Final Week of the Legislative Session: Major education bill passes and a new video update

By bmorenews on April 5, 2019

Dear Friends and Neighbors,

Earlier this week, the Maryland State Senate passed one of the most important education reform bills in recent years. The billimplements the recommendations of the Commission on Innovation and Excellence in Education (also known as the Kirwan Commission), which for the last several years has been studying how to make Maryland’s schools the best-in-the-nation. The bill’s major provisions include:

Early childhood education for children of low-income families
Grants to local school systems to retain our best educators
Greater funding for special education programs
Funding to support a mental health coordinator for each school system
Increased grants to school systems with struggling learners
Additional aid to school systems that have the highest concentrations of poverty
Creation of the Maryland Office of the Inspector General for Education

Ensuring the best education for our children is one of the legislature’s most important responsibilities. Though there’s more work to be done in future years in advancing the Commission’s recommendation, this bill represents a strong, bipartisan first step in helping our students, educators, and schools succeed.

In this week’s video update, I cover an important milestone during the legislative session known as the “crossover deadline.” Bills that pass either the House or Senate before the crossover deadline have a greater potential to become law, and our video covers some of my bills and other major legislation that passed in advance of the crossover deadline.

Finally, here are some recently published news articles covering bills that I have sponsored and discussed:

“Senate Passes Bill Targeting Potential Political Influence in State Hiring” from Maryland Matters
“New bill would allow Maryland food stamp recipients to use them at participating restaurants” from Fox 5
“Maryland lawmakers pass bill allowing minors to receive PrEP without parental consent”from Metro Weekly
“Legislative Roundup: Prescription Drugs…” from Maryland Matters

We’re now in our final week of the legislative session, so if you would like to stay on top of news from the General Assembly, please like our Facebook page to receive our most timely updates!