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It's the same old song and dance from the education establishment. Design a ridiculously expensive, cumbersome reform to save public education, the same public education they ruined. Invite politicians, elite college professors, corporate CEO's and other big name policy makers to draft the reform. Sprinkle in a token few "educators" and tell them all to "shoot for the moon" when writing the reform. Pretend that funding is unlimited. Throw in every unproven pet educational program du jour. Then, convince lawmakers that the reform as written is the only way to assure the successful futures of our children.
Never ONCE during the entire process think about nuts and bolts of the reform and whether it will actually work or not. When the reform fails, write articles on how it's not that the reform itself that is flawed, but the "unrealistic goals, insufficient management, and inadequate funding" of the program that are lacking, with strong emphasis on funding being the blame.
And so here Maryland is in year five of the Blueprint for Maryland's Future education leviathan spending bill and local governments and the state are discovering that, surprise, it's not working and it's not sustainable. What do the creators of the bill do?
They shift the blame off the people who created the mess and on to those who need to implement and pay for the mess.
In his article in MARYLAND MATTERS, December 16, 2024, Kalman Hettleman, one of the members of the Kirwan Commission who developed the Blueprint for Maryland's Future, bemoans the fact that the Blueprint has become a huge problem for state and local educators and education agencies as they fight to fund the full implementation.
Hettleman is a renowned "expert in education" and has a resume that includes being a past member of the Maryland Commission on Innovation and Excellence in Education (Kirwan Commission), member of Baltimore City school board, deputy mayor of Baltimore City, Maryland secretary of human resources, and Baltimore City director of social services. He had many other government positions in his career*. He is also the author of two books and numerous articles on public education. He was never a teacher. However, he has written several education books including this one:
From the summary of this book on Amazon:
In this book, Hettleman presents a bold, unconventional plan to rescue our nation's schoolchildren from a failing public education system. The plan reflects the author's rare fusion of on-the-ground experience as school board member, public administrator and political activist and exhaustive policy research. The causes of failure, Hettleman shows, lie in obsolete ideas and false certainties that are ingrained in a trinity of dominant misbeliefs. First, that educators can be entrusted on their own to do what it takes to reform our schools. Second, that we need to retreat from the landmark federal No Child Left Behind Act and restore more local control. And third, that politics must be kept out of public education.
Imagine an education expert who has never been a teacher, who decries local control and believes educators cannot reform the education system. Hey, but he does have "on the ground experience" as a school board member. You'd be surprised what touring schools in announced visits will show you. Sure.
In his recent Maryland Matters article, Hettleman spends the first section of his article lauding the "hard working educators" across the state who have put "their hearts and souls into its (the Blueprint) implementation." He gives "great credit" to the Kirwan Commission that he was a part of. Comes off a bit dramatic and self-serving.
Then he writes about how the Maryland legislature and the Governor are trying to figure out how to change the Blueprint so it is affordable and sustainable.
He states that he "foresaw this crisis" in a 2020 paper that addressed how the Blueprint, the reform he helped design, failed to provide adequate and equitable funding for poor, black and brown children. The paper focused on "funding concerns." In that paper, he leads with a disclaimer that alleviates himself of any responsibility for the Blueprint:
Although I was a member of the Kirwan Commission, I am not sure how all the final pieces of the Blueprint were assembled. There has been, as yet, no final report of the Commission. And the Blueprint legislation is 235 pages with countless technical provisions. There was less transparency than usual when the General Assembly rushed (understandably) to enact the bill in the frantic last days before the session ended early this past March because of the coronavirus. A Revised Fiscal Note issued by the Department of Legislative Services has been helpful, and earlier drafts of this paper have been widely circulated for feedback. Still, there are open questions, and I continue to try get further information. The open questions are noted in the paper. Hopefully, readers will continue to provide feedback.
He sounds like boss of a car company that is being sued because their cars fall apart when driven. "Hey, I ran the company, but I never saw how the cars were assembled." He runs away from the fact that he played a role in designing this failing reform.
Back to the present.
Here is a link to Hettleman's article:
The inconvenient truth about the Blueprint - Maryland Matters
In this article, Hettleman bemoans the fact that local school systems see the Blueprint as "unrealistic and unfunded." He shares that the Maryland Association of Counties and the Public-School Superintendents' Association of Maryland have detailed "serious challenges "of the reform. He describes how the Governor and legislators want to delay the full implementation of the Blueprint. For example, no independent evaluation will be done of Blueprint progress until January 15, 2027. It was supposed to have been done in October 2024.
He dismisses the cries of many Blueprint supporters to "give it more time," by claiming that if we wait longer for the Blueprint to be implemented, "turnover in education leadership and shifting political winds in Annapolis could do more damage to the Blueprint as a whole." In other words, we must implement fully now regardless of the financial problems. He writes, "I am mindful of the formidable budget problems ahead. Nonetheless, leaders in Annapolis have so far not considered revenues, with the exception of the commendable House support last session for additional revenue."
Yes, you read that correctly. We don't need to wait or change the Blueprint, we just need to raise more money for it. How can the State raise money? You know the answer to that. A State with a projected deficit of 2.7 billion has nothing more to give. They have to tax citizens even more than they do now.
From the article, "Leadership must come first and foremost from the governor and legislative leaders. They must acknowledge the truth and mount the bully pulpit to gather public support for the tough political decisions ahead. They must ensure adequate funding; insist on an immediate hard-nosed evaluation of progress and lack of progress; strengthen the Maryland State Department of Education’s authority; and, most of all, fill in the big holes in the Blueprint, most particularly to focus attention on classroom instruction."
In case you didn't know, "tough political decisions" means a huge increase in taxes for us, the taxpayers of the State.
It's also consistent that the man who never liked local control wants to continue down the path of removing local control by "strengthening the Maryland State Department of Education" and telling the appointed Accountability and Implementation Board for the Blueprint that they have failed in their responsibility to tell our elected officials that they MUST increase resources (money) for the reform.
Shall we remind him that NONE of the agencies and people mentioned above are elected by the people of this state? School boards and legislators ARE elected by their communities.
Earlier in the article, Hettleman talks about how an educator told him that Blueprint founders seemed "out of touch with the everyday work of teaching, especially core instruction in reading and math." He actually goes on to prove how true that statement is when he recommends that, "state and local educators must build trust and assure Annapolis and the general public that they are making the best of difficult circumstances – working tirelessly (as they are) and efficiently." As if telling taxpayers that they aren't seeing the problems with the Blueprint that are obvious will encourage them to dig into their already depleted pocketbooks and fund a reform package that is filled with programs and mandates that are neither efficient nor effective.
Here's the bottom line for Mr. Hettleman. I know that haven't held NEARLY the same prestigious offices and positions in the government he has. I haven't written any books. I'm just a retired public-school teacher/educator of over thirty years and a blogger. I'm a parent and grandparent. I'm just someone who talks to teachers about what is going on in schools. I was actually at "ground level" as a teacher and administrator in the public schools.
Here's what else I know.
The Blueprint is one of the most gargantuan educational overreaches ever proposed and implemented in this country. Its mandates lock local districts into hiring practices, staffing decisions, and initiatives that not only cost local education agencies money they cannot afford, but also force schools to provide services they were never meant to provide and end practices that were effective but are no longer affordable because of the Blueprint. It has taken the focus of schools OFF teaching students the academic and content knowledge they need to be successful adults in our society and made them "one stop shopping" for services like medical, dental, nutritional, social engineering, and mental health. It has promoted the implementation of "restorative discipline" which has created a generation of students who are out of control and violent since there are no consequences for bad behavior. It has drained our schools of teachers as they flee to other states where working conditions are better even if the salaries are lower. These are just some of the negative impacts.
Were some of the ideas good? Perhaps. But maybe the answer for this reform is to allow the Blueprint ideas to be implemented in local agencies according to their needs and their budgets. What Baltimore City needs is entirely different from Garrett County's needs. Give locals a "menu" of ideas/reforms they can choose from. Despite Hettleman's distaste for local districts serving their population as they determine, this is the only way educational reform can actually work. One size fits all doesn't work. If he was someone who was a teacher/educator, Hettleman would know that. Try teaching a class of thirty students as if they were identical with identical needs academically. It's disaster.
At the end of his article, Hettleman writes, "But as the years have gone by, the evidence of grave danger to the Blueprint has accumulated. Time is running out. Alarms must be sounded, and the inconvenient truth about the dangers must be told. The future of the Blueprint, and with it the fate of our schoolchildren, urgently cries out for review and revision."
I would agree with the last part of that sentence. The future of our schoolchildren does cry out for review and revision. Review the Blueprint, remove the mandates, reduce the scope, and revise that law so that implementation is up to local districts, not top-down from bureaucrats.
Mr. Hettleman titled his article, " The Inconvenient Truth About the Blueprint." It was an allusion to the infamous Al Gore film about climate change which was created to work people into a frenzy to support the "green" movement scam. The film was filled with "facts" to get people behind the environmental movement that has killed the economy while being grossly ineffective. Hettleman's article is not that extreme, but he does have a problem. He ignores the simple truth about the Blueprint; it is a massive top down, one size fits all, expensive education reform run by bureaucrats that will break public education in Maryland and burden its citizens with more excessive taxes.
Sadly, the Blueprint ignores the most basic and effective reform the State could do. Allow districts, schools, and teachers choose and design programs LOCALLY that focus on academics and true student achievement, not expensive feel-good distractions.
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