BALTIMORE — Maryland’s new state school superintendent was introduced to the public Monday.
Dr. Carey M. Wright served as an interim since October before landing the job permanently last week.
Wright comes back to Maryland after engineering a stunning turnaround in Mississippi.
In a nine-year tenure in Mississippi, fourth-grade reading scores went from dead last in the nation to above the national average.
Wright spoke exclusively with WUSA9 after her introduction.
She said a teaching system called "Science of Reading" is key. Maryland's State Board has green lit the implementation of the method.
She explained to WUSA9 reporter Scott Broom.
"Most people would say 'oh, that's phonics,'" Wright said. "Well, phonics is a part of the Science of Reading, but there's phonic awareness, there is fluency, there's comprehension, there's vocabulary development, and background knowledge development."
"Why is it different from what we've been doing?" Broom asked.
“Well, a lot of people have been leaning into 'balance literacy,' and balance literacy has no research to support it whatsoever. It's the use of what's called a three queueing system, which basically tells kids well if you don't know the word, guess. Well, you don't learn to read by guessing."
Wright added that state employed coaches should be deployed to school districts to train teachers on the system while in the classroom.
Wright called Maryland’s fall in student performance over the past decade "alarming."
“To see how far we've dropped in those 10 years is scary to me that we are sitting at a 47% proficiency rate in reading and a 23% proficiency rate in mathematics," Wright said. "So that to me was the first thing. It was like, OK, we've got to turn this ship around very quickly.”
While serving as interim superintendent in November, Wright recalled a meeting.
"The assessment director made the statement that 76% of our schools are rated with three, four or five stars, which is out of a five star system. That's pretty good, Wright said. "And then she said, 'but we have a 47% proficiency rate in ELA, [English Language Arts] and a 23% proficiency rate in math.' And I'm like, what? Wait? What? What did she just say? That struck me and I thought, you can't have a system that is saying you have all of these schools that are rated so high and not have a proficiency rate that is somewhat commensurate with that. So something is amiss. That's when I started asking lots and lots of questions.”
Wright returns to the Maryland region after working as a top administrator in Howard and Montgomery counties, and serving as the chief academic officer in the District of Columbia under former Chancellor Dr. Michelle Rhee.
But she started as a teacher in Prince Georges County in 1972.
"The first year I taught was the year that desegregation took place in Prince George's County," Wright said, "and I was just so shocked at the inability of my fifth graders to read. It was one of the best experiences I think I've ever had, and it really taught me really in a very early age to really start focusing in on those little ones that I think needed our help the most.”
“You learned then that kids with disadvantages could do well?” Broom asked.
"Oh, yes. That is that has been a driving force of mine my entire career,” Wright said.
Wright said school safety and security are major issues that must be addressed with better accountability, but she does not endorse a statewide policy of SROs in schools.
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