As the Maryland Commission on Innovation and Excellence in Education moved closer to recommending billion-dollar increases in K-12 funding along with major structural changes, commission Chairman Brit Kirwan again stressed his repeated calls for accountability.
“This accountability has to be real and it has to have teeth,” said Kirwan, former chancellor of the university system. Kirwan said he has been advised by many people across the state that “without a credible accountability system,” the commission’s final recommendations are likely to fail.
The Commission’s Preliminary Report in January said that “meaningful portions of any new funding would be allocated to LEAs [local education agencies, the county school systems] based on solid evidence that the commission’s recommendations had been faithfully implemented and that they were producing demonstrable results.”
The commissioners clearly showed there was no consensus on who or what would make sure their reforms were implemented to get the increased funds.