps from fact checkers, the theme continues. Democratic Party strategist Chris Hahn sums it up, “If it works, keep doing it. That’s the way politics is.”

I’ve always said that Democrats like trickle down economics as much as Republicans. What they can’t agree on is who gets to do the trickling. I’m seeing all of these ads and the thin justification for them, and I’m beginning to think that it isn’t actually raining.

Found some old clutter in Troup’s Corner, and polished it off for viewing.

Some major decisions have recently come out of that legal temple on First Street NE. I can think of one in particular that determined the fate of a controversial Federal law. It was a decision that could help define individual liberties for future generations. It was a decision that could shake the core of a civil society.

Now is when we find out whether people read the first paragraph, and supply a canned answer. I am obviously talking about the June 28, 2012 decision to overturn the Stolen Valor Act. The act was drafted in 2005 to make it a crime to lie about military honors. With such focus being placed on veteran unemployment, there is a practical application of this law that goes beyond the mere act of lying.

The decision effectively installs lying as protected speech. Or in less simplistic terms, it draws the line between protected and unprotected speech somewhere between lying on a resume and lying about a fire in a crowded movie theater. The latter instance is often the line that is used in free speech cases to determine if speech infringes upon the greater good.

Courts have ruled that there are forms of speech that are not protected. For instance, broadcasters and regulatory authorities have the right to censor profanity and lewd behavior. Perjury is not protected speech, nor are slander and libel. In all of these instances, the Supreme Court has determined that these types of speech create a needlessly aggrieved party.

By overturning the Stolen Valor Act, the court has determined that lying about military honors does not do enough to create an aggrieved party. As such, a law to restrict such speech is unnecessary. If lying about military honors were deemed illegal, what would prevent acts passed to prohibit other types of lying? For instance, Notre Dame University hired and quickly fired football coach George O’Leary for claiming a degree on his resume that he did not earn.

If the act were left to stand, could future acts make situations like O’Leary’s a criminal offense? What if he were hired to coach Indiana State University, effectively defrauding the citizens of Indiana? Therein lies the rub. The case before the court centered around a local elected official. So if a candidate were to lie about military honors, knowing that voters may grant them weight in their decision making, isn’t there an application where stolen valor can be used to commit a form of fraud? If one were to lose out on a private sector position because of stolen valor, aren’t there any number of aggrieved parties? The court feels that the law did not provide enough of a narrow scope to define the detestable speech and the aggrieved party. Hopefully it can be rewritten to conform to this standard.

Was there something else? Apparently Congress passed something called the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act in 2010. Apparently it became a pretty big deal. Proponents of the measure claim that the law will extend health coverage to upwards of 30 million Americans who currently lack it. Opponents believe that the law is a potential trojan horse for socialized medicine. Unclear is whether either side has read and interpreted the law’s many provisions.

The Supreme Court eventually provided a tepid endorsement of the law. Proponents are deliriously joyful, while opponents see red. It is important to underscore that the court did not endorse the law as good policy or denounce it as bad policy. It merely provided an opinion on the constitutionality of the law.

Providing the majority opinion, Chief Justice Roberts noted, “The Federal Government does not have the power to order people to buy health insurance. Section 5000A would therefore be unconstitutional if read as a command.” This declaration is a hat tip to the Attorneys General who argued that the law violated the boundaries of the commerce clause. It was also with this statement that CNN and Fox News declared the individual mandate had been stricken down by the court. Then CNN’s live blog noted that the mandate still had life as a tax when Justice Roberts continued his rendering “The Federal Government does have the power to impose a tax on those without health insurance. Section 5000A is therefore constitutional, because it can reasonably be read as a tax.”

The dissenting opinion was given by Justice Antonin Scalia. Once again, we see that the job of the Supreme Court has become to draw the lines of society when they need to be drawn. Scalia feels that the lines have now been drawn to wide by noting, “Whether federal spending legislation crosses the line from enticement to coercion is often difficult to determine, and courts should not conclude that legislation is unconstitutional on this ground unless the coercive nature of an offer is unmistakably clear. In this case, however, there can be no doubt.”

