Blueprint education plan inches forward in Senate, confrontation with House looms
The state's sweeping education reform bill took another painstaking step forward Tuesday, when a second Senate committee give it preliminary OK and rejected a separate House version.
But the 6-2 vote by the Senate Education, Energy and the Environment Committee merely sends the Excellence in Maryland Public Schools Act back to the Senate Budget and Taxation Committee, which needs to agree to the latest changes before sending the bill to the full Senate.
From there, the bill has to go back to the House, which will likely reject the Senate plan before convening a conference committee to iron out the differences between the House and Senate versions of the bill. All with less than two weeks left in the legislative session.
Besides approving Senate Bill 429 Tuesday, the committee also known as Triple-E voted to make the House version conform to the Senate version, rejecting several cuts on collaborative time and per pupil funding first proposed by Gov. Wes Moore (D).
Sen. Mary Washington (D-Baltimore City) abstained because 'there's still more to work do on such an important bill,' she said after the committee meeting that lasted more than two hours.
One major difference the committee approved versus the House version deals with community schools, those schools where at least 75% of the students are eligible for free and reduced-price meals. According to the state Department of Education, about half of the state's schools have that community school designation.
The committee agreed with the governor's proposal to require that all 24 school systems develop countywide Blueprint implementation plans focused strictly on community schools.
The House struck that proposal, noting that local school officials already have to submit plans to the state Department of Education and the Accountability and Implementation Board, as part of the overall Blueprint for Maryland's Future 10-year reform plan. The board began to approve updated Blueprint plans in October.
Tuesday's discussion became a bit animated when it came to instructional coaches.
State Department of Education officials said the state currently has 803 instructional coaches, experienced educators who help administrators, teachers and other 'education professionals' learn how to prepare lesson plans, assess student data and other duties.
The goal is to hire up to 200 additional coaches in a four-year period.
Elise Brown, assistant state superintendent for instructional programs and services, said about 63% of the current coaches work in only five school systems.
'We do not see an equal distribution,' she said.
Alex Reese, chief of staff at the department who attended the meeting to represent State Superintendent Carey Wright, said the average ratio of teachers to coaches is 79 to 1. Reese said three school systems – one in Western Maryland, one on the Eastern Shore and another in Southern Maryland – have no instructional coaches.
'Best practice would be for a coach to coach a maximum of 12 teachers,' he said.
Sen. Katie Fry Hester (D-Howard and Montgomery) asked what's the annual salary for an instructional coach. Reese said the base salary is about $125,000.
Although Fry Hester supports instructional coaches, she said some of that money to seek coaches could be used to hire additional personnel in cybersecurity and other technology for schools.
'We have one person in the entire state of Maryland, at the state level, looking out for cybersecurity for the local schools,' said Fry Hester. But she agreed to withhold an amendment to add additional personnel toward cyber security after committee chair Sen. Brian Feldman (D-Montgomery) said more information was needed.
