posted on
Bill would have widened achievement gap, denied families valuable data
Baltimore, M.D.—Today, Jenese Jones, interim executive director for MarylandCAN: The Maryland Campaign for Achievement Now released the following statement in response to Gov. Hogan’s veto of the Protect Our Schools Act of 2017:
“I applaud Gov. Hogan for vetoing House Bill 978, the Protect Our Schools Act of 2017. Put plainly, this bill will continue to widen the achievement gap across our state and sends a false sense of substantive achievement for children. It puts adults before our children and actively denies schools and teachers valuable data and insight by reducing the weight and importance of academic indicators in the state’s education accountability system.
If allowed to move forward, this bill will make Maryland a clear outlier for accountability standards from other states, most of which weigh student academic achievement and growth more significantly than this bill proposes. States do this because they understand the critical importance of weighting these measures heavily. We do this in Maryland so that we know how our education system is doing.
Our children deserve every opportunity to succeed and thrive. Keeping accountability standards high, and keeping academic indicators a large part of our accountability system is a critical step in that direction. We must maintain our commitment to our kids and this veto helps us to do just that.”
For more information or interviews with Jenese Jones, contact Yam Menon at 203-767-7848.