Scalia’s opinion also calls into question the process of oral arguments. The Solicitor General was battered during these arguments. Justice Ginsburg actually became the key litigator for the Obama administration. Much of the arguments surrounded the notion of the commerce clause; however, the opinion was given in terms of the government’s authority to tax. Scalia finished his opinion with this warning, “Imposing a tax through judicial legislation inverts the constitutional scheme, and places the power to tax in the branch of government least accountable to the citizenry.”

Both Scalia and Roberts avoided the fiery political rhetoric that couched the issue as “good policy versus bad policy.” Both justices couched their opinions in terms of the limits of the federal government, with Roberts providing a final hat tip to the law’s opponents by saying, “The Framers created a Federal Government of limited powers, and assigned to this Court the duty of enforcing those limits. The Court does so today. But the Court does not express an opinion on the wisdom of the Affordable Care Act. Under the Constitution, that judgment is reserved to the people.” With the law polling negatively at sixty percent or higher, I don’t think we have seen the last of the PPACA debate.

For his part, the President appeared relieved. He recommended that we move forward, as the courts have now spoken. Sage advice. With that spirit in mind, I trust that the court will no longer be scolded during a State of the Union Address. And I’m also sure that Washington will pick up the phone when Arizona calls.

Aftermath

Much like the Citizens United case, what was meant to serve as the final word has perhaps created even deeper divisions.In the month since the ruling, public support for the law polls at 48 percent – the recent high point of such polling.

Chief Justice Roberts has apparently found peace in Malta. Malta is a tiny island nation in the Mediterranean, far removed from the vitriol that may come from the mouths of Les Kinsolving listeners. (aside: For fun, your columnist dons his tin foil helmet from time to time, but wow….)

Indeed Justice Roberts went in an odd direction. He all but admitted that the meat and potatoes of the law do not agree with the powers that extend from the commerce clause; however, he gave the green light by identifying a tax appearing in the law. It sort of sounds like the opposite of what we learn about the law from criminal cases. Once you identify the reasonable doubt, the whole case falls apart. In this case, Justice Roberts seemed willing to cling to the evidence that kept it intact.

Politically speaking, the Supreme Court may have done Mitt Romney a favor. Sure, this was described as an Obama victory (brief thought: when do we win?). With public support still mixed, there is an opening for Romney to run on a repeal and replace platform. While the President has declared that it is time to move forward (read: never mention the ACA again, please), Romney could outline the parts of the plan that work, and portray himself as a consensus builder.

Not to mention, Romney could use the tax ruling to claim that the President broke a campaign promise. Or are we supposed to believe that money we pay through taxes that aren’t labeled “income taxes” doesn’t count as real money?

Down the avenue, Congress continues to step in it. Nearly three dozen debates have taken place to repeal or defund all or part of the ACA’s provisions. Most recently, five Democrats went to the repeal side AFTER the Supreme Court’s ruling. It was said that this change of heart gives those five some political cover in November. If I were a voter in those person’s districts, I would have less respect for those Congressmen. What you are telling the voters is that you know, in your heart of hearts, you voted for something that was bad policy.

While things heat up before November, the real question might be: we will get to four dozen votes before anyone addresses taxmaggedon? And if so, will there be ten crossovers? A ruling intended to bring finality to an issue seems to have created new and interesting ways for Washington to play Dr. Frankenstein with this monstrosity.

It would appear that our choice in five months is between two folks who are prone to foot-in-mouth disease. President Obama earned election in 2008 on the strength of his words and a concept (Hopinchange) . The same strategy will not work in 2012. Re-election is about the ability to run on your record, or to at least discredit your opponent’s record. While our die-hard friends on the left may disagree, even the inner-circle at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W. realizes that the latter strategy has a better chance come November.

Much like his running mate, President Obama is boxed in by his words. Even a story with a positive spin rings hollow if one wants to do their homework. For example, Rex Nutting of Marketwatch <ahref=”https://www.marketwatch.com/story/obama-spending-binge-never-happened-2012-05-22″>(WSJ)andhis recent spinning of the President as a deficit hawk comes as great news to the administration. Federal spending has increased at the lowest rate since the Eisenhower administration.

While that spin plays well with the “read the headlines” voters, the undecideds who want to apply some critical thinking would have a few things to say about it. For instance, one would really have to do something unprecedented to grow spending at a noticeable rate after the 2009 bailout bonanza. Since the bailouts were supposed to be a one-time rescue program with payback provisions, any increase means that the spending has been duplicated elsewhere. It also helped that the Iraq withdrawal was already scheduled for 2011.

Regardless of the inherited situation, Greece, the weather, etc, there are several troubling trends occurring and the administration doesn’t seem willing to tackle them. Debt versus GDP is at 100 percent. Government spending versus GDP is stalled at 24 percent (by contrast Clinton left office at an ideal 19 percent). To use the lingo of climate scientists, the administration wants credit for changing the graph from a hockey stick to a sand wedge.

It would be akin to Norv Turner’s first year as coach of the Washington Redskins. Norv took over a team that lost twelve games and proceeded to lose thirteen. Could you imagine if Turner claimed success by slowing the rate of the increase in losing? The writers of the Washington Post’s C section would never allow that to happen. But A sections across the country have run with the Nutting spin.

Of course, all of Nutting’s analysis fails to account for the election of 2010. Spending is scheduled to fall in 2013 by 1.3 percent, that is correct, but weren’t the drivers of that summer 2011 budget deal the ones who had to listen to the President tell them how irresponsible they were for not simply raising the debt ceiling as had been done many times over (duh, the blank check was sort of the problem)? Now the President wants sole credit for a deal he would have never made with the Pelosi congress.

Even the President’s own words box him in on the spending issue. The President wants to claim the mantle of fiscal hawk when it is in vogue; however, his feelings on the government’s role as economic engine were made quite clear. To laughter and applause at a February 5,2009 gathering of the House Democratic conference, President Obama doubted spending-weary skeptics of his stimulus plan by saying, “So then you get the argument, well, this is not a stimulus bill, this is a spending bill. What do you think a stimulus is? That’s the whole point. No, seriously. That’s the point.”

If the President had four years of doing things his way, do you think Nutting would have come to the same conclusion? The President seems to favor what I call “liquid soap economics.” (Crazy Troup’s Corner analogy warning) Did you know that one pump of liquid soap and sanitizer will accomplish the task you want it to accomplish? Most people pump three times, because if two milliliters are good, then six must be better. Soap companies like this because restaurants and other facilities have to reorder the product three times faster than they need to.

The point is, money printers have to keep going back to the presses to constantly keep up with the side effects of printing it. As long as certain groups are under the impression that they are better off with the printing presses turned on, they’ll endorse the spending spree. This is why there are folks out there who say the stimulus wasn’t big enough (translation: I didn’t get mine).

Accounting for recent events, the big picture is this -government a la Washington, or government a la Wisconsin? The administration was eerily silent on the Wisconsin front. Why? If he chooses government a la Wisconsin, he abandons his base. If he chooses government a la Washington, he has to give back Mr. Nutting’s golden fiscal championship trophy.

So what’s left? If you said, “Denounce the Romney record,” you win. Even so, that comes with its own risks…

Politicians are prone to gaffes. Much of what they do revolves around words and convincing voters that their words are better than the other person’s words. Say enough things, at some point, someone will be ready with their “aha!”

Right now, the people of Poland are having a grand ole time with Washington, DC. Between former DC Mayor Marion Barry and President Obama, there may be enough fodder for people in Warsaw and Krakow to tell Washingtonian jokes at cocktail parties. In all likelihood, the President’s “Poland gaffe” was just a case of misspeaking, or just plain weariness.

These things happen from time to time. The best hope you have as a politician is that you have built enough political capital with the offended party that the flub will be overlooked. For instance,when Obamamania was running wild, voters were inclined to think that he knows how many States there are in the USA. That being said, the two highest-ranking members of our executive branch have provided some “aha” words as of late.

Joe Biden, to no one’s surprise, has gotten in on the act. When he drafts his fantasy football team, the first receiver he takes is Jabar Gaffney. When he plays “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon,”he doesn’t tie Kevin to actors. Instead,he connects Kevin to the gaffers. When he fills up his car, he dons a colonial wig, so that he can buy “gafoline” (I thought this needed a highbrow pun).

Biden started off innocently enough. He went to Youngstown,Ohio and played the American Dream card in a rust belt city. That’s Politics 101. “I resent when they talk about families like mine that I grew up in. I resent the fact that they think we’re talking about envy: it’s job envy, it’s wealthy envy; that we don’t dream. My mother believed and my father believed that if I wanted to be President of the United States that I could be. I could be vice president! My mother and father believed that if my brother or sister wanted to be a millionaire, they could be a millionaire! My mother and father dreamed as much as any rich guy dreams! They don’t get us! They don’t get who we are!”

Being the self-proclaimed conservative commentator on this slice of bandwidth, I suppose I could pick this statement apart, both personally and politically. I could argue that much of what his boss wants to accomplish has little to do with dreaming, but more to do with implementing a substitute for dreaming, by creating a permanent dependent class. I’ll leave it to the community to argue whether it is on purpose or just the residue of bad policy. I suppose I could have a chuckle at the image of Ma and Pa Biden sitting Joseph on their knee talking about the Vice Presidency of the United States. But I won’t.

The gaffe here actually comes six days later. The trouble with having a profession where one is judged by their words is that they have schlubs like me who are ready to box them in with the thing they most recently said. You see, the veep went to Keene, New Hampshire and changed his tune in front of the northeastern elitist crowd. That’s Politics 102.

Biden offered this nugget to the sympathetic college crowd,”Your job as president is to promote the common good. That doesn’t mean that private equity guys are bad guys; they’re not. But that no more qualifies you to be president than being a plumber!” So plumbers aren’t worthy of the White House? What about dreaming? What about one day becoming Vice President? As far as I’m concerned, they both deal in similar commodities. The only difference is that when the politicians are selling it, it comes from a bull.

Troup’s Corner Non-Sequitur – Tea Party React: Hat tip to Bill Arrowood and crew for another first class job executing the Tea Party festival. My favorite part of the weekend is the raft race. Watching people capsize has always been a sick curiosity. When nobody did it this year I thought, “This is actually better. That’s too much work just to sink.” The greatest moment may have been when the Martinez family and the Garnett kids crossed the finish line. At some point, the winning and losing takes a back seat, and the memory of finishing something that others previously could not is something they will have forever.

Now a nit to pick. You may have noticed that both political parties had their displays for all to see. It seemed unfair for the Democratic Party to include a depiction of Martin Luther King Jr. amongst the other faces on the shrine that adorned their table. For starters, Martin Luther King’s work was non-partisan and should not be co-opted by any party. Coretta Scott King has often been confronted with questions regarding her husband’s political affiliation, and has given a similar answer.

If this is an effort to tie the party to the civil rights movement, I would remind everyone that while the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 were passed in a Congress led by Democrats, a greater percentage of Republicans provided yes votes than did Democrats. And for all we know, Dr. King could have been registered with the GOP, as some of his family members were at that time. Regardless, I think the views of Dr. King’s widow would trump here. For my friend son the left who think I’m being overly sensitive, I’ll pose this: Do you think it would be appropriate for the GOP booth to lay claim to the work of Frederick Douglas and Harriet Tubman just because Lincoln was President during the Civil War and the passage of the reconstruction amendments? I don’t.

The official Troup’s Corner stance on the State of Maryland’s maintenance of effort (MOE) mandate is that it is flawed, for two primary reasons. The first reason is that it historically granted counties little flexibility in handling budget shocks. With the regular session of the General Assembly that adjourned in April, it afforded even less flexibility. Fear not, if County Commissioners were feeling just a bit too comfortable in their budget box, the special session may just shove teacher pensions to the county level, further making it difficult to comply with the mandate.

The other flaw in the MOE standard is that it is quintessential government-speak. By cloaking mere baseline budgeting under the hood of “effort,” it becomes hard to argue against it. Who could ever find fault with something called “The Jobs Act,” or something called “The Affordable Care Act”? Call something “effort” and it takes on a qualitative meaning as opposed to the quantitative “spend more than you did the year before.” Perhaps Social Security recipients could have seen COLAs in 2009 had they been called “Senior Citizen and Retiree Enhancement Disbursements.”

