David Craig Says GAO Report Shows Maryland Fumbling National Education Reforms

Harford County Executive and Maryland candidate for Governor David R. Craig said public schools across the state are faltering because too many federal education initiatives are hitting them at once, namely the Obama Administration’s “Race to the Top” competitive grant program and the Common Core national education standard.

In the most recent evidence of the state’s difficulty implementing national education programs, the Government Accountability Office identified Maryland’s implementation of Race to the Top as having the lowest participation rates evaluating teachers and principals among any of the 12 states cited in the study. Hawaii and Maryland are singled out for rates that are 30% and 14% respectively. Moreover, Maryland is in what the U.S. Department of Education calls a “pilot phase” meaning the state joins four others that have not even finished implementing the basic evaluation procedures that is the basis of Race to the Top. Implementation of the pilot evaluation program also sharply diverges in Maryland school districts participating in Race to the Top – with participation rates among teachers and principals as low as 4%.

“If the Maryland State Department of Education wants to show it is relevant, now is the time to do it,” said Craig. “They are missing in action regarding this GAO report that shows systemic problems in Maryland’s school districts.”

The GAO report, “States Implementing Teacher and Evaluation Systems despite Challenges,” was issued yesterday. The Maryland Department of Education previously claimed that it is not only “ready” to implement Race to the Top, “but willing and able to continue the progress that has been made.” Maryland was awarded $250 million in the competitive grant program three years ago.

The GAO found that officials in one Maryland school district, the one that piloted just 4 percent of educators, said they will implement the evaluation system without sufficient time to address problems that arose during the testing phase. In a similar situation, another Maryland school district, despite admitting they too are not ready, is nevertheless proceeding to evaluate more than 3000 educators.

“Teacher evaluations are facing a credibility gap,” said Craig. “If these complicated evaluation systems won’t work, then let’s just say so and let teacher’s teach without the fear of being evaluated incorrectly.”

Meanwhile, the state is proceeding with Common Core, a nationwide K-12 uniform education standard. This July, almost every Maryland county saw test scores decline at the elementary and middle school levels. State and some local school officials blamed the decline on an old test that was not updated for Common Core.

Craig, who worked 34 years in the Harford County School system as a teacher and assistant principal, characterized Common Core this summer as an “education fad” that attempts to change how children learn. Race to the Top grant funding is partly conditioned on adherence to Common Core. Maryland school officials told GAO that their evaluation reform efforts took precedence over implementation of the Common Core curriculum.