'We're immediately going to lose 200 teachers,' Fry Hester said. 'We're already short on teachers.'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
New York Times
14 minutes ago
- New York Times
Senate Passes Its First Spending Bills, but Battles Lie Ahead
The Senate on Friday overwhelmingly passed the first of its spending bills for the coming year, with bipartisan approval of measures to fund military construction projects, veterans and agriculture programs and legislative branch agencies. But the broad agreement over the $506 billion package of bills, typically the least controversial of the annual federal spending measures, masked a bitter fight in Congress over how to fund the government past a Sept. 30 shutdown deadline. Senators pushed through the legislation after several intense days of haggling as part of an agreement to allow the chamber to make progress on funding the government before senators leave Washington for a monthlong summer recess. 'We are on the verge of an accomplishment that we have not done since 2018 — and that is pass appropriation bills across the Senate floor prior to the August recess,' Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine and the chairwoman of the Appropriations Committee, said on the floor. Still, debate over the package hinted at the bigger spending challenges that lie ahead. Democrats, furious about the White House's efforts to subvert Congress's power in the purse, are wary of striking spending deals with Republicans when President Trump and his team have signaled they intend to continue ignoring or defying lawmakers' spending dictates, even those enacted into law. And Republicans are fighting among themselves over how closely to hew to the Trump administration's spending targets. The package approved on Friday night would provide $452 billion for veterans programs, $300 billion of it mandatory spending to fund veterans benefits; $19.8 billion for military construction and family housing projects; $27.1 billion for agricultural programs; and $7.1 billion for the operations of Congress and legislative agencies. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
New York Times
14 minutes ago
- New York Times
Appeals Court Allows Trump Order That Ends Union Protections for Federal Workers
A federal appeals court on Friday allowed President Trump to move forward with an order instructing a broad swath of government agencies to end collective bargaining with federal unions. The ruling authorizes a component of Mr. Trump's sweeping effort to assert more control over the federal work force to move forward, for now, while the case plays out in court. It is unclear what immediate effect the ruling will have: The appeals court noted that the affected agencies had been directed to refrain from ending any collective bargaining agreement until 'litigation has concluded,' but also noted that Mr. Trump was now free to follow through with the order at his discretion. Mr. Trump had framed his order stripping workers of labor protections as critical to protect national security. But the plaintiffs — a group of affected unions representing over a million federal workers — argued in a lawsuit that the order was a form of retaliation against those unions that have participated in a barrage of lawsuits opposing Mr. Trump's policies. The unions pointed to statements from the White House justifying the order that said 'certain federal unions have declared war on President Trump's agenda' and that the president 'will not tolerate mass obstruction that jeopardizes his ability to manage agencies with vital national security missions.' But a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, a famously liberal jurisdiction, ruled in Mr. Trump's favor, writing that 'the government has shown that the president would have taken the same action even in the absence' of the union lawsuits. Even if some of the White House's statements 'reflect a degree of retaliatory animus,' they wrote, those statements, taken as a whole, also demonstrate 'the president's focus on national security.' The unions had also argued that the order broadly targeted agencies across the government, some of which had no obvious national security portfolio — including the Department of Health and Human Services and the Environmental Protection Agency — using national security as a pretext to strip the unions of their power. The panel sidestepped that claim, writing in the 15-page ruling that 'we question whether we can take up such arguments, which invite us to assess whether the president's stated reasons for exercising national security authority — clearly conferred to him by statute — were pretextual.' The order, they continued, 'conveys the president's determination that the excluded agencies have primary functions implicating national security.'
25 minutes ago
5 years after Ohio's $60M bribery scandal, critics say more could be done to prevent a repeat
COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Five years after a $60 million bribery scheme funded by FirstEnergy Corp. came to light in Ohio, expert observers say the resulting prosecutions, lawsuits, penalties and legislation haven't led to enough change and accountability to prevent politicians and corporate executives from cutting similar deals in the future. The scheme — whose prospective $2 billion-plus pricetag to consumers makes it the largest infrastructure scandal in U.S. history — surfaced with the stunning arrests of a powerful Republican state lawmaker and four associates on July 21, 2020. That lawmaker, former House Speaker Larry Householder, is serving 20 years in federal prison for masterminding the racketeering operation at the center of the scandal. Jurors agreed with prosecutors that money that changed hands wasn't everyday political giving, but an elaborate secret scheme orchestrated by Householder to elect political allies, become the House speaker, pass a $1 billion nuclear bailout law in House Bill 6 and crush a repeal effort. One of the dark money groups Householder used also pleaded guilty to racketeering. Householder and a former lobbyist have unsuccessfully challenged their convictions. Two of the arrested associates pleaded guilty, and the other died by suicide. Any hope that the convictions would have clarified federal law around 501(c)4 nonprofit 'dark money' groups or prompted new restrictions on those hasn't materialized, said former U.S. Attorney David DeVillers, who led the initial investigation. 