Commitment to Public Schools, Students, and Educators Drives Session Priorities
And other legislative updates in this month’s Up the Street
THIS MONTH IN ANNAPOLIS
2025 Legislative Session Pivotal for Marylanders, Educators, Students
The 2025 legislative session, opening on January 8, will be pivotal for Marylanders, educators, and students. MSEA will look to elected officials to continue to build on the history of commitment to our public schools by the governor and the legislature, in the midst of significant budgetary challenges and potential fiscal ramifications from the presidential election. MSEA’s priorities for this legislative session focus on keeping the commitments to and improving the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future and ensuring we have enough revenue to fund it; attracting and retaining educators as we continue to face staffing shortages; enhancing rights and wages for education support professionals; and improving school safety.
Despite budget challenges, we can and must remain committed to public schools and the services that directly impact our quality of life and economic future. For decades, wealthy corporations have manipulated rules to avoid paying taxes, placing the financial burden for schools, health care, and public safety disproportionately on working Marylanders. The current tax code must finally be reformed to stop giving away millions in business tax breaks that have not shown a benefit to the economy. It’s time to make the wealthiest 1% and big corporations pay their fair share. The state must also give local governments the authority to raise additional revenue while lessening the burden on working people.
Progress reducing the educator shortage must continue. Challenging working conditions and emotional wellness and safety concerns deter veteran and would-be educators, and the shortage negatively affects students and the individualized levels of support that they need and deserve. A commitment to the Blueprint, hiring more behavioral health professionals and support staff, and addressing school safety and climate must continue and expand.
The answer to school safety and climate challenges is not to go back to a punitive, zero-tolerance disciplinary approach that feeds the school-to-prison pipeline. Rather, our state must maintain its commitment to the Blueprint, implementing restorative practices in our schools, enhancing behavioral health services for students, and expanding wraparound support services for students. Public employees need proactive and meaningful professional development and planning to maintain safe working and learning environments free from violence.
Local school systems must ensure student learning environments are free from disruption from electronic devices, such as smart phones and smart watches. The mental well-being of students and their academic success is placed at risk when learning environments are subjected to frequent interference from electronic devices and social conflict that may arise from the use of social media during the school day.
Education support professionals, critical to the Blueprint and key to every school’s supportive environment, must be treated as the valued professionals they are. They are essential to transport students, provide individualized instructional support, maintain safe and healthy facilities, provide clerical and administrative support, prepare nutritious meals, and more. The state must demonstrate support for the ESP Bill of Rights and a living wage and strong voice for ESPs by passing a minimum starting wage and adding a position for an ESP on the State Board of Education.
Given the incoming Trump Administration, Maryland must also step in to protect the people and policies that our union, public schools, and students have depended on. Accordingly, we will support proactive measures to protect our freedoms and our students, including but not limited to preventing destructive mass deportations, ensuring access to health care, including comprehensive reproductive and gender-affirming care, stopping any expansion of voucher programs, protecting our democracy and elections, ensuring that public and private employees have collective bargaining rights, and opposing the massive funding cuts and loss of anti-discrimination protections that would result if the U.S. Department of Education were closed.
NEA Braces for Trump Presidency’s Destruction, Destabilization
A second presidential administration under Donald Trump raises particular concerns for educators and students. Based on his campaign promises, Trump has said that he will empower anti-public education extremists and weaken federal protections for students and educators. He has threatened to expand vouchers, support private schools, and cancel Title IX protections for LGBTQ students. In his first administration, he censored curriculum that he deemed “divisive,” and in the 2024 campaign, he recommended cutting off funds to schools that promote “critical race theory” and “other inappropriate racial, sexual, or political content.”
With a stated intention to abolish the Education Department, Trump has nominated Linda McMahon to be his secretary of education. McMahon, former CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment with no practical education experience, has chaired the America First Policy Institute, which has pushed for an extreme agenda that would defund public schools and privatize public schools through voucher schemes. National Education Association President Becky Pringle described McMahon as “DeVos 2.0,” a worse version of Trump’s first education secretary, Betsy DeVos.
“By selecting Linda McMahon, Donald Trump is showing that he could not care less about our students’ futures,” Pringle said. “Rather than working to strengthen public schools, expand learning opportunities for students, and support educators, McMahon’s only mission is to eliminate the Department of Education and take away taxpayer dollars from public schools, where 90% of students—and 95% of students with disabilities—learn, and give them to unaccountable and discriminatory private schools.”
Regardless of these federal developments, public education is the bedrock of our communities and our democracy, and we will continue to demand respect for educators, our freedom to teach, and to ensure that our students continue to have opportunities to pursue their dreams.
CAMPAIGN 2024
Aided by Educators, Historic Maryland Election Empowers Pro-Public Education Leaders
MSEA members played a pivotal role in the history that was made on Election Day when Marylanders elected Prince George’s County Executive Angela Alsobrooks (D) to become the first Black woman and second woman to represent the state in the U.S. Senate. Hundreds of MSEA members and allies knocked on doors throughout Maryland, called and sent postcards to voters, and handed out Apple Ballots at polling locations to support Alsobrooks and other successful candidates for Congress, school boards, and county offices.
