About MCES

The Maryland Coalition for Excellent Schools

The Maryland Coalition for Excellent Schools (MCES) was created through the efforts of the Maryland Association of Boards of Education, Maryland State Teachers Association, and Maryland Education Coalition. By working collaboratively, MCES member organizations seek to generate support for the policies and funding needed to raise the performance level of Maryland students, provide adequate school facilities, and improve teacher quality. To date, 16 organizations have joined the coalition.

MCES is committed to supporting and promoting public education and public schools. We believe that with the right programs and policies, adequate public funding, and equitable distribution of resources, all students can demonstrate high academic achievement.

Since passage of the Bridge to Excellence in Public Schools Act of 2002, the State of Maryland has increased its investment in public education substantially. Also, in the last two legislative sessions, the General Assembly began to address the huge backlog in school construction and renovation needs identified by the Task Force to Study Public School Facilities in 2004.

However, the previous governor never requested money for the Geographic Cost of Education Index (GCEI), a provision of the Bridge to Excellence Act that would adjust State education aid to reflect regional differences in the cost of providing educational services, and the General Assembly did not pass legislation to make the GCEI mandatory. Thus, the Bridge to Excellence Act never has been fully funded. In addition, since enactment of the Bridge to Excellence Act, new mandates have been imposed on the public schools, including provisions of the federal No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 and the requirement that, beginning, in 2009, Maryland students must pass the High School Assessments (HSAs) in order to graduate. These mandates, as well as the requirement that school districts provide full-day kindergarten, were not factored into the Bridge to Excellence funding formula.

As the final year of implementation of the Bridge to Excellence Act approaches, it is evident that much improvement has been made in early childhood education, as indicated by rising elementary school test scores. However, many students at the middle and high school levels have not received the full benefit of an adequately funded school system. As a result, as many as 25,000 students, out of a cohort of 63,000, are at risk of failing one or more of the HSAs and, therefore, not receiving a high school diploma in 2009.

The HSAs present major challenges to all 24 Maryland public school systems. Every system is struggling to find additional resources to support intervention strategies to help students overcome their educational deficits. With a persistent gap of nearly 30 percentage points in the HAS passage rate between low-income and/or minority students and the rest of the student population, it is obvious that more needs to be done if all students are to have the same opportunity to earn a high school diploma.

Therefore, MCES has endorsed the following legislative agenda for the 2007 session of the Maryland General Assembly:

• Fully fund the final year of implementation of the Bridge to Excellence in Public Schools Act
• Fully fund the Geographic Cost of Education Index
• Authorize at least $400 million for school construction and renovation projects
• Establish a legislative task force to examine the policy and funding implications of the High School Assessments as a graduation requirement.