Brit Kirwan – Sandy Rosenberg

“We need to make the commitment and have the persistence to make it happen.”

That could be said about any number of programs.

Brit Kirwan said it today about the proposals for making Maryland’s public schools, pre-k-12, world class.

The persistence he spoke of will be needed to vote for the significant funding increase necessary to carry out that commitment to educational performance.

Brit chaired the commission that studied our current system and proposed the changes now before us.

He is appearing before every committee in the legislature.

Our committee usual spends little time on briefings outside the realm of health care.

That was not the case today.

Nearly half of our members asked questions.

A Republican colleague suggested that school choice was a better option than the Kirwan plan.

School choice or vouchers benefit a few. Systemic change benefits many.

The future of our public education system is the most important issue my colleagues and I will address during this four-year term.

What will we be asked to do?

Preparing our students for the 21^st Century economy will require:

Early support for children in pre-kindergarten;
High quality and diverse teachers and school leaders;
College or career readiness for all students; and
Accountability for everyone involved to ensure that all students succeed.

Those are the conclusions of the Commission on Innovation and Excellence in Education. It was chaired by Brit Kirwan, former chancellor of the University of Maryland System.

He has called it “potentially the most important thing I have ever been involved in.”

I was the lead sponsor of legislation that has expanded pre-kindergarten and provided incentives for our best teachers to work in schools with the greatest need for their skills.

Now it’s our obligation to do that on a greater scale.

We must review the commission’s recommendations, enact them into law where appropriate, and fund them.

That must be a bipartisan effort – by the Governor and the General Assembly,