Maryland General Assembly alters Blueprint education plan: Here's what changed
'This session has seen dramatic progress restoring the vast majority of the proposed cuts to our schools and ensures that everyone pays their fair share and more sustainably funds our public schools and services,' Paul Lemle, the president of the Maryland State Education Association, said in a statement after Senate lawmakers voted to approve the bill.
Both the Maryland House and Senate chambers approved the bill, which was negotiated following differences in approach to amend the bill presented by Gov. Wes Moore earlier this year.
The legislation was passed largely along party lines and with limited discussion.
The legislature was tasked with contending with a $3 billion-and-growing budget deficit at the start of the 2025 legislative session. Understanding Maryland's tough fiscal situation, the Moore administration offered a bill to stop funding increases for community schools, or schools that receive Concentration of Poverty Grants, for two years and pause the implementation of teacher collaborative time and its associated funding increases for four years.
Collaborative time is afforded to teachers for curriculum planning, grading and professional development outside of the classroom.
The House approved Moore's bill in early March, but not without completely restoring the community school funding and reducing the collaborative time implementation from four years to one.
The Senate struck a balance between the governor's proposal and the bill as it passed out of the House, restoring the community school funding increases in full, but maintaining Moore's four-year pause on collaborative time implementation.
The negotiated bill now heads to Moore's desk for his signature, restores the funding increases for community schools and allows collaborative time funding to go to local school boards for fiscal year 2026. However, collaborative time funding increases would be paused for fiscal years 2027 and 2028.
'While there is a delay to increased funding for collaborative time implementation, the final bill is a significant improvement over where this conversation began in January,' said Lemle.
House Republicans applauded the collaborative time pause.
'It does move in the right direction,' Del. Matt Morgan, a St. Mary's County Republican, said. 'We support that delay.'
Because there is a pause in collaborative time increases, the legislation headed to Moore also reduces the amount of foundation spending per pupil because funding tied to collaborative time is baked into that formula.
Should Moore approve the bill, this per-pupil decrease would not impact spending for special education, English learners, or students most at risk of not succeeding academically, or students at the Maryland School for the Deaf, the Maryland School for the Blind, or the SEED School of Maryland.
House Majority Whip Jazz Lewis, a Prince George's County Democrat, said Monday night that leadership in his chamber is 'proud' to stand with their colleagues in the Senate and governor's office on where the bill landed, especially considering the federal cuts to education spending recently implemented by President Donald Trump's administration.
'I think we're proud to stand arm-in-arm with our colleagues in the Senate and the governor in having a plan that doesn't cut core services to kids across the state, maintains the gains we're making through the Blueprint and doubles down on our promise that every child in every zip code is going to get a quality education,' Lewis said.
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The Hill
28 minutes ago
- The Hill
Republicans look to make a U-turn on federal commitment to electric vehicles for the Postal Service
WASHINGTON (AP) — A year after being lauded for its plan to replace thousands of aging, gas-powered mail trucks with a mostly electric fleet, the U.S. Postal Service is facing congressional attempts to strip billions in federal EV funding. In June, the Senate parliamentarian blocked a Republican proposal in a major tax-and-spending bill to sell off the agency's new electric vehicles and infrastructure and revoke remaining federal money. But efforts to halt the fleet's shift to clean energy continue in the name of cost savings. Donald Maston, president of the National Rural Letter Carriers' Association, said canceling the program now would have the opposite effect, squandering millions of dollars. 'I think it would be shortsighted for Congress to now suddenly decide they're going to try to go backwards and take the money away for the EVs or stop that process because that's just going to be a bunch of money on infrastructure that's been wasted,' he said. Beyond that, many in the scientific community fear the government could pass on an opportunity to reduce carbon emissions that contribute to global warming when urgent action is needed. Electrified vehicles reduce emissions A 2022 University of Michigan study found the new electric postal vehicles could cut total greenhouse gas emissions by up to 20 million tons over the predicted, cumulative 20-year lifetime of the trucks. That's a fraction of the more than 6,000 million metric tons emitted annually in the United States, said professor Gregory A. Keoleian, co-director of the university's Center for Sustainable Systems. But he said the push toward electric vehicles is critical and needs to accelerate, given the intensifying impacts of climate change. 'We're already falling short of goals for reducing emissions,' Keoleian said. 