[5][6] Howard County consistently earns high marks in school performance metrics such as test scores and graduation rates.

In 2007, Forbes magazine rated Howard County as one of the ten most cost-efficient school systems in the United States.

[9] Rev Joeseph Colebatch, Col Samuel Young, William Locke, Charles Hammond, Capt Daniel Maraitiee, Richard Warfield, and John Beale were commissioned to buy land and build schools in what was then Anne Arundel County.

Some early examples were St. Charles College, incorporated in 1830 near Doughoregan Manor, Patapsco Female Institute (1833) in Ellicott City, and Mount St. Clement (1867) at Illchester.

[17] In 1894, Chairman Robert A. Dobbin and the remainder of the county school board were indicted for receiving money in excess of per diem.

[18] In 1905, corporal punishment was tested in the courts after Highland School teacher Cora Burgess was fined for whipping a student, an act that would be banned by the state 88 years later.

[21] During the period,[clarification needed] 156 Rosenwald Schools were built in Maryland for teaching African American children.

[22] Superintendent W.C. Phillips commissioned a more robust stone high school for Ellicott City with a cornerstone laid in November 1924.

Future commissioner and board member Charles E. Miller started his own bus service and vehicle sales to the county.

[citation needed] African American school teacher Effie Liggans Scott was released for working while pregnant.

[28][29] When conscientious objector Richard McCleary refused to salute the flag in class, the board made a policy to dismiss the student from school.

[33] The only major program funded in the decade since the PWA money grants was the agriculture shop at Lisbon, which ballooned from $8,000 to over $18,000 in construction costs by 1949.

A single central high school design was modified to one that would serve three districts, and plans for additions to Clarksville, Libson, and West Friendship were made at an estimated cost of $875,000.

[citation needed] In 1949, future land developer and County Executive Norman E. Moxley was hired in a new position as chairman of the school building commission.

[35] By 1952, the first major subdivisions were started in Ellicott City, prompting the League of Women Voters to express concern.

[citation needed] Maryland governor J. Millard Tawes appointed Gertrude Crist to the school board in 1959.

[38] In 1962, Senator Frank E. Shipley bypassed the state school board nominating commission recommendation of Fred Schoenbrodt, and installed Clifford Y.

[39] The school board proposed an ambitious $3 million expansion of Howard High, and administration buildings funded by a 6% increase in property taxes for anticipated growth.

The school board expanded to five members in 1964, all chosen by the governor (J. Millard Tawes): James Moxley Jr, Fred Schoenbrodt, Gertrude Crist, Austin Zimmer, and Edward Cochran.

The Central Maryland News and Times requested that the county stop its closed door policy on school board meetings.

The board of education declined, and offered to relocate to the recently vacated Harriet Tubman School Building.

In 1968, Thomas M Goedeke was selected from Baltimore County to become chief of public education, serving until 1984, replacing 42-year veteran John E.

[54] In 1938, African American teachers petitioned for equal salaries, and Superintendent S. E. Grantham and the commissioners felt they could not allow an additional $7,500 in expenses, ending the effort.

The racial equity less apparent when the board announced in September 1942, that students seeking clinic aid for syphilis could only use colored buses, because using a white bus was considered improper.

With clear direction from the supreme court, the school board, which included future county commissioner Charles E. Miller, delayed action.

[63] The chairman of the NACCP education committee Robert H. Kittleman, threatened demonstrations if the school board would continue segregation past 1964.

[64] The bounty's official plan to eliminate segregation was approved by Francis Keppel, the United States Commissioner of Education, in July 1965 days before the passage of desegregation requirements in the Housing and Urban Development Act of 1965 which helped finance new town of Columbia.

[73] In 1976, arbiter Robert I. Bloch ruled that the school selection board had improperly used race and non-professional factors in the review of Charles Griffin for pupil personnel supervisor.

[79] In 2006, Howard County set a health policy, limited birthday celebrations to once a month, and banned home baked cookies or cakes with cream filling.

[81] In late 2014, the board approved early retirement options for teachers with over 15 years of tenure, with a projection of 594 employees leaving the system.