Governor Moore has enacted the first major update to the state’s lofty Blueprint for Maryland’s Future education reform plan since it became law in 2021, but he said during a recent bill-signing ceremony that the changes didn’t go far enough. During this year’s session, Moore and his team framed their proposed cuts and delays to the Blueprint as a way to ensure the state can afford it in the long run. Still, the legislature balked at most of the proposals. A negotiated delay of three years to the plan’s call for “collaborative time”, which would require an additional 12,000 to 15,000 teachers and allow instructors to spend up to 40 percent of their day on planning and professional development, was successfully enacted.
Viewpoints: While Democrats have been hesitant to deviate from parts of the Blueprint just a few years into its implementation and before a halfway report comes out in the coming years, Republicans have advocated for freezes to the plan’s spending increases to rein in its cost.
