Strong Pushback to Funding Cuts for Community Schools, Support for Students
And other legislative updates in this week’s Up the Street
THIS WEEK IN ANNAPOLIS
School Funding Defended in Hearings on Excellence in Maryland Public Schools Act
On Wednesday, a packed room of educators, students, parents, superintendents, school board members, and members of the public implored delegates and senators of four legislative committees to protect school funding, particularly for community schools, students in poverty, and multilingual learners as scheduled in the Blueprint. In a rare hearing of four committees, lasting more than four hours, witnesses sought amendments to the K-12 funding proposed by the governor in the Excellence in Maryland Public Schools Act, Senate Bill 429/House Bill 504.
MSEA suggested substantial deletions and amendments to protect funding for the critical Blueprint programs that support at-promise students: those who use special education, come from backgrounds in poverty, or are multilingual learners. MSEA supports the aspects of the legislation that shore up the educator pipeline and address staffing shortages, such as by strengthening the statewide Grow Your Own (GYO) educator program with $33 million per year to support aspiring educators from the ranks of education support professionals. MSEA also supports including Maryland in the Interstate Teacher Mobility Compact and establishing relocation stipends for educators who move to Maryland. Joining the compact is an opportunity to make teaching more accessible for committed, certified educators who may be considering a move to Maryland and helps address the state’s educator shortage.
MSEA amendments include improvements to the GYO proposals, removing a two-year freeze to community school expansion, and, if a delay to collaborative time expansion occurs, preventing the double-cut impact it would have to the scheduled funding levels for at-promise students. Superintendents from 12 districts testified against the legislation for those reasons, and rejected the suggestion that increasing support for at-promise students could wait. They upheld the successes that community schools and direct supports for at-promise students has already achieved.
“We all need to understand both the policy and budget implications. And we need to be clear-eyed in recognizing that passing this bill as written would lead to deep and counter-productive budget cuts to expected funding levels for our most vulnerable students,” wrote MSEA President Paul Lemle in his testimony.
Isiah “Ike” Leggett, chairman of the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future Accountability and Implementation Board (AIB), the body empowered to oversee the Blueprint’s implementation, told lawmakers that AIB members intended to vote to take a position to hold harmless the scheduled funding increases for at-promise students that would be cut by the collaborative time delay, and also take a position to oppose the community schools freeze. The AIB unanimously voted accordingly at their meeting on Thursday. “We cannot—we cannot—afford at this juncture to make adjustments that will have collateral and unintended consequences that result in funding less than what is called for in the Blueprint for community schools and our at-promise students,” Leggett reiterated during the AIB meeting on Thursday.
Committees working on the bill are the Senate Budget and Taxation and Education, Energy, and the Environment and House Appropriations, and Ways and Means. They heard overwhelming objection to the funding cuts and delays proposed in the administration’s bill. Appropriations Committee Chair Ben Barnes (D-Prince George’s and Anne Arundel) offered no defense of the bill after Kent County Schools Superintendent Mary McComas criticized lawmakers for the legislation. “Just to be clear,” Barnes said, “this is not the legislature’s bill.”
Gov. Moore’s Chief of Staff Fagan Harris, Special Secretary of the Governor’s Office for Children Carmel Martin, and Deputy Legislative Officer Mike Thomas defended the bill. Ways and Means Chair Vanessa Atterbeary (D-Howard) challenged justifications for the legislation, which amounts to what she called an unacceptable cut.
Budget and Taxation Chair Senator Guy Guzzone (D-Howard), Atterbeary, and Barnes signaled the bill would be amended. “As it relates to poverty components, I will not be supporting cutting anything in that area,” Guzzone said. Guzzone’s comment recalled a statement by Senate President Bill Ferguson (D-Baltimore) earlier in the week that freezing community school funding was a “non-starter” in the Senate. “The bill will look different coming out,” Atterbeary said. “We are keeping our commitments to our students.”
The feeling in the hearing reflected a recent Washington Post poll, which found a majority of Marylanders oppose freezing funding for schools that have the highest percentage of students coming from backgrounds of poverty. Advocacy continues to be critical to protect that funding. It only takes a minute to email your legislators and Gov. Moore; tell them to work to prevent deep cuts to our schools and to support the governor’s fair tax reform plan, which will raise much-needed revenue.
MSEA’s Fund Maryland’s Future Day of Action in Annapolis on February 24 presents an engaging opportunity in person in Annapolis for educators to raise their voices for responsible K-12 funding choices. Click here for more details and to RSVP.
NEWS AND NOTES
Green Bag List of Nominees Includes Former PGCEA Executive Director
Last Friday as per tradition, names of nominees to state boards and commissions were delivered to the Senate in a green leather pouch by Appointments Secretary Tisha Edwards. Among the governor’s recommendations for people he wants to include in the work to improve Maryland’s quality of life is Jennifer Epps for the Public Employee Relations Board. Epps, a former executive director of the Prince George’s County Educators’ Association, will serve on the PERB, which MSEA advocated for last year to create one unified efficient labor relations board. It was created to serve the government, higher education, and public education sectors that had been served by three separate boards that lacked efficiency, consistency, and transparency.
The Senate will now consider the nominations of Epps and others submitted last week.
State Board Accepts Feedback on Draft Pre-K-12 Mathematics Policy
A pre-k mathematics policy is in development, and public comment is invited before the Maryland State Board of Education (SBOE) adopts it. The policy proposed by the Maryland State Department of Education (MSDE) should include educator recommendations if it is to implement a structured math program that develops students’ understanding and fluency in math concepts and skills.
The revised policy is available for review and open for written feedback on the MSDE website.
On Tuesday during the regular State Board monthly meeting the SBOE will hold a public hearing on the draft policy. At 3:30 p.m. the SBOE will receive comments from up to 20 members of the public, and a virtual option is also available for testimony. Sign up to comment here. Following the public hearing, the mathematics policy will return to the State Board’s Education Policy Committee on March 13 with a summary of public comment received for further consideration.
Trump Administration Drains Support for Educator Training, Civil Rights Enforcement
Civil rights enforcement and grants to support aspiring educators are among casualties of the Trump Administration’s latest attacks on programs that promote diversity, equity, and inclusion. Pre-k-12 schools were given until February 28 to comply with a U.S. Department of Education (USDE) Office for Civil Rights requirement to eliminate what the administration calls race-based practices for admissions, hiring, and other programming. The effect of the directive is still being determined.
Amid a nationwide educator shortage, USDE also has inexplicably eliminated grants supporting partnerships among districts, universities, and aspiring educators to expand recruitment and training opportunities. Among the cuts are the Teacher Quality Partnerships program and the Supporting Effective Educator Development, or SEED grants. The federal actions make all the more urgent support for states to take meaningful and sustained actions to support educator recruitment and retention.