Carey Wright’s Progressive Roots Will Cost Maryland Hundreds Of Billions of Dollars
When Carey Wright was given the title of Maryland State Superintendent in 2023, she was taking over after the tumultuous and strife filled tenure of former Superintendent Mohammad Choudhury. For many in the state, her appointment was a sigh of relief because Choudhury had been so bad in the post. Educators and parents across the state hoped that her appointment would usher in a new era in Maryland education, one of focus on academics and common sense. After all, she had previously been the Superintendent in Mississippi and claimed what many called the “Mississippi Miracle,” an amazing increase in reading scores and the state system national standing in academics.
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There were some who were less than enthused. They pointed to the fact that the scores in Mississippi were “smoke and mirrors,” created by policy decisions that kept many students out of the testing, artificially inflating the scores. Plus, Wright had been a teacher in Prince Georges, Howard Public Schools. She was later a superintendent for Montgomery County Public Schools‘s Office of Special Education and Student Services and chief academic officer and deputy chief of the District of Columbia Public Schools‘s Office of Teaching and Learning.
In other words, she worked in some of the most liberal counties in Maryland, particularly Montgomery County where extreme woke politics and policies were not the exception, but the norm.
Conservatives were correct to not get excited about her appointment. Wright is the same kind of virtue signaling, progressive bureaucrat Maryland has become infamous for. This earned her the name “Grandma Choudhury” because she was implementing the same leadership.
When the Department of Education came out with their “Dear Colleague” letter regarding DEI, Wright showed her true colors:
The letter directed school districts to follow the “requirements under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Equal Protection Clause of the Unites States Constitution, and other relevant authorities.”
Simple, right? Follow the Constitution and law regarding discrimination on any basis. This includes preferences based on immutable characteristics. Do that, and your state will continue to receive Federal Grants and funding. Don’t, and that money goes away.
If one is a Maryland Democrat or bureaucrat, however, the political agenda speaks louder than the Constitution and/or equality. In other words, Maryland is playing chicken with the Feds and putting funding for local districts at risk.
Carey Wright is leading the charge. Regarding the letter, Wright said, “The Dear Colleague letters do not carry the weight of law, so they are not the same thing as statute.” She left the rest of the talking to the American Sociological Association, the American Federation of Teachers and its affiliate, AFT-Maryland, who claimed in a lawsuit that the Trainor letter has no merit. Their suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Baltimore, asks for a preliminary injunction to prevent the department from enforcing the letter.
MABE, the Maryland Association of Boards of Education, also commented on the directive. Sam Mathias, legal and policy services director with the Maryland Association of Boards of Education, said that school boards have long adhered to federal and state laws and regulations that prohibit discrimination.
“School boards and board counsel in Maryland and nationwide, as well as MABE, continue to monitor the situation regarding the Dear Colleague Letter and the ensuing lawsuit seeking injunctive relief,” Mathias wrote Wednesday. “And also continue to monitor related executive actions, related lawsuits, and injunctions that could impact decision-making in schools.” In other words, they’re going to wait and see, as usual.
They just want to forget about Title VI of the Civil Rights Act.
That could be costly to Maryland school districts and students. The Department of Education has opened a “portal” online where reports can be made if schools keep implementing DEI despite the directive from the Department of Education.
Enough complaints and Maryland could end up where other states are, short on cash. For Maryland, which is already $3.7 Billion in the hole, this could be a disaster. There are already thousands of complaints in the portal.
For example, in Howard County, the school system employs twenty-nine administrative positions that are strictly focused on DEI. That is a LOT of money!
Equity & Innovation Division
29 employees located in the Central Office (except for 2 that are noted)
Division of the Deputy Superintendent Chief Equity and Innovation Officer
Caroline Walker
Equity and Innovation
Caroline Walker
Bartlett
Cole
Dibble
Jones
Knauer
lake
LeMon
Levinsohn-Klyap
Linkins
Rice
Rosewag
Ruehl
Siddiqul – Applications and Research Lab
Tilley-whitaker – Old Cedar Lane School
Yui
DEI
Jones
Barkley
Kosi
Mitchel
Feeser
Culturally Responsive Practices and Antiracism Development
Kosi – same position under two different offices
Vinson
Restorative Justice
Barkley
Aden
Schonberger
School Culture and Climate
Mitchel
Keeny
Under the Office of School Counseling and Student Records
LGBTQIA+ Initiatives Specialist
Danielle Du Puis – Central Office
And in case you missed it, the district is sponsoring an event called ReImagine the Rainbow.
