Qamryn Askew, 17, speaks at a rally Monday in support of fully funding the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future education reform plan. (Photo by William J. Ford/Maryland Matters)
Qamryn Askew joked that betting on the two-time champion Kansas City Chiefs to win their third consecutive Super Bowl may have seemed like a sure thing — until the Chiefs were blown out Sunday by the Philadelphia Eagles.
But the 17-year-old high school senior told an Annapolis rally Monday he knows of one bet that’s sure to pay off.
Education “is the only investment that’s guaranteed to win,” Askew told a crowd of about 100 people who turned out to demand full funding the the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future, the state’s sweeping 10-year education reform plan.
“The Blueprint isn’t just about funding. It’s about opportunity, and at my school, I’ve seen it firsthand,” said Askew, a senior at Baltimore Polytechnic Institute who said he is already seeing more resources in the school’s library, which he attributes to the Blueprint.
He was one of about a dozen speakers at the rally of slightly more than 100 students, educators and advocates demanding that Gov. Wes Moore (D) and state lawmakers “fully fund the Blueprint.”
Their demand comes as Moore and state legislative leaders have called for changes to the multibillion-dollar plan as the state grapples with a projected $3 billion deficit in the state’s $67 billion budget for fiscal 2026.
The administration’s education proposals for this legislative session call for a four-year delay in funding to expand “collaborative time” for teachers — out-of-classroom time when they can work on lesson plans, assess student challenges in a certain subject, provide moral support and more.
Administration officials and some state education officials have said the delay is needed because implementing collaborative time on schedule would require the hiring of thousands more teachers than they state can be expected to hire, at a time when school systems face a teacher shortage.
The Blueprint currently calls for collaborative time funding to begin next year, at a cost of $163 per student, growing annually until it reaches $1,527 per pupil by fiscal 2033. Moore’s bills would keep the funding levels, but delay them for four years, pushing the starting date for collaborative time funding back to fiscal 2030, running through fiscal 2037.
While administration officials frame the change as a simple delay, advocates say any pause is nothing more than a cut that hurts educators and students.
“Our teachers should get everything that the Blueprint said it would do, and to roll those things back now, I can’t support that,” said sharlimar douglass, lead advocate and strategist for the Maryland Alliance for Racial Equity and Education and a former middle and high school teacher.
“Collaborative time is not free. It’s not a smoke break,” she said at Monday’s rally. “We’re improving the quality of our teaching. We’re improving our lesson plans. We’re improving our relationships with one another and with our students.”
Another part of the governor’s deals with a freeze in funding for community schools, those schools with a high concentration of poverty-based grants, such as the number of students who receive free and reduced-price meals.
The administration has proposed freezing community school funding at fiscal 2026 levels, a move that analysts say would save about $473 million over the next two years.
But advocates say that change is just cutting money for students who are most in need.
“We must intentionally consider the needs of all students,” said Liz Zogby, chair of the Maryland Down Syndrome Advocacy Coalition. “Because we know that when we don’t intentionally include, by default, we exclude.
“We call on Gov. Moore, and on our legislators, to stay the course,” Zogby said. “Keep the promise and fully fund the Blueprint. All of our children are counting on you.”
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