Three BIG ways to strengthen the Blueprint

Marylanders should be proud of the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future. But if it is to achieve equal educational opportunity for all our schoolchildren, its design must be strengthened.

At the past session of the General Assembly about $580 million was added to Blueprint funding. A lot of money to be sure, but these funds did not add one penny to the funding that the Blueprint already promised. Alarming funding gaps remain, as I’ll explain later.

Regular readers will spot views in this column that I’ve previously expressed on the Blueprint. I have praised its remarkable breadth and boldness. It’s a national model.

But I have also gone against the grain of political praise to reveal severe flaws. In sum, the Blueprint is unlikely to succeed as promised because of the mismatch between heavenly ambitions and hellish complexity.

There are hundreds of trouble spots, large and small, across the state and each of the Blueprint pillars. I won’t pretend to be expert in all, and even if I were, reappraisal must cut to the underlying core problems.

Some signs augur well. Most of all, a revitalized State Board of Education and new state superintendent Carey Wright are building collaborative relationships and trust with local school systems. And local educators are responding with great commitment and hard work. .

Now, to seize the moment, there are three BIG pivotal steps to be taken.

One, state officials must confront the shortcomings in the Blueprint’s original design.

From the start, the Blueprint expected too much progress with too little money. Cost estimates of adequate funding were largely abandoned early in the deliberations of the Kirwan Commission (on which I served). Annapolis politics was behind this; also, the leading consultant to the commission thought Maryland could copy, at little additional cost, the systems of high-performing countries internationally. Ignored were vast differences in culture, demography and social welfare supports.

At the same time, the grand design failed to realistically factor in the incredible difficulty in implementing statewide transformation, especially in a state like Maryland accustomed to strong local control.

Two, the role of the Blueprint Accountability and Implementation Board must be re-tooled

The AIB was unprecedented in the U.S. It also was strongly opposed by the Maryland State Department of Education and politically influential local school boards. And no wonder: it unequivocally stripped away most of their authority. Still, it became law because legislators were furious over MSDE’s aloofness and poor management over many years.

While I voted for it, I have cautioned that the AIB is saddled with too many tasks that duplicate or overreach into the work of MSDE. Politics aside, its mission is impossible given that AIB was funded for a staff of about 15 compared to the 1,000 plus-specialized positions in MSDE.

Nonetheless, AIB has admirably done as well as possible. Its smart and transparent work has kept the Blueprint from being stuck in the mud altogether while MSDE got itself going.

MSDE’s turnaround didn’t begin until about six months ago. Until then, the relationships among AIB, MSDE and local agencies were a mess. That has changed dramatically. Then interim and now permanent superintendent Wright began to change the culture and strengthen the capacity of MSDE.

With MSDE now on solid footing, the time is ripe to reframe AIB’s responsibilities. The AIB should get out of the business of being so deeply involved in the management of local districts. Instead, it should prioritize oversight, analyses and evaluation.

It should hold MSDE accountable for supporting and monitoring local districts. It also means AIB must have the political gumption to hold the governor and General Assembly accountable for the Blueprint design and resources. AIB must especially put teeth in its annual reports that analyze implementation, including whether funding is adequate.

Three, the governor and General Assembly must show the way

Most Marylanders support the Blueprint in principle without knowing its shortcomings. The public must be made aware that urgent political action is required to bolster the Blueprint. That’s the job of the governor and General Assembly .They must mount the bully pulpit and build public support for the long and hard road ahead.

Maryland has not had out-front political leadership in education reform like Mississippi and Tennessee these days and, before that, “education governors” like Bill Clinton in Arkansas and George W. Bush in Texas. The Blueprint resulted from a mandate in the 2002 Bridge to Excellence Act, not an Annapolis initiative.

It’s true that the Gov. Wes Moore (D) and the legislature increased Blueprint funding by $580 million in the past session. Not small change, but still a fraction of the necessary funding. And it was one-time money that the state was already legally obligated to pay through 2033. The vow in Annapolis to “fully fund” the Blueprint will not fill funding holes in the original design, much less address COVID learning losses.

Consider: The Blueprint — while adding more funding for commendable new programs – provided almost no additional funding for school essentials like class size, interventions for struggling learners, and pupil support staff. Also, local governments claim that local share funding obligations are too large to be absorbed. These are among the reasons that the American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland, in a lawsuit, alleges that the Blueprint violates the state constitutional mandate for adequate funding.

To be sure, fiscal shortfalls in coming years stare Annapolis in the face. Still, if the governor and General Assembly don’t want to renege on the promises of the Blueprint, more revenue — even more than in the laudatory House of Delegates package in the past session — must be raised.

The General Assembly must also take a close look how it can strengthen its oversight, now fragmented among two Senate committees and two House committees. As hardworking and dedicated as the committees (and legislative staff) are, they simply have too much to do. Hearings on the Blueprint, by and large, have been a mile wide and an inch deep. A single joint committee of the Senate and House is necessary for the deep and complex oversight that is essential.

Together, these three BIG steps can enable the Blueprint to live up to its promises and truly fulfill the legal and moral right of every Maryland schoolchild to a quality education.

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