When Maryland public schools welcome nearly 890,000 students back to classes in the coming days, it will also be the beginning of year three of the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future, the state’s sweeping education reform plan.

But the plan’s future is suddenly up in the air, as state and local lawmakers are raising new concerns about its costs in a time of budget uncertainty.

That was highlighted last weekend, when Gov. Wes Moore (D) told a gathering of county leaders the plan may need to be refined due to pending fiscal challenges. Moore said he supports the goals of the Blueprint but the challenge now is “to address our fiscal challenges … and right now, everything is on the table.”

But Paul Lemle hopes the state stays the course.

“It’s a once-in-a-generation investment in our students and our educators. So, it makes no sense that people would say it’s not a good thing, or blame it for some other problem,” said Lemle, a Howard County  high school social studies teacher who began a three-year term this month as president of the Maryland State Education Association.

“The bad part of it is when you hear local elected officials saying, ‘Our budgets are tighter. We can’t afford it.’ That’s wrong,” Lemle said Monday, while in Chicago for the Democratic National Convention. “It’s a really short-sighted perspective because the Blueprint is doing exactly what it is intended to do – improve educator salaries, put more people into the profession, hire more of them.”

The Blueprint law passed in 2020, but was vetoed by then-Gov. Larry Hogan (R). The General Assembly overrode his veto in 2021, but implementation was pushed back a year because of COVID-19 school closures.

The education plan is based on five priorities, or pillars: hiring and retaining high-quality and diverse teachers, early childhood education, providing additional resources for students in need, preparing students for college and technical careers, and governance and accountability.

Some aspects of the Blueprint have already been implemented, such as an increase in prekindergarten enrollment and more high school students able to take local college courses for free, a plan known as dual enrollment.

But local school officials for months have outlined challenges in implementing the Blueprint, such as funding, diversifying teacher workforce and the need for more flexibility from the state to continue implementing the 10-year plan.

And county government leaders joined in last week at the Maryland Association of Counties conference, where high costs and inflexibility of the plan were mentioned frequently.

“Between state revenues, between fund balances getting lower, it’s going to be more and more cataclysmic without course corrections on the way,” Dorchester County Councilman Michael Detmer (R) said during a Saturday session. He said he is skeptical the Blueprint’s supporters will readily agree to changes.

Del. Jefferson Ghrist (R-Upper Shore) moderates a panel Aug. 15 at the Maryland Association of Counties summer conference in Ocean City. Photo by William J. Ford.

A Thursday session on the Blueprint’s early childhood pillar – which includes a requirement that school districts provide a mixed-delivery system to serve students in both public schools and private child care centers – brought a plea for flexibility.

“No matter what the issue is, one size never fits all and pre-k is a great example of that,” said Del. Jefferson Ghrist (R-Upper Shore), who moderated the discussion. Ghrist voted against the Blueprint three years ago, but said he does support the early childhood part of the plan.

Better collaboration

Erin Doolittle, a prekindergarten teacher at Hillcrest Elementary in Frederick County, agrees that one size doesn’t fit all. But she said that she likes what she’s seen of the Blueprint so far.

Doolittle said the Blueprint has provided additional support for her school, where she’s entering her 21st year teaching, like the requirement to have a coordinator in schools designated as community schools. For her school, the coordinator organized a weekly afternoon gathering with families this summer at a local park, where children read books, practiced the alphabet and did other activities. Doolittle said parents could also receive information about transit services in the county.

Hillcrest serves as a community school that partners with local organizations to help teachers as well as parents and students’ families. Last school year, Doolittle said at least 75% of her 20 students spoke English as a second language at home.

As Doolittle prepared her classroom Monday for classes that began Wednesday, there were colorful phrases in English and Spanish posted around the room, such as “Nadie es como tú y ese es tu poder” – or “No one is like you and that is your power” in English.

“I think with the community schools coordinator, we’re being intentional about how we’re integrating the community and helping the community, rather than just kind of throwing things out there and hoping something helps,” she said. “We’ve always served as a community school, but the Blueprint has improved collaboration tremendously.”

In Doolittle’s room, she has several stations for reading, art and a carpet for morning meetings next to a full-size touchscreen board. Besides recognizing letters and numbers, social skills are a key component in prekindergarten, like learning to ask for help, being able to work with others and showing patience while waiting for a teacher to acknowledge them.

Since children are 3 and 4 years old, they take daily naps, or rest time, for about an hour. The goal is to get that down to about 40 minutes near the end of the school year, Doolittle said, so students’ bodies and minds are able to handle kindergarten.

“I think pre-k is kind of this very nebulous thing. What we’re doing is very, very different,” Doolittle said. “They’re singing and dancing and learning. There’s a lot going on, but it’s fun.”

Doolittle’s advice for state lawmakers and other officials to improve the Blueprint: “Just come and visit the classroom. See what’s going on. Then you’ll see how it really works.”

