Choudhury’s Ethics are Running on Empty

It’s Time for the State of Maryland to End Superintendent’s Tenure

I’m a runner. Not a fast runner, but a runner nonetheless. I’ve run distances all the way from 5K to marathons. I’ve seen some fast runners, but not many were as quick as State School Superintendent Mohammad Choudhury’s dash for his office as he avoided talking to a reporter about recent revelations that state test scores have been removed from the MSDE website. I think he set a new land speed record that test pilots would hold in awe.

When it was revealed last week that MSDE had removed poor scores from the State website, officials claimed that it was to protect the identification of students as the federal government requires. They called it “deidentification” which, by the way, is not a serious or real word. It’s a word out of George Orwell’s novel 1984.

What’s worse is that the whole premise of the removal is an outright lie.

Apparently, someone who works at the Maryland State Department of Education has had enough of Choudhury’s unethical behavior and temper tantrums and let the truth out. The scores were removed to save the Superintendent’s job.

That’s a lot of salvation. Choudhury has not only done a poor job, but he has also been rude to lawmakers, bullied employees, thrown temper tantrums, and attempted a full take over the jurisdiction of local school boards.

People have had enough of Mohammad. School boards wrote letters opposing a bill that would give him more power than any school official in Maryland has ever had. Even the State School Board wrote in opposition to that action. He even flustered Clarence Crawford, the President of the State School Board, who couldn’t support the takeover Choudhury desired. This was days after Crawford had clutched his pearls in one hand while writing a letter in defense of Choudhury with the other.

It is apparent that Maryland currently has a petulant man child in charge of our schools. This week, when Chris Papst of FOX 45 tried to ask Choudhury about the hiding of scores, the Superintendent ran to his office to hide like a scared bunny.

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