Governor Ehrlich has once again put petty politics ahead of the good of Maryland children. Over the past three years Governor Ehrlich has already shown us that his commitment to education exists only in words, never in his actions. Now Ehrlich has cut an important program that benefits some of the most at-risk children in our state.
This editorial from the Annapolis Capitol details just how low Governor Ehrlich will sink in playing partisan politics with our kids:
The governor decided not to fund the $3.5 million Teacher Challenge Grant, which included $600,000 for county schools. The money is used to hire specialists in reading and math for students at underperforming schools that have a lot of children from poor households.
Much of the money went to the elementary and middle schools in the Annapolis cluster, where recently released state test scores showed major improvements in reading and math - even among African-American, Hispanic, low-income and special education students [...]
Why? For the benefit of people who still believe in the tooth fairy, state officials nattered on about "the fiscal needs of the state."
Hogwash! Everyone knows exactly why the governor did this: The Teacher Challenge Grant is the pet program of House Speaker Mike Busch. And the governor is still furious at Mr. Busch over the speaker's failure to salute and get in line on slot machines [...]
If the governor is going to keep boasting about his largess toward education, he ought to change his mind about this. But no one's counting on that. Instead, school officials are trying to scrape together money to retain some of the benefits conferred by the grant[...]
In the meantime, if any of those students wonder what happened to the extra help in reading and math, we'll give them the straight answer they won't hear from the governor's spokesmen:
Yes, it's all about politics. Sorry about that, kids.
Well, it looks like Governor Ehrlich has learned well at the feet of Tom DeLay and Newt Gingrich. We're going to need lots of help to make sure that the Bob Ehrlich and Michael Steele's misplaced priorities and mismanaged administration comes to an end in November 2006. Please visit http://www.mddems.org and find out how you can help.
Thanks,
Terry Lierman
Chair, Maryland Democratic Party