Five years after Maryland increased spending by $2 billion to provide greater academic equity, students have made remarkable gains in reading and math, according to a report given to the Maryland General Assembly yesterday by an outside consultant.
For every additional $1,000 spent per student, there was a significant increase in pass rates in both subjects. The improvement was twice as great for middle school students as for those in elementary grades.
The report by MGT of America also confirms what most educators have intuitively believed for decades: Money invested in teachers appears to pay off. About 80 percent of additional local and state funding has been spent on the teaching staff - raising salaries, hiring more to reduce class sizes and requiring a highly qualified teacher in every classroom.
"I think it is a validation of a leap of faith that the legislature and the governor took to continue to fund it," said state Superintendent Nancy S. Grasmick, referring to The Bridge to Excellence Act. Passed in 2002, that law put into effect the recommendations of a state education funding commission chaired by Alvin Thornton.
Grasmick said the report points out the wisdom of the legislature's decision to pass the law, which required not just an 80 percent increase in the level of funding but targeted the money to provide the most help to special education and poor students and those learning English. Students in those categories did not make as much progress in learning math and reading as did the general population. The achievement gaps are still a matter of concern, she said.
The legislature mandated that school systems not reduce the amount of money they provided schools from county budgets while the state dollars increased. Local appropriations per pupil did not drop during the five-year period, but there is still little equality among the school systems in how much is spent per pupil.Montgomery County allots more per pupil than any other system, for example, and rural Caroline County contributes least.
There will never be equality in school funding, said Jerry Ciesla, a senior partner at MGT, because each local government will contribute more or less to its school system on top of what the state gives. But, he said, there is more equity since the Thornton law was passed. There is "fairness of state funding," he said. "Those that need it the most get the most."
