pre-kindergarten – Page 2 – Sandy Rosenberg

Lessons Learned

I was at the press conference on pre-kindergarten legislation today because of a teacher and a student.

Nancy Grasmick, the State Superintendent of Schools, was a guest lecturer the first year I co-taught the Legislation class at the University of Maryland Law School.

For the next 18 years, she spoke to the students about bills from the most recent General Assembly session.

And she spoke to me about getting more involved in education issues, taking political risks for the betterment of our children.

Bill Ferguson was a student in the Legislation class in 2008. Before law school, he taught in a Baltimore City school as a Teach For America member.

He was elected to the State Senate in 2010.

At a gathering of education advocates before Bill’s first session (my 29^th), I said to him, “The two of us should work together on education issues.”

Last year, we introduced legislation that would have funded a competitive grant program to stimulate innovation and expand access to high-quality early childhood education.

Today’s press conference was about a similar bill. It will be introduced by the O’Malley-Brown administration.

Similar agendas, Crossing the Governor and the bridge

January 9, 2014 | by delsandy | featured, Sandy's 2014 Legislative Diary | No Comments

“Mr. Obama plans to campaign in 2014 for universal preschool, an increase in the minimum wage and an administration effort to make college less expensive for the middle class,” reports the New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/08/us/politics/obama.html

So do I.

Last year, Senator Ferguson and I introduced legislation creating a competitive grant program to stimulate innovation and expand access to high-quality early childhood education. This year, the O’Malley-Brown administration will sponsor similar legislation.

“For every dollar invested today [in pre-K], savings range from $2.50 to as much as $17 in the years ahead,” concluded an affiliate of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

The minimum wage sets a fair standard for working Marylanders. An increase will move people over the poverty line and stimulate the economy.

I met with labor lobbyists today to strategize and count votes.

Academic debt for college and graduate school tuition limits career choices and the budgets of young families. I am working on legislation to eliminate tuition at a campus or graduate school of the University of Maryland system.

Graduates would be obligated to pay a pre-determined portion of their income for a certain number of years, basing their cost of college on their ability to pay.

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If you’re following the scandal over the decision to limit access to the George Washington Bridge from Fort Lee, NJ because its mayor did not endorse Governor Christie’s re-election, you know that the mayor said that the Christie-appointed executive who did the deed “deserves an a—kicking.”

Christie’s crony is lucky. Tony Soprano would have whacked him.

Making the Case for Pre-K

October 12, 2013 | by delsandy | featured, Sandy's 2013 Legislative Diary | No Comments

“He was a very strong presence without being conspicuous about it. If a fight broke out, he would try to negotiate. He knew who started it; he knew how to let everyone withdraw from it. He could get opponents on policy to see there was a principled compromise.”

In Annapolis, he might be called Soft Shoes, the nickname for the quiet but very effective Senator Harry McGuirk.

This praise, however, was from Bill Moyers – for a Kennedy and Johnson aide, Ralph Dungan, in his obituary today.

There are other ways to describe the person whose focus is moving public policy in the right direction, often by compromise.

Along with Senator Bill Ferguson, I introduced legislation in 2012 to expand state funding for pre-kindergarten to all 4-year olds.

This week, I was a validator when Lt. Governor Anthony Brown and County Executive Ken Ullman announced their universal pre-K proposal.

I explained to a reporter that the slots law already authorized spending for pre-k from the Education Trust Fund, which gets the lion’s share of slots revenue.

With pre-k now on the agenda of the three Democratic candidates for governor, my objective for the next legislative session is to make the argument for the benefits from pre-k funding among my colleagues, along with Sen. Ferguson and the advocates for pre-K.

If you build the case, the money will come.

Batting .500 in the Budget

April 1, 2013 | by delsandy | featured, Sandy's 2013 Legislative Diary | No Comments

You win some and you lose some.

I’m talking about the Governor’s supplemental budget, not the baseball season.

There’s money for expanded services for the mentally ill but no money for the Race to the Tots grant program for pre-Kindergarten classes.

Shortly after the Newtown shootings last December, I met with advocates for the mentally ill.

“We don’t want the discussion in Annapolis to be limited to when the mentally ill should be denied guns,” I said.

We decided to introduce legislation outlining the unmet needs for services, the Mental Health and Substance Use Disorder Safety Net Act of 2013.

Three items from this bill were included in today’s budget: expanded crisis response services, crisis intervention teams, and mental health first aid.

The proposed appropriation is $3.5 million.

My bill was not the only factor that prompted the Governor to increase these vital services, but it played a part.

Race to the Tots, on the other hand, was not funded. However, we’ve already begun strategizing on how to make a better and more effective case for next year’s budget.

Race to the Tots

January 28, 2013 | by delsandy | featured, Sandy's 2013 Legislative Diary | No Comments

Bill Ferguson was 27 when he was elected to the State Senate in 2010. (I was 32 in 1982.)

Before that, he taught in the Baltimore City public schools as a member of Teach For America and graduated from the University of Maryland School of Law, where he took the Legislation class that I co-teach.

Shortly after his election, we decided to work together on education issues.

Bill would bring his knowledge of the classroom; I my knowledge of the legislative process. Or as one educator commented, “Sandy will be the muscle.”

Last year, we enacted a loan forgiveness program for teachers who have excelled in the classroom.

Pre-schoolers are the focus of our attention this session.

President Obama encouraged education reform with his Race to the Top program.

Senator Ferguson and I hope to provide a better pre-kindergarten education for high-need children so that they can enter elementary school ready to learn. Our program is called Race to the Tots.

Local school systems would submit their proposals in a competitive evaluation process.

Our proposal got a very favorable reception from two dozen education advocates at a lunch meeting.

Their one criticism: it doesn’t go far enough.

Our bill draft would fund the program at $10 million for each of the next three years.

More money and more years, they said.

I hope the bill hearing in Annapolis goes that well.

I went there (and will be there again on Nov. 6)

October 24, 2012October 24, 2012 | by delsandy | featured, Sandy's 2012 Legislative Diary | No Comments

I don’t write someone else’s testimony, except when I do.

I attended the Baltimore Educational Equity Summit of Teach for America last Saturday.

At the concluding session, I got into a conversation with a kindergarten teacher and told her that I was working on a bill to expand early childhood education (pre-K).

“The benefits of pre-K are evident in a kindergarten class by the end of the first week,” she replied.

“Will you testify on this bill?” I asked. “Yes,” she said.

Then I told her, “What you just said will be the first sentence of your testimony.”

Senator Bill Ferguson and I met yesterday to discuss the legislation. We’re calling it “Race to the Tots,” modeling it on President Obama’s education reform grant program, “Race to the Top.”

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I also met a TFA member who’s teaching science at Cross Country Elementary School.

“Have you been there?” he asked me.

“I went there,” I responded. “I was in kindergarten the year it opened – 1955.”

I’ll be there again on Election Day. Can you volunteer for two hours that day? Please let me know.

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Last week, I wrote about the implications for abortion rights if Gov. Romney wins. The fate of choice and other issues before the Supreme Court are discussed in “The Court and the Future of Everything You Hold Dear” by Jeffrey Rosen.

A seat at the table and in the classroom

June 5, 2012 | by delsandy | Sandy's 2012 Legislative Diary | No Comments

Maryland citizens, teachers, and students deserve a seat at the table when the General Assembly decides whether to expand gambling. More gambling must equal more dollars for our schools.

Senator Bill Ferguson and I believe that this additional money should be used for pre-kindegarten classes so that kids come to elementary school ready to learn.

We wrote the following in response to a Baltimore Sun editorial, “Gambling’s most taxing issue.”

Dear Editors:

Public school students would be the big loser if the tax rate is reduced for the owners of slots licenses.

Under current law, the tax rate on slots is 67%. Nearly half of the state’s revenue (48.5%) goes directly to the Education Trust Fund. Those dollars can be used only for education. With five fully operating sites, $513.3 million is projected for the Fund in Fiscal Year 2015.

However, that tax rate would be reduced by a third, to 42.5%, under a proposal by the developers of a sixth site at National Harbor in Price Georges County.

Instead of shrinking the allocation for education, we should expand it.

Academically enriched pre-kindergarten programs set students on a successful path of lifelong learning. Recent studies have highlighted both the short-term and long-term positive impacts that pre-k programs have on students’ academic outcomes and students’ preparedness for a 21st century skills-based economy.

If we authorize table games and target 10% of that revenue to pre-k, we would enable students of all socioeconomic backgrounds to enter schools on a more equitable path to opportunity.

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I will be blogging from Israel daily, starting Thursday, at delsandy.com.

Pre-school lottery

March 16, 2012 | by delsandy | Sandy's 2012 Legislative Diary | No Comments

“Our child won the lottery.”

The subject was not gambling. (That hearing is tomorrow.)

The witness’s child had won a lottery to gain admission to a free pre-kindergarten education in a Prince Georges County public school.

The bill was mine.

House Bill 1241 would make a full-day program available for four-year olds whose parents’ income is below a certain level. A half-day program would be offered to other children.

No one disputes that high quality pre-school class time brings long-term benefits.

But how do you pay for it?

The first-year cost of my legislation is $108 million.

Tomorrow is the hearing on a potential source of money – table games at the state’s slots parlors.

My Key Issues:

Tag: pre-kindergarten