A breakout speaker specializes in genital mutilation surgery letters for kids. This event is for grades 6-12.
Imagine being a taxpayer in Howard County and finding out that you are footing the bill for this. That’s a lot of money. Think about how funds are spent for this in the entire state! No wonder scores are flat.
But wait, there’s more bad news for Maryland!
Not only will the state lose funding because they are digging in their heels on violating Article VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, but also because they, like many school districts across the country, have employed sloppy and wasteful accounting/spending procedures on ARPA/ESSER funds.
When Pandemic funds, called Covid relief or APR ESSER funds, were dispersed to states and school districts in 2020 they were to be spent and accounted for by the schools by October, 2024. These funds were to be spent to help students after the Covid lockdowns and interruption in education and close the academic loss of that time.
Before shuffling out the door in January 2025, Joe Biden gave school systems an extension until March of 2026 to spend the funds and submit their accounting. Linda McMahon, new Secretary of Education, put an end to that extension: (From Erika Melzer, CHALKBEAT, March 31, 2025)
“Extending deadlines for COVID-related grants, which are in fact taxpayer funds, years after the COVID pandemic ended is not consistent with the Department’s priorities and thus not a worthwhile exercise of its discretion,” McMahon’s letter states. “The Department’s initial approval of your extension request does not change anything.”
The last opportunity to spend pandemic relief money was reset to 5 p.m. Friday, March 28, 2025 the same day McMahon sent the letter.
While local district and State Superintendents began wringing their hands and clutching their pearls in despair, questions were asked. “How hard is it to tell the government how you spent your funds? Isn’t the very fact that school systems still have millions left over from 2020 a huge problem? If the Pandemic was such an emergency, why weren’t the funds spent? Funds were supposed to be used to help students adjust to the disruption in their education during Pandemic shutdowns and certainly should have been spent by now!
That wasn’t necessarily the case.
The NY Post reports that DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency) has discovered that some of the funds were spent on expenses that had nothing to do with students, academics, or anything to do with schools. Here are a few examples: ( DOGE reveals how schools spent billions on expenses that had ‘little’ impact on students in COVID-relief funds)
- the Santa Ana Unified School District in California spent $393,000 in COVID-19 funds to rent out the Los Angeles Angels baseball stadium for high school graduation ceremonies.
- Granite Public Schools spent roughly $86,000 in taxpayer money to cover accommodations at the luxurious Caesars Palace hotel and casino during an annual conference.
- Parents Defending Education reported that a California School District spent money to purchase an ice cream truck
Altogether, according to DOGE, “Schools have spent nearly $200B of COVID-Relief funds with little oversight or impact on students.”
One accounting found that approximately 25 Billion, or 20% of the funding was never used.
And now, Maryland, like other states, is being asked to tell the truth, account for the funds or have them pulled. Just like they are being told that the Federal government will not support policies like DEI which are contrary to Article VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. If they continue down this path, federal funds are in jeopardy.
This is certainly something Maryland schools cannot survive while the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future is destroying local budgets and collapsing under its own financial weight.
The solution is simple. Follow Article VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Equal Protection Clause. Account for the Covid funds spent. Stop playing games with the education and lives of Maryland’s children.
Maybe it’s time for progressive ideologues like Carey Wright, the State Board of Education, and the Maryland State Legislature figure that out and stop worshipping at the altar of discriminatory and unlawful virtue signaling and wasteful spending.
SOURCES:
Maryland education faces $418M ‘catastrophic’ loss in pandemic-era relief funds – WTOP News
$191B in Relief Funds for Schools: Where Did the Money Go? – The Sacramento Observer
Linda McMahon: Schools have run out of time to spend COVID relief – Chalkbeat
Jan Greenhawk, Author
Jan Greenhawk is a former teacher and school administrator for over thirty years. She has two grown children and lives with her husband in Maryland. She also spent over twenty-five years coaching/judging gymnastics and coaching women’s softball.
The post Maryland Superintendent: Just Another Feckless Ideologue? appeared first on The Easton Gazette.
