Del. Anthony Brown, Mayor Martin O?Malley?s running mate for lieutenant governor, continues to attack Republican Gov. Robert Ehrlich?s funding for education in an Examiner interview published today, saying Ehrlich “failed” to fully fund recommended operating and construction budgets for Maryland?s public schools.
Ehrlich aide Henry Fawell shot back with figures indicating “the governor has exceeded those funding levels.”
“All Anthony Brown does is talk and all Gov. Ehrlich does is deliver,” Fawell said.
In 2002, the legislature mandated a dramatic increase in education recommended by the Thornton Commission, though it did not pass a funding source to pay for it. As a candidate, Ehrlich promised to try and fund the plan, but criticized the legislature for not coming up with the money to implement it.
“He is only funding education at the level that the legislature required the governor do by law,” Brown said.
But Fawell pointed out the governor increased funding for K-12 education by $1.4 billion in the last four years, with$176 million of that increase going to Baltimore City, and he did so without a general tax increase.
Brown also faulted Ehrlich for not putting enough money into public school construction.
But Fawell said that the $330 million in this year?s budget to build and renovate schools is the “highest figure in 30 years.”
The governor?s record on school construction even had a defender from an unlikely source, Senate President Thomas Mike Miller, a frequent Ehrlich critic. At an April 11 bill signing, with Ehrlich sitting next to him, Miller said to the audience: “The governor put more money in school construction than any governor in Maryland history. He is a great moderate.”
“The numbers demonstrate that there has been progress,” Brown said about test scores for Baltimore city elementary schools and in graduation rates for the high schools. He criticized Ehrlich and the state education department for not doing more to collaborate with city schools in helping them improve.
“It is breathtaking how easily Mayor O?Malley and Delegate Brown can overlook the chronic mismanagement in the Baltimore City school system,” Fawell said. “It is in stark contrast with Gov. Ehrlich who delivered record funding and test score improvements in every other jurisdiction in the state.”
Fawell noted that the city gets $9,446 per pupil, compared to an average of $5,362 statewide.
