Blueprint for Maryland's Future

MARYLAND COMMISSION ON

INNOVATION &

EXCELLENCE IN

EDUCATION

Blueprint for

Maryland's Future

Final Report

December 2020

Maryland Commission on Innovation & Excellence in Education

Final Report

Department of Legislative Services Office of Policy Analysis Annapolis, Maryland December 2020

Primary Staff for This Report

Rachel H. Hise Mindy L. McConville

Other Staff Who Contributed to This Report

Scott P. Gates Kamar Merritt Justin Silverstein, APA Consulting Betsy Brown Ruzzi, National Center on Education and the Economy

For further information concerning this document contact:

Library and Information Services Office of Policy Analysis

Department of Legislative Services 90 State Circle

Annapolis, Maryland 21401

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Email: libr@mlis.state.md.us Home Page: Commission Website:

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Commission on Innovation and Excellence in Education

William E. Kirwan Chair

December 22, 2020

The Honorable Lawrence J. Hogan, Jr. Governor of Maryland

The Honorable Bill Ferguson President of the Senate

The Honorable Adrienne A. Jones Speaker of the House

Dear Governor, Mr. President, and Madame Speaker:

On behalf of the Commission on Innovation and Excellence in Education, I am pleased to transmit to you the final report of the Commission on Innovation and Excellence in Education.

The Commission was established pursuant to Chapters 701 and 702 of 2016. While the Commission has a comprehensive charge detailed in the law, in essence our charge has two parts:

? review and recommend any needed changes to update the current education funding

formulas (known as the Thornton formulas); and

? make policy recommendations that would enable Maryland's preK-12 system to perform

at the level of the best-performing school systems in the world.

In January 2018, the Commission issued a report with its preliminary policy recommendations grouped into five policy areas: (1) early childhood education; (2) high-quality teachers and leaders; (3) college and career readiness pathways, including career and technical education; (4) more resources to ensure all students are successful; and (5) governance and accountability. During the 2018 interim, the Commission determined that in order to finalize its policy recommendations, the cost of those recommendations needed to be evaluated so that they could be properly folded into funding formula recommendations.

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The Honorable Lawrence J. Hogan, Jr. The Honorable Bill Ferguson The Honorable Adrienne A. Jones December 22, 2020 Page 2

On January 25, 2019, the Commission issued its Interim Report, which contained the final policy recommendations adopted by the Commission as well as the cost estimates associated with those policy recommendations. Additionally, the Commission identified areas of cost savings that would result from redesigning Maryland's education system to produce a net cost estimate. The Commission also made recommendations for high priority policies and funding to "jump start" their implementation. These recommendations were the basis of Senate Bill 1030 (Chapter 771 of 2019) ? Blueprint for Maryland's Future.

The Interim Report also identified the preliminary work of the Commission on revising the funding formulas. However, work remained to finalize the funding formulas. This work was done over the course of summer 2019, drawing upon the expertise of a special workgroup of preK-12 funding experts. The workgroup developed funding formula and policy recommendations to distribute the costs of the funding recommendations between the State and the local governments. The recommendations of the workgroup were presented to the full Commission and adopted by it with some modifications in late fall of 2019. With this action, the work of the Commission was complete. This final report reflects the Commission's final policy and funding recommendations for the State. As you know, these recommendations and proposed funding formulas became the basis for the development of House Bill 1300, Blueprint for Maryland's Future ? Implementation, which was amended and passed by the General Assembly during the abbreviated 2020 legislative session but vetoed by Governor Hogan on May 7, 2020.

This final report brings together in a single document a synthesis of the various phases of the Commission's work and serves as a reference to the profound body of work produced by the Commission. We believe this will be an important resource for the State as discussions continue on how the performance of Maryland's schools can rise to the level called for in the original charge to the Commission. We remain convinced that if the State adopts and implements the Commission's recommendations this critically important goal can be achieved. The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the education of the State's children has been devastating and has brought even more urgency to the critical need for both the funding and policy reforms recommended by the Commission.

On behalf of my colleagues, I want to express our appreciation for the opportunity to serve the State through the work of the Commission.

Sincerely yours,

William E. Kirwan Chair

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