The Maryland Board of Education will not renew the contract of state Superintendent Mohammed Choudhury, who was hired two years ago from Texas with little executive experience to overhaul the Department of Education and shepherd a historic $3.8 billion program to transform the state’s public education system. according to two people with knowledge of the situation.
Maryland
Maryland Board of Education won’t renew state superintendent’s contract
The people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to discuss the situation publicly, said there are no longer enough votes on the Board of Education to renew Choudhury’s contract after a series of accusations against his leadership, including the creation of a toxic work environment, an inability to communicate with legislators and others in Maryland’s education world, and agency mismanagement.
Leaders of the Board of Education did not immediately respond to a query about the contract, nor did Choudhury.
One of the people said that members of the Board of Education, who brought Choudhury to Maryland in 2021, had decided that he was not the right person for the job because of his inability to maintain relationships with people in Maryland’s education world or be transparent about the department’s work.
The decision was made this week after a series of news stories about Choudhury and comments made in the last week by Gov. Wes Moore (D) who, when asked by reporters about Choudhury’s tenure, did not give a full endorsement and said he was not satisfied with the results of Choudhury’s work so far. Last weekend, Moore told Fox45 News, “I want transparency, I want accountability, and I want a superintendent that believes in it and can deliver it. The results we are seeing right now are not satisfactory results, and I demand better, and we need to make sure we are getting better results for our kids.”