Carey Wright will continue to lead Maryland schools, state board announces

“Growing up in Maryland and spending a majority of my career in Maryland, I knew how good our schools were, and I also know how much better we can be,” Wright said after the vote.

In Maryland, the State Board of Education hires the superintendent, and the governor appoints members to that board. Gov. Wes Moore (D) has so far appointed six people to the 14-member board. Wright was unanimously approved by the state board members present; one member was absent.

Wright was named interim state superintendent in October, after former state superintendent of schools Mohammed Choudhury lost support from the board.

An investigation by The Washington Post last year found that several former staffers alleged that Choudhury created a “toxic” work environment that drove out his former lieutenants and dozens of veterans in the education agency. Former employees alleged that he had a pattern of micromanagement that held up important work, and several district leaders quietly expressed confusion about the Blueprintand other guidance from the department. Choudhury said the former employees could not embrace change.

Since Choudhury’s departure, Wright has been guiding the state’s education department, which oversees 24 school districts with about 890,000 students enrolled. She was tasked by the state board with developing a literacy policy that would incorporate more elements of the “science of reading,” a methodology that places an emphasis on phonics while teaching kids how to read. The board set a goal of getting Maryland to place among the top 10 states in reading on the fourth- and eighth-grade National Assessment for Educational Progress, or NAEP — a standardized test sometimes called “the gold standard” of student assessment — by 2027.

The state ranked 40th in the nation in fourth grade reading on the most recent NAEP assessment. It ranked 25th for eighth graders.

Wright has had success boosting performance. She is known in the education world as the Mississippi superintendent who raised student reading and math performance in a state that for decades received low scores on the NAEP.

Wright is a homegrown Maryland educator. She started her career in Prince George’s County Public Schools — the state’s second largest school system. She also served stints within the Howard and Montgomery county school systems, before becoming the chief academic officer and deputy chief for the D.C. Public Schools’ Office of Teaching and Learning.

In 2013, she was named Mississippi’s state superintendent of education. She retired from that post in 2022.

She will start her four-year term in Maryland on July 1.

This story will be updated.