LARGO, Md. — In the same week that the Prince George’s County school board outlined the actions it is taking to tighten controls on the way grades are recorded — and managed — the county executive once again voiced his support for top school leadership.
Prince George’s County Executive Rushern Baker said the school system’s action plan, outlined at a school board meeting Tuesday night, showed that it is addressing the concerns outlined in a scathing third-party audit contracted by the Maryland State Board of Education.
“We would not be able to attract businesses here, move the county administration building down here, if we were not making progress so that people were not only putting their kids in our school system, but were moving here,” Baker told reporters at the dedication of a new county administration building in Largo, Maryland.
Prince George’s County school system spokesman John White said that school enrollment grew by 1,000 in the 2017-2018 school year, bringing the total number of students in the system to 132,000.
Saying he didn’t regret having state law rewritten so that he could in effect take over control of the school system, Baker said, “Every single day, we are working to make sure that the students that come into Prince George’s County not only are safe but get a quality education. And we won’t stop until that’s done.”
Baker, a Democrat, is running for Maryland governor. Incumbent Republican Gov. Larry Hogan has been critical of Prince George’s County’s response to the state audit, noting that the county’s branch of the NAACP had continued concerns about school performance and called for a meeting with Hogan.
