Maryland education officials on Tuesday called on Prince George’s County to prove it is fixing problems uncovered in a diploma scandal and took the unusual step of assigning a state employee full time to monitor those efforts for the next year.
The actions were recommended Tuesday by state Superintendent Karen B. Salmon and drew unanimous support from the Maryland State Board of Education a month after Prince George’s leaders appeared before the panel.
Under Maryland’s plan, the state will seek periodic written reports on the county’s progress in fixing what went wrong and request an outside audit afterward to ensure problems are resolved. At least one state employee would be tapped to track compliance as efforts are underway.
“It’s another set of eyes to look at grade-changing policies, student-attendance policies, as they relate to earning that Maryland high school diploma,” Salmon said in an interview.
Andrew R. Smarick, president of the state Board of Education, said the panel was alarmed by findings of a state-ordered investigation, conducted last fall after allegations of graduation rate fraud in the state’s second-largest school system.
Click here to read the rest of the article written by Donna St. George over at the Washington Post