Dr. Starr’s ban on this terminology is a political act disfavoring populations who benefit from focus on the concentration of poverty phenomenon.

Superintendent Joshua Starr at the Silver Spring Citizens Advisory Board

 September 9, 2013

Summary by Frederick Stichnoth

This is a brief summary of and reflection on Dr. Starr’s remarks at the Silver Spring Citizen’ s Advisory Board (http://www.montgomerycountymd.gov/silverspring/boardscommittees/cab/index.html).

Red zone. As I entered (late), Dr. Starr was saying that he does not use the “red zone/green zone” terminology; it is unnecessary and sometimes counterproductive. I think that the conditions Dr. Weast saw in 1999 persist: correlation of low academic performance with concentrations of minority and FARMS students in the east County. No terminology has replaced “red zone.” So to stop using “red zone” is to erase or ignore an important educational, social and community phenomenon. Concentration of poverty explains a lot, when it is allowed to. Dr. Starr’s ban on this terminology is a political act disfavoring populations who benefit from focus on the concentration of poverty phenomenon.

Education debt. Dr. Starr prefers Dr. Gloria Ladson-Billings notion of “education debt (http://centerx.gseis.ucla.edu/principal-leadership/documents/Ladson-BillingsDebt.pdf)” to the standard notion of “achievement gap.” Education debt changes the focus from a current snapshot of the performance gap to the historical factors that have cumulated into the current snapshot.

Dr. Starr then said that there are “two sides” in the debate as to how to address the debt/gap: Joel Klein/Michelle Rhee permit “no excuses” in committing the schools to address the gap through teaching alone; and Richard Rothstein believes that significant progress cannot be made without ameliorating poverty (http://www.epi.org/files/2013/Unfinished-March-School-Segregation.pdf).

In this debate, Dr. Starr says he comes down “somewhere in the middle.” Where?

Dr. Starr emphasized that “teaching and learning” (Klein/Rhee) is the “number one” in-school factor determining education outcomes. This contrasts with the well-tested foundation finding of sociologist James Coleman that school composition/peer group is the number one factor.

Dr. Starr should consider how MCPS’ linking of school assignments to socio-economically segregated neighborhoods causes the education debt to compound.

How did “tracking” get into the conversation? Gifted and talented education was not addressed by the audience or Dr. Starr as a topic, but nevertheless Dr. Starr, on his own, referred to “tracking” twice. First, apparently countering Dan Reed’s suggestion that MCPS needs to integrate its schools, Dr. Starr said that in Stamford, where schools were integrated, classrooms had been segregated by tracking. Second, Dr. Starr is wrestling with how MCPS can support career and technical education (vocational ed) without falling into tracking. I understand the risks, but believe we must serve every child.

I also suggest to gifted and talented education advocates that GT/ability grouping is not the stand-alone topic they would make it. If, when “red zone” is the topic, the leader skips to ability grouping; and when CTE is the topic the leader skips to ability grouping, then those with an interest in ability grouping must either address a much wider set of topics or be self-relegated to the sidelines.

Bona fide experts only. Before I arrived, Dan Reed’s very widely discussed Post on-line piece (MCPS schools, segregation--http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-great-montgomery-county-schools-they-were-once-maybe-they-can-be-again/2013/09/06/e5bb70c0-15ab-11e3-be6e-dc6ae8a5b3a8_story.html) was raised by the audience. Dr. Starr rejoined: "There's no dearth of self-professed experts on education because they went to school."

Dr. Starr’s remark doesn’t really grapple with the substance of Dan’s piece, but is more an ad hominem put down.

To extract some substance from Dr. Starr’s slam, I wonder if the achievement gap, school composition, school results and schooling in general are matters best kept in the exclusive purview of professionals with Ed.D degrees, protected from community input. In an earlier era, should school desegregation have been left to the schoolmen, and Dr. King relegated to reading Rheinhold Niebuhr? Isn’t the education of the community’s children a matter for community, political, discussion?

That raises the odd appearance of Raymond E. Callahan. Dr. Starr often refers to his book Education and the Cult of Efficiency (http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_sabc?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&pageMinusResults=1&suo=1378814409484#/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_0_23?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=education%20and%20the%20cult%20of%20efficiency&sprefix=Education+and+the+cult+%2Cstripbooks%2C240&rh=i%3Astripbooks%2Ck%3Aeducation%20and%20the%20cult%20of%20efficiency), even when it’s not quite obvious how Callahan should apply. He did so again last night, in connection with the CTE quandary. Callahan was interested in the intrusion of business values and procedures into education during the Progressive era. Callahan’s thesis (which Dr. Starr did not refer to) involves “the extreme vulnerability of our schoolmen to public criticism and pressure and that this vulnerability is built into our pattern of local support and control.” So maybe Callahan’s thesis supports Dr. Starr’s quest to be elevated above community comment.

On the other side of the “expert schoolmen” debate, noted University of Maryland political scientist Clarence Stone argues:

“During the Progressive Era, a consensus emerged, among elites if not necessarily more broadly, that education was a specialized arena in which decision making was best left to those with deep knowledge and expertise.”

“Subsystem elites and their privileges are protected less by the direct assertion of political power than by the broad acceptance of certain ways of understanding what items are legitimate issues for the exercise of public power.”

“Exaltation of technique and organizational form constitutes the second intellectual wellspring that feeds the misguided mission to create an educational system outside politics.”

“Civic capacity involves mobilization by a broader array of community interests to remove policy-making authority from subperforming policy subsystems.”

“America spent most of the twentieth century trying to take politics out of education. That was a mistake.” Building Civic Capacity: The Politics of Reforming Urban Schools. http://www.amazon.com/Building-Civic-Capacity-Reforming-Government/dp/0700611185/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1378815895&sr=8-1&keywords=building+civic+capacity

Dan Reed does not seem to be a “self-professed expert,” but a politically-concerned citizen. MCPS is “subperforming,” leaving swaths of the County behind. That’s a matter for civic involvement—politics.

Funding. The PTA president from Silver Spring International Middle Schools (FARMS 43.7%), argued that the high FARMS rate and other factors justify increased MCPS funding. Dr. Starr responded that “we do fund according to needs.” He cited the funding in the current budget of 30 middle school focus teachers to provide instruction to students who have not been successful in math and English in the regular classroom setting, to which was budgeted $1,499,850. He also cited the new Core Values commitment to distribute resources to produce equity. To the non-expert, this seems to be a good allocation of funds. MCPS should produce an “equity budget” to show the interaction of all sources and uses of funds in addressing the disparate needs of schools and neighborhoods.