Opinion
Education Letter to the Editor

Baltimore’s Schools Are Not Mayorally Run

December 08, 2009 1 min read
  • Save to favorites
  • Print

To the Editor:

It’s quite surprising that legitimate researchers Kenneth K. Wong and Francis X. Shen would write, and your paper would publish in its “Leading for Learning” report, an essay without the most basic level of fact-checking (“Mayors Can Be ‘Prime Movers’ of Urban School Improvement,” Research Perspective, Oct. 14, 2009). The city of Baltimore does not have a mayorally run school system. Baltimore schools were a department of the city government prior to 1997, but, after years of failure, the governance structure was changed under the Bradford consent decree in the American Civil Liberties Union’s adequacy suit against the state of Maryland (Bradford v. Maryland State Board of Education), on behalf of the children of Baltimore.

An independent school board, with authority similar to that of the other county school boards in the state, runs Baltimore schools, which get about 20 percent of their funding from the city. The consent decree, and subsequent enabling legislation, directed that school board candidates be vetted by the state board of education for specified qualifications and that a list of qualified candidates be submitted to the mayor and governor for joint appointment. Baltimore’s schools need the strong support of the mayor on a variety of issues, but by no definition can the current structure be described as mayorally run.

Test scores have risen and important reforms have been put into place with the new structure and increased state funding, an outgrowth of our lawsuit. A better research project would be to compare the prior failing school system with the current, more successful system and determine which factors have been most important in this rebirth—increased funding, improved leadership, higher numbers of qualified teachers, and/or governance.

Bebe Verdery

Education Reform Director

American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland

Baltimore, Md.

A version of this article appeared in the December 09, 2009 edition of Education Week as Baltimore’s Schools Are Not Mayorally Run

Events

Ed-Tech Policy Webinar Artificial Intelligence in Practice: Building a Roadmap for AI Use in Schools
AI in education: game-changer or classroom chaos? Join our webinar & learn how to navigate this evolving tech responsibly.
Education Webinar Developing and Executing Impactful Research Campaigns to Fuel Your Ed Marketing Strategy 
Develop impactful research campaigns to fuel your marketing. Join the EdWeek Research Center for a webinar with actionable take-aways for companies who sell to K-12 districts.
This content is provided by our sponsor. It is not written by and does not necessarily reflect the views of Education Week's editorial staff.
Sponsor
Privacy & Security Webinar
Navigating Cybersecurity: Securing District Documents and Data
Learn how K-12 districts are addressing the challenges of maintaining a secure tech environment, managing documents and data, automating critical processes, and doing it all with limited resources.
Content provided by Softdocs

EdWeek Top School Jobs

Teacher Jobs
Search over ten thousand teaching jobs nationwide — elementary, middle, high school and more.
View Jobs
Principal Jobs
Find hundreds of jobs for principals, assistant principals, and other school leadership roles.
View Jobs
Administrator Jobs
Over a thousand district-level jobs: superintendents, directors, more.
View Jobs
Support Staff Jobs
Search thousands of jobs, from paraprofessionals to counselors and more.
View Jobs

Read Next

Education Briefly Stated: March 13, 2024
Here's a look at some recent Education Week articles you may have missed.
9 min read
Education Briefly Stated: February 21, 2024
Here's a look at some recent Education Week articles you may have missed.
8 min read
Education Briefly Stated: February 7, 2024
Here's a look at some recent Education Week articles you may have missed.
8 min read
Education Briefly Stated: January 31, 2024
Here's a look at some recent Education Week articles you may have missed.
9 min read