In this month’s Director’s Desk article, Dr. Carstarphen examines the key components and challenges of implementing the 235-page Blueprint for Maryland’s Future. This article provides a more in-depth examination of one component of this effort – Pillar 1, Early Childhood Education. The Blueprint’s Early Childhood Education pillar is designed to ensure that more children enter kindergarten ready to succeed academically and socially.

The Blueprint for Maryland’s Future, passed by the Maryland General Assembly in 2021, calls for an increase of roughly $4 billion in funding over 10 years. The FY 2026 state budget provided record funding for K-12 education, investing $9.7 billion in Maryland’s public schools in this fourth year of funding the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future. The $9.7 billion budget reflects an increase of $551 million, or 6 percent, compared to FY 2024 (Maryland Department of Budget and Management, 2026).

Of this nearly $10 billion, Maryland’s annual funding for early childhood education has now reached $966 million, nearly a $500 million increase since 2021. Of this, more than $360 million is in Blueprint-related early childhood funding. The largest share of this increase is for the Prekindergarten Grant Program, approximately $257 million annually (Maryland General Assembly, 2026).

The $966 million early childhood budget includes:

  • Child Care Scholarships – to assist with the cost of childcare
  • Pre-K grants – to increase available seats, including mixed-delivery private providers
  • Judy Center expansion funding – including 9 new Centers per year from 2022-2025 and 18 new Judy Centers per year from 2026-2030
  • Patty/Family Support Center expansion funding – including 3 new centers per year from 2022-2029
  • Early childhood workforce initiatives – including workforce development and teacher credentialing
  • Quality improvement programs such as Maryland EXCELS
  • Infants and Toddlers programs.

The Child Care Scholarship program is funded through a combination of state general funds and federal Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG) funds. Maryland’s Child Care Scholarship Program (formerly the Child Care Subsidy Program) helps eligible low- and moderate-income families pay for licensed child care providers so parents can work, attend school, or participate in job-training programs. Families can use scholarships for: 1) licensed child-care centers; 2) family child-care homes; 3) public prekindergarten programs; 4) Head Start partnerships; and 5) some before- and after-school programs.

The program is administered by the Maryland State Department of Education and is one of the largest components of the state’s early childhood budget. Since the inception of the Blueprint, enrollment in the Child Care Scholarship program has increased dramatically from about 15,000 children in 2021 to more than 40,000 children in 2025. As a result, the cost of Maryland’s Child Care Scholarship program has increased dramatically in recent years – approximately $488 million over FY2024 and FY2025 (Maryland Center on Economic Policy, 2025). The rapid growth led Maryland to temporarily freeze new enrollments beginning in May 2025 because costs were rising faster than projected (Ford, 2026).

Pre-Kindergarten Expansion Grants are intended to dramatically increase the number of pre-kindergarten seats available. Expansion of full-day prekindergarten for three- and four-year-old children is a major component of the Blueprint. Maryland’s Prekindergarten Expansion Grant funding has increased substantially under the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future. By FY2027, the program is projected to receive approximately $257 million annually.

Under the Blueprint, children from families earning up to 300% of the federal poverty level are eligible for free full-day pre-K, with plans to gradually expand access further for some four-year-olds above that income level through a sliding-scale system (Maryland State Department of Education. (n.d.). While families with a household income over 600% FPL may be responsible for the full cost of prekindergarten, the Blueprint requires the state to define a sliding scale for families with a household income between 300% and 600% FPL.

Under the Blueprint, income eligibility is based on a system of tiers:

  • Tier I: children from families with an annual income less than or equal to 300% FPL are eligible for publicly funded, full-day PreK at no charge to the family.
  • Tier II: children from families with an annual income more than 300% FPL but not more than 600% FPL are eligible for a subsidized, full-day PreK.
  • Tier III: children from families with an annual income above 600% FPL are eligible to attend full-day PreK at the full cost of the program (https://blueprint.marylandpublicschools.org/prekindergarten-expansion-and-improvements/).

The Blueprint uses a “mixed-delivery” funding model, meaning that state funding can go to both local school systems and approved private providers, including child-care centers, Head Start programs, faith-based programs, and family child-care providers. In fact, the law specifically encourages roughly 50% of pre-k seats to be located in private-provider settings by the 2026–2027 school year if capacity exists.

Under the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future, providers receiving publicly funded pre-k money must meet extensive state quality and accountability standards. Providers must:

  • hold a valid Maryland child-care license
  • participate in the state’s quality-rating system (EXCELS)
  • meet health and safety standards
  • align curriculum with Maryland Early Learning Standards
  • maintain required class sizes and staff-child ratios, and
  • participate in monitoring and reporting systems.

The Blueprint also increases workforce requirements. Maryland teachers in publicly funded pre-k programs are expected to: 1) hold bachelor’s degrees; 2) obtain early childhood certification; or 3) participate in approved alternative certification/residency pathways.

Judy Centers and Patty Centers (Family Support Centers) are both early childhood support programs, but they serve somewhat different purposes and serve different age groups.

  • Judy Centers focus on school readiness and early learning for children from birth through kindergarten by coordinating services such as prekindergarten, developmental screenings, family engagement, and health and educational supports, often in or near public schools.
  • Patty Centers, by contrast, focus more broadly on family stability and parent support for families with very young children, especially from birth to age three, by providing parenting education, workforce assistance, case management, health referrals, and other wraparound social services.

