In its former incarnation as the Maryland State Teachers Association (MSTA) and through today, the association has won numerous victories critical to students, educators, and schools during the last four decades. Our members led the way pushing our pro-public education agenda with rallies, campaigns, personal contacts with legislators, postcard blitzes, phone calls, faxes, and emails—or whatever the available and most effective methods for advancing the issue were at the time.
Let’s count down to #1!
10…
2010
30-year struggle ends with passage of a new collective bargaining law that gives employees a level playing field at the negotiating table.
9…
2003
MSTA successfully fights to ensure that the charter school law guarantees collective bargaining rights for charter school employees.
8…
1994, 1998, 2006, 2010
Association members spearhead elections of pro-public education governors Parris Glendening and Martin O’Malley.
7…
2000
Enactment of Governor’s Teacher Salary Challenge providing at least a 10% salary increase to teachers.
6…
1998, 2006
The 1998 legislative session marks an improvement of pension system multiplier for subsequent years from 1.2% to 1.4% and COLA calculation change from simple interest to compound. MSEA’s 2006 Push for Pensions campaign secures unanimous passage of legislation to increase multiplier to 1.8% from 1998 forward.
5…
2017
Member activism fuels the passage of the More Learning, Less Testing Act, limiting the amount of annual mandated standardized testing for students and bringing back more time for instruction. The General Assembly also overrides Governor Hogan's veto of the Protect Our Schools Act, ensuring that school accountability is about more than just test scores and preventing Betsy DeVos' school privatization agenda from spreading to Maryland.
4…
2002
Enactment of legislation to expand the scope of bargaining for education support professionals (ESP) and provide due process for ESPs on the Eastern Shore.
3…
2002, 2012
Passage of the Bridge to Excellence in Public Schools Act (“Thornton”), ensuring historic levels of funding for students and schools across the state. Passage of a revitalized maintenance of effort law in 2012 protects local school funding and the principles of equity and student support embedded in Thornton funding.
2…
1978
Enactment of the first ESP collective bargaining law.
And the association’s greatest accomplishment in the modern era…
1968
Enactment of the first teacher collective bargaining law.
