When Carey Wright officially adopts the role of interim Maryland state superintendent on Oct. 23, she’s getting right to work on improving the state’s reading and math scores.
“Our math scores are abysmal. I'll use that word,” Wright said at her first press conference on Thursday. “I am grounded in the research about what are best practices, where literacy and mathematics particularly are concerned.”
One of those strategies is the science of reading, which focuses on evidence-based practices that boost reading ability, like phonics awareness.
“You have to learn to read in order to love to read,” Wright said. “We need to be intervening and providing those kinds of services starting at pre-K.”
Wright comes to the Maryland position out of retirement, after serving as Mississippi state superintendent for nine years. Under her leadership, Wright led what some call the “Mississippi Miracle” – boosting state test scores in math and reading from worst in the country to near national average.
“But it's not a miracle,” Wright said. “It's hard work over a long period of time.”
Now, Wright wants to do that same work for Maryland students. And her strategy boils down to one simple rule, she said.
“I will always make decisions that I feel are in the best interest of children, based on knowledge, based on content, based on experience, based on research, always,” she said. “This isn't an adult issue. This is a children's issue.”
Wright is replacing former Maryland superintendent Mohammed Choudhury, who resigned on October 6 amid allegations of creating a “toxic” work environment.
Wright says she’s a “consensus-builder.”
“I operate with an open door policy. I feel that I'm very welcoming to hear what you know, what people have to say, and how we can go about making things better,” she said. “You cannot do this job without having good working relationships with the legislature and elected leaders.”
Wright said this a “golden moment” for public education in Maryland.
“And we really need to take advantage of it and make sure that what we're doing is in the best interest of our children across the state,” she added.
That’s what pulled her out of retirement.
“My friends are telling me that I'm failing at retirement miserably. But coming back to Maryland was like coming back home,” Wright said. “I had given almost nine years to the students and families of Mississippi and loved every single minute of it. And I thought, ‘Let me come back and do the same thing here at home.’”
Before moving to Mississippi, Wright worked as a teacher, principal and special education director in three Maryland counties.
Now she’s ready to dig into the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future, the $3.8 billion legislation package that will guide the state’s education goals for the next ten years.
Wright hopes to stick around for longer than her interim position, expiring on June 30. She said she will be applying to serve as the full-time state education leader on July 1.