Educator-recommended candidates won in more than 70% of Maryland races where educators supported a candidate. In addition to running the table at the Senate and Congressional levels, educator-recommended school board candidates had very strong results in counties across the political spectrum, and the endorsement of educators remains the most powerful in the state when it comes to board of education races.
Educator-recommended candidates swept their races in Cecil, Howard, Montgomery, Prince George’s, St. Mary’s, and Worcester counties and won six out of seven races in Anne Arundel County. Those and other victories elected pro-public education champions (and in some cases educators!) and prevented extremist candidates from being able to use boards of education as platforms to promote racism, book bans, and anti-LGBTQ policies that threaten students and educators alike.
Alsobrooks’ victory against former Governor Larry Hogan (R) prevents him from widening President-Elect Trump’s path to enacting policies that will negatively impact our freedoms and our students. In the U.S. House contests, candidates that educators supported swept their open races: Sarah Elfreth (D-3rd), April McClain Delaney (D-6th), and former teacher and MSEA member Johnny Olszewski (D-2nd).
MSEA also supported the constitutional right to reproductive healthcare described in Question 1 on the ballot. It passed with 75% support, to constitutionally guarantee “every person…the fundamental right to reproductive freedom.” The election results reaffirmed the power of educator voice to strengthen supports for students, educators, schools, and racial and social justice.
Nationally, it is worth noting how unpopular private school vouchers remain, with voters in Colorado, Kentucky, and Nebraska rejecting ballot measures that would have allowed private schools to siphon taxpayer funds from public schools. In an environment where proposed federal cuts to public school funding seem overwhelmingly likely, it’s all the more important to reaffirm our commitment to public schools and make sure their funding is not redirected to private schools.
NEWS AND NOTES
MSEA Advises State Board to Define Working Time to Encourage Educators
Before a vote Tuesday by the State Board of Education (SBOE), teacher representative Rachel McCusker and MSEA President Paul Lemle explained the dangers of MSDE’s proposed change to the definition of working time that the SBOE ultimately rejected. The proposed change would have immediately undercut the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future’s ability to retain and develop high quality educators. “Teachers would say…we’re starting to cut corners, and you’re cutting those corners on my back again,” McCusker said about the proposed change.
The Blueprint’s career ladder concept calls for teachers to advance in their profession and gradually spend less time in the classroom and more time for collaborative teamwork to improve teaching and learning. Wright’s proposed definition of working time was “the teacher’s total contractual working time, in hours, in a contractual year,” which would have reduced the collaborative time possible in the law’s original definition, which was retained: “the teacher’s total contractual working time during the student day, in hours in a student year as defined by each district.” Before the 5-5-3 vote defeating the motion, the SBOE recognized the challenge is to reduce the educator shortage and make the investment required to meet the career ladder standards.
Board Gets Annual Report Card Data, Discusses Better Assessment Process
The Maryland State Department of Education (MSDE) released the annual assessment of schools, the state report card, during Tuesday’s SBOE meeting, and the SBOE also accepted a task force’s recommendations to improve the annual assessments. As it stands, the report card, which assigns star ratings to schools based on several data points, imprecisely takes a snapshot of student and school performance and makes a broad generalization that does not always provide actionable information or do justice to the school, students or educators. Accepting the task force report on assessment design recommendations, the SBOE did not take action on any recommendations themselves, but Board President Joshua Michael said they will use the recommendations as they develop and administer policy and legislation. MSEA will always advocate for a well-rounded system that does not place an overwhelming emphasis on the mandated standardized tests that narrow curriculum and learning opportunities for students while providing imperfect measures of who they are as students.
AIB Awaits Resubmissions to Approve Final Seven District Implementation Plans
Seven of Maryland’s 24 school districts need to provide further details, either about their career ladders or career counseling, in order to have their Blueprint for Maryland’s Future implementation plans approved by the Blueprint’s Accountability and Implementation Board (AIB). The seven have time to resolve outstanding issues before the AIB fulfills a statutory obligation to withhold a portion of Blueprint funds from districts without approved plans. The AIB approved an additional 15 plans on November 21, bringing the total of approved plans to 17. Pending their plans’ approval, Anne Arundel County, Baltimore City, Baltimore County, Howard County, Montgomery County, Prince George’s County, and Talbot County were to receive a warning on December 1 that 25% of new Blueprint funding may be withheld for this fiscal year. At their December 21 meeting, the AIB will consider resubmitted plans that arrive by December 11. The AIB will not vote to withhold 2025 funds before February.
Revenues from October Sports Betting, Casinos Deliver $56 Million to Education
In October, sports betting set a record, generating more than $593 million. From that, $7 million went to the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future Fund, the third largest monthly total. The contribution was 21.3% higher than October a year ago. Since July, sports betting has raised $28.3 million for the Blueprint fund, nearly double the $14.9 million raised in the first four months of last fiscal year. Casino gambling revenues in October generated $49.4 million for the Education Trust Fund, a 2% increase compared to October a year ago.