House Minority Leader Jason Buckel (R-Allegany) spoke against a revised Blueprint for Maryland’s Future education measure to no avail Tuesday. The bill passed on a 100-39 party-line vote. (Photo by William J. Ford/Maryland Matters)
As expected, the House of Delegates approved an amended, comprehensive education plan Tuesday night that rejected cuts proposed by Gov. Wes Moore (D).
The 100-39 party-line vote sets up a potential showdown with the Senate over the Excellence in Maryland Public Schools Act. Senate leaders have indicated that, in the face of a projected $3 billion deficit for fiscal 2026, they may be more sympathetic to the governor’s version of the bill to amend the state’s multiyear, costly Blueprint for Maryland’s Future.
House Democratic leaders have consistently pushed back against the governor’s plan, saying that any cuts would negatively affect the Blueprint, now in its third year of implementation. But House Ways and Means Committee Chair Vanessa Atterbeary (D-Howard) said after Tuesday night’s floor vote that the House and the governor agree on the goals of the plan, but disagree on how to get there.
“He [Moore] was looking at the Blueprint also as a means to solve budgetary issues, and we did not,” Atterbeary said. “I think in large part we disagreed when it comes to funding. But I think policy wise, we agreed primarily with the governor.”
The debate put House Republicans in the unusual position of defending the governor’s bill against Democratic amendments.
“Didn’t agree with everything in it, but it was a compromise that suggests we can, in future years, account for the realities that we will not have to spend as much we’ll amend, in particular, the collaborative time,” said House Minority Leader Jason Buckel (R-Allegany), before voting against the amended House version of the bill.
“I think that we would have been best served to support Gov. Moore’s bill, rather than the bill as amended currently before the House,” he said.
Three Republicans – Dels. Kevin Hornberger (R-Cecil), Susan K. McComas (R-Harford) and Chris Tomlinson (R-Frederick and Carroll) – who signed on as co-sponsors of the previous version from the governor, asked to have their names removed from the amended bill, which opposed.
Some of the proposals in the original bill included a four-year pause in the phase-in of collaborative time for teachers, a freeze in funding for community schools located in low-income neighborhoods and a lower increase in per pupil funding.
Atterbeary’s committee and the Appropriations Committee amended the governor’s bill to restore funding to community schools and to reduce the four-year delay in collaborative time to a one-year pause to give the state’s 24 school systems time to prepare for a fiscal 2027.
The House did keep language from the governor’s version that would allow for the state Department of Education to establish a national teacher recruitment campaign to start in July and end by July 1, 2029. It also kept a $2,000 relocation grant that would be provided to “incentivize an out-of-state licensed teacher to move to the state,” in an effort to reduce the teacher shortage and the number of conditionally licensed teachers.
Administration officials defended their position during a joint hearing last month, saying it would be impractical to institute the increase in collaborative time next school year because it would require the hiring of at least 12,000 teachers at a time when the state and nation face a teacher shortage.
The administration’s proposal sought to hold community school at current levels for the next two years, instead of allowing it to increase as the Blueprint calls for.
On the House floor Tuesday, a few Republicans said the Blueprint plan is a vehicle the state can’t afford right now.
“If this is the Mercedes of education C class, it feels a little bit more like a Pinto that we’re selling for a Mercedes price,” said Del. Lauren Arikan (R-Harford), who voted against the bill.
Meanwhile, the Senate’s Budget and Taxation Committee — which took part in a joint hearing on the bill last month with the Senate Education, Energy, and the Environment Committee and the two House panels — could vote on the Senate version of the bill this week.
Senate Majority Leader Nancy King (D-Montgomery), a member of the Budget and Taxation Committee, has said she supports a pause in collaborative time, especially with the teacher shortage in the state. And Sen. Mary Beth Carozza (R-Lower Shore), a member of the “Triple-E” Committee, has said the Blueprint needs some restructuring that provides more autonomy to local school systems.
Del. Ben Barnes (D-Prince George’s and Anne Arundel), who chairs the Appropriations Committee, told reporters Tuesday night he’s confident the two chambers will find a solution.
“I think it’s because we all share the same values. We want to certainly protect these kids and make sure the funding is there and the policies are there,” he said. “We’ll get to a compromise in the end.”
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