Bill de Blasio considering Jushua Starr or Andrés Alonso for NY chancellor

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Did you attend the CIP hearing? It may just be really bad timing for Starr, but if NY gets a glimpse of what's really happening in MCPS, he may think twice. We may not be backwater, but we're in serious trouble thanks in no small part to the short-sighted planning of the division of long range planning. It's like they never see the little or the big picture, they just produce memos and go to meetings or who knows what. And now it's coming into focus that many of our schools are falling down, they aren't big enough to house the kids, the system is ill equipped to meet the diverse needs of a huge student population, everything is bogged down by painfully slow and needlessly complicated bureaucracy etc. etc. it's a train wreck.

What, specifically, do you think that MCPS should have been doing for capital improvements, with the money that they actually had available, that they didn't do?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Did you attend the CIP hearing? It may just be really bad timing for Starr, but if NY gets a glimpse of what's really happening in MCPS, he may think twice. We may not be backwater, but we're in serious trouble thanks in no small part to the short-sighted planning of the division of long range planning. It's like they never see the little or the big picture, they just produce memos and go to meetings or who knows what. And now it's coming into focus that many of our schools are falling down, they aren't big enough to house the kids, the system is ill equipped to meet the diverse needs of a huge student population, everything is bogged down by painfully slow and needlessly complicated bureaucracy etc. etc. it's a train wreck.

What, specifically, do you think that MCPS should have been doing for capital improvements, with the money that they actually had available, that they didn't do?

Quit adding fancy additions onto rich west county schools and replace the outlying and east county schools that are falling down around the students' ears, for one.

[Anonymous]

Which fancy additions are you referring to?

[Anonymous]

You people are so delusional. Yes, compared to NYC, MoCo is a backwater, the minor league, a bush league. Maybe a serious mayor would have considered Michelle Rhee, but even she was not of the caliber – Cory Booker tried to recruit her for Newark. The City Council would raise hell if some hick was selected to run the city schools. The dynamic in NYC would be another world to someone from MCPS. The struggles faced by the schools at the bottom of the system to the demands of the top students at the City’s top school, Stuyvesant, which has produced four Nobel laureates, are unlike anything experienced in MoCo. You have schools that cater to gays and schools that cater to single mothers. You have students who are 21 and allowed to attend school with students who are 13. Most high schools have metal detectors. MoCo does not face these issues so why would the Mayor hire someone to run the schools system who has no experience with the challenges faced by NYC. The press would eat the Mayor alive. My guess is the Mayor will try to hire someone of the stature of a Larry Summers but obviously not him. If you want to keep this discussion alive to make you feel good about MoCo – That your school superintendent is being considered for the biggest job in education – Please feel free but know that the idea is a complete joke to anyone who has lived in NYC.

[Anonymous]

Um, Starr worked in NYC for their public school system before Stamford.

[Anonymous]

PP is correct. Starr got his start working on NYC school reform.

[Anonymous]

I want de Blasio to succeed. Therefore I hope he doesn't pick Starr.

[Anonymous]

PP Here. I stand corrected re: Starr's qualifications for being considered the new NYC School Chancellor. Although, I still think it is very unlikely he gets selected for the same factors I laid out above. Had he gone to a more urban school district and had success or stayed in NYC or had a more high profile position, he would be better positioned. For example, it is hard to imagine NYC PD hiring an outsider as Police Commisioner. NYC does not like outsiders even if they were once insiders.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You people are so delusional. Yes, compared to NYC, MoCo is a backwater, the minor league, a bