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K-12 schools

    Students raise their hands during an eighth-grade math class at KIPP Harmony Academy in Baltimore.
    Trump called out Baltimore math scores. Can you pass a similar test?
    Maryland kids underperformed on state math tests. Banner subscribers struggled, too.
    Students rally outside the Maryland State House in Annapolis last week to urge lawmakers not to approve cuts to the Blueprint for Maryland's Future. The House of Delegates, and now the state Senate, have made changes to the plan that will need to be sorted out in the final weeks of the General Assembly session.
    Maryland Senate seeks middle ground on changes to Blueprint education plan
    The Maryland Senate is charting a middle ground between a revamp sought by the governor and minimal tweaks sought by the House of Delegates.
    WASHINGTON, DC - MARCH 17: U.S. President Donald Trump departs after speaking with reporters in the Grand Foyer during a tour at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts after leading a board meeting on March 17, 2025 in Washington, DC. After shunning the annual Kennedy Center Honors during his first term in the White House, Trump fired the center’s president, removed the bipartisan board of Biden appointees and named himself Chairman of the storied music, theater and dance institution.
    Trump singles out Baltimore’s math scores as he dismantles U.S. Education Department
    The president conflated an Algebra I test with “basic mathematics.”
    Linda McMahon
    What Education Department closure could mean for Maryland schools and colleges
    President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Thursday to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education.
    As needs of students with disabilities have increased, the county government has devoted a smaller and smaller percentage of its own budget to HCPSS every year.
    Letter: Howard County kids with disabilities want fairness, not luxury
    Benjamin Schmitt, president of the Howard County Education Association, says students with disabilities deserve fairness when it comes to educational funding priorities.

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    Students, including several conditionally-hired teachers working towards completing their teaching certification, attend a Education in Cultural Perspective course at The University of Maryland, Baltimore County, in Baltimore, MD, taught by Professor Amy Tondreau on Feb. 25, 2025.
    Thousands of Maryland teachers don’t have a license — and are struggling to get one
    The number of teachers with a temporary license has skyrocketed in the last five years.
    Principal Shawnette Williams collects a cellphone from a student arriving at Reginald Lewis High School. The phones are put in numbered pouches and locked up until the end of the school day.
    School cellphone ban may be tough medicine for kids, but it worked
    Baltimore students gave up their phones kicking and screaming, but now they report better grades and focus.
    Community members rally in front of the Department of Education to protest budget cuts on March 13, 2025 in Washington, DC.
    Education Department staff cuts could limit options for families of kids with disabilities
    Education Department officials insist the staff reductions will not affect civil rights investigations and the layoffs were “strategic decisions.”
    Howard County Executive Calvin Ball said in a letter to the Board of Education that the board’s budget request is “unattainable and unaffordable.” (Kaitlin Newman/The Baltimore Banner)
    Howard County executive expresses concerns about school board’s $1.26 billion budget request
    Howard County Executive Calvin Ball said Friday that the school board’s $1.26 billion funding request is “unattainable and unaffordable.”
    Maggie Litz Domanowski listens intently during a Baltimore County Board of Education meeting on July 11, 2023.
    Baltimore County school board censures member for ‘disrespectful conduct’
    Maggie Domanowski is accused of using a “tone and manner that was perceived as uncivil and aggressive” during a Jan. 28 school board meeting.

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    Pocomoke High School math teacher La'Tier Evans helps a student with an algebra assignment in her classroom on Friday, Dec. 8, 2023 in Pocomoke City, MD. Evans was inspired to teach after having a Black teacher in the eighth grade, and is now Worcester County’s only Black secondary math teacher.
    Judge blocks Trump cuts to Maryland teacher recruitment efforts
    The initial victory comes the same day the Department of Education said it would lay off more than 1,300 employees.
    The Maryland House of Delegates on opening day of the Maryland General Assembly in Annapolis, Md., on Wednesday, January 8, 2024.
    Maryland House passes stripped-down Blueprint education bill
    Maryland’s House of Delegates voted along party lines to tweak the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future education plan.
    Ashley Johnson, right, and her children pick out books at the Our Kids Read Baltimore Literacy Hub, which offers three free books to every kid who walks in the door.
    Can this free Baltimore County bookstore get more kids reading?
    Our Kids Read opened last month in the Eastpoint Mall.
    BALTIMORE, MD - DECEMBER 5, 2024: Kindergarten students pay attention to their teacher during an English Language Arts class in KIPP Baltimore on December 5, 2024.
    Maryland joins lawsuit against Trump cuts to teacher recruitment programs
    The state could end up with fewer teachers in classrooms and university layoffs, the attorney general said.
    Brooke Bourne, a senior at Western High School, has quite the journey home from school. She takes a bus and the subway to get home on a foggy December day. Each form of transit has nine stops.
    Baltimore City Council members press for solutions to student transit nightmare
    Baltimore City Council members pressed officials in the school district and the Maryland Transit Administration to find solutions to improve mass transit students.

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    Brooke Bourne, a senior at Western High School, spends more than 90 minutes getting home from school each day on public transit, a distance that takes 17 minutes by car.
    Baltimore City Council is ready to talk about kids’ struggles to get to school
    A Thursday hearing will be the first time public officials discuss transit’s impact on students since a Banner investigation found it’s nearly impossible for them to get to school on time every day.
    The Howard County Board of Education approved the school system’s approximately $1.26 billion operating budget for next school year.
    Howard County school budget adds athletic trainers after basketball player paralyzed
    The inclusion of additional athletic trainers was among nearly 20 budget amendments approved last week, putting the school system’s funding request $107.3 million above what the county is required to pay.
    Dazhon Darien, Pikesville High School’s former athletic director, was flagged in a national database of educators for submitting fraudulent transcripts in Florida. He did the same in Maryland before facing criminal charges for sexual exploitation of children and other crimes.
    Maryland could require teacher screenings after questionable Pikesville High hire
    Legislation would require schools to use a national educator database to help weed out bad actors.
    Students and other attendees hold signs during a hearing last week for the Excellence in Maryland Public Schools Act, Gov. Wes Moore’s proposal to revamp the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future.
    Moore’s plan to revamp education Blueprint hits roadblock in Annapolis
    Maryland Gov. Wes Moore’s proposal to revamp the state’s education-improvement plan was largely rejected by state lawmakers Friday.
    Zūm, a California based tech company, handles 230 of Howard County Public Schools’ roughly 500 school bus routes.
    Howard County Zūm school bus drivers vote to unionize
    The 300 drivers, trainers and bus attendants work for a contractor for the Howard County Public School System.
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