A new law in Maryland will make it easier for students to earn a degree in college and to leave high school ready for college or a career, according to legislators who sponsored the legislation.
In an op-ed piece published in the Baltimore Sun, Maryland state Sen Paul G Pinsky and Del Anne R Kaiser, both chairs of the Education Subcommittee in their respective chambers, offered their inside view of Maryland’s new College Readiness and Completion Act of 2013, which was signed into law by Gov Martin O’Malley on Thursday.
Under the new law, Maryland’s colleges and universities will have to provide pathways to completion of a degree once students have obtained a certain number of credits. This should reduce the number of students strolling around Maryland’s campuses, amassing student debt, but not making satisfactory progress toward a degree.
The new law should also provide opportunities for students who fall behind a college- or career-ready path while they’re still in high school. By 2016-2017, for example, students will know by the end of 11th grade whether they are college- and career-ready and must be given opportunities in 12th grade to catch up.
Senator Pinsky taught high school history for 20 years and has served in the General Assembly for 25 years. He and Delegate Kaiser, Democrat of Montgomery County, wrote:
After years of talking about the need to improve college and career readiness and educate more of our citizens for an increasingly high-skills economy, what made this year different? To start, we recognized that we can’t afford to wait any longer. The new Common Core state curriculum is already being implemented to make sure students are gaining the knowledge and skills in English language arts/literacy and mathematics to be college and career ready. As new assessments come online to measure students’ progress in meeting these challenges, we want Maryland to be prepared.
