More than half a century ago, my parents and a wonderful teacher named Mr. Hollis Posey followed their hearts and championed my right to learn. As a result, I received the empowering education in our City’s public schools that would transform my life.
Although I am grateful that I received the “thorough and efficient public education” that is guaranteed to every child by Article VIII of Maryland’s constitution, I am deeply troubled that all of Maryland’s children are not receiving this most basic foundation for successful, productive lives.
A widely acknowledged study in 2016 found that Maryland’s public schools are under-funded by $2.9 billion each year.
In response, the Maryland Commission on Innovation and Excellence in Education [typically referred to as the Kirwan Commission] has determined that significantly more funding will be required to give every Maryland child a reasonable chance in life, especially children living in those communities with the deepest concentrations of poor families.
Both our values and our long-term self-interest demand that we speak truth to power about correcting this failure.
Far too many of Maryland’s children are being relegated to a future devoid of competence or hope. This is an unacceptable failing – and it’s up to us, as voters, to assure that those we elect in November are committed to providing our children’s public schools with the funding that they need and deserve.
Although public education is primarily a state and local (rather than a federal) responsibility, the President and Congress have an important role in funding the public education of economically disadvantaged students (Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act) and students with disabilities (the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act).
Currently, annual federal education funding for Title I and IDEA is significant (just under $16 billion and $12 billion, respectively). However, these appropriations have not kept up with the rising cost of educating our students, nor with the legitimate needs of states like Maryland for a more robust and realistic federal partnership.
The President and his Republican congressional allies have failed to adequately address this challenge. Democrats in Congress have had to fight just to avoid significant cuts in federal education funding.
As a result, our nation’s schools are no longer the envy of the world, a reality that threatens our long-term national security.
Maryland’s Democratic delegation to Washington understands that we must significantly expand federal education funding – but only by electing a Democratic majority to the next Congress can we make this commitment a reality.
Despite Governor Hogan’s assertions that Maryland is devoting more support to public education than ever before, the Kirwan Commission has acknowledged that far too many of our school children are being short-changed, especially in jurisdictions like Baltimore City.
On Election Day this year, we will decide whether Republican Larry Hogan or his Democratic challenger, Ben Jealous, will make the education of our children his top priority and fulfill our constitutional duty.
As a Maryland voter, I am a strong supporter of Ben Jealous’ candidacy to become our next Governor. Maryland’s teachers, through their Education Association’s endorsement, are supporting him as well.
As a Past President of our national NAACP, Ben Jealous is painfully aware (as am I) that the percentage of Maryland public school students living in poverty has more than doubled since 1990 (from 22 percent to 45 percent). We understand that properly educating all of our students, as well as meeting the rising cost of special education, will require a substantial and sustained infusion of additional state funding.
Drawing upon the Kirwan Commission’s upcoming final report and recommendations, our next Governor and State Legislature will have the duty to revise Maryland’s school funding formula for the first time in nearly two decades. The Commission is expected to recommend increasing the base, per-pupil state funding from $6,860 to $10,880 for each school child.
These challenges, I believe, are why Mr. Jealous has publicly committed (1) to fully implement the Kirwan Commission’s recommendations during the upcoming 2019 legislative session; (2) to raise our teachers’ salaries by 29 percent; (3) to implement full-day, universal Pre-K; (4) and to more effectively target state education funding to those school districts with the largest concentrations of poverty.
On Election Day, our voters can also approve an amendment to Maryland’s constitution that will guarantee that public education’s share of the state’s casino revenues is fully committed to funding public education (Question 1). This guarantee will provide an additional $500 million in annual state funding for our schools, an important first step toward closing the current $2.9 billion funding gap.
Both Ben Jealous and Larry Hogan have declared that they support Question 1. However, Governor Hogan has yet to adequately explain why he diverted $1.4 billion of our State’s casino money from public education (as voters were originally promised it would be invested) to other purposes.
When I visit our children’s classrooms, I look into our students’ eager faces and know that we must act with a sense of urgency to adequately invest in their future. On Election Day, God willing, Maryland’s voters will commit our State to a better future for us all, one filled with confidence, competence and hope.
Congressman Elijah Cummings represents Maryland’s 7th Congressional District in the United States House of Representatives.
This post originally appeared in the AFRO. The opinions on this page are those of the writers and not necessarily those of the AFRO.
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With the 2018-19 school year in full swing, U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos has finished approving nearly every state’s plan to implement the Every Student Succeeds Act. But in some ways, the federal government’s work on ESSA is just beginning.
The federal K-12 law’s hallmark may be state and local control, yet the Education Department still has the responsibility to oversee the more than $21 billion in federal funding pumped out to states and districts under ESSA. That will often take the form of monitoring—in which federal officials take a deep look at state and local implementation of the law.
And the department has other oversight powers, including issuing guidance on the law’s implementation, writing reports on ESSA, and deciding when and how states can revise their plans.
