State School Superintendent Nancy Grasmick must step down. Gov. Martin O?Malley expressed his displeasure in the state?s top education official Thursday during a radio show in which he called her leadership abilities into question.
O?Malley also wants the authority to select the superintendent himself, rather than rely on the appointed state board of education, which now names the superintendent.
“We need greater alignment between the governor and the superintendent of schools,” O?Malley said on the Mark Steiner show on WYPR radio. “That trust does not exist between Dr. Grasmick and myself.”
When O?Malley was mayor, he battled with Grasmick over the state?s blocked attempt to take over some Baltimore City schools.
O?Malley said that county executives shared a similar frustration with local school leadership, and they too should have the power to appoint county superintendents. Local school boards, some of them elected, hire local superintendents.
As governor, O?Malley gets to appoint state school board members and members of the nonelected boards in counties such as Anne Arundel and Baltimore Counties. In Baltimore City, the governor and the mayor jointly appoint the city school board.
O?Malley has appointed four members to the 12-member state board, but will not have an opportunity to name a majority until after Grasmick?s four-year contract is up for renewal next year. Grasmick has been superintendent for 15 years under four governors.
“We are in an awkward time,” O?Malley said.
Grasmick spokesman Bill Reinhard said, “We really don?t have any interest in commenting on the governor?s remarks.”
Two senators agreed that governors should get control of their own schools chief. “I think the governor should have that authority,” said Senate President Thomas Mike Miller. The head of the state Department of Education has “a lot of decision-making authority” over policy with major political implications.
Newly sworn-in Sen. Nancy King, D-Montgomery, a former delegate who chaired the education subcommittee in the House, said, “The governor has to have a state superintendent he can work with.”
But she also said, “I?ve worked with Nancy Grasmick and I think she?s done a great job.”
As a former elected member of the Montgomery County School Board that hired current Superintendent Jerry Weast, King said she would be opposed to taking that authority away from local elected officials. Miller was reluctant to do that as well.
