Maryland Education Board Blueprint meetings highlights progress, and challenges with implementation
MARYLAND- The Maryland State Board of Education and Blueprint Accountability and Implementation Board, held their public meeting Tuesday, highlighting the increased data and reporting efforts for districts and education groups across the state.
The State Board and AIB will reviewed various priorities related to the implementation of the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future during the meeting.
The priorities included alignment of student achievement goals, providing an update on the statewide Literacy Expert Instructional Support Teams, and establishing an Assessment and Accountability Task Force in addition to next steps for implementation of the recently set College and Career Readiness (CCR) Standard.
Speaking at the hearing the Maryland Family Network touted new resources for tracking needs by county and getting that information to parents and schools.
“The same data that populates locate child care also feeds a set of dynamic child care maps that can be searched by neighborhood, by county, by legislative district, as well as by type of care, Head Start, private child care, and somedays soon pre-K,” said Director Laura Weeldreyer.
Maryland State Teacher Association President Cheryl Boast praised Governor Wes Moore for fully funding blueprint accommodations for this year, but she’s concerned moving forward that won’t be enough for a $60k starting salary for teachers or universal pre-k accommodations across the state.
“We want to make sure it’s funded through 2032 and beyond, and that’s going to take all of us working collaboratively. I’m sad to see some of our local jurisdictions treating the maintenance of effort as a ceiling and not a floor as they’re funding our schools.” Boast said.
That local jurisdiction was Worcester County, where commissioners voted to keep the school’s budget flat with no additional spending.
The Worcester County Teacher Association says they are dead last in the state for teacher pay, and get the least state money, making a 60k starting salary a heavy lift for the district.
WCTA President Beth Shockley Lynch says they are calling for the board to recognize the failures of the funding formula to address their needs.
“The funding formula is older than I am, it doesn’t fairly assess our needs, we have a lot of wealth in Ocean City, but a lot of poverty in the central and middle part, and the funding formula doesn’t take that into account,” she said.
She says at the maintenance of effort they only have two options; raise class sizes or cut staff, which could contribute to an already difficult hiring process.
Shockley Lynch says if the district is unable to hit the 60k figure, the penalty is losing even more funding.
“We would get about $297 per student, right now we have the third highest cost per pupil, That’s a tremendous cut. That’s going to mean I’m going to be down 90 teachers, support staff, bus drivers, so our kids are going to do more with fewer resources and that’s not fair,” Shcokley Lynch said.
