"80 by 2010," Weast Proclaims

At the AASA Conference in 2008, Jerry Weast made a bold pronouncement:

80 by 2010.

Those are the digits used by Jerry Weast, superintendent of the Montgomery County, Md., Public Schools, to summarize his district’s goal for expanding student achievement.

Driven by the desire to help 80 percent of the suburban school district’s students to be college ready by 2010, Weast suggested his district’s goal could be captured succinctly in what he calls his “elevator speech.”

Weast was referring to his district’s efforts to improve student achievement through an innovative professional development program designed to build the capacity of school leadership teams, including principals, teachers, support staff and parents.

(The Conference Daily, Friday February 15, 2008, by Noelle Ellerson. To read the rest of the article, click HERE.)


But hold the phone! Didn't we just see Weast telling the New American Foundation that when he came to Montgomery County in 1999, he brought the unions in, and asked them "under what conditions can we get 80% of our kids college-ready by 2014?" (New America Foundation video, HERE, at minute 37:40). "We set a date. We set an amount. We set a timeframe," Weast told the audience on March 30, 2010.

I'm so confused! Did Jerry Weast decide, as he told AASA in 2008, that 80 percent of MCPS students needed to be college ready by 2010, and implemented the Professional Learning Communities Institute to "improve teaching and learning and closing the gap?"

Or did Jerry Weast decide when he came to Montgomery County, in 1999, that "all groups" wanted their child to be college ready, the North Star was set, and VOILA: the Seven Keys. "80 by 2014"

Remember Winston Smith in 1984? His job was essentially to go back and re-write history the way the Ministry of Truth declared it to be. "80 by 2014" is a laudable goal, therefore it has always been the goal.

Except when it wasn't.