Joshua Starr is superintendent of the Montgomery County public schools. He has stepped forward as an outspoken critic of standardized testing. He is emerging as a national voice against the national obsession with testing, ranking and rating students, teachers and schools. He has a different agenda: education. He recently was criticized for failing to follow the lead of ex-superintendents Rhee, Klein and Brizard, none of whom has a record of success.
Here, Carol Corbett Burris, principal of South Side High School in Rockville Center, Long Island, New York, expresses support for Starr.
Starr is working with Charlotte-Mecklenburg, N.C., superintendent Heath Morrison to counteract the failed national agenda of No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
So Starr is opposed to standardized testing? Even as he rolls out the Pearsin curriculum under the name ‘Curriculum 2.0?’. Please get your facts straight. You might also want to listen to teachers and parents here in Montgomery County instead of the $10million PR department we taxpayers have to finance. Read the articles at http://www.parentscoalitionmc.blogspot.com on what Starr is really doing. Stop repeating the MCPS propaganda.
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Released last year. Charlotte-Mecklenburg School District to field test 52 tests.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/school-district-field-tests-52-yes-52-new-tests-on-kids/2011/04/20/AFFbGXFE_blog.html
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I am a Montgomery County Public School parent who fully supports and appreciates Dr. Starr, his efforts to make education meaningful and relevant to our children’s futures. Curriculum 2.0 for our daughter in Third Grade has been terrific. Instead of covering a mile of facts an inch deep, we believe this change gives our children more depth and relevance. So to the above-comment I would say she does NOT speak for the facts! She just speaks for herself, as we do here! Kudos indeed, Dr. Starr.
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Seriously! Mr.Starr is against test, yet to apply to a magnet program in his distirct the application process involves a written application including essays, teacher recommendations, and middle school transcripts AND all applicants are required to take a written entrance exam in the spring which tests math, science, humanities, and logical thinking.
No charter school by law is allowed to have such a rigorous screening process, but kudos to Mr. Starr for speaking out against “testing, ranking and rating students”.
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Here’s Chester Finn’s article which lays out the “reformers” strategy re: question the reliability of information about school district performance when it’s positive (and upper middle class) because superintendents and school boards cannot be be impartial.
“Montgomery County (and other districts like it) needs a versatile, smart, and courageous education-advocacy organization to make sure that the interests of school-system employees and their friends don’t trump those of children (and taxpayers).”
http://educationnext.org/oh-starr-y-superintendent/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+EducationNext+%28Education+Next%29
Oh, Starr-y Superintendent
By Chester E. Finn, Jr. 12/20/2012
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This surprises me since Dr Starr brought standardized testing to Stamford CT
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Since I have children (and teach) in Montgomery County schools, I’m following this with a lot of interest.
While I did take some time off while my kids were smaller, and thus wasn’t employed (but nonetheless rejoiced) during Dr. Weast’s departure, some of my memories may be out of whack, but….
Paula: Was not the new curriculum in MCPS rolled out during Dr. Weast’s (Dr. Starr’s predecessor, for those playing along outside MCPS) tenure? And wasn’t the contract with Pearson signed then as well? If so, that’s not on Dr. Starr, any more than the passage of NCLB, mandating the standardized testing in the first place was in any way due to his influence.
Florence: make no mistake: just because the median income in Montgomery County, MD is above the national average, there are a LOT of students here who fall well below the poverty level. Numerically, I’d guesstimate that number to be far far more than are above that median income, but I’ll admit that the vast majority of my teaching tenure here (mostly teaching in schools with a high FARMS rate), and my residency in the county (and driving through both wealthy and desperately poor neighborhoods, as well as many in between) gives me a purely anecdotal reference for that. As a result, I can’t really characterize MCPS as an “upper middle class” system, but a school system with *some* upper middle class and some upper class schools with a burgeoning population of lower-income schools.
Cynthia: Dr. Starr has gone on record as being against standardized testing the way it’s used to evaluate schools and teachers and principals; this is not the same as magnet school screening. How would you, then, screen applicants for magnet programs in MCPS? (Disclaimer: my older child has applied for one of these, although she says she found it the least onerous of all the testing she’s been asked to do over the years.)
Definitely keeping my ear to the ground here. There are definitely shortcomings in some of the things MCPS does, the way they do business, but I don’t have all the facts. Not yet, anyway. *grin* That said, I can’t fault Dr. Starr for being against the likes of reforms being foisted on schools by people who in many cases haven’t set foot in public school classrooms as teachers, and who wouldn’t even be hireable as substitute teachers in MCPS.
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I wanted to get this link to Ms. Ravitch – even though it’s not directly related to Superintendent Staff (I’m a fan) – but thought it was a wonderful example of past education successes in Montgomery County, MD. Though this link is sad in that it is an obit, what an example of collaboration between a school system, the teachers, the union – everyone!
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/jody-leleck-montgomery-county-educator-dies-at-62/2012/12/20/6d9d341e-492f-11e2-820e-17eefac2f939_story.html
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Sorry to hear of the loss; happy to hear high praise from a nationally recognized superintendent:
“She had all the qualities I was looking for,” Weast said in an interview. “Patient, bilingual, intelligent and an iron will to succeed and help children succeed.”
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