‘Still learning the Blueprint’

Unlike Doolittle, Michelle Early, calls herself “a career changer.” She worked in nonprofit management, retail management and for one year at a bank before settling on teaching. She is beginning her fourth year this week as a business teacher at Frederick County’s Walkersville High School.

Michelle Early, a business teacher at Walkersville High School in Frederick County, talks about students who can write their names on the cabinets just before they graduate. Photo by William J. Ford.

“I’m still learning the Blueprint,” she said Tuesday in her classroom, where she was getting ready for the start of classes Wednesday.

But Early, who teaches students in grades nine through 12, said the Blueprint has given her students more opportunities for college and career readiness. For those who may not want to enroll in free community college courses, Early said the school offers field trips to visit local businesses. Students can also get certified in a particular industry and get a job prior or after high school graduation.

“I see the excitement level on those students faces,” Early said. “Some aren’t or don’t want to go to college, but having another option for them makes all the difference.”

One part of the law she appreciates is increasing teacher starting salaries to $60,000 by July 2026. Early said she’s fortunate to work down the street from her school, but knows of other teachers who work in the county and live in Washington County or even Pennsylvania, because they cannot afford to live in Frederick County.

“Our wages are not enough. We go beyond the 35-to-40-hour work week,” she said. “This is beneficial for educators.”

One aspect of the Blueprint she’s still trying to grasp encourages teachers to earn national board certification, which recognizes them as “accomplished,” or experts in a certain area.

Every school district in the state has at least one teacher with that designation. But the state Department of Education said in a teacher workforce report in May that slightly more than 1,200, or 74%, of Maryland teachers designated as National Board Certified were concentrated in Anne Arundel, Howard, Montgomery and Prince George’s counties.

Wright: There must be ‘a conscious effort’ to grow, diversify Maryland’s teacher workforce

The report notes more than 3,000 teachers during the previous school year of 2023-24 registered to receive “fee support” to pursue the certification. Once certified, teachers are eligible for a $10,000 raise, with an additional $7,000 for those who teach at an “identified low-performing school.”

Early thinks educators who pursue continuing education should be rewarded just the same as those who seek national board certification.

“As a teacher, I can see the importance of national board certification. Michelle, the person, I don’t see that a national board certification should be more important than someone who works at [earning] a doctorate,” she said. “Shouldn’t we as educators compensate that person in an equitable manner for having achieved that doctoral status, just as we are compensating someone who’s doing national board certification?”

Lemle, the teacher’s union president, said national board certification for a teacher improves the quality of instruction in the classroom by providing teachers with “incentives to stay in the classroom instead of … becoming administrators or leaving a classroom for other positions.”

“That’s why it’s money so well spent for our kids because we’re improving teacher quality and keeping them [teachers] in the classroom,” he said.

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Maryland Matters is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Maryland Matters maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Steve Crane for questions: [email protected]. Follow Maryland Matters on Facebook and X.

Maryland is counting on private child care providers to take part as the state expands its pre-K program — but many providers don’t plan on becoming involved.

In a survey of the state’s childcare providers conducted this spring by the Local News Network, only 12.9% of respondents said they plan to or were already involved in the pre-K program created under the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future, the state’s expansive education reform plan.

More than a third of the 256 respondents said they were unsure whether they will participate in the pre-K expansion — and nearly 40% said they would not participate.

Under the 10-year Blueprint for Maryland’s Future, the pre-K expansion plan aims to expand pre-K enrollment to all 4-year-olds and all lower-income 3-year-olds through a “mixed delivery system” involving both public schools and private child care operations.

However, many childcare providers who responded to the survey said they are reluctant to take part in the program. Some said they would have trouble finding staff for a pre-K operation. Others said they didn’t want to get the additional education required to qualify for the program. Still, others said they didn’t want the Maryland State Department of Education to be more involved in their businesses than it already is.

Patti Smith, the director of Greenway Learning Center in Greenbelt, said she’s concerned that developmental differences between 3- and 4-year-olds would make managing a pre-K program difficult.

Asked if she would take part in the pre-K expansion, Smith said: “It’s more ‘no’ than ‘maybe,’ just for the first year because I want to see what other providers do. And I don’t have faith in MSDE. You know, I don’t think they have all the answers — so I’m not ready to be that guinea pig.”

The mixed delivery system

The Blueprint for Maryland’s Future, which the General Assembly passed in 2021, calls for widespread changes throughout the state’s public schools.

One of the most wide-ranging changes is a vast expansion of early childhood education. The plan calls for state-funded pre-K to be available to all low-income 4-year-olds by the 2025-26 fiscal year. Pre-K will be free to all 3- and 4-year-olds from families that earn up to 300% of the federal poverty level. A sliding scale will determine how much families with incomes between 300% and 600% of the federal poverty level will pay for pre-K, while higher-income families will pay in full.

“This is another step in the right direction to ensure pre-kindergarten programs continue to grow and create more opportunities for our children and families, especially those who have been historically underserved,” Clarence Crawford, then-president of the Maryland State Board of Education, said in 2023.

