Maryland's Governor Also Ignores State Deficit Created By Education Reform Package
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At the Maryland Association of Counties Conference in Cambridge last week, Maryland Governor Wes Moore presented his concerns about the State's Blueprint for Maryland's Future program, a behemoth plan to improve Maryland's public schools, and it's impact on the State budget which is in a 2.7 billion dollar deficit. As usual, the Governor used the wrong lens with which to view the problems and possible solutions to the overspending the Blueprint is causing.
Ever since the Blueprint was enacted, local districts and county governments have decried the overwhelming strain the initiative puts on local budgets. They discuss the fact that local jurisdictions are unable to use their judgement and control to overcome cumbersome state mandates on such issues as teacher pay, teacher assignment, teacher work hours, local distribution of funds, and services provided in schools.
For example, by 2027, all first-year teachers across the state MUST be paid a minimum of $60,000 a year. While many say this is to make sure people are attracted to teaching, they totally disregard that some counties in the state, particularly rural ones, cannot maintain this salary. They also disregard that as the bottom level of salaries in the pay scale goes up, so does every level above that. This means teacher's salaries will go up across the board as will central office and administration. No one in State government talks about how the pay raise will also affect teacher benefits and thus, increased cost to the locals and the State. They also ignore the fact that pay is not the main issue in people leaving the profession. More on that later.
Other mandates that affect local districts and funding are how funds and staff are distributed to schools as well as how money is funneled toward certain services. This forces local systems to forgo previously successful practices and programs to fund state mandates. Successful schools suddenly lose long time teaching staff to less successful schools based mainly on where the teachers fall on the pay scale/experience step. This is due to a state staffing formula created in the Blueprint. Where a school board would normally be able to staff schools appropriately, the State stepped in where they had no business.
All because of an expensive school "reform" that will do very little to make our students more academically successful. In fact, it will stand in the way of reforms that will attract qualified teachers and actually help students learn and achieve.
The State government and the Governor are currently focusing on efforts that are taking school focus away from academics, such as promoting social justice, social engineering, student indoctrination and mental health pseudo-science. Meanwhile teachers desperately seek to find adequate time to teach and prepare lessons with new mandated programs, materials and strategies to successfully teach math, reading, writing, science and history. Many are so discouraged and frustrated they leave the profession. Moore, however, is using the current teacher shortage as an excuse to scale back Blueprint plans to give teachers more collaborative planning, learning and workshop time desperately needed when new programs are adopted.
“This year, I will propose a pause in the implementation of the collaborative time provisions in the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future,” Moore said. “Our goal is to give school districts time — time and space — to recruit and retain enough teachers to make this plan actually work. And while we pause collaborative time, I will also be proposing new short-term grants to schools and districts that want to experiment with collaborative time models to make sure that it works for your own, individual jurisdictions.” So, he will pause the implementation of the collaborative time provisions to save money but will give grants for districts to implement the collaborative time provisions? What?
Currently, the state is experiencing an alarming teacher shortage. 4% of the state’s teacher positions are unfilled, meaning nearly 1,600 classrooms don’t have an experienced educator leading students. (Baltimore Sun, September 12,2024)
In addition, approximately 6,000 educators are teaching under provisional certification and are not fully trained and licensed. ( Baltimore Sun, September 9, 2024)
The Governor's office claims that increasing planning time for teachers will increase the shortage of teachers in the state to 15,000 because there will not be sufficient staff to cover the additional hours needed for teacher planning. If you think this is nonsense, I'm with you.
On this issue, we partially agree with the Baltimore Teachers Union President Diamonte' Brown who said the teacher shortage could be solved by easing teacher workload, working conditions and salary. That's if their definition of "working conditions" means solving the problems of horrific student behavior and lack of administrative backup for teachers.
Governor Moore (and the rest of the Progressives on both sides) have NO idea what is keeping people from going into teaching and what is chasing them out of the profession. He's not the only one who misunderstands the problem. Republican State Senator Mary Beth Carozza doesn't see the real problem either as she stated in a word salad Kamala Harris would envy, “My understanding is that the pause in the teacher collaboration program would give teachers more time in the classroom with their students, and I appreciate the governor’s focus on the teacher shortage.” Huh? Perhaps Senator Carozza missed several points. First, if teachers leave the profession because of extreme work loads, students will have larger classes and fewer teachers to cover them. Also, if teachers cannot plan sufficiently for the classes they teach, time in class will be wasted and learning will be lost.
Moore backs the "Educator Shortage Act" which will provide a $20,000 yearly stipend to eligible student teachers to address the state’s teacher shortage. To qualify for the stipend, students must be enrolled in a teacher preparatory program and commit to work two years in a high-needs school in Maryland. The students must commit to stay in Maryland for at least two years or forfeit the stipend. This helps prospective teachers, but not those who are currently teaching. This type of program was tried in the 70's for Baltimore City, but the results were mixed as many teachers contracted under the program either left the system early or stayed the mandatory two years and then left, thus exacerbating the teacher shortage problem long term. Does the expense of this Act possibly add up to the same expense of giving teachers collaborative planning and workshop time under the Blueprint?
