The blueprint includes preschool for 3- and 4-year-olds, higher teacher salaries, extra teacher preparation and tutoring time, more rigorous college and career standards, more resources including school wraparound services and a strong accountability mechanism. It’s to be implemented incrementally through 2033. No state has ever undertaken such a bold and sweeping effort.
How far is Maryland backpedaling and why? The budget for 2026 just proposed by Democratic Gov. Wes Moore cuts deep into state and local Blueprint funding this year: about $238 million, a cut of about 15 percent from the additional education funding provided in the Blueprint law.
In practical political terms, the issue boils down to priorities. There’s always controversy and fierce competition over budgets. Other worthy governmental purposes also plead for funding. Further evidence of failing to prioritize the blueprint is big increases in other state programs, including $420 million for transportation, $122 million for law enforcement, and $128 million for “industries of the future.”
Even so, school reform is not getting the high priority it deserves and the blueprint promises. The cutbacks will compound over time, reducing Blueprint funding by $2.5 billion through 2029 (about 30 percent of the estimated $8 billion for those years) and even more through 2033 when the blueprint sunsets. Cuts to community schools and wraparound behavioral health supports tack on additional estimated losses of $730 million over five years.
These numbers and those that follow are not definitive. The governor’s proposed budget is unusually complicated with innumerable open questions. That said, the big picture is crystal clear: The proposed cutbacks are astonishingly large, putting the blueprint’s future in grave danger.
The damage is even worse because of the blueprint’s significant growing pains and its underfunding from the outset of interventions for struggling learners, classroom coaches for literacy and math, and behavioral specialists to aid students and support teachers.
The principal reason given for the backpedaling is the state’s large fiscal shortfall, projected at $3 billion this year and more than $6 billion by fiscal 2030. This predicament is real, and the blueprint is not alone on the chopping block. Total cuts in Moore's budget are about $2 billion. But given the size of the cut and its compounding nature, schoolchildren are disproportionately harmed.
Further, the full impact is being hidden by Moore and legislative leaders. The cuts listed by the governor do not take into account the ripple effect on funding—that is, the state “savings” cited by the proposal are nearly doubled in actual losses to local school systems because of lost local funding.
Moreover, Blueprint funding is not the main cause of the state’s budget deficits, as many political officials claim. Incremental Blueprint funding increases through 2030 constitute relatively small growth as a percentage of the state’s overall spending. For 2026, the expected Blueprint costs would have amounted to just 2.38 percent of Maryland’s $67.3 billion operating budget.
Budget-cutters confidently defend the largest Blueprint reductions which all but decimate the vital program giving more time for teacher planning and tutoring. Because it would require hiring more teachers and current staffing shortages create challenges, they claim the funding loss is not a setback. That’s disingenuous. They have cut the teacher-time program for four years, despite the probability that all-out recruiting and retention initiatives would gradually tackle the shortages. The governor’s proposed new investments in teacher recruitment and teacher-time don’t come close to the scale of the cuts.
Polls in Maryland (and elsewhere) have shown widespread support for raising taxes for the specific purpose of improving public schools. (A 2019 Goucher poll found 74 percent of Maryland voters supported personally paying more state taxes to improve public education. And a 2023 Hart Research poll found that 77 percent of Maryland voters said it’s important to ensure there’s enough revenue to fund public education, health care and public safety.)
Overall, state officials could choose to close the looming fiscal shortfall through revenue increases as well as spending decreases. But their approach is lopsided with cost-cutting. The $1 billion in additional revenue in the governor’s proposed budget represents a small amount of available revenues, including tax reform to eliminate giveaways to the wealthiest taxpayers. Maryland is among the top fivewealthiest states, but lacks courageous political leadership to raise taxes.
Are there lessons other states can learn as the lights are being dimmed on the promise of the blueprint model? The biggest is the common downfall of big government reforms: Instead of resting on the laurels of passing bold legislation, the governor and legislature must have staying power to achieve effective implementation. When encountering choppy political waters, they must be transparent about the problem’s true nature and open to a variety of options (as Maryland has not). Raising taxes is, of course, extremely difficult, particularly these days. But the tide will turn if bold political leaders come to the fore.
Maryland still has time to reverse its course of retreat and get the blueprint moving again in the right direction. Maryland schoolchildren will benefit, and other states will still have a model for school reform to emulate.
Kalman Hettleman, an education policy analyst and former Baltimore deputy mayor, was a member of the state commission which drafted the Blueprint reform plan discussed in this opinion article and was twice a member of the Baltimore school board.
Liz Zogby, a special education policy advocate and co-chair of the Maryland Down Syndrome Advocacy Coalition, serves as co-chair of the Blueprint Special Education Workgroup.
Governing’s opinion columns reflect the views of their authors and not necessarily those of Governing’s editors or management.
