Maryland's Taoiseach Proposes Reform
Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley and state school Superintendent Nancy Grasmick can finally agree on one thing: O'Malley's proposal to make the state competitive for Race to the Top round two. Score one for Grasmick? Before Maryland decided not to apply in the first round of the Race to the Top competition -- making it one of only 10 states not to -- O'Malley said that no legislative changes were needed, while Grasmick insisted that they were if Maryland was to submit an application that had a snowball's chance in hell of being successful. It looks like the Governor has come around. The Baltimore Sun reports that the Governor "wants to add a year to the time it takes public school teachers to achieve tenure and to tie their performance evaluations to data on how well their students are doing" and that Grasmick is "very happy." A draft of the governor's Education Reform Act of 2010 shows that it includes: •Lengthening the teacher tenure t...