A teachable moment for Maryland’s new school superintendent | STAFF COMMENTARY
Maryland’s interim state superintendent of schools will officially lose the “interim” part of her title on July 1. The Maryland State Board of Education last week agreed to a new four-year contract with a unanimous vote, satisfied that Carey M. Wright was the right person to steer the state’s K-12 school systems through the demanding times ahead.
Much has been written about the unique challenges posed by the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future school reforms and the need to guarantee that mandated new state and local spending will be matched with demonstrably improved results. Wright’s success in Mississippi, where she has a proven record of raising math and reading standardized test scores, made her a highly qualified candidate. But so did something else in her background that should not be overlooked: Dr. Wright knows what it’s like to be a student and a teacher in Maryland.
Mississippi’s longest-serving state superintendent and the former chief academic officer for the District of Columbia attended Prince George’s County schools growing up. And she is both a former teacher and principal who has worked in Prince George’s, Howard and Montgomery county. It’s clear she respects the profession. “Technology will never take the place of teacher,” she told Education Week shortly after retiring from her post in Mississippi. It takes not just a great curriculum but a great teacher to achieve success. That’s when, she says, “you can really have some magic.”
Right now, many of Maryland’s 24 school systems need more teachers. Even with pay raises made possible by Blueprint funds, schools are having trouble filling jobs. The COVID-19 pandemic didn’t help, of course. A lot of local employers have faced the same challenges in a thinning labor pool. But there’s another factor at work here, too. Teachers aren’t getting the respect they once did. You hear it in the political debates that decry “teacher unions” like they were biker gangs. You see it at the fraught school board hearings, where protesters get in a huff over who gets to use which restrooms in schools, what flags might be posted on a classroom wall and whether there are any LGBTQ+ characters in books on school library shelves. Such “debates” (if a word associated with Geoffrey Chaucer can be so demeaned by association) send a clear message: Educators are not respected here.
That leaves Maryland’s new superintendent to crusade not just for schools but for teachers and principals, counselors, classroom aides, tutors and others in her field. That’s a big lift, but there are some encouraging recent signs that others are ready to join her side. Take, for example, Gov. Wes Moore and members of the Maryland General Assembly who recently enacted the Freedom to Read Act, which establishes some limits on book bans. It’s not just a repudiation of Moms For Liberty militancy but an endorsement of teachers and librarians. We witnessed something similar recently in Harford County where the school board rejected a measure that would have limited what flags and banners could be posted in school buildings. The rejected proposal was a not-so-subtle swipe at the possibility that a teacher might allow a rainbow Pride flag to class. Never mind context or lesson plans or academic freedom. Some have found it easy to second-guess teachers. Carroll County’s school board banned the Pride flag two years ago.
Even with some allies in Annapolis and their county seats, educators still have a fight on their hands. Combine pandemic learning loss with anger over COVID policies, heightened expectations over test scores, rampant culture wars and hostile parents micro-managing student life — and what do you have? Let’s just say there’s some tension out there. And teachers remain caught in the thick of it despite their slightly larger paychecks. In a recent Pew Research Center poll, teachers were asked what they would tell others about what they do. The most popular answer? It’s a tough job, and we’re working hard.
Maryland’s new superintendent understands all this. She’s been there, done that, and the task force she announced Monday to take a second look at how schools are rated reflects a healthy skepticism of school reform assumptions. An understanding of how best to teach reading is valuable, of course, but we suspect her appreciation of reading teachers and what they have to do (and a willingness to give them space to do it) will prove just as important in the months ahead.
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