Legislative

The Broadening Options and Opportunities for Students Today (BOOST) Fund was approved for $5 million without any public hearing. Every attempt to pass the bill through the General Assembly failed. Meanwhile, Maryland public schools need approximately an additional $3 billion in order to be properly funded, according to leading experts. Countless stories of Maryland public school teachers purchasing supplies for their classrooms with their own personal money exists due to this shortfall. Governor Hogan has proposed expanding this program without further vetting.

AFT-Maryland opposes the

Over the summer, the state’s Spending Affordability Committee recommended a 1% raise for state employees, as well as a restoration of the annual step increases for those workers. The Governor’s announced budget ignores these recommendations, and gives state workers no raise and no step increase for the year.

With the state once again facing a structural deficit, the members of the AFT-Maryland feel in many ways the state is balancing the budget at our own expense. The result of stagnating wages—wages that do not even keep up with inflation—has essentially become a pay cut for those workers

When the Governor announced his initial budget, it included a $42 million reduction in state aid to Baltimore City Schools. This is the third year in a row that the children of Baltimore’s City School system have faced a reduction in state aid to their schools. In that timespan, these schools have seen class sizes swell beyond capacity and key programs cut, while teachers and staff have had to purchase vital school supplies out of their own pockets. We do not exaggerate when we say a $42 million cut to Baltimore’s public school system would do irreparable damage to our children’s education.

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School Vouchers
House Bill 1213, House Bill 1343, House Bill 453, Senate Bill 706: OPPOSE

Against the backdrop of structurally underfunding the state’s public schools, incredibly, a number of bills have been introduced this year to waste tax dollars by giving them to private schools instead.

House Bill 1213 proposes that corporations be allowed to purchase tax credits by making a contribution to the bill’s proposed BOOST fund. BOOST (Broadening Options and Opportunities for Students and Teachers) if passed, will provide scholarships to eligible students. The bill allows corporations to

Education Assessments
Senate Bill 407/House Bill 141, Senate Bill 794/House Bill 657
House Bill 633, Senate Bill 787/House Bill 1427:

SUPPORT

With the Federal government’s passage of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), state and local governments have been given more leeway to decide how they want to look at student achievement, as well as assess the effectiveness of schools and teachers.

Some very good ways to start undoing the harm of the test-and-punish model from the years of No Child Left Behind are with bills that either cap or even roll back the large amount of standardized tests