Blueprint Basics

The Blueprint for Maryland’s Future Act is legislation that codifies into law the recommendations made by the Kirwan Commission after an extensive study of best practices in high performing educational systems around the world. The Blueprint focuses on five policy areas, called Pillars.

  • Early Childhood Education

  • High-Quality and Diverse Teachers and Leaders

  • College and Career Readiness Pathways

  • More Resources to Ensure All Students are Successful

  • Governance and Accountability

It includes funding, remediation and oversight. Each school system is responsible for providing education for students including easily available academic support as soon as the need occurs, eliminating moving students on before they are prepared for the next level. 

The Blueprint creates an important new state agency, The Accountability and Implementation Board (AIB) to oversee the transformation of the State Department of Education, the twenty-four school districts, and the vast array of related institutions. This Board has the authority to ensure that school districts are implementing each policy area and achieving the desired results. They receive regular detailed reports on the performance of each entity and are obligated to make all reports available to the public. 

WCGMD examines these and other data sources. Where progress is achieved, we applaud the successes. Where shortcomings are identified, we support/offer constructive recommendations. The importance of this work to the future well-being of our youth cannot be overstated. Full implementation of the Blueprint will deliver great careers and bright futures. Failure will result in expanding dependency and limited futures. Failure is not an option.

Accountability Implementation Board (AIB)

The AIB is critical to the full implementation of the Blueprint. Click here to connect with their website that includes links to their meetings and information about the topics, materials and speakers.

History Of The Blueprint for Maryland’s Future

For most of the 20th century the United States was the world leader in education, and Maryland was considered to have one of the best systems. Unfortunately, in recent decades, we have fallen far behind the leading education systems in the world. Maryland's youth will be competing in the global workplace with students who are far better prepared and at earlier ages. This has created an urgent need to act!

Therefore the Maryland General Assembly launched a four-year comprehensive study to address these critical issues chaired by renowned education leader, Dr. William E. Kirwan. One of their key findings is that less than a third of Maryland students are currently prepared to compete on an even footing with those of the leading systems. The result was the enactment of the Blueprint for Maryland's Future, with major systemic and structural changes and dedicated funding in key areas. Fully implemented, it will redesign the current array of education programs into a transformational system based on proven results that work for all students. This will not happen overnight. It will require at least ten years of public support and participation to ensure that the major initial investments produce the results that are essential. After years of implementing the necessary reforms, Maryland will receive significant returns on its investment which will result in Maryland being a highly desirable state in which to live and work.