HOGANS CAMPAIGN AGAINST PUBLIC SCHOOLS
'Governor Larry Hogan is the most dedicated opponent of Maryland public schools in recent memory. And now, new rankings of states in a respected education publication show how effective he has been.
Education Week, which ranks public school systems by state, rated Maryland’s public schools as fifth in the nation as of 2017. That’s a decent rank, except when you consider that the publication rated Maryland number one every year from 2009 through 2013. Maryland scored particularly low on its achievement gap between low-income and high-income students, ranked as 42nd in the country.
The decline in the state’s ranking is no surprise since it’s perfectly consistent with Governor Hogan’s record on public schools. Consider what he has done in his first two years in office.
He cut public school funding in his first budget.
The Governor of Maryland has enormous budgetary powers under the state’s constitution. When he submits an operating budget to the General Assembly, the state legislators generally cannot add spending to it – they can only set aside spending for particular purposes or cut it. Over the years, the General Assembly has established funding formulas for certain spending items in state law, and that includes most state aid programs for K-12 education. But the Governor identified one program that was not protected by state law – a program that sent extra money to school systems with higher costs of educating students. The Governor cut half of that money, a total of $68 million, in his very first budget. Here are the counties that were affected and their dollar losses:
Prince George’s: $20 million
Montgomery: $18 million
Baltimore City: $12 million
Anne Arundel: $5 million
Frederick: $3 million
Baltimore County: $3 million
Howard: $3 million
Others: $4 million
Note that almost three-quarters of the cuts applied to three jurisdictions: Prince George’s, Montgomery and the City. What do they have in common? You guessed it: they all voted against Hogan by large margins.'>>>
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