What Can Nearly a Decade of Education Bills Tell Us About Legislative Trends?
A look at nine years of bills—introduced, passed, and what it says about the landscape.
Every year, the Maryland General Assembly introduces between 200 and 300 some education-related bills—bills assigned to one of the “F” file codes. As a fiscal and policy analyst, I read and review many of them. When we write the annual 90 Day Report or the Major Issues Review every four years, I reflect on what passed at a policy level—but I’d never actually looked at the full dataset.
To be honest, I didn’t even realize until recently that the General Assembly publishes downloadable data on all introduced legislation going back to 2017. Once I found it, I realized that some of the questions I’ve had—questions that have been simmering since I became a workgroup leader—were just a pivot table and a few filters away.
So I decided to dig in and explore a few basic questions:
- How many education bills are introduced each year?
Is volume part of why some years feel harder than others? - Which bills actually pass?
Is the success rate consistent, or does it vary based on category or session dynamics? - Are some education categories more productive than others?
Where is legislative attention translating into results—and where is it stalling out?
Using data from 2017 through 2025, I organized bills by file code, which is how the Maryland General Assembly categorizes legislation by subject area. Each bill in this dataset has only one file code, which helps avoid double-counting and makes trend analysis easier.
Technically, bills can be assigned more than one file code, but they are supposed to have a primary file code, which is what this dataset reflects.
I started in 2017 because that’s when the publicly available dataset begins. The result isn’t a perfect map of education policymaking—but it offers a useful window into what’s introduced, what moves, and where patterns start to emerge.
Education is assigned five file codes. F1 through F5.
What Members are Introducing
Here’s the number of unique bills introduced in each education category over the last nine sessions:
| File Code | Description | Range (2017–2025) | Typical Volume |
| F1 | Primary & Secondary Education | 117–156 bills | Highest volume |
| F2 | Higher Education | 36–97 bills | Moderate |
| F3 | Education – Local Bills | 22–45 bills | Low–moderate |
| F4 | Community Colleges – Local Bills | 0–5 bills | Very low |
| F5 | Education – Miscellaneous | 16–49 bills | Rising |
Primary and Secondary Education (F1) bills consistently dominate the education bills docket. The number of K–12 proposals introduced each year has stayed high—even during COVID disruptions—reaching a second peak in 2024. It is unsurprising that this category remained high during COVID disruptions because
Meanwhile, F5 (Miscellaneous) has quietly grown. These are often bills that touch multiple issues, create new programs, or fall outside the traditional boundaries of K–12 and higher ed. For example, in 2025 it included bills related to child care, data and infrastructure, libraries, adult education, security, and education finance policy.
What Actually Passed?
Not everything introduced becomes law. In fact, many bills stall in committee or get absorbed into larger omnibus legislation. Here’s what passed each year by file code, along with calculated passage rates:
| File Code | What Stands Out |
| F1 – Primary & Secondary | High volume, low pass rates. Often 20–30%. Only 9% of F1 bills passed in 2020, and just 12% in 2025. |
| F2 – Higher Education | Consistently stronger pass rates—often 40–50%. Possibly due to narrower scope, stronger stakeholder alignment, or less controversy. |
| F3 – Local Bills | Mixed. When local delegations are aligned, they move. In 2023, 50% of F3 bills passed. In 2025, only 18% did. |
| F4 – Community Colleges | Almost nothing moved until 2024–2025, when 3 and 2 bills passed respectively. This file code remains very low-volume. |
| F5 – Miscellaneous | Surprisingly effective. With passage rates as high as 81% in 2017, and 40–50% in later years, these bills may be noncontroversial, flexible, or bipartisan in nature. |
What This Tells Me
- K–12 (F1) has political energy, but not policy consensus. Every session is full of K–12 ideas—about funding, accountability, curriculum—but relatively few make it into law. Some are ambitious. Some are messaging bills. Some get lost in committee. All together, they show how contested this space remains.
- Higher Ed is quieter, but more productive. Fewer bills, but more passage. That seems to be the pattern—suggesting a space where smaller fixes and targeted reforms are the norm.
- Miscellaneous (F5) is worth watching. Some of the most flexible or forward-looking proposals may be hiding here. These bills don’t always fit the traditional education silos—but they may be more nimble as a result.
- Volume ≠ Impact. This exercise reminded me that tracking legislation isn’t just about how much is introduced. It’s about understanding what makes it through and what that says about the underlying policymaking dynamics.
What I’d Like to Explore Next
This is just a snapshot. I’d like to keep asking questions like:
- How do these trends shift during election years or budget-tight cycles?
- Are we seeing more omnibus bills that consolidate smaller ones?
- Which sponsors consistently get bills passed in each category?
- How do passage rates correlate with fiscal note costs?
I’m also curious about the policy signals that aren’t obvious from volume alone. Which bills spark stakeholder debates but never make it out of committee? Which ones fly under the radar?
