President Schmoke: All of Us Have a Stake in City Schools
May 6, 2016
Contact: University Relations
Phone: 410.837.5739
In an op-ed in The Baltimore Sun, University of Baltimore President Kurt L. Schmoke joins Matt Gallagher, president of the Goldseker Foundation, and Tom Wilcox, president and a trustee of the Baltimore Community Foundation, in considering the importance of local control and accountability for city schools.
"The General Assembly this year approved legislation that will eventually add two elected members to the city Board of School Commissioners. This will further dilute the already cloudy lines of accountability and create new barriers to bringing on the most qualified and representative members of the school board," the three write. "It is hard to imagine that requiring prospective elected board members to file for the office, mount campaigns and solicit contributions will make the board more representative of the constituencies it serves.
"On top of that, an amendment was added during the waning hours of the legislative session that requires two members of the General Assembly be part of the school board committee that identifies the next school system chief executive. Giving legislators a formal role in the CEO selection process is both unprecedented and impractical and will inevitably politicize future efforts to recruit exceptional leaders.
"Perhaps most critically, these changes to the board move us away from what we believe is the most promising strategy to improve accountability and transparency: restoring Baltimore's public school system to local control."
Read the op-ed.
Learn more about UB President Kurt L. Schmoke.