Education is a top priority issue in Maryland. In 2021 The General Assembly passed the Blueprint for Maryland's Future, which increased education funding by 3.8 Billion dollars annually for 10 years. The primary focus of the Blueprint is on early childhood, primary, and secondary school and This investment signals Maryland’s commitment to having a high value public educational system.

One of the pillars of the blueprint is a focus on college and career readiness. This means a big part of the Blue print is to prepare students for Higher education.

Maryland’s higher education system include community colleges, public 4 year schools, HBCUs, and private four year schools. These institutions are also a major focus of policy and budget deliberations. We have spent some time already discussing schools like Johns Hopkins, but today we are going to focus on community colleges.

Owen Silverman Andrews is an instructional specialist of English language learning at a Maryland community college and a doctorate of education student at UVA, focusing on multilingual English learners' agentic transitions between/within secondary and higher ed institutions. Owen served for two terms as co-chair of the Baltimore City Green Party (2018-21) and lives in Lakeside, Baltimore.

We will cover a range of topics related to community colleges, higher education, and multilingual educational institutions in Maryland. I am excited to get into this with Owen.

Article About Higher Ed Funding

https://medium.com/age-of-awareness/no-more-blank-checks-for-marylands-private-colleges-and-universities-e60f472313c7

Article About Community College Funding

https://osilvermana.medium.com/fight-for-full-fair-funding-for-md-community-colleges-068358fbae69.

Article about labeling schools vs students

https://www.languagemagazine.com/2024/04/04/deconstructing-english-learner-labels-constructing-multilingual-schools/