Even though ESSA includes a host of prohibitions on the education secretary’s role, DeVos and her team have broad leeway to decide what those processes should look like, said Reg Leichty, a co-founder of Foresight Law + Policy, a law firm in Washington.
Given the Trump team’s emphasis on local control, “I think they’ll try for a lighter touch” than past administrations, Leichty said. But there are still requirements in the law the department must fill, he added.
“States and districts shouldn’t expect the system to be fundamentally different [from under previous versions of the law.] They are still going to have to file a lot of data,” Leitchy said.
But advocates for traditionally overlooked groups of students aren’t holding their breath for a robust monitoring process, in part because they think the department has already approved state plans that skirt ESSA’s requirements…
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One of the big goals of the Every Student Succeeds Act was to give districts way more control over their federal funding, in part by creating a new block grant aka the Student Support and Academic Enrichment Grants or Title IV. Under the law, districts can use the money for a whole smorgasboard of things: student safety, dual enrollment, dance instruction, training teachers to use technology, hiring school counselors.
And the funding, a whopping $1.6 billion, was supposed to flow to districts through a formula, meaning that pretty much every district in the country would get a piece of it. The districts would have serious latitude in deciding the dollars are spent.
It may not quite work out that way, at least not this year…
U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos told an audience at the Brookings Institution Wednesday that she wouldn’t necessarily approve every state’s plan for the Every Student Succeeds Act right off the bat. And at the same event, she continued to push her favorite policy: school choice.
DeVos didn’t say specifically that states would have to embrace choice in their plans in order to pass muster with the department. But the juxtaposition still had some folks nervous, including Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., who told Politico that she hopes DeVos “clarifies her comments and makes it clear that she does not plan to threaten states or hold their proposals hostage unless they conform to her privatization agenda.”
So, could DeVos legally reject a state’s plan because it didn’t include choice, even if she wanted to?
Short answer: No. That would be a violation of ESSA.
Longer answer: Both Democrats and Republicans who worked on ESSA say doing that would violate the long, long list of prohibitions on the Education Department’s authority in the law, one of which says the secretary can’t tell states what kinds of interventions they can or can’t use with their lowest-performing schools.
To be sure, there are definitely parts of ESSA that choice lovin’ states and districts can get excited about. The law allows states to set aside Title I money for course choice, free tutoring, and public school choice. It permits states and districts to offer public school choice to students in struggling schools, or turn low-performing schools into charters or magnets. And it gives 50 districts the chance to try out a weighted student funding pilot. The pilot could smooth the way for choice programs in districts that are interested in creating them, but doesn’t have to be used for choice.
Importantly, though, all those things are totally and completely optional.
DeVos can use her megaphone as education secretary to draw attention to the parts of ESSA that states and districts that are gung-ho on choice can use to their advantage. But she can’t reject a state’s application if they say thanks-but-no-thanks to setting aside some Title I funds for course choice.
“She can cajole, plead, request, etc. but she cannot require,” said a Senate GOP aide who worked on ESSA.
And that interpretation is bipartisan. Anne Hyslop, a former Obama administration official who worked on ESSA and is now at Chiefs for Change, tweeted something pretty similar.
@benjaminjriley short answer: based only on statute, having a hard time finding the hook. Choice is totally optional in title I.
Photo: Education Secretary Betsy DeVos talks with Russ Whitehurst, senior fellow in the Center on Children and Families in the Economic Studies program at the Brookings Institution, on March 29 in Washington.
The details of how the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) will be implemented are still being decided, but the U.S. Department of Education (USED) will be releasing Notices of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) over the course of the next several months that will describe how the Department plans to regulate the law. Information about each NPRM will be provided here so that Arizonans can provide their input and feedback to USED throughout this process.
Title I, Parts A and B: Academic Assessments and Innovative Assessments
USED released two sets of proposed ESSA regulations on Monday, July 11, 2016, one on academic assessments and one on innovative assessments. The proposed rules are available below along with a summary of what has been recommended and additional resources.
These proposed rules are subject to a 60-day public comment period, with comments due by September 9, 2016. To submit comments to USED, please visit the Federal Register here (Academic Assessments) and here (Innovative Assessments). You can also submit your thoughts to us at ESSAInbox@azed.gov. We value your input and look forward to building a plan based around Arizona’s unique values and needs.
Accountability, Consolidated State Plans, and Data Reporting
USED released proposed ESSA regulations on accountability, consolidated state plans, and data reporting on Tuesday, May 31, 2016. The proposed rules are available below along with a summary of what has been recommended and additional resources.
The recorded webinar above explains the rulemaking process in detail and summarizes ADE’s comments, which are available here. You can submit your thoughts to us at ESSAInbox@azed.gov.
With the 2018-19 school year in full swing, U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos has finished approving nearly every state’s plan to implement the 
