Maryland keeps spending more on schools and getting less. Here's why.

Maryland's own analysts say the Blueprint for Maryland's Future can't afford its promises, and counties are already paying $1.4 billion above what the…

Maryland passed a multi billion dollar plan to fix its schools. The state's own analysts now say it cannot afford the promises it made. And the harder truth is that throwing more money at a broken system was never going to fix it. If you own a home in Ellicott City, Marriottsville, Mt. Airy, Woodbine, Damascus, or Clarksburg, a large share of your property tax bill goes to your local schools. That is how it should be. But right now, the partnership between the state and the county is broken, and you are covering the difference. The number nobody is talking about In 2021, Maryland passed the Blueprint for Maryland's Future, a sweeping and expensive plan to overhaul public education. It set a formula for how much each county is required to contribute toward its own schools. According to analysis from the Maryland Department of Legislative Services, the nonpartisan agency that studies the state budget, counties across Maryland are projected to provide at least $1.4 billion more in local funding for public schools in fiscal 2026 than the Blueprint's mandated local share. Part of that is the cost of running good schools. But a large piece of it comes from a formula that does not reflect what schools actually cost. The same analysis found special education is underfunded by roughly $1 billion a year statewide, and student transportation by roughly up to $250 million a year. Those are not county choices. They are gaps the state's own formula created and then left local taxpayers to fill. Howard County and Montgomery County, the two systems serving District 9A, already rank among the highest in Maryland for how much of their school funding comes from local taxpayers. Now they are being pushed even further to cover what the state formula leaves out. And it is about to get worse…