…When they said no to Prince George’s schools takeover
Our view: Handing over authority for Prince George’s County schools to county executive would set a regrettable precedent for Maryland
With its financial woes, low test scores, frequent leadership turnover and underperforming schools, Prince George’s County‘s school system is failing its approximately 125,000 students, and its elected school board appears highly dysfunctional. Under these dire circumstances, it’s not surprising that County Executive Rushern L. Baker III wants to intervene.
But what Mr. Baker seeks — direct control over the district’s day-to-day operations and authority over its next superintendent — would be unprecedented in Maryland. The carefully constructed wall between public K-12 education and electoral politics would be torn down with potentially troubling, precedent-setting consequences for the state’s other school systems.
Making matters worse, the county executive wants the General Assembly to authorize this historic shift of local authority in a matter of two weeks. That unreasonable timetable alone (authorizing legislation was submitted Monday, and the legislature’s 90-day session ends April 8) should cause lawmakers to summarily reject it.
Mr. Baker and his allies have portrayed the bill as a local issue pertaining only to Prince George’s County. But it’s hard to believe that no matter how unique the circumstances of the state’s second-largest school system, other county executives won’t be watching anxiously to see if they may be able to seek similar authority.
After all, rare is the county executive who has not wanted to assert his or her will over the local school system. County governments (and Baltimore City’s) must finance school systems but have limited opportunities to tell them how to spend that money or even hold those systems accountable. The arrangement is the bane of most every top elected official’s existence…….
…….What’s a little scary is that Mr. Baker actually wants even more authority than the legislation pending in Annapolis would give him. He would like to have control over the budget, too, and leave the school board with a substantially smaller role. He has called making the superintendent a part of his staff (albeit one confirmed by the county council) a “nonnegotiable” position.
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Read More >>>Major Corruption underway in PGCPS.
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