'We've been making progress, but the actions being taken or proposed will really reverse decarbonization progress that has been made to date.' Many GOP lawmakers share President Donald Trump's criticism of the Biden-era green energy push and say the Postal Service should stick to delivering mail. Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, said 'it didn't make sense for the Postal Service to invest so heavily in an all-electric force.' She said she will pursue legislation to rescind what is left of the $3 billion from the Inflation Reduction Act allocated to help cover the $10 billion cost of new postal vehicles. Ernst has called the EV initiative a 'boondoggle' and 'a textbook example of waste,' citing delays, high costs and concerns over cold-weather performance. 'You always evaluate the programs, see if they are working. But the rate at which the company that's providing those vehicles is able to produce them, they are so far behind schedule, they will never be able to fulfill that contract,' Ernst said during a recent appearance at the Iowa State Fair, referring to Wisconsin-based Oshkosh Defense. 'For now,' she added, 'gas-powered vehicles — use some ethanol in them — I think is wonderful.' Corn-based ethanol is a boon to Iowa's farmers, but the effort to reverse course has other Republican support. Rep. Michael Cloud, R-Texas, a co-sponsor of the rollback effort, has said the EV order should be canceled because the project 'has delivered nothing but delays, defective trucks, and skyrocketing costs.' The Postal Service maintains that the production delay of the Next Generation Delivery Vehicles, or NGDVs, was 'very modest' and not unexpected. 'The production quantity ramp-up was planned for and intended to be very gradual in the early months to allow time for potential modest production or supplier issues to be successfully resolved,' spokesperson Kim Frum said. EVs help in modernization effort The independent, self-funded federal agency, which is paid for mostly by postage and product sales, is in the middle of a $40 billion, 10-year modernization and financial stabilization plan. The EV effort had the full backing of Democratic President Joe Biden, who pledged to move toward an all-electric federal fleet of car and trucks. The 'Deliver for America' plan calls for modernizing the ground fleet, notably the Grumman Long Life Vehicle, which dates back to 1987 and is fuel-inefficient at 9 mpg. The vehicles are well past their projected 24-year lifespan and are prone to breakdowns and even fires. 'Our mechanics are miracle workers,' said Mark Dimondstein, president of the American Postal Workers Union. 'The parts are not available. They fabricate them. They do the best they can.' The Postal Service announced in 2022 it would deploy at least 66,000 electric vehicles by 2028, including commercial off-the-shelf models, after years of deliberation and criticism it was moving too slowly to reduce emissions. By 2024, the agency was awarded a Presidential Sustainability Award for its efforts to electrify the largest fleet in the federal government. Building new postal trucks In 2021, Oshkosh Defense was awarded a contract for up to 165,000 battery electric and internal combustion engine Next Generation vehicles over 10 years. The first of the odd-looking trucks, with hoods resembling a duck's bill, began service in Georgia last year. Designed for greater package capacity, the trucks are equipped with airbags, blind-spot monitoring, collision sensors, 360-degree cameras and antilock brakes. There's also a new creature comfort: air conditioning. Douglas Lape, special assistant to the president of the National Association of Letter Carriers and a former carrier, is among numerous postal employees who have had a say in the new design. He marvels at how Oshkosh designed and built a new vehicle, transforming an old North Carolina warehouse into a factory along the way. 'I was in that building when it was nothing but shelving,' he said. 'And now, being a completely functioning plant where everything is built in-house — they press the bodies in there, they do all of the assembly — it's really amazing in my opinion.' Where things stand now The agency has so far ordered 51,500 NGDVs, including 35,000 battery-powered vehicles. To date, it has received 300 battery vehicles and 1,000 gas-powered ones. Former Postmaster General Louis DeJoy said in 2022 the agency expected to purchase chiefly zero-emissions delivery vehicles by 2026. It still needs some internal combustion engine vehicles that travel longer distances. Frum, the Postal Service spokesperson, said the planned NGDV purchases were 'carefully considered from a business perspective' and are being deployed to routes and facilities where they will save money. The agency has also received more than 8,200 of 9,250 Ford E-Transit electric vehicles it has ordered, she said. Ernst said it's fine for the Postal Service to use EVs already purchased. 'But you know what? We need to be smart about the way we are providing services through the federal government,' she said. 'And that was not a smart move.' Maxwell Woody, lead author of the University of Michigan study, made the opposite case. Postal vehicles, he said, have low average speeds and a high number of stops and starts that enable regenerative braking. Routes average under 30 miles and are known in advance, making planning easier. 'It's the perfect application for an electric vehicle,' he said, 'and it's a particularly inefficient application for an internal combustion engine vehicle.'
