March 6th, 2020 by WCBC Radio
Since the General Assembly session began in January, much of the debate over the Kirwan Commission's education proposals has been focused on the $4 billion price tag and whether the state would pick up its $2.8 billion share.
In Annapolis, the House of Delegates is expected to hold a final vote by Friday night on the reforms themselves, which include teacher pay raises, expanded preschool and expanded technical school programs for students.
The bill has been changed so that the state will pick up more of the share of the costs for Baltimore City and Prince George's County after those jurisdictions took issue with the financial burdens the reforms would place on them.
The House Ways and Means Committee is expected to approve a funding package seen as an alternative to a proposed sales tax expansion, which was rejected this week in a subcommittee vote.
That measure includes an increase in the tobacco taxes, closing some corporate loopholes and adding sales tax to purchases of digital items.
This tax package would generate $700 million a year for the state's share of the Kirwan cost, far less than the earlier tax proposal would have generated.
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March 06, 2020 at 4:23 pm, Joe Wellberg said:
Kirwan commission was created because some school boards didn’t like the fact property values dropped. So they demanded a commission to find ways to ruin people. Until these school systems stop giving education to trouble making punks who don’t want a Education the school systems should no longer get extra funding.
March 06, 2020 at 5:52 pm, Jay said:
The Kirwan Commission has nothing to do with property values. Do a little reading and some research.
March 06, 2020 at 4:30 pm, Brian said:
Where is the help for Allegany County where is Porter’s Baltimore is there some kind of difference between us and Baltimore
March 06, 2020 at 5:54 pm, Jay said:
You posted a run-on sentence with no punctuation. And yes, there is a difference between us and Baltimore.
March 06, 2020 at 8:17 pm, Brian said:
Sorry about punctuation I have to use talk-to-text because I work with my hands my whole life I didn’t sit on my ass and have arthritis I’m sorry I can’t type like some 12 year old
March 06, 2020 at 8:44 pm, Brian said:
Well I did some research I found that Prince George’s County poverty rate is 9.3% and Allegany counties poverty rate is 16.8% why are they going to help Prince George’s County and not Allegany County
March 06, 2020 at 9:17 pm, Jay said:
Not sure what this has to do with the Kirwan Commission.
The Maryland General Assembly created the Kirwan commission in 2016 with the charge of making recommendations on how to prepare students for college or the workforce so they can “meet the challenges of a changing global economy” and “be successful citizens in the 21st century.”
The Kirwan Commission was given two tasks: 1) To make policy recommendations to enable Maryland’s schools to perform at the level of the best-preforming school systems in the world, and; 2) To propose changes to the current funding formulas for schools.
The commission has made a number of recommendations to achieve these goals. It proposes:
Full-day education for 3-year-olds from low-income households
Universal pre-kindergarten for 4-year-olds
Better college and career readiness training
Higher salaries for teachers
Better teacher training
More resources for at-risk students
Transparent governance and accountability
More money for schools where many students live in poverty
March 07, 2020 at 9:11 am, Jeff said:
> Well Jay you have a lot of answers but didn’t answer the question of why PG COUNTY gets better treatment than Allegany Co? We know the answer….Say it Jay….
March 07, 2020 at 5:08 pm, Jay said:
PG County is 14 times larger in population than ALCO. What do you think the answer is? The two western counties in MD don’t count for much in Annapolis.
March 08, 2020 at 9:05 am, Jeff said:
> That’s correct.