As previously chronicled, Kent County finds itself in the midst of a controversy over how to proceed with this mandate hanging over its head. There really is no greater testcase to expose the flaws of MOE than Kent County. It really is a shame that the Superintendent,the County Board of Education, the County Commissioners, and the State Board of Education have maneuvered into some type of circular firing squad, with teachers and students somewhere in the picture.

Looking for effort? Kent County High School boasts a planetarium, radio station, greenhouse,and culinary program. Your columnist attended high school in the sainted Howard County system, and these assets were unavailable. KCHS was recently provided with a $10 million capital improvement. In terms of extracurriculars, the basketball team was a game away from playing in the Comcast Center and the band went to the Gator Bowl. All of this in an era of educational austerity that would make some countries’ Protestants self-immolate, yet none of this counts as effort in the eyes of the law.

Lost in all of the edubabble and electioneering is a look at actual results. Nobody could suggest that cutting funding is a strategy towards achieving better schools. It is more a matter of “spreading the pain” as a County Commissioner put it. On the other hand, is there a positive correlation between exceeding the MOE standard and excellent performance?

Looking at the Maryland Report Card for Kent County yields mixed results. Kent County third graders in 2010 met or exceeded reading standards at a rate of 77.7 percent. Students across Maryland in 2010 met the same standard at a rate of 84 percent. In 2011,Fourth graders in Kent County met or exceeded reading standards at a rate of84.7 percent. Students across Maryland in 2011 met the same standard at a rate of 88.7 percent. What does this selected statistic tell us? Using the same children as a benchmark, state students outperform county students; however, the gap closed(in an austere year).

A similar analysis in mathematics yields a similar result. 2010’s County third graders were at or above the standard at a rate of 82.7 percent versus the state rate of 86percent. 2011’s Kent County fourth graders were at or above the standard at a rate of 87.7 percent versus a state rate of 90.3 percent.

Something interesting is happening with Kent County’s current crop of fifth graders. They outperform the rest of the state in reading and math, and did the same last year in the fourth grade. Moreover, the gap is widening. That said, it is more a function of state students leveling off, then it is of Kent County students taking off.

Where Kent County sees the most scattered results are in the middle school grades. The difficulty level seems to ratchet up in the seventh grade as county and state students see more students slip into basic levels (below standard) in mathematics. Kent County middle-schoolers outperform state students in reading, but are virtually equal by eighth grade. Regarding mathematics, by the eighth grade,county and state students are pretty well stratified into thirds using the basic, proficient, and advanced criteria.

So how vital is the MOE mandate, if students gravitate to the mean anyway? Does it mean that there should be NO bedrock protections for education funding? Surely not, yet the MOE standard as currently constructed, may not be as necessary as its proponents would have us believe.

Across the region: Maybe the income tax hike yields results in school performance (seriously, the new MOE standard holds counties harmless who raised their income tax to the max. And MOE = results, right?). Queen Anne’s students outperform state students across the board. In fact, Queen Anne’s County goes toe to toe with Howard County’s performance.

Talbot County students perform along the lines of state students. What is interesting is that Talbot County’s middle-schoolers seem to be impacted slightly less by the middle school regression that seems to happen across the State of Maryland. That said, half of Talbot County’s tenth graders have passed all four high school assessments, compared to Howard County tenth graders. By graduation, Talbot County’s students catch up to the standard.

Caroline County’s students get off to a slightly slow start. Performance in fourth and fifth grade improves. What’s interesting here is that Caroline County’s middle schools outperform the state and are totally immune to the statewide regression. 82.1percent of Caroline County eighth graders are at or above the mathematics standard, compared to 66.1 percent across the state.

Dorchester County is a different story, and is the evidence that MOE proponents would use, since they were noncompliant. Unfortunately, Dorchester students in grades 3-8 do not outperform state students on either math or reading examinations. Moreover, Dorchester students seem hardest hit in the region by the “middle school regression.” All of this begs the question,is it the standard or is there something structurally deficient in middle school education? If we didn’t see these issues across the state, I would say that it may be a strain on the average middle-schooler to get to a centrally located school that houses a large student body. But again, it seems to happen across the board, and private school students make the trek each day.

Finally: What leaps out at me is on page two of the various report cards. The statistics for Howard County’s alternative and special education populations are complete. Also, they are not included in the standard MSA data.

A scan of the statistics for the midshore region reveals almost nothing. The data is incomplete because the sample is either too small, or systems are not seeking out the children in need of an IEP (or maybe don’t have the resources available for a small sample).

If it is the latter (heck if it’s either), then the State can do the region a great service, or shall we say “exert greater effort,”by assisting the counties with a regional special education program. This would allow students to be compared against truer indicators of their abilities. It would also prevent some of the wild swings in the standard MSA results seen county by county.

KCBR Update: The Chestertown Elks (minor) recently took two games from the Millington Big Dogs. Unfortunately, one was an exhibition for Millington’s Little League Day.

The Elks also dropped a pair of games. One against the Galena Lions. This game turned the Elks into a walking infirmary. The Elks also stepped out of league action and lost to the Queen Annes Yankees.

The All-Star game was May 19th. To those in the community who stopped by, cheered on the kids, and bought raffle tickets, thank you.

When discussing matters of interest with folks outside of this world of zeroes and ones, the question arises as to whether anybody really cares about a particular issue. For instance, the goings-on in and around the Supreme Court are not a Shore-centric topic. If we are a quiet blip on the radar, is it effective to drone on about the SCOTUS? To that I would say two things: I would take the largely respectable discourse that occurs on this bandwidth any day, over what the Beltway intelligentsia continues to bring us. I would also remind everyone that our local leaders aren’t making decisions in a vacuum. There are various levels of government weaving a tangled web of mandates and regulations, providing political cover for some who refuse to make tough decisions.

It is on that second point that we can use recent events inside the beltway to draw a parallel with events on the right side of the Bay. While President Obama was wagging his finger at the Supreme Court, effectively undermining our system of checks and balances, Kent County Superintendent Dr. A. Barbara Wheeler has taken to reaching across the fence on the public school budget issue.

There is a tangled web that we all must step through to fund public schools. Elected officials of the many counties establish the valuation of school funds and transfer them to an elected Board of Education, who in turn takes on the process of allocating those funds to various line items of the budget. The Superintendent is hired by the county to act as the CEO of the schools, essentially making them the liaison between the BOE and the county.

I know what you’re thinking, and yes, of course there’s a catch! All of this must be done under a state framework known as maintenance of effort (MOE). This mandate states that local governments must meet or increase per-pupil funding from the prior year. For all of those who enjoy combing through the Federal budget, this would be a localized version of baseline budgeting.

On top of this mandate, the county Superintendents have red batphones that are connected to the State Board of Education. So if a county were to tinker with the idea that they needed to seek a hardship waiver on the MOE mandate, the county Superintendent could still remind the folks at the state level that the counties need to”do it for the kids.”

All of those events are what has recently taken place in Kent County. An elected body, acting as stewards of its constituents’ tax dollars, is managing the budget pie in tough times. The BOE seems willing to take on the task of what to do with their slice; however, an executive with no county budget authority just might be able to use the power of the state to force the elected body into providing a larger piece of pie.

In some sense, I feel as if I have written this column before. Last year, the county was able to use a loophole in the MOE mandate to “rebase” the school budget. Other counties did the same, to much hue and cry from educrats. This year is different, because the state closed the loophole by confiscating county income tax allocations if funding were to fall below the MOE mandate.

The problems with this mandate are many-fold. There is no mechanism that credits counties for funding over and above the mandate (creating an unnaturally higher baseline). Kent County noted in its waiver request that over a ten-year period, that it has funded $7.6 million(4.6%) above the mandate over the prior ten years. Another problem with the mandate is that it ignores capital projects, and one could argue that this spending is more indicative of “effort” to improve the schools.