While 40% of the state’s eligible youngsters were enrolled in pre-K in the 2022-23 school year, the Blueprint aims to double that percentage in a decade. Given that 30,718 young Marylanders were enrolled in pre-K in 2022-23, the change means tens of thousands of additional children would be enrolled in pre-K in the coming years.

State officials have set a goal of having private providers fill half the state’s pre-K slots by the 2026-27 school year.

“And part of the reason for that is … there is not enough space in the public schools to actually provide all those slots for pre-K,” said Rachel Hise, the executive director of the Blueprint’s Accountability and Implementation Board, at a conference of school principals late last year.

Hise acknowledged, though, that the mixed-delivery effort faces some major challenges, including one that haunts the state’s entire child care system.

“The pandemic really drove a number of child care providers out of business,” she said.

A widespread reluctance

On top of a statewide shortage of child care providers, education officials face another significant challenge in creating that mixed delivery system. The Local News Network survey this spring found many of the remaining child care providers are either reluctant to participate in the pre-K expansion or are refusing to take part.

Several child care providers said joining the pre-K program would make a hard job even more difficult.

Blueprint blues: Local leaders cite school reform plan’s progress, problems

“I’m overwhelmed with the day-to-day operational issues,” such as staff turnover and increased operating costs, said Dana Miller of Little Smiling Faces Childcare in Mitchellville. “Having to find a qualified (pre-K) teacher would just add more issues.”

Under the Blueprint, by the 2025-26 school year, pre-K teachers will have to be state-certified in early childhood education or have a bachelor’s degree and be taking part in an alternative educators training program. Pre-K teaching assistants will be required to have an associate’s degree, whereas now they only need a high school diploma.

Those requirements automatically block some child care providers from offering pre-K.

“It’s my understanding that you have to have a bachelor’s to participate, and I do not,” said Danielle Zulauf, owner of Tiny Trailblazers Daycare in Preston.

Michele Stritch, owner and operator of Michele Stritch Family Child Care in Dundalk, said in response to the survey that she is reluctant to participate in the pre-K because she doesn’t know what it entails. She also noted her center faces financial challenges and concerns about state regulations.

“I am inclined to not participate because I do not want the state being even more involved in how I run my business,” Stritch said.

On top of all those issues, state education planners face one more challenge: The LNN survey showed the percentage of child care providers who want to take part in the pre-K program — 12.9% — is exactly the same as the percentage of those who had never heard of it.

“I would love to participate but have never heard of the program,” said Charnetta Bailey, owner and operator of Children Learning Wonders in Ellicott City.

A publicity push?

Told about the survey results, Maryland Department of Education spokesperson Raven Hill indicated better publicity is the key to making sure more child care providers decide to offer pre-K.

“MSDE continues to invite private providers to participate in Push to Pre-K webinars to increase awareness of publicly funded Pre-K and provide accurate information and support regarding Pre-K grant opportunities and requirements,” Hill said in a written response to questions.

“MSDE will continue to encourage local education agencies to engage private providers in their areas about pre-K opportunities and the pre-K grant program benefits to children and families,” she said.

In addition, the state is tweaking its grant awards program to make more child care facilities eligible for pre-K funding, Hill said.

Tiffany Jones, owner of Precious Moments Family Childcare  in Rockville, said she plans on participating in the expansion program. But she said it’s difficult for many child care providers to understand the state’s pre-K effort.

“The requirements to participate in pre-K expansion are very challenging for the average family child care provider,” she said. “So while pre-K is a wonderful program, they need the spaces in family child care for the system to really work — but there are a ton of requirements for providers (that are) very difficult.”

Even so, some child care providers said they plan on taking part in the pre-K expansion because doing so is important for the survival of their business. After all, if they lose 3- and 4-year-olds to either public schools offering pre-K or to other providers, that means fewer enrollees and lower revenue.

“I feel the school is taking all of the 4-year-olds and some of the 3-year-olds,” said Laurie Arnold, owner of Laurie Arnold Home Daycare in Frederick, who plans to take part in the pre-K program. “In order to keep my numbers up, I have to adjust.”

In time, despite the fact that she said she doesn’t want to be a “guinea pig,” Patti Smith of the Greenway Learning Center may end up adjusting, too.

She said she’s taking a wait-and-see attitude toward joining the pre-K expansion and may join it eventually. But she said she’s afraid those providers who decided to take part starting this year may have a difficult confrontation with reality when the next school year starts.

“Come September, they’re going to go: ‘Oh, we don’t have enough room. We don’t have enough teachers,’” Smith said. “I do think they’ve bitten off more than they can chew.”

– Local News Network director Jerry Zremski contributed to this report.

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by Capital News Service, Maryland Matters
July 31, 2024

By Audrey Keefe and Mira Beinart

Maryland Matters is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Maryland Matters maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Steve Crane for questions: [email protected]. Follow Maryland Matters on Facebook and X.