Does any elected official in Maryland face greater challenges than new Prince George’s County Executive Rushern Baker? He comes into office in the aftermath of Jack Johnson’s reign of corruption, cronyism and neglect amidst high, even unrealistic, expectations about his ability to change everything and to do it quickly. The depth of the quagmire created by Johnson, the “eight lost years” as one longtime observer of the county put it, is coming into clearer focus.

Interestingly, Baker sounds optimistic “This is a perfect time for us in Prince George’s County” when he discusses his plans for the future. He doggedly avoids references to Johnson and the mess he left behind. When asked what his top priority is, he goes into a lengthy and thoughtful discourse on the importance of improving the public schools in the county rather than, as many commentators have urged, the challenge of restoring public trust in government. Baker seems determined to achieve that goal by what he does, not by what he says.

Baker’s commitment to education and his intent to be deeply involved in improving the school system sound in some respects similar to the words of former D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty, although that may be the only similarity between the two. Where Fenty was viewed by many as arrogant and standoffish, Baker always has a smile, engages easily with people and seems determined to make transparency a reality rather than just a slogan.

The necessity of having a quality school system both the reality and in reputation is in Baker’s view the critical ingredient to stimulating economic development in the county. He looks at both Montgomery and Howard counties as examples of locales whose economic strength is tied directly to the perceived quality of their schools. Businesses, he noted, don’t want to invest in places where the K-12 system is on a downturn.

Baker’s authority with respect to the county school system is limited, but he clearly does not view that as an obstacle. He speaks of using the “bully pulpit” to argue for more funding for the schools, of visiting a school a week to highlight his administration’s commitment to education and of stressing accountability through specific, measurable goals for Prince George’s school system. Rather than looking at test scores, he argues that attendance rates, graduation rates and the attrition rate for teachers are all more relevant indicators of how the system is progressing.

After years of turmoil, Baker believes that the county has the right superintendent in Bill Hite and vows to support him and to work collaboratively with him. And, perhaps even more significantly, Baker stresses that the progress that he wants to see in the public schools won’t happen in a single political cycle. With this approach, Baker is both running a political risk and taking the only path that has a chance of producing sustainable results.

While it’s entirely too early to evaluate how Baker is doing, there are a number of signs that he is already changing the atmosphere of county government and is starting to put the steps into place for significant economic growth if he gets some cooperation from the national economy. The county has more undeveloped land than any other part of the metropolitan area and has a population affluent enough to support additional retail activity.

Baker is getting very positive reviews for the team that he has assembled. M.H. Jim Estepp, the president and CEO of the Greater Prince George’s Business Roundtable, a former County Council chair and the runner-up to Johnson in the 2002 county executive race, thinks that the quality of Baker’s appointees experienced professionals rather than political cronies is a highly encouraging indication that Baker’s term as county executive will produce the transformation the county needs.

As an early example of how he intends to make his mark, Baker already has visited Joint Base Andrews (formerly Andrews Air Force Base) and is working closely with the military, one of the major engines of economic growth in the region. By contrast, Jack Johnson is not believed to have ever toured Andrews during his eight years in office. Similarly, when Baker went to the conference of the largest retail companies in the country in Las Vegas with his economic development team, the county executive was inundated with meetings with developers eager to find out if there really was a new era dawning in Prince George’s County.

The expectations for Rushern Baker are high, and he doesn’t have total control over all the factors that will determine whether or not he will be successful. He needs a strengthening national economy, people willing to invest because they have confidence in the integrity of county government and improvements in a school system over which he has little direct influence.

Still, there are a lot of people and organizations rooting for him and eager to work with a county in which the system isn’t rigged against them. The group with the greatest stake in Baker’s success has got to be county residents, so ill-served by their government for eight years. All in all, Rushern Baker has got an enormous challenge and a great opportunity.

Laslo Boyd is interim chief of staff in the Office of the President at Towson University. He can be contacted at lvboyd@gmail.com.