If the state were interested in a mandate that would fund schools without spiteful rebasing, the mandate should be enforced over four-year intervals. This would ensure that no child went to school during a Draconian era, yet it would allow local governments to account for a recessionary environment. The Feds can print the money when it fails to manage the process. The state can beg for this printed money to cover its budget shortfalls. When that well dries up, the next frontier is to push responsibilities to the counties. If that is going to be the case, the state should include a mechanism in its MOE mandate that allows for some type of flexibility at the local level.

If the State will not back down from its position on the MOE, it should rethink how its funding formula is applied, you know, for the kids. There is overhead that is incurred whether you are educating the first child in the county, or the 20,001st. For instance, every county BOE needs an office and a Superintendent. If the state were to establish a uniform overhead allocation to be dispersed to all counties prior to calculating its per-pupil funding, less county money would be going towards the bureaucracy inherent in running a local school system. It would be much easier to comply with MOE, and the state would have this overhead allocation as their bargaining chip to enforce MOE.

That last proposal was actually brought forth by the Kent County Commissioners, and presented to the 36th Delegation for inclusion in the2011 legislative session in Annapolis. Guess which folks picked up the red bat phone to oppose this legislation? If the counties on the Shore are going to untangle this web, transparent conversations need to take place. Counties, Boards of Education,and Superintendents must stop fighting for the role of Brutus in this ongoing tragedy.

For the kids: One must wonder if the kids listen to all the jibber jabber. They’re just the pawns in all of this. It’s probably a good idea to highlight some good things, lest they think they’re the reason mommy and daddy are fighting.

I recently attended the 3rd grade engineering exhibit at Worton Elementary School. The kids were presented with the challenge to manufacture a toy composed of found materials that was portable and would appeal to most children. While there weren’t any inventions, there were plenty of innovations. In fact, I began to tally how much I dropped at toy stores when the kids could have just made their own toys.

One girl had a couple of quart-sized paint cans attached to ropes. The cans were lying next to her in a heap. I asked her if we could try out the telephones. She picked up her innovation and demonstrated that she had not made a telephone. She made romper stompers!

One boy used some scrap wood and fasteners to build an army vehicle that rolled and had a working extension arm – incorporating many elements of science’s simple machines. Another used shoe boxes and water bottles to build a ship. Slap a Star Wars logo on it, and that becomes forty bucks at a toy store.

There were also a few board games. One was a brightly decorated egg carton with stones that could be used to play Mancala. That’s at least ten dollars saved.

The best board game incorporated math, geography, and strategy. It was a map of the United States with various stops and connections. If you have ever flown Southwest Airlines, and seen their route map on a napkin, it was a bit like that. Some stops made you money. Others cost you money. The object was to get to California with money left over. Assuming this doesn’t already exist, her parents ought to pitch this thing to Parker Brothers.

KCBR Update: The Chestertown Elks took two on the chin against the Galena Lions and the Worton FOP. The former involved errors of omission. There were a lot of balls hit without relays set up or people covering bags. The latter involved errors of commission, with a drop here and a missed throw there. If I have to choose which I’d rather watch, I’ll take the latter. At least they’re trying.

The KCBR All-Star festivities will be May 19th. Feel free to stop by and see the kids compete. Donations accepted.

I would imagine that one might surmise from a heading that alludes to a big mistake and contains the names Kagan and Sotomayor, that what follows is a hatchet job on the junior Justices of the United States Supreme Court.  How could I do such a thing to those who have not had a chance to carve out their niche on the high court?  To all of that, I declare, “not so fast my friends.”

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It has been an active few weeks for the Federal government’s”other branch.”  As previously chronicled, the Affordable Care Act and its controversial mandate were argued.  Its chief litigant, apparently Ruth Bader Ginsburg, noted during the proceedings “a major, major point of your (the Administration’s) argument was that the people who don’t participate in this market are making it much more expensive for the people who do.”  It is a core argument in favor of the law; however, these core arguments usually originate from counsel’s side of the bench.

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Fast forward to this week, and Arizona’s controversial immigration law SB 1070 was contested. In this case, the Administration was on the plaintiff’s side of the suit.  Arizona seeks to grant itself authority on immigration matters that does not exceed Federal statute.  This position does not sit well with the Administration, which claims that the Federal law pre-empts the State law.