In 2025, Maryland had approximately 86 Judy Centers and 15 Patty Centers (Family Support Centers) statewide. By FY2026, Maryland had approximately 101 Judy Centers operating statewide, and 18 Patty Centers (Family Support Centers). This increase reflects ongoing expansion required under the Blueprint:

  • Judy Centers expanded by 9 per year through 2025, and 18 per year beginning in FY2026
  • Patty Centers expanded by 3 new centers annually after an initial FY2021 expansion.

In Maryland’s FY2026 budget, funding for Judy Centers and related wraparound early-childhood programs totaled approximately $44.3 million. Each center receives approximately $330,000 in state funding annually.

The Maryland Infants and Toddlers Program (MITP) is Maryland’s statewide early-intervention system for children from birth through age three who have developmental delays, disabilities, or conditions that may affect development. The program is designed to identify developmental concerns as early as possible and provide services that help young children improve communication, movement, learning, behavior, and social-emotional development before they enter preschool or kindergarten.

The state budget’s line item for the Maryland Infants and Toddlers Program (MITP) is $19 million; however, the actual cost is higher and spread across multiple federal, state, and local special-education and early-intervention budget lines. MITP is funded primarily through: 1) Federal IDEA Part C early-intervention funds; 2) Maryland state education funds; 3) Medicaid reimbursements for eligible services; and 4) Local school-system contributions.

Children may qualify for the Infants and Toddlers Program if they show delays in speech and language, motor skills, cognitive development, hearing, vision, or social-emotional functioning, or if they have diagnosed medical conditions associated with developmental risk. Services are individualized through an Individualized Family Service Plan (IFSP), which is developed with parents and specialists.

Depending on the child’s needs, services may include:

  • speech-language therapy,
  • occupational therapy,
  • physical therapy,
  • developmental evaluations and instruction,
  • family coaching and support, and
  • hearing or vision services.

A key feature of the program is that services are often delivered in natural environments such as the child’s home, child-care setting, or community program rather than in a classroom. The program emphasizes helping parents and caregivers support their child’s development during everyday routines and activities. The Maryland Infants and Toddlers Program works closely with other early-childhood initiatives such as Judy Centers, preschool special education, Head Start, and public prekindergarten programs to help children transition successfully into school-based services after age three (Maryland State Department of Education, 2025).

In summary, the Blueprint represents an impressive commitment to prekindergarten programs and early childhood support services through a mixed-delivery system involving both public schools and approved private providers. It provides major investments in programs such as Child Care Scholarships, Prekindergarten Expansion Grants, Judy Centers, Patty/Family Support Centers, workforce development initiatives, Maryland EXCELS quality programs, and the Maryland Infants and Toddlers Program (MITP). In the next edition of the Equity Express, the Numbers That Matter article will focus on existing research related to early childhood education, in general, and the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future, in particular.

The NCEED faculty and staff strongly support the implementation of the Maryland Blueprint. Much of our current work supports several of the Blueprint’s pillars, including special education, teacher preparation and development, literacy, early childhood, and college readiness.

To complement the Director’s Desk and the Numbers That Matter articles, Dr. Tajma Cameron’s article, Using Evidence-Based Practice to Make Summer Professional Learning Matter, examines the qualities of effective professional development. Dr. Tajma Cameron is an Assistant Professor in Science Education in the Department of Advanced Studies, Leadership and Policy, and research faculty at the National Center for the Elimination of Educational Disparities (NCEED) at Morgan State University.

—————————————–

 

References:

Accountability and Implementation Board. (2025, January 10). Item II. Teacher collaborative time. https://aib.maryland.gov

Asbury, N., 2025. Calls to adjust Maryland “Blueprint” for schools grow amid budget concerns. The Washington Post

Ford, W. J. (2025, April 8). ‘Blueprint’ gets a trim after session that threatened major cuts: Multiyear education reform plan will see some programs, funding delayed. Maryland Matters. https://marylandmatters.org/

Ford, W. J. (2026, March 10). Half of Maryland’s school districts still not at $60K teacher salary threshold: They have until July 1 to meet state deadline, or possibly face withholding of state funds. Maryland Matters. https://marylandmatters.org/2026/03/10/half-of-marylands-school-districts-still-not-at-60k-teacher-salary-threshold/

Ford, W. J. (2026, April 20). Child care scholarship freeze could start melting soon, but not for everyone. Maryland Matters. https://marylandmatters.org/2026/04/20/child-care-scholarship-freeze-soon-to-melt-but-not-for-everyone/ (marylandmatters.org)

Maryland State Department of Education. (n.d.). About us: Blueprint for Maryland’s Future. Blueprint for Maryland’s Future. https://blueprint.marylandpublicschools.org/about

Maryland General Assembly, Department of Legislative Services. (2026). Fiscal year 2027 operating budget: Maryland State Department of Education—Early childhood development (R00A99). Maryland General Assembly budget documents

Maryland Department of Budget and Management. (2026). Maryland budget highlights: Fiscal year 2027. State of Maryland. https://dbm.maryland.gov/budget/Documents/operbudget/FY2027/FY2027-Budget-Highlights.pdf

Maryland State Department of Education. (2025). Maryland Infants and Toddlers Program encourages early referrals and developmental screening. Maryland News. https://news.maryland.gov/msde/mitp-2025/

Maryland Center on Economic Policy. (2025). Looking ahead: Building up Maryland’s safety net after modest changes this year. https://mdeconomy.org/looking-ahead-building-up-marylands-safety-net-after-modest-changes-this-year/

Maryland State Department of Education. (n.d.). Prekindergarten expansion in Maryland. Early Childhood Maryland. https://earlychildhood.marylandpublicschools.org/prekindergarten-expansion

Public School Superintendents’ Association of Maryland. (2024, December 11). PSSAM legislative and policy recommendations for the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future.