Parris N. Glendening Gov. Parris N. Glendening talks to Danila Apasov at Westland Middle School in Montgomery County as Rep. Constance A. Morella (R-Md.) watches. (Post File Photo) Post Stories • Glendening Calls on Party • Rematch of '94 Set • Curry Still Won't Back Governor • Proving Power of Incumbency • Analysis: Parris Still a Puzzle • A Forceful Reelection Bid • Former Ally Now Against Him

By Ellen Nakashima
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, October 5, 1998; Page B1

First in a series

Parris N. Glendening speaks often of how education was his ticket out of poverty. The future Maryland governor made his way in the world with the help of teachers and mentors who lifted his sights beyond the gritty working-class neighborhoods of his native south Florida. Scholarships and determination paved the way to college and a career in academia that his family could scarcely imagine.

"I started out very, very poor," Glendening (D) said in a recent interview. "The difference in my life is education. This really is my passion."

Now, as he struggles to survive the fight of his political life, Glendening is hoping that education will also prove the ticket to a second term as governor. In a campaign that asks voters to reelect him largely on the strength of his record, no issue is more central to his platform than what he has done for Maryland public school students.

Blessed by a buoyant economy, Glendening has poured record amounts of money into replacing cramped and crumbling classrooms – more than $600 million since 1995. He brokered a historic deal to rescue the struggling Baltimore schools and backed a financial package aimed at ending court-ordered busing in his home county of Prince George's. He has beefed up school technology and made it easier for teachers to evict disruptive students from the classroom.

To his supporters, it is a solid effort that has kept the state's school system improving even as increasing enrollment and diversity have complicated the task of educating the 838,500 public school students. To others, Glendening's are relatively limited initiatives, focused almost exclusively on doling out more money to solve problems, bereft of any larger vision or direction for how that money should be used.

He isn't linked, for instance, with any ambitious proposals regarding curriculum redesign or teacher preparation.

"He sees education as a way to improve Maryland's future and has been a consistent supporter of education," said James Cibulka, chairman of the Department of Education Policy at the University of Maryland. "But I really don't identify him with any strong agenda of reform. He hasn't come forward with a comprehensive set of proposals which provide guidance to the state [school] board and the people of Maryland."

Glendening says it would have been foolhardy to depart from the Maryland reform model launched under his predecessor, William Donald Schaefer (D), an approach that relies on intensive student testing to monitor progress in the schools, and on carrots and sticks to prod results. "You can't change education policy every single time you get an election and a new governor," he said. "You'll never have any continuity and demonstrated results."

Indeed, it's clear that Glendening's approach to education reflects his pragmatic, cautious governing style. In doling out school money, he has struggled to balance the state's competing geographic interests, showering new money on Baltimore City and, when suburban jurisdictions screamed, following up a year later with money for Montgomery, Prince George's and other counties. He fully embraced the state's school performance plan only after it was clear that failure to do so would antagonize the legislature and business community.

"We just quietly try to get things done," said Glendening, who still shows up regularly at his local elementary school in University Park to volunteer in the library. "The key is, are we helping our teachers? Are we helping education? I think the answer is yes."

Education Spending

If there's an education issue associated with Glendening, it has little to do with such reform policies and more to do with a basic governmental function: spending.

Over his four years in office, Glendening's administration increased direct state aid to schools by a third, compared with a 20 percent rise in the overall operating budget. Nearly three-quarters of the increase in school aid was mandated under existing state formulas, driven largely by an expanding student population.

Still, Glendening stepped outside the formulas to direct more resources toward the neediest students, despite tight fiscal times in his first two years of office. He secured General Assembly approval for a five-year, $254 million state aid package for the troubled Baltimore City schools, along with new management controls aimed at ensuring that the money was well-spent.

He also backed a four-year, $278 million program designed by state School Superintendent Nancy S. Grasmick targeted at poor children and those who speak English as a second language, or ESOL. The largest single chunk of the extra money will go to Prince George's County: $74 million. Montgomery will get $42 million.

With the new dollars, Montgomery officials have been able to hire more bilingual staffers and high school literacy teachers to help ESOL students make the transition to mainstream classes.

"We're one of the very few places in the country that has a bilingual team that goes around diagnosing non-English-speaking students suspected of having a handicap," said Maria Malagon, Montgomery ESOL director. "The money has come in very handy."

Glendening has also successfully pushed legislation to put more money into gifted-student programs, to give financial rewards to schools posting gains on the state's school performance assessment test and to encourage more students to go into science and technology in college.