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While Federal law trumps State law via the supremacy clause of the United States Constitution, the ninth and tenth amendments to the Constitution grant individuals and States those rights that are not specifically retained by the Federal government.  So long as the State of Arizona does not act with authority beyond that claimed by the Federal government, is not infringing upon the sovereignty of another State, and does not infringe upon the rights of citizens, the supremacy clause should not be invoked.

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Let’s turn the pre-emption argument on its ear.  The Federal minimum wage is $7.25 per hour.  Should the Federal government sue those States who mandate a minimum wage greater than the one prescribed by the FMWA?  Arizona’s $7.65 minimum wage,Washington’s $9.04 wage, and the other fifteen States with higher than Federal standards all exceed their authority if the supremacy clause is to be used in such absolute terms.  For that matter, Nancy Pelosi’s Congressional district has a minimum wage rate of $10.24 per hour.  Can California sue the City of San Francisco?

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Let’s also apply this logic to the Affordable Care Act, and make the major assumption that all 2,700 pages will pass muster.  What if the IRS decides in 2015 that it just does not possess the manpower to enforce the insurance mandate?  Could the Federal government sue the State of Massachusetts if it decides to continue enforcement of its mandate?  See, this is the slippery slope we travel when we use the supremacy clause as a means of declaring “what the government must do on your behalf.” (see last week)

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As the Supreme Court heard the various arguments over whether a State law mirroring Federal law violates the Constitution, the comments from the bench given the most weight came from Justice Sonia Sotomayor.  This should come as little surprise.  Sotomayor, while of Puerto Rican descent (by extension always a US citizen), can empathize with those who are considered prospective victims of SB1070. While she made some comments in that vein as a hat tip to the liberal wing of the court, the line that may wind up being the most memorable was when Justice Sotomayor told the Solicitor General, “You can see it’s not selling very well. Why don’t you try to come up with something else?”  With Justice Kagan already having recused herself in this case, the Administration is in a position where it has to<i>gain</i> a Justice, not lose one who is naturally sympathetic.

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So what is the common thread in these Supreme Court setbacks for the administration?  Both cases were argued by Solicitor General Donald Verrilli Jr. Verrilli earned a battlefield promotion when former Solicitor General Elena Kagan was tapped by President Obama to be the next Supreme Court Associate Justice.  While nothing that Justice Kagan has done on the bench should make someone question her capacity to perform the job, her former role as Solicitor General makes her duty-bound to recuse herself on certain cases, thus making the court 4-4 at best (from the Administration’s perspective).

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If Justice Kagan were still in the Solicitor’s office, would the Administration see better days during oral arguments?  All of this seems like a harsh filleting of the Solicitor General Verrilli.  It is only natural to suggest that B happens after A, so A must be the cause.  But let us not forget, Mr. Verrilli could not have attained his position by being bad at arguing in court.  Certainly he hasn’t forgotten how to do it.  If Verrilli is reliant upon sympathetic Justices to restate the core arguments he is being tasked to make, could it be the case that he does not have the Administration’s agenda in his heart?  If that is the case, then President Obama may have learned the hard way that there are elements of the Judiciary that are lawyer’s first, politicians second.

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<b>KCBR update:</b> The Chestertown Elks (9-10 minor division) began the Babe Ruth season Thursday with a heartbreaking 5-4 loss to the Millington Big Dogs at Lions Field in Millington.  The Elks tied the game with a two out, two RBI single in the top of the sixth.  The Big Dogs came up in the bottom half of the inning to score the winning run with some good aggressive base running.

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The KCBR All-Star games will be May 19th at WortonPark.  Members of the community should show up and cheer on the players.  A small community’s baseball league is one of its greatest assets.

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If you want Troup’s Corner to publish your scores and synopses,contact the publisher for contact info.

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<b>Hooray For Trees!</b> I recently stopped by Town Hall and picked up a sapling which will one day (hopefully) cover a bare spot of Troup’s yard.  It was easily planted.  All I had to was remove it from its (needle scratch) plastic bag!