There are many issues with the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future education funding law, formerly called the Kirwan Plan. School districts struggle to fill some non-classroom positions while having to get rid of classroom teachers, in some cases hundreds of classroom teachers. They attempt to structure their budgets to support all the changes.
County governments struggle to fund education under the Blueprint while still providing other basic services and not increasing local taxes beyond the capacity of their constituents. The total bill statewide potentially will be 3.8 billion dollars, pre-inflation, by 2032. And that number may be low since it was determined years ago
Each pillar has a specific cost on its own:
Pillar One – Early Childhood – 1.1 Billion
High Quality Educators – 1.1 Billion
College and Career Readiness – 1.1 Billion
Resources for At-Risk Students – 0.5 Billion
What many citizens of Maryland don’t know is that not only does each pillar have a specific price, but so does each student enrolled in the public school system based on certain “characteristics.” Maryland officials try to spin this as giving counties the most money for those students who need the most assistance.
While that may be true in some progressive theory, the simple fact is that some students will be “worth” more than others. If a child is average or above and comes from a middle class or higher family, that student only brings the system the “Foundation” or base amount of $8310.00 (as of FY 2023)
The stark reality is that this “funding formula” is the commoditization of our children. Here are profiles of three hypothetical students and their associated “income” to the systems where they are enrolled. Notice how the base amount can double if student’s have certain designations.
Reminder, this is all based on FY23 figures.
Schools have become businesses who can generate funding based on the students they serve. Some will say that this is how it has always been since systems have gotten per pupil funding for decades. The difference now is that some students are “worth” more than others, thus incentivizing school systems to either solicit or over identify students for these categories.
There are some characteristics the systems cannot control. For example, they cannot control if a student is an English Language Learner or comes from a poor family. However, there are some things systems can control such as Special Education status. Often times, schools are the ones who identify students as special education eligible using county conducted tests and measures completed by district staff.
In the past, this has led to over identification of students as special education. It was done to assure students would qualify for extra support or accommodations during standardized testing. That designation could help students pass high stakes state tests or even college entrance exams. In a way it seemed a compassionate deception. Schools also identified students as special education because they struggled in school, disregarding other mitigating influential factors such as home life, student motivation, or even teacher competence among others.
It also helped justify systems hiring more special education staff. As a special education staff member in our county once pointed out to me, special education staff must keep identifying students who need special education services, so they have job security.
In the early 2000’s this practice was decried, and systems were told to move certain students off the special education roles, particularly Black students. Standards for identifying special education students changed and those on the border of qualifying were removed from services whether it helped or hurt them academically.
With this new funding formula, it’s entirely possible that over identification could become practice again, especially when we examine this fact off the MSDE website:
In 2032-2033, the base amount per student will increase to $12,365 per student and special education students will be funded according to the formula described below:
Like any government service, the fees keep adding up as you add special designations.
Imagine a special education student in 2032-2033 who will be “generating” $12,365 plus 146% of that amount. Schools will work extra hard to identify these students and keep them on the special education rolls. A student that meets all the markers will be generate new staffing requirements and pay raises for the school system. It is the true progressive model for actually promoting the very thing they claim they don’t want. Like welfare programs that actually keep people on welfare perpetually. Like restorative discipline that actually promotes the needs of the bullies over those of their victims, thus perpetuating school violence. Both programs supported and funded by State and Federal governments.
Some will claim that funding schools this way is the only fair way to do it. After all, these students do require more services. But there is no sunset clause for this funding model for a student. They will be perpetually labeled in order to provide the funding.
Where does this leave the average student and his/her family? Far down the funding “food” chain.
What should happen is that school districts should be able to develop and fund programs for children that work, regardless of the designations of those children without having a central government telling them how to do that. That is a method that has allowed districts to be more creative and responsive in their programs instead of answering to the ideas of some board member or legislature who neither knows or cares about what goes on in a local district.
What about Baltimore City and other systems that are struggling to get their students to learn? First, those districts have delegated their accountability to people in other parts of the state. They pay their administrations exorbitant salaries and continue to reward failure, as seem to be doing with Baltimore City School CEO Sonja Santelises, who makes over $350,000 (more than that when perks are included) a year while many city schools have no students proficient in math or reading.
Imagine if these districts cut their bloated administrative and middle management budgets and put that money to create academic models that actually work in their schools to teach children of all needs. Imagine if the State of Maryland eliminated all the positions at the State Department of Education and all state mandates and allowed that that money to go back to taxpayers so they could fund the education of their own children whether in public, private, or homeschool.
Instead, the State of Maryland establishes a convoluted funding formula that puts price tags on children according to their needs. It will eventually bankrupt the state and the locals. Then we won’t need to worry about funding different students at different levels. They will all get the same. Zero.
This article was originally featured on the Easton Gazette.
