State Superintendent of Schools Mohammed Choudhury has pulled off a master stroke. He is asking the General Assembly to strengthen the ability of the Maryland State Department of Education to hire personnel and procure needed supports.
The bill to accomplish this, Senate Bill 794 seems on the surface like humdrum bureaucratic inside baseball. It’s been barely noticed. Yet, in reality, it is not much of a stretch to say that the success of the entire Maryland Blueprint for school reform may well depend on its enactment.
Here’s why. The Blueprint can’t be implemented effectively unless State Department of Education (MSDE) provides local school districts with high standards, guidance on evidence-based best practices, technical assistance including teacher training, and close monitoring, and carries out innumerable new tasks imposed by the Blueprint. Mr. Choudhury lays this out in his excellent plan presented to the Blueprint Accountability and Implementation Board.
However, the work can’t be done without top educational talent, and MSDE has been woefully short of staff capacity and resources for years. Continue reading at Maryland Matters.
Phot: Unsplash.com photo by Joshua Hoehne.