'I think it's actually worse than it was before,' he said. 'Nationally, you have both Democrats and Republicans using these, so there's no political will to do anything about it.' Indeed, a study released in May by the Brennan Center for Justice found that dark money unleashed by the 2010 Citizens United decision hit a record high of $1.9 billion in 2024 federal races, nearly double the $1 billion spent in 2020. The vast majority of money from undisclosed donors raised into dark money accounts now goes to super PACs, providing them a way to skirt a requirement that they make their donors public, the study found. DeVillers said one positive result of the scandal is that Ohio lawmakers appear genuinely concerned about avoiding quid pro quos, real or perceived, between them and their political contributors. Anti-corruption legislation perennially introduced by Ohio Democrats since the scandal broke has gone nowhere in the GOP-dominated Legislature. Republican legislative leaders have said it is outside their authority to amend federal campaign finance law. The U.S. Attorney's office declined to discuss the investigation because prosecutions remain ongoing. Two fired FirstEnergy executives have pleaded not guilty on related state and federal charges and await trial. Former Public Utilities Commission of Ohio Chairman Samuel Randazzo, to whom FirstEnergy admitted giving a $4.3 million bribe in exchange for regulatory favors, had faced both federal and state charges. He died by suicide after pleading not guilty. Akron-based FirstEnergy — a $23 billion Fortune 500 company with 6 million customers in five states — admitted using dark money groups to bankroll Householder's ascendance in exchange for passage of the bailout bill. It agreed to pay $230 million and meet other conditions to avoid prosecution, and faced other sanctions, including a $100 million civil penalty by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. But FirstEnergy hasn't yet faced consequences from the state regulator. 'They never actually got penalized by regulators at the PUCO level,' said Ohio Consumers' Counsel Maureen Willis, the lawyer for Ohio utility customers. Testimony in four PUCO proceedings stemming from the scandal finally began last month after the cases were delayed for nearly two years, in part at the request of the Justice Department. They're intended to determine whether FirstEnergy used money for bribes that was meant for grid modernization and whether it improperly comingled money from its different corporate entities. FirstEnergy spokeperson Jennifer Young said it invested $4 billion in grid upgrades in 2024 and plans to spend a total of $28 billion through 2029. Young said FirstEnergy has redesigned its organizational structure, established a dedicated ethics and compliance office, overhauled the company's political activity and lobbying practices and strengthened other corporate governance and oversight practices. 'FirstEnergy is a far different company today than it was five years ago,' she said. The PUCO also made changes in response to the scandal. Chair Jenifer French told state lawmakers that ethics training has been enhanced, staff lawyers and the administrative law judges who hear cases now report to different directors to ensure legal independence, and she never takes a meeting alone. Ashley Brown, a retired executive director of the Harvard Electricity Policy Group who previously served as a PUCO commissioner, said the commission is the only state entity with the power to order FirstEnergy to return tainted cash — including the bribe money — to customers. That largely hasn't happened. He said the Ohio commission had vast power to hold FirstEnergy accountable for its misdeeds but hasn't conducted its own management audit of the energy giant, demanded an overhaul of FirstEnergy's corporate board or pressed for public release of FirstEnergy's own internal investigation of the scandal, whose findings remain a mystery. Shareholders won some accountability measures as part of a $180 million settlement in 2022, but they continue to fight in court for release of the investigation. Willis does, too. 'How do you allow a utility to operate a vast criminal conspiracy within the utility (with) consumer dollars, and you don't even look at what went wrong?' Brown said. PUCO spokesperson Matt Schilling reiterated that the commission's probes are ongoing. He said the panel has vowed to take its proceedings 'wherever the facts lead.' The portion of HB 6 that bailed out two FirstEnergy-affiliated nuclear plants was repealed in 2021, and $26 million was refunded to customers. The scandal investigation revealed that other power distribution companies got a lucrative payout of their own added to the bill in exchange for their buy-in: subsidies for two unprofitable Cold War-era coal plants. It wasn't until April that a law was passed repealing those subsidies. Until that takes effect Aug. 14, the charges cost Ohio ratepayers $445,679 a day — and it's unclear if or when they'll get that money back. A ticker on Willis' website puts the total they've paid at more than $500 million and counting.
