Remarks to AFT Paraprofessionals & School Related Personnel National Conference
March 21, 2009
As Prepared for Delivery
It is great to be here with all of you. I want to thank Marietta English, President of the Baltimore Teachers Union, Brenda Clayburn, President City Union of Baltimore, and my good friend, Dr. Lorretta Johnson – recently elected AFT’s Executive Vice President.
To those who are visiting from out-of-town, welcome to Maryland and to the greatest city in America,… Baltimore! We are very happy to have you here with us, not only because we appreciate the tourism revenue, but because of who you are and what you do.
In fact, I’d like to begin with two of the most underused words in the English language, “thank you.” Your jobs are not easy ones, and often the very important contributions you make tend to be overlooked.
But despite the tremendous challenges you face every single day, you choose to roll up your shirt sleeves and go to work because you care about our shared future, because you see the promise in our children’s eyes, and because you share the dreams of their parents who want so desperately to give a better world to the next generation than the world we inherited.
I would argue that it is the sacred obligation of those of us in government to do everything we can to support you – recognizing that fundamental truth that there is no such thing as a spare American. A truth affirmed by President Kennedy, when he said that “a child miseducated is a child lost.”
And speaking of presidents, isn’t it great to have a President who is so committed to education?
As Governor of a State where – this is where I get to brag – Education Week magazine says we have the #1 best public schools in America (where are my fellow Marylanders in the audience? Can we get them a round of applause?) – as Governor, I can tell you how important it is for us that President Obama had the vision and foresight to not only include significant investments in education in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act – but to fight to protect them as the final legislation was being negotiated.
I’ve had the chance to meet a few times with President Obama’s Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and he is deeply committed to supporting the work that all of you do, and the work those of us in state governments are doing to support public education.
In our brief time together I wanted to talk to you a little bit about why I believe these federal investments in public education matter so much – and also a little bit about what we’re doing in Maryland to support our public schools.
Public Education and the “Three S’s”
When I think back to my own school days, I remember how we used to talk about the “three R’s.” Well, when it comes to the three greatest challenges confronting America in the 21st century, we have, in my opinion, “three S’s” – security, skills, and sustainability. Public education matters a great deal to all three of them.
Public education matters to our national security in an age when our greatest military advantage is not our sheer numbers nor even our advanced technology, but our ability to innovate and adapt.
Public education matters to the more sustainable future we prefer for our planet, as it’s through our schools that we have a unique opportunity to foster a deeper connection between our children and nature. What’s more, it’s through our students of today, that we put our collective hopes for tomorrow’s next great advances for healing our planet, fueling its industry, and feeding its most fragile and vulnerable inhabitants.
Of course, it’s also (and especially) through public education, that we are able to prepare our workforce of tomorrow to compete, to excel, to lead in a global economy which is growing more interconnected and knowledge-based by the day.
Our Vision in Maryland
So what are we doing in Maryland to support, protect and grow our #1 ranked public school system? Our vision is to strive to be #1 not only in America, but in the world – and we have a multi-faceted strategy for how to get there.
- It starts with making record investments in our K-12 education. In this session, our Administration is proposing $5.5 billion for our public schools – which amounts to the largest investment in public education we will have made in our State’s history.
- Equally historic, we’re fighting to bring our three year investment in school construction and modernization to over $1 billion. I’m guessing that virtually everyone in this room would agree that the environment in which we put our kids in to learn matters a great deal to their ultimate success and attainment.
- We’re also investing in higher education. We believe the single most effective tool we have for expanding opportunity to more of our people rather than fewer is the tool of putting the dreams of college education within reach of more of our middle class families. So we’re fighting to freeze in-state tuition for the fourth year in a row.
- I’ve asked our State’s school board to move forward toward benchmarking our students’ achievements with students from Europe, Asia, Africa and around the world. Why? Because in the 21st century global economy, guess who we’re competing with? Not only workers from other states, but from Europe, Asia, Africa, and the rest of the world.
- We’re renewing our commitment to closing our “college readiness gaps” and “career readiness gaps” by bringing together stakeholders from education, labor, industry, and – yes – government, recognizing that we’re all in this together; we all have the same stake in a more highly skilled workforce.
- We’re putting a renewed emphasis on STEM, Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math – these areas where our country is starting to fall behind our global competitors. Among other things, to generate interest among our students in STEM we’re adding financial and environmental literacy to our curricula.
- We’re ramping up Career and Technology Education, which is so important for those of our students who will be entering the workforce sooner rather than later. A recent study found that 38 percent of bioscience jobs in Maryland could be filled by individuals with less than an Associate's Degree if they had the proper training.
- Finally, we’re working to improve learning conditions in our schools so that we can continue to retain the very best people to staff them. We are currently surveying every teacher in our State through what we call our TELL Maryland survey – and in the future we are interested in including paraprofessionals and support staff as well. We believe that it’s by asking for input and hearing from people on the ground that we’re able to get the best sense of where our challenges and opportunities lie.
Conclusion
Benjamin Franklin said that “an investment in knowledge pays the best interest.” Simply put, there are no more important investments we can make in our own here and now, than the investments we make together as Americans in public education.
I submit to you that the greatest of freedom’s privileges – the single more important right and responsibility we have in our American democracy – is the freedom to choose a better future,… The freedom to choose a better future… A better future for ourselves. A better future for our children. A better future for generations yet unborn.
That’s what our founding fathers and mothers wrote about when they wrote about securing the blessings of liberty not only for themselves, but for posterity. The freedom to choose a better future.
It’s why President Obama fought so hard for a recovery plan which not only would help get our country out of our current economic troubles, but lay the foundation for a brighter tomorrow by investing in green energy, by investing in roads, bridges, and public transit – and most importantly of all by investing in our schools. The freedom to choose a better future.
It’s a higher calling we have always embraced as Americans, rooted in the optimistic belief that tomorrow can be better than today, and each of us share a personal responsibility to make it so. An idea inspired by our common vales. Our belief in the dignity of every individual. Our belief in our own responsibility to advance the common good. An understanding that at the beginning and end of our days there is a unity to spirit and to matter and that the things we do in our own lifetimes matter.
The freedom to choose a better future. It’s why the work that you do for our children is so important. Thank you for inviting me to join you and for everything you do everyday to choose that better future.
