Maryland risks losing $450M in pandemic relief for education


The following is an excerpt from The Baltimore Sun.


Maryland is at risk of forfeiting $450 million in federal education funding if the state fails to allocate the remaining funds by Monday’s deadline. This money is part of the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) Fund, designed to address educational challenges from the pandemic. Critics say missing this deadline could represent a significant failure in managing taxpayer money meant to help students recover.

The state has already allocated $1.5 billion of its $1.95 billion share from the third round of ESSER funding. To avoid losing the remaining $450 million, Maryland must finalize how these funds will be used by Monday. Contracts can be initiated up until the deadline, and payments can extend into next year.

However, as other states move quickly to commit their funds, Maryland’s slow pace has drawn attention. The failure to allocate these funds could leave schools—especially those struggling the most—without critical resources.

Despite the importance of these funds, Maryland has yet to clarify its plan for fully utilizing the relief money. The situation raises questions about whether state officials are effectively managing the influx of federal aid to support schools and students in need.

Read the full article here.


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5 thoughts on “Maryland risks losing $450M in pandemic relief for education”

  1. Stories like this always remind of my time in Government when coming to the end of a quarter and we hadn’t spent our funds allocated for that quarter we would go on spending sprees. Not because we needed anything but because if we didn’t spend the money our quarterly allocation would be reduced in the future. The waste I saw of my fellow citizens hard earned currency developed a contempt within me of Government spending that is rarely challenged. Keep in mind the above is only one example of the ways in which the Government can be wasteful with our money. And when looked at objectively our Political campaign messages are, “We need to spend money on …”. Talk of Government waste has become (for me) nothing more than a platitude. I’m convinced we’ll go on doing what we are doing until we collapse our monetary system which will bring on harder times than this country has ever seen. But will that be a lesson that lives on eternally? If history is any indicator the answer is no since we have been through that before (Great Depression).

  2. Sharyl & Team,

    Re : Public Mis-/Mal-/Un-Education Schools

    And consider/contemplate/calculate
    how one-room schoolhouses had
    produced SCHOLARS equipped to
    found this once-well-run nation
    (( before Lincoln’s war against Self-
    Government ).

    Again, as posted somewhere in your
    PAGES—a college/university
    graduate today could NOT Pass the
    tests required by an EIGHTH-GRADE
    student of the 1850s—his/her testing
    in one-room schoolhouses (( the
    D E C L I N E
    is due to Marxian-minded, no-child-
    left-behind, EMOTION-Driven ( not
    LOGIC-Driven ) “educators” within the
    Department of Education and in multi-
    million-dollar WOKE/PC/Fun-times
    classrooms.

    Well, “girls just want to have fun”—as
    female teachers are less inclined to be
    TOUGH (( read Aristotle about how to
    instruct children—by rigorous focus on
    L E A R N I N G, not by doing arts/crafts/
    games/fun-things )).

    -Rick

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