Serving as chief executive officer of Baltimore City public schools is one of the toughest jobs in the city. Parents trust the CEO with their children's future.
I was on the school board when the current CEO, Gregory Thornton, was selected after an eight-month search. While I had preferred that the new city schools chief have a strong Baltimore background, I embraced Mr. Thornton because of his reputation for balancing budgets and stellar resume.
With this incoming fiscal year's budget, however, 59 school-based employees have been laid off, and the city school system has not made public how much money the personnel cuts are saving despite calls for greater transparency ("City Council panel blasts Thornton for school layoffs, holds up budget," June 9).
The reality is our school system is not meeting the needs of our children. The stakes are too high to lay off school-based employees and not be straightforward about the process.
City students are graduating from high school reading on a third-grade level. Even if they get to college many are required to take remedial courses.
Students are falling through the cracks, and I do not want to see them dead, in jail, strung out on drugs or begging for food on the streets. We have to do better by Baltimore's children.
Cody L. Dorsey, Baltimore
The writer is a former student commissioner on the Baltimore City Board of School Commissioners.