At his first table talk of the year held in Greenbelt’s New Deal Café, Delegate Alonzo Washington discussed funding for education and House Bill 1300, which is intended to implement recommendations from the Kirwan Commission and improve Maryland’s school system.
Washington, the delegate for the 22nd District and chair of the Education subcommittee, went through a fact sheet detailing several policy areas in the bill, discussing each point.
Washington noted that the plan would take a while to take full effect, and that costs would ramp up over time.
“We’re going to start with 2020 and we’re going to be phasing the program in,” Washington said. “And once we get to FY2030 it will be fully implemented and we’ll be spending about four billion additional dollars on education.”
School Board Representative Joshua Thomas was also in attendance. Thomas represents Greenbelt and the rest of District 2 on the Prince George’s County Public School (PGCPS) Board. He said that PGCPS would be able to reduce class sizes as the Kirwan funding came into effect.
“As the Kirwan funding comes in, we’re going to be able to retain more teachers, to hire more teachers. When we think about what’s at the root cause of overcrowded classrooms, it’s two things, teachers, actual, full-time, physical adults that can lead instruction, and space.”
Leta Mach, a Greenbelt City Councilmember, suggested the Department of Education could partner with co-operatives, and that these co-operatives could help parent engagement.
Washington agreed that this was an important partnership to foster, particularly in early childhood education.
“It’s important because we know that there are professionals that do really great work there; as a county and as a state we don’t have the capacity to do the work those schools are doing at an early stage,” Washington said.
One challenge in implementing some of the proposals is a lack of facilities and staff, according to Washington.
HB1300 purports to solve this problem both by ramping up construction and by increasing teacher salaries across the board to a minimum of $60,000 in 2029. This proposal drew some questions. One community member asked how Prince George’s County would be able to bring in more teachers if Montgomery County raised its base salary.
Washington said that raising the base salary would help attract teachers to the state overall.
“This number 60,000 is going to be statewide,” Washington said. “Montgomery County isn’t hiring their teachers at 60,000 right now, they’re hiring them at about 46,000.”
Washington also said that the bill contains an increase in per-pupil funding for schools with a high concentration of poverty to pay for increased services, particularly social workers and healthcare practitioners.
“Everyone can receive those services at those schools, we’re not just limiting it to students in poverty,” Washington said. These changes would impact schools where more than 80 percent of students are eligible for free and reduced meals.
Washington also discussed some of the ways the state could raise revenue to pay for the implementation of HB1300, including a proposed carbon tax.
Janna Parker, a resident and activist in Prince George’s County, criticized two of the proposed tax changes, which ban income subtraction for contribution to the Maryland College Investment plan if the money was being used for private high schools and grade schools, and means test some individual tax credits for solar panels, disability access ramps and similar modifications to structures for high income taxpayers.
“I have a issue with any sort of recommendation that would increase the payments or taxes on middle- or lower-income families,” Parker said. The measures Parker criticized only raised small amounts of money, and she felt they penalized people for putting away money for their children’s futures or prioritizing sustainability.
“The solar panels and accessibility ramps are things that we, as a community, have said are priorities for us,” Parker said. “It seems like we’re taking that away for this small revenue.”