A few hundred high school students, parents and teachers sent Gov.-elect Martin O?Malley a forceful message Monday afternoon: Educational standards are good, but don?t forget about the learning.
O?Malley and Lt. Gov.-elect Anthony Brown listened for about 40 minutes to questions and complaints from students and teachers about the burdens of the state?s mandatory high school assessment tests that high school freshmen must pass in order to graduate.
The Youth Inaugural gathering was the last event of the incoming administration?s “OneMaryland” tour prior to Wednesday?s inauguration in Annapolis.
“If we have something that?s mandated, that?s coming down from above, then what?s the point of having highly qualified teachers?” asked one high school junior from Charles County. “We?re losing how to think. ? You?ve asked the wrong group about the HSAs. They?re hindering us.” A high school sophomore from Carroll County told O?Malley his biology teacher, who taught him chemistry last year, had been forced to alter her teaching style under pressure to make sure her students were prepared for the state tests.
“I think sometimes you can go from [having] so few standards that some schools fall behind,” O?Malley said. “But I think what?s happened is the pendulum has swung too far to the extreme.”
O?Malley agreed with much of the criticism leveled at the state?s standardized testing system, but offered few solutions.
“I think with some new leadership on the school board and new leadership at the state Department of Education, we need to take another look at this,” he said.
A student from Baltimore City asked O?Malley how much of the record funding for school construction he has promised in his first budget would go to inner-city schools.
O?Malley said his first budget would include $580 million in base funding for schools as mandated by state law, and said he hoped “to be able to ramp up” funding this year for an optional part of the state law that would send more money to school systems with higher costs of education.
Last week, he backed off commitments to fund the optional law.
