ARRA Education Announcement – Prince George’s County

March 16, 2009

 

Introductions/Thank You’s

Good morning. Thank you very much for being here today. Thank you Principal Lassiter for opening your doors to all of us and for what you do for our children – I’m going to come back to you in a minute. Superintendent Hite – congratulations on the success Prince George’s County Schools have seen this year. It’s your work and the work of county superintendents across the state that have helped propel our schools from Number Five in 2007 to Number 3 in 2008 to Number One in 2009. And, last – but certainly not least, thank you Congresswoman Edwards for helping President Obama pass the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

I’m confident that 30, 40, 50 years from now, our grandchildren will be reading about this Act as a catalyst that helped America out of one of her most difficult times and into one her most prosperous.

So, again, thank you.

Protecting Our Progress

Three years ago, Governor O’Malley and I set out on a campaign to restore progress in Maryland. We set three simple, but ambitious goals – goals that still guide our daily work: Strengthen and grow our middle class; Improve public safety and public education; and Expand opportunity to all Marylanders.

And we’ve made progress on those goals: Our professional, middle-class workforce is one of the three best-educated and most-highly skilled in America. Violent crime is down across the state – and especially here in Prince George’s County. We’ve held tuition flat at the University of Maryland for 3 straight years – and introduced a budget that will let us keep it flat for a 4th straight year.

We’ve made progress across the board, but I can’t think of a single area that we’ve made more progress than K-12 education.

I said earlier that our schools were ranked by Education Week as the Number One schools in America. And that’s because we’ve seen test scores go up in every grade, in every subject, in every county, across every demographic. And Principal Lassiter, here’s where I’m going to sing your praises:

Principal Lassiter started here in 2004. The year before she started, 35 percent of third graders scored proficient or higher in math; 37 percent of fourth graders; 30 percent of fifth graders and only 20 percent of sixth graders.

Last year, in 2008, 72 percent of sixth graders, 64 percent of fifth graders, 81 percent of fourth graders, and 92 percent of third graders – a 57 point bump – scored proficient or higher.

We saw the same results in reading: In sixth grade, scores went from 50 percent to 70; Fifth grade went from 31.5 percent to 75; Fourth graders went from 51 percent to 75; And, in 2003, only one out of five third graders scored proficient or higher in reading. Last year, nearly nine out of 10 did.

That’s progress. And it’s progress we’re seeing across the state. And progress that I’m sure will continue tomorrow when these students sit down for the MSAs.

But, look, we didn’t make these strides because we’re lucky. We’ve seen this incredible progress because we’ve made a commitment to our children.

We know they deserve the best schools in America and Governor O’Malley and I will do everything in our power to ensure that we stay at the top of that list.

So, what have we done so far?

We’ve increased funding for K-12 education by record levels. This year, we’ll invest $5.3 billion in our schools. We’ve already invested $741 million in school construction across the state and our FY10 capital budget includes funding that will bring our three-year school construction total to over $1 billion.

Difficult Times

Still, these are difficult times. When Governor O’Malley and I first put our budget together at the end of last year, we saw a $2 billion gap. But I have to stress, that our state’s budget outlook would have been much more difficult had Governor O’Malley failed to act during the 2007 Special Session.

When Governor O’Malley and I were putting our budget together, we spent dozens of meetings with staff, going through our budget with a scalpel. When it was all said and done, we introduced a budget that was 2.5 percent lower than last year’s – the first time in my memory that’s been done. The economic times forced us to cut back and level fund a good number of good programs.

We would have to delay, again, funding the Geographic Cost of Education Index which is so important to Prince George’s and Montgomery Counties. We heard more and more discussion about pushing the responsibility of teacher pensions down to the counties. And we would have had to scale back Thornton…

We’re still not out of the woods. The Board of Estimates advised us last week to identify an additional $500 million in cuts. But, as Governor O’Malley has told legislators, advocates, and me countless times since the New Year began, he has never been more hopeful and optimistic than he is today.

And because of that optimism, we believe we will be able to protect the progress we’ve made in our schools even during these difficult times.

And why are we optimistic? Because of Rep. Donna Edwards, Senator Barbara Mikulski, the rest of Team Maryland and, most importantly, because State Government had an ally and a supporter moving into the White House.

American Recovery and Reinvestment Act

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act will provide Maryland with nearly $4 billion of support over the next two years. This recovery plan is about more than survival, though. It builds on the investments we’ve made and it will help our children thrive in renewed prosperity. Afterall, our kids will be paying for much of this recovery, we ought to at the very least ensure that it works for them.

So, in Maryland, we’re looking at $1.1 billion for K-12 education for FY10 and FY11 - $72.35 million here in Prince George’s County. That included $177 million for Title I funding; $207 million for special education; and $8 million for education technology…

That money will go right to the schools and will help schools like Seat Pleasant build on their success. And that leaves $721 million of additional education revenue that Congress and the White House has given the governor discretion to use and we’re going to put it right back to work in proven funding streams.

It’s our intention to use that $721 million to fully fund Thorton in FY10 and FY11. It’s our intention to use it to fund GCEI at 100 percent. And to fully fund teachers’ pensions, something very few other states do.

Governor O’Malley and I made a commitment to protect the progress we’ve made, even and especially during difficult times. And I want to thank Congresswoman Edwards and her colleagues for sharing that commitment with us.

Conclusion

This month, we’re celebrating Read Across Maryland month and I’d like to wrap up with something President Obama said in his address to Congress last month.

“In the end, there is no program or policy that can substitute for a mother or father who will attend those parent/teacher conferences, or help with homework after dinner, or turn off the TV, put away the video games, and read to their child.

We’re going to get through these tough times and we’re going to do it by working together as One Maryland and One America…

Thank you very much and it’s my privilege to introduce my representative in Washington, Congresswoman Donna Edwards...

 

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