Statement on Passage of the Excellence in Maryland Public Schools Act
Howard County social studies teacher and Maryland State Education Association President Paul Lemle released the statement below following the passage of the Excellence in Maryland Public Schools Act:
“Educators appreciate the work of legislators to restore more than $2 billion in funding for our students over the next four years amid extremely challenging budget times and a constant stream of engineered chaos from D.C.
“This session has seen dramatic progress restoring the vast majority of the proposed cuts to our schools and ensures that everyone pays their fair share and more sustainably funds our public schools and services.
“While there is a delay to increased funding dedicated for collaborative time implementation, the final bill is a significant improvement over where this conversation began in January. We were able to avoid the near-immediate, outsized cuts to expected funding for students in poverty and multilingual learners, in particular, and we protected the critical expansion of community schools and supports for students in concentrated poverty.
“We must continue to stand together in the face of challenges to our state’s economy and further destabilizing actions from the Trump administration in order to make sure that every student in Maryland has the opportunity to pursue their dreams in their neighborhood public school.”