The fate of Maryland’s achievement gap is in the hands of state legislators. Tell them to support high standards today.

Late last week, the Maryland General Assembly passed the Protect Our Schools Act, a misleading name for HB 978.

HB 978 weakens Maryland’s state accountability measures and seeks to widen the achievement gap across our state and send a false sense of substantive achievement for children. It actively denies schools and teachers valuable data and insight by reducing the weight and importance of academic indicators in the state’s education accountability system.

If allowed to move forward, this bill makes Maryland a clear outlier for accountability standards from other states, most of which weigh student academic achievement and growth more significantly than this bill proposes. States do this because they understand the critical importance of weighting these measures heavily. We do this in Maryland so that we know how our education system is doing.

Our children deserve every opportunity to succeed and thrive. Keeping accountability standards high, and keeping academic indicators a large part of our accountability system, is a critical step in that direction. We must maintain our commitment to our kids and this veto helps us to do just that.

Tell your legislators not to override Gov. Hogan’s veto now!

Thank you for taking action on behalf of Maryland’s students. By urging your officials to keep Gov. Hogan’s veto on the Protect Our Schools Act, you have helped prove there’s momentum behind closing the achievement gap in the First Line state. To encourage others to join you, share this message on Facebook or Twitter now. We can’t do this work without you.

My name is [First and Last Name] and I am a constituent in your district. I am calling to tell Representative/Senator [Last Name] to stop the passage of HB 978 before session is over.

As a lifelong resident of Maryland, I know the future of our state rests in the hands of our children. To give them with the opportunities they need to succeed, a high-quality education matters. Students who are molded by a strong education, with high standards, effective teachers and individual and school-level accountability grow to become successful, thriving adults.

We do our children a great disservice with bills like HB 978 that prevent us from knowing whether our schools are serving and preparing all children to succeed. This includes, at a very minimum, access to the kinds of information that will educate and empower them to become strong, critical, passionate community leaders.

This veto is a critical step in that direction for Maryland’s students, and I urge Representative/Senator [Last Name] to hold strong against HB 978.