Carozza also said she is looking forward to seeing the "fiscal and classroom implications of the governor’s announcement to pause the teacher collaboration program." Nothing like asking what moving the deck chairs around on the Titanic would do to save the ship.
But this is what happens when people create elaborate ideas to fix a problem.
The conditions that have created the teacher shortage are fairly obvious. Ask any teacher. Better yet, ask any substitute teacher. Both of those groups will tell you very clearly and succinctly what the problems are.
It's not pay. As stated in the article below, the pay for teachers in Maryland is among the top ten in the United States.
Are Maryland Teachers The Lowest Paid In The United States? - The Easton Gazette
Most teachers don't center complaints about their jobs on pay. After all, many teachers view their profession as a "calling," meaning they value the mission of educating young people above the pay level. They also appreciate summers and holidays off. That doesn't mean they wouldn't like better pay. However, their desire to leave the profession often stems from student behavior and lack of parental and administrative support.
What is the solution to the teacher shortage? Perhaps the first and most important solution is to address student violence and behavior in schools. Currently, when a student misbehaves or is violent in a classroom, the teacher is left to manage the problem on their own, often having to remove every other student from a classroom while one student violently has a tantrum that could hurt him/her or classmates. This occurs at all levels from Pre-K to high school. Many teachers say that when they call for administrative backup, the principal/assistant principal is nowhere to be found. When they do show up, they take the kid to their office, give him/her a piece of candy and "stern counseling" without real consequences. Then the kid is sent back to class to disrupt again.
As a former teacher, I can say that the biggest stress teachers face is students who are out of control and know there are no consequences for bad behavior. Something like the bill below could help. Add to that strong discipline for student-on-student violence and schools may get back to their purpose, educating students. And teachers will stay in the profession.
Here's the legislation proposed last year that would protect teachers and staff from violent student acts. It didn't pass in the Maryland Legislature:
This year, two bills have been pre-filed by Delegate Nino Mangione that would protect schools and students from juveniles who are accused of violent crimes. As we have seen in recent years, Child Protective Services will often place these students in a public-school setting without notifying the school system and the school. These bills would keep that from happening by putting accused criminals on virtual instruction or instruction out of the general school population.
Get rid of poor student behavior and violence and you will keep more teachers.
Another measure to help keep teachers would be to allow them to do the job they trained for. Teachers are not trained to be mental health counselors, psychiatrists, gender advisors, or medical doctors. Schools need to focus on the job they were created for, teaching core academic subjects.
If teachers are instructed on the best way to teach the content they have been hired to teach and told to stick to that, then they and students can be successful. That's what most teachers want.
Let the teachers teach academics. Period.
Next, the reliance on student technology in the form of laptops and iPads has to be stopped. More studies are finding that having each student on their own laptop or iPad in class causes more problems than it promotes learning. It also requires the teacher to constantly monitor student technology usage as students are not using the technology to do required research or complete assignments. It's more likely that they are on unapproved websites or playing games. Some schools are removing this technology as well as restricting student cell phone usage during the school day. Others are replacing recent educational fads with time honored practices of memorization of facts, cursive handwriting, phonics, and correct grammar and writing are the foundation of learning.
Moore chooses to ignore the real solutions and turn to virtue signaling instead. The teacher shortage will not be eased by re-arranging tasks completed during a teacher's workday. Putting a pause on this measure in the Blueprint won't put a dent in Blueprint spending.
It won't save the State from the fiscal cliff due to the Blueprint and other out of control spending. As stated in the following article from FOX 45, Budget analyst David Romans says, "We are showing the state only having enough revenue to cover 84% of the expenses that we’re projecting the state to incur. That is the largest gap that we have seen in the last 20 years. It is more significant than the Great Recession. So, this is a significant challenge.” Romans places much of the problem on the expensive Blueprint Reform.
“That jump is driven largely by the Blueprint cost,” he said.
Budget analyst says overspending is pushing Maryland into a fiscal crisis
But, instead of addressing the fundamental flaws in the Blueprint and the major reasons for the teacher shortage, Moore prefers band-aid measures which look and sound great but do virtually nothing to make things better. Even more frightening, his approach for state overspending is also meaningless. He takes with one hand and gives with another.
And, sadly, that seems typical among Progressive Democrats such as Moore.
NOTE: It seems interesting that only the Baltimore Teachers Union had a comment on Moore's plan. MSEA is strangely silent on a "pause" that would impact the working conditions of teachers in the State. Could it be that the Maryland State Education Association would rather support the Governor they put into office rather than tens of thousands of teachers in their membership? Or is ignoring his obvious flaws part of the deal between Moore and the Union?
Teachers should ask their union leadership that question.
Other Articles:
Maryland "De-Professionalizes" Teachers - The Easton Gazette
Maryland Districts Start Year Understaffed - The Easton Gazette
