Category: Education
Kirwan education reforms are at high risk of repeating historical disappointments
Oversight of Kirwan’s education reforms is expected to come from an Accountability and Implementation Board, whose responsibilities would include governance and accountability during the board’s limited 10-year life. The board’s design casts significant doubt that $32 billion of additional education spending to implement Kirwan’s goals over the next 10 years will lead to durable and significant improvements to Maryland students’ “College and Career Readiness” by the end of high school.
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What parents need right now: Interrupting the COVID slide
In reviewing Return-to-School plans throughout Maryland — with a specific eye to school districts with significant Black and Brown populations — there appears to be a lack of creativity.
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Maryland’s teachers’ union and associations say distance learning should be the rule for the fall semester
Groups representing Maryland’s teachers urged state officials to make virtual learning uniform for the first half of the 2020-21 school year due to concerns associated with the spread of COVID-19.
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Should students return to the classroom in the fall? Not an easy decision
@BryanRenbaum Legislators, parents, and teachers are struggling with whether students should...
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Former Maryland congressman calls for Prince George’s County to change name of James Ryder Randall Elementary School
@BryanRenbaum Former Maryland Rep. Albert Wynn said he is in favor of changing the name of James...
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Record funding, but legislators want more for schools and search for ways to fund it
State spending on schools is at record levels — as it is every year — but legislators are looking for ways to pay for a package of education reforms that will cost billions more.
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Accountability must be key element in increased money for schools
As battle lines harden over how much reform of public schools in Maryland will cost and who will pay for it, the argument has become just about money, and not the scores of moving parts in a comprehensive proposal that would drastically change education here. Lost in arguing about the billions more the changes will cost state and local taxpayers is the key fifth part of the recommendations from the Kirwan Commission on Innovation and Excellence in Education (p.122). It spells out in detail how a new super oversight board will hold the school systems accountable for how the money is spent.
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Howard school redistricting plan hurts poor students
Howard County superintendent Michael Martirano proposed a school redistricting plan that hurts poor children by removing them from “Title I” schools where federally-funded programs help children from low-income families.
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Md. Inspector General for education: A junkyard dog that can’t bite
In Maryland, compromise provisions of the law “The Blueprint for Maryland’s Future” establishing (among other things) an independent Inspector General (IG) for Education, have created a weak auditing office—a tired, toothless canine. The new IG will be statutorily much weaker than his or her counterparts within the U.S. GAO, federal IG offices, Maryland’s Office of Legislative Audits (OLA), and IGs in the state’s executive-branch agencies.
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Opinion: Bootleggers, Baptists, and Howard’s school redistricting
The prevailing media narrative surrounding redistricting is a Manichean frame pitting social justice advocates fighting for equity (however ill-defined they use the term) against wealthy parents who do not want their children moved out of their community schools. However, there is another framework at play, one that explains the real coalitions and motivations at play: Bootleggers and Baptists, a theory developed by a Clemson University economist.
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Analysis: Moving students around in Howard County is not enough to achieve equity
Children from lower-income families are concentrated in Columbia’s older neighborhoods and the Route 1 corridor because that’s where their parents can afford to live. Achieving equity in education for these students requires the additional resources laid out by the Kirwan Commision on Innovation and Excellence in Education. Simply moving them to higher performing schools, as the superintendent has proposed, is not enough.
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Opinion: In Howard Co., moving students for ‘socioeconomic integration’ makes no sense
Del. Trent Kittleman, R-9A Howard County, the grandmother of six students in Howard County public schools, questions Superintendent Michael Martirano plan to move 7,400 students to relieve overcrowding but also to achieve “socioeconomic integration.” Kittleman says the moves will harm many children.
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