The Baltimore City Council failed to approve a resolution Monday night calling for the dissolution of the current city-state partnership controlling city schools.
The resolution gathered 11 votes, one short of the number needed for adoption.
Council Member Keiffer Jackson Mitchell, D-11th District, the chief sponsor of the resolution, said he put forth the resolution as a first step in developing greater accountability for the city?s public schools. Since the 1997 deal was struck with the state to alleviate a city schools? budget crisis and provide an influx of state dollars, the city and state have shared oversight, including the naming the school board commissioners.
“The schools have always been a back and forth finger-pointing,” Mitchell said. “The city says we need more money; the state says we?ve given you money. Not one time do we have a discussion about our children.
“I don?t think the system has been customer-driven; by that I mean parent and child,” Mitchell continued.
Mitchell said if the resolution had been approved, the next action would have been taken to the Baltimore delegation in the General Assembly. He previously said he wanted an immediate vote on the resolution, rather than having it pass through the normal committee process, where he feared it would be stalled.
“Now it goes to the Committee of the Whole,” Mitchell said, “or what I call the Committee of the Dead.”
He added the resolution had the support of the mayor?s office and what he thought were enough votes to pass. Baltimore teachers union president Marietta English and a contingent of union members also were on hand at the council meeting in support of the resolution.
The resolution read, in part, “there simply are too many people in charge and too many opinions being considered to ensure fiscal or educational responsibility.”
It also called for a “city education czar” appointed by the mayor and “held accountable for the affairs of the [Baltimore City Public School System].”
Council Member Nicholas D?Adamo Jr., D-2nd District, was the only member to vote against the largely symbolic resolution. Council members Kenneth Harris, D-4th District, and Stephanie Rawlings Blake, D-6th District, abstained from the action.
Harris said he abstained because the resolution did not clearly define the role of the education “czar,” and the relationship to the city and lacked detail.
“What?s the plan?” Harris said. “Where is the structure and accountability piece? It didn?t have clarity.
“The concept I support,” he continued, “but I needed further details.”
