The Senate passed Governor Moore’s Blueprint “pause” bill after undoing some of the major changes previously passed by the House, restoring much of the administration’s original plan. With the State’s largest fiscal decisions still pending, the Governor’s “Excellence in Maryland Public Schools Act,” HB 504 / SB 429 will now be decided in a deliberation between education leadership in the House and Senate to reconcile the differences.
The Senate, this week, worked through the major components of the Governor’s proposal to adjust various elements of education policy and funding in Maryland. The Senate Budget and Tax as well as Education, Energy, and Environment Committee took a conservative approach that aligned more closely with the Governor’s original plan in contrast to the House version, which was covered previously on Conduit Street.
For reference, the two most complete documents to see the bill’s current contents are:
House Third Reader – this version incorporates the House plan, no “pause” in funding but a one year delay in the “collaborative time” operational mandate
Senate Amendments – these Senate-adopted changes restore the “pause” on collaborative time, but protect targeted funding programs from being affected
The Senate accepted the Governor’s original provision to pause a program called “collaborative time” for four years. According to representatives of the Governor’s office the pause would represent a savings of more than $700M for the State over the next four years. They did however reject some of the other savings measures such as a provision that would have flat funded community schools for two years. This proposal was rejected by both the House and Senate. Additionally, the Senate added measures to hold harmless required investments for multi-lingual learners and compensatory education, to preserve funding for various at-risk communities. Special education had already been preserved in the Governor’s bill as introduced, and that provision is retained in the Senate amendments.
Due to potential savings in the Senate and Governor’s versions of the bill, both attempt to reinvest some of those funds into programs intended to bolster recruitment, retention, and professional development for teachers. Some of those initiatives include:
- $170M to the Academic Excellence Program
- $4M for the Teacher Relocation Grant Program
- $19M for the Grow Your Own Program
- $2M for a National Teacher Recruitment Campaign
With two very different versions of the Governor’s bill still in consideration, the House of Delegates and the Senate will (presumably) go to a conference committee to work through some of the differences and decide what changes will ultimately cross the finish line by Monday night.
