Hall of Fame 6.7.26 - Flipbook - Page 29
Hall of Fame | Sunday, June 7, 2026 29
DAVID
HORNBECK
The year was 1977. A peanut farmer was in the White House. A grassroots organizer and theologian was in charge of Maryland education. And David Hornbeck
made it work, and has continued to work for the advancement of underprivileged students throughout the rest of his career.
Faith drove the Longview, Texas, native to the East Coast when he studied at Union Theological Seminary in New York. On returning to Texas, the divided
Presbyterian church refused to ordain him due to his Yankee religious education. But tenets like the golden rule and loving your neighbor still inform the 84-yearold’s passion for equity and justice.
“Education is the hub of all other things,” Hornbeck said, adding that a good education is correlated
with better health, employment and housing. During
his seminary work in East Harlem, he realized the
pivotal role opportunity plays in determining life outcomes.
The reasons school systems fail kids, particularly
those with structural disadvantages, is “not because
of the kid, not because we don’t know what to do to
be successful, but because of the absence of political
will or public resolve,” he said.
One year into his tenure as Maryland’s state superintendent, Baltimore City, Somerset, St. Mary’s
and Caroline counties sued the state over unfair
school funding formulas. Hornbeck said he “[spent]
12 hours on the witness stand trying to plead guilty
because I did think that Maryland had an unconstitutional funding system.”
Though the city and counties won at trial, the state
appeals court overturned the decision. Hornbeck and
allies had to wait until the Kirwan Commission, and
eventually the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future, to
see an overhaul of the state’s education funding.
“You can’t lead education in a state without it being political because so much of the money of the
state is invested in education,” Hornbeck said.
“Though here in Maryland, historically, except for a
brief period following the Thornton Commission in
2002, up until the Blueprint passed, we were woefully
short.”
At Strong Schools Maryland, Hornbeck was “not
a founder in name only,” according to one of his former employees.
Joe Francaviglia, former executive director of
Strong Schools, met Hornbeck as one of the organization’s first full-time hires. He said his boss worked
hands-on with him daily to advance priorities that
would make it into the Blueprint, without pay, sometimes up to 12 hours a day.
“It wasn’t just that he was willing to sit in the
David Hornbeck
Age: 84
Hometown: Born in Knoxville, Tennessee;
raised in Longview, Texas
Current residence: Tuxedo Park area
of Wyndhurst, North Baltimore
Education: B.A., Austin College, 1963;
B. Div, Union Theological Seminary,
1966; P.G.Dip., Oxford University, 1965;
J.D., University of Pennsylvania Law School, 1971
Career highlights: Maryland state
superintendent of schools, 1976-1988.
Chair, National Title I Commission, 1994.
Superintendent of public schools,
Philadelphia, 1994-2000.
Civic and charitable activities:
Session member, head of advocacy
and action committee, member,
racial justice ministry committee,
Govans Presbyterian Church.
Founder, Strong Schools Maryland.
Founder and steering committee chair,
Voices for Restorative Schools.
Family: Wife of 63 years, Becky Hornbeck;
two children; four grandchildren
boardroom and [talk] about strategy. ... He was driving across the state with me, sitting in 10-person
meetings in churches to explain what we’re trying
to do,” Francaviglia said.
The passage of the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future wasn’t a “foregone conclusion” at the Kirwan
Commission’s inception, and that it happened at all
is a testament to Hornbeck, Strong Schools Maryland, and the other activist organizations involved
in that fight, he said.
“This is one savvy fellow when it comes to moving the needle politically,” Mark Wasserman, a
friend and former professional contact, said. “You
can see his thumbprints are all over the Blueprint.”
Hornbeck is as unwavering in his commitment
to his family as he is to the underdog goals he sets
his sights on.
He’s a proud father of two Baltimore City Public
Schools principals, who, he boasts, live within 200
yards of him in North Baltimore. His granddaughter is also a teacher for Baltimore City Schools.
After the Blueprint passed, Hornbeck said he realized it was a “terrible mistake” that restorative
practices were left out of the landmark legislation
and founded another group, Voices for Restorative
Schools, to advocate for instilling the bottom-up
culture change.
Both of his sons’ schools use restorative practices.
“David is shameless about bringing dignitaries
and other people of influence to the school to sit on
the floor and watch the students engage in this
process,” Wasserman said.
He saw it play out at Hampstead Hill Academy.
Kids, faculty and parents all have to buy into the
process for it to work, and there, they have, he said.
“I was really impressed.”
But Hornbeck believes the wait for restorative
practices might be as long as it took to get Maryland to embrace universal prekindergarten. That
measure was passed in the Blueprint after he first
proposed it in the late ’70s.
“That’s kind of characteristic of education. If you
live long enough, maybe you’ll see some of the
changes that need to be made,” he said.
Restorative practices build community and give
disadvantaged children a voice, and are about valuing other people, according to Hornbeck.
“Our laws and practices don’t reflect that emphasis yet. And I won’t be around, but I hope that in a
time earlier than 41 years, it comes to pass.”
— Racquel Bazos