29 minutes ago
Republicans look to make a U-turn on federal commitment to electric vehicles for the Postal Service
WASHINGTON -- A year after being lauded for its plan to replace thousands of aging, gas-powered mail trucks with a mostly electric fleet, the U.S. Postal Service is facing congressional attempts to strip billions in federal EV funding. In June, the Senate parliamentarian blocked a Republican proposal in a major tax-and-spending bill to sell off the agency's new electric vehicles and infrastructure and revoke remaining federal money. But efforts to halt the fleet's shift to clean energy continue in the name of cost savings. Donald Maston, president of the National Rural Letter Carriers' Association, said canceling the program now would have the opposite effect, squandering millions of dollars. 'I think it would be shortsighted for Congress to now suddenly decide they're going to try to go backwards and take the money away for the EVs or stop that process because that's just going to be a bunch of money on infrastructure that's been wasted," he said. Beyond that, many in the scientific community fear the government could pass on an opportunity to reduce carbon emissions that contribute to global warming when urgent action is needed. A 2022 University of Michigan study found the new electric postal vehicles could cut total greenhouse gas emissions by up to 20 million tons over the predicted, cumulative 20-year lifetime of the trucks. That's a fraction of the more than 6,000 million metric tons emitted annually in the United States, said professor Gregory A. Keoleian, co-director of the university's Center for Sustainable Systems. But he said the push toward electric vehicles is critical and needs to accelerate, given the intensifying impacts of climate change. 'We're already falling short of goals for reducing emissions,' Keoleian said. 'We've been making progress, but the actions being taken or proposed will really reverse decarbonization progress that has been made to date.' Many GOP lawmakers share President Donald Trump's criticism of the Biden-era green energy push and say the Postal Service should stick to delivering mail. Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, said 'it didn't make sense for the Postal Service to invest so heavily in an all-electric force." She said she will pursue legislation to rescind what is left of the $3 billion from the Inflation Reduction Act allocated to help cover the $10 billion cost of new postal vehicles. Ernst has called the EV initiative a 'boondoggle' and "a textbook example of waste,' citing delays, high costs and concerns over cold-weather performance. 'You always evaluate the programs, see if they are working. But the rate at which the company that's providing those vehicles is able to produce them, they are so far behind schedule, they will never be able to fulfill that contract," Ernst said during a recent appearance at the Iowa State Fair, referring to Wisconsin-based Oshkosh Defense. 'For now,' she added, "gas-powered vehicles — use some ethanol in them — I think is wonderful.' Corn-based ethanol is a boon to Iowa's farmers, but the effort to reverse course has other Republican support. Rep. Michael Cloud, R-Texas, a co-sponsor of the rollback effort, has said the EV order should be canceled because the project "has delivered nothing but delays, defective trucks, and skyrocketing costs.' The Postal Service maintains that the production delay of the Next Generation Delivery Vehicles, or NGDVs, was 'very modest" and not unexpected. 'The production quantity ramp-up was planned for and intended to be very gradual in the early months to allow time for potential modest production or supplier issues to be successfully resolved,' spokesperson Kim Frum said. The independent, self-funded federal agency, which is paid for mostly by postage and product sales, is in the middle of a $40 billion, 10-year modernization and financial stabilization plan. The EV effort had the full backing of Democratic President Joe Biden, who pledged to move toward an all-electric federal fleet of car and trucks. The 'Deliver for America' plan calls for modernizing the ground fleet, notably the Grumman Long Life Vehicle, which dates back to 1987 and is fuel-inefficient at 9 mpg. The vehicles are well past their projected 24-year lifespan and are prone to breakdowns and even fires. 'Our mechanics are miracle workers,' said Mark Dimondstein, president of the American Postal Workers Union. 'The parts are not available. They fabricate them. They do the best they can.' The Postal Service announced in 2022 it would deploy at least 66,000 electric vehicles by 2028, including commercial off-the-shelf models, after years of deliberation and criticism it was moving too slowly to reduce emissions. By 2024, the agency was awarded a Presidential Sustainability Award for its efforts to electrify the largest fleet in the federal government. In 2021, Oshkosh Defense was awarded a contract for up to 165,000 battery electric and internal combustion engine Next Generation vehicles over 10 years. The first of the odd-looking trucks, with hoods resembling a duck's bill, began service in Georgia last year. Designed for greater package capacity, the trucks are equipped with airbags, blind-spot monitoring, collision sensors, 360-degree cameras and antilock brakes. There's also a new creature comfort: air conditioning. Douglas Lape, special assistant to the president of the National Association of Letter Carriers and a former carrier, is among numerous postal employees who have had a say in the new design. He marvels at how Oshkosh designed and built a new vehicle, transforming an old North Carolina warehouse into a factory along the way. 'I was in that building when it was nothing but shelving,' he said. 'And now, being a completely functioning plant where everything is built in-house — they press the bodies in there, they do all of the assembly — it's really amazing in my opinion.' The agency has so far ordered 51,500 NGDVs, including 35,000 battery-powered vehicles. To date, it has received 300 battery vehicles and 1,000 gas-powered ones. Former Postmaster General Louis DeJoy said in 2022 the agency expected to purchase chiefly zero-emissions delivery vehicles by 2026. It still needs some internal combustion engine vehicles that travel longer distances. Frum, the Postal Service spokesperson, said the planned NGDV purchases were "carefully considered from a business perspective' and are being deployed to routes and facilities where they will save money. The agency has also received more than 8,200 of 9,250 Ford E-Transit electric vehicles it has ordered, she said. Ernst said it's fine for the Postal Service to use EVs already purchased. 'But you know what? We need to be smart about the way we are providing services through the federal government,' she said. 'And that was not a smart move.' Maxwell Woody, lead author of the University of Michigan study, made the opposite case. Postal vehicles, he said, have low average speeds and a high number of stops and starts that enable regenerative braking. Routes average under 30 miles and are known in advance, making planning easier. 'It's the perfect application for an electric vehicle," he said, 'and it's a particularly inefficient application for an internal combustion engine vehicle.'
CNN
29 minutes ago
- CNN
Gavin Newsom thanks you for your attention to redistricting
Gavin Newsom knows the popular image of him is of a smooth talker with slicked-back hair, the wealthy liberal who co-owns a vineyard. He knows, regarding the presidential ambitions he's hardly hiding, that the biggest question he would face out of the gate is whether he could sell Americans on wanting California to represent their future rather than seeing it as the place where the wackiest liberal dreams go to run wild. The redistricting fight that Newsom and the state legislature are launching Monday could, he and his inner circle believe, give him all the rebuttals he needs. If it succeeds. Newsom is already raising money and preparing for an onslaught of Republican cash aimed at defeating the November ballot initiative California legislators expect to enact as quickly as Thursday, asking voters to allow a gerrymander of five new Democratic seats in the US House. He has started making plans for what he assumes will be President Donald Trump's retaliation against him for trying to erase Republican gains in Texas. He recently spent an hour on the phone trying to smooth over former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who created California's independent redistricting commission and has made fighting gerrymandering one of his post-politics priorities. (It may not have helped: Schwarzenegger posted a deliberately cryptic photo Friday of himself lifting weights in a T-shirt reading: 'F*** The Politicians: Terminate Gerrymandering.') Democrats often talk about fighting Trump more. Newsom now has yet another actual fight to have. Newsom told CNN that he feels 'blessed' to have the chance and that he's worried Democrats are undermining voters' faith with inspiring but ultimately empty promises. 'It's faith and works,' he said in an interview hours after he formally launched his redistricting push with a vow to fight 'fire with fire.' 'You go to church. It's, as you pray, move your feet. It's passion and action.' 'I don't want to go to another candlelight vigil. I don't want to hold hands. People need to do something. 'Do something!' I hear it. 'Do something.' People are done with us. If I give another speech and I don't follow up with something, I'm done. And (Trump's Republicans) are going to roll us over,' Newsom said. Aides to several of Newsom's potential presidential primary rivals told CNN they weren't going to address directly what the governor is doing. But all the people already thinking about the bigger political picture for Democrats know what this showdown could mean for him. 'What do you mean he can't win a general election?' one of Newsom's strategists told CNN, asking the question they know he'll confront and speaking anonymously to discuss the internal thinking about how this would reverberate. 'He just helped us take back the House. If this wins, and the Democrats win, he's a winner: a leader of the opposition, and an effective leader.' Rep. Nancy Pelosi, the San Francisco-based former House speaker who has long been a Newsom booster and is already helping him fundraise for the ballot initiative campaign, said that after Trump started the unusual mid-decade redistricting push, 'you throw a punch, you better be ready to take punch — for the children, as I always say, and for our democracy.' 'When this came along, it provided a vehicle like none other,' Pelosi said. 'And people who had been saying, 'Give me something to do, what can I do?' or, 'Why aren't we doing more?' are now really very excited about the leadership that is being provided by California under the leadership of Gavin.' Just a few months ago, after calling a post-election special session of the legislature to pass several 'Trump-proofing' laws, Newsom began to reach out to the president. First came the devastating Los Angeles wildfires. Newsom, exhausted and frantic by the scale of the destruction and what rebuilding would entail, spent days in a command center managing the response but also apoplectic about the misinformation he saw spreading on social media, often from the Trump directly and with signal-boosting from Elon Musk. Still, he showed up at the airport to greet the newly inaugurated president and kissed the first lady on the cheek, then spent 90 minutes in the Oval Office, pleading for disaster aid. Then was what came off to many allies and rivals as a journey of self-exploration via podcasting. He seemed to switch his position on transgender rights to better match the Democratic backlash that set in after those questions helped take down his old rival Kamala Harris. He invited on MAGA celebrities Charlie Kirk and Steve Bannon, saying he was looking for common ground. Many Democrats felt betrayed. Others dismissed Newsom as being purely opportunistic. Even people who worked for him said that he seemed adrift, following his own sense of what he wanted to do, and he needed to decide whether he wanted his future to be on the iTunes charts or in the White House. Weeks before standing up to the president's June immigration enforcement crackdown in Los Angeles, Newsom introduced massive social services cuts for the state budget, which he said were the only way to deal with the coming shortfalls under Trump. At the time, Lorena Gonzalez, a Democratic former member of the State Assembly and now powerful California Labor Federation president, told CNN that Newsom was behaving like 'a San Diego Republican of the 2000s or 2010s.' Responding to Trump that way, Gonzalez told CNN in June, 'is a choice. It's not a choice I would make.' Gonzalez was one of the speakers at Thursday's redistricting kickoff in Los Angeles, introducing Newsom in lionizing terms, while Sen. Alex Padilla called him 'the person who has brought us together for this fight of all fights.' A few minutes later US Rep. Maxine Waters said he was showing 'the kind of leadership that's going to determine the future of this country.' And underscoring both the Trump administration's crackdown in California and Newsom's feeling that retaliation is coming, Border Patrol agents arrived outside the rally to detain people with cameras rolling. For those who wanted more pushback right away in Trump's second presidency, Newsom is ringing a little hollow now. 'I'm very glad that Gavin Newsom has abandoned the 'sit down with our mortal enemies for podcasts' phase of his political career,' said one top Democratic strategist starting to think through the 2028 race, asking for anonymity to not speak directly toward a candidate's calculations. 'But his turnabout here speaks to the fundamental problem he has with the Democratic electorate: He says and does what he thinks is right for him in the moment as opposed to what is right for the country.' Newsom's response: 'Give me a goddamn break. What a bulls*** comment.' He was riled up, calling himself 'the guy who's done more progressive policy than anybody,' ticking through his record on expanding health care, raising the minimum wage, building housing, and enacting a wide range of larger social, racial and economic justice initiatives. 'They can't be serious, because they're not serious, because they don't know what the hell they're talking about,' Newsom said, saying he's still the same man who as San Francisco mayor first made headlines 20 years ago for officiating the first legal gay marriages in the country. 'I've been hiding in plain sight. It's, like, really? You've now discovered something that's been there the whole time,' Newsom said. 'I think it's maybe a secret power because, you know, get ready.' Many Democratic governors who tangled with Trump through the pandemic walked away chastened, believing they could never work with him again. Newsom said he got everything he asked for even after the last intense wildfires. He said he started out wanting to believe that he could work with Trump again until that meeting in the Oval Office in February, when it quickly hit him that the president is 'a different person.' Trump, Newsom said, kept talking about himself, pointing to a picture of Franklin Roosevelt and talking about running for a third term like Roosevelt did before the US Constitution was amended with a two-term limit. 'It was maniacal,' Newsom said. 'You felt those authoritarian tendencies coming in a way that even — when I say even, in quotes — even in the first term, were not as present.' As for hosting Kirk or Bannon on his podcast, Newsom said it's ridiculous to argue he was doing anything to platform people who already have huge followings. 'Just because you turn your back, they're going to disappear? How naïve is that? How stupid? Give me a break,' Newsom said. 'We need to understand what makes them tick, what motivates them.' Plus, Newsom said, there are areas of agreement, like when he felt Bannon seemed in favor of California's tax system. Maybe there's some opportunity for Democrats there, too. Newsom's podcast, for all the snickering it caused, is at breakthrough levels of listeners. His email list is generally considered the second-best in Democratic politics, only after Harris' from the presidential campaign. His press office's social media account has become a multi-aide operation itself and shifted to a Trump-aping full-time troll, complete with schoolyard nicknames and 'THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER!' sign-offs. Asked last week by a reporter to defend the tone he's adopted online, Newsom said, 'If you have issues with what I'm putting out, you sure as hell should have concerns with what he's putting out as president,' decrying what he said was the 'normalization' of that approach even as he noted he was 'pleased with the attention.' Newsom is fundraising. He will campaign hard through November. He will hope that a combination of Democratic turnout, a pitch about giving voters the voice in redistricting, and the reaffirmation of the independent redistricting commission for future cycles will get him to victory. The next fight is already on his mind, as he says he will make sure the University of California, Los Angeles, does not agree to a settlement with the Trump administration – 'we'll never settle out, like Harvard appears to be selling out,' he said. But Newsom said he already knows what he will say if he loses this one. 'I'll tell people: I put it all on the line. Did what I thought was right. And you know what? I value your opinion. I value your point of view. And I pray for all of us,' Newsom said. 'Because, you know, God help us if we're not successful. And I mean it. You may have enjoyed one of your last free and fair elections. And it will be a free and a fair election, despite these guys showing up in masks.'