The increased school cash is nice, but officials must be held more accountable for how it's used, said Champe C. McCulloch, president of the Maryland Chamber of Commerce. Much of the money is "driven by formulas and has nothing to do with results," he said.

Glendening's GOP rival, Ellen R. Sauerbrey, agreed. "We can't spend our way to education reform," she said. "We need to spend the money for a good quality system."

School Construction

But mostly, he has used the largess to launch the most aggressive school construction binge the state has seen in 20 years, building or renovating 6,000 classrooms and wiring more than 1,000 schools to the Internet.

Maryland is one of about only 15 states that substantially finance local school building projects. Under Glendening, the state has spent $634 million over the past four years on school construction projects, almost double the sum spent the previous four years. This year alone, the state spent $225 million to help counties build or renovate schools; Montgomery, Prince George's and Baltimore counties together received $113 million.

Counties say the money has been critical in helping them relieve crowding in classrooms and address other problems long neglected by state authorities. In Prince George's, the $35 million provided by the state was a down payment on a four-year, $140 million plan to build 13 schools and end the county's court-ordered busing program. Initially, the county wanted $500 million, with most of it to come from the state.

On the Record Sauerbrey, Glendening face each other a second time. (File Photo) Interview Transcripts The two candidates were interviewed this summer by Post reporters and editors. Sauerbrey and Glendening answered several questions on education policy.

"Everybody I knew of said that was ridiculous," said Prince George's Board of Education Chairman Alvin Thornton (Suitland). "There was one person who stood up and said that it is right and we should do it. ... And that man was Parris Glendening."

Montgomery County received a record $50 million this year. Over the past four years, the county has raked in $144 million, more than any other jurisdiction. The extra school dollars have made all the difference for students at Montgomery Blair High School in Silver Spring, a gleaming new $54.5 million building just off the Capital Beltway and one of Maryland's largest high schools.

The old school, a classical red brick building, was charming but dilapidated. Students complained of roaches and rodents scurrying through the halls, of cracked ceiling tiles and leaky toilets. The new school is state of the art, with radio and television production studios, and with Internet hookups in every classroom.

"Without [Glendening's] influx of money. there would be no new Blair," said Blair Principal Phillip F. Gainous. "When you look at the facility that we had last year and what we're using now, there is no comparison. Yeah, we've got the same teachers, but the building allows them to be better instructors. The kids are the ones who benefit."

But the school construction plan has also sparked charges that Glendening has politicized the process of doling out money. In 1996, for instance, the governor won the votes of five Montgomery legislators in favor of his plan to finance a football stadium in Baltimore by holding out the prospect of $36 million to help build and renovate Montgomery schools – a nice increase over the previous year's $20 million. That same year, Prince George's County received $5.7 million.

Glendening merely smiles when reminded of the votes. "That was only a media interpretation," he said. "We've worked fairly and openly with local officials and the legislatures to make sure we're meeting the school construction needs of every county."

Accountability and Reform

Such moves led some legislators and business executives to fear he would not be a staunch backer of the state program – and perhaps even block the reappointment of the person seen as its guiding force, Grasmick.

But in his first year, he "saw the handwriting on the wall," said Del. Howard P. Rawlings (D-Baltimore). Convinced by the business community, legislative leaders and the state board that the program made sense, Glendening became an advocate, Rawlings and others said. By June 1995, he was aligning himself squarely with the reform effort, saying public schools need "rewards and punishments" to prod them toward better performance.

On one issue he has not budged: Glendening backed legislation to remove teacher licensing authority from the state school board, whose members are appointed by the governor, and vest it in a 25-member board, whose single largest group is culled from teachers' groups. Critics of the measure, including Rawlings and Grasmick, say it essentially allows teachers to write their own licensing rules.

But Glendening, elected with strong support from the Maryland State Teachers Association, defended his stance. "Most professional organizations have their licensing controlled by the professionals on that board," he said. "Teaching is a profession. Teachers ought to have a board whereby they have significant input into professional standards."

Despite Glendening's support, the licensing proposal has regularly died in the General Assembly.

Beyond this issue, some critics say, Glendening himself has remained largely disengaged from any debate in education reform. Even leaders in his own party say he has never been out in front on this issue.

"He had to be taken by the General Assembly in the direction of more accountability in terms of performance standards," said Rawlings. "We were the ones driving this engine, not the governor. He's been supportive of it, but his main claim is spending money."

Still, Rawlings concluded, "When you look at his total record, I believe he's done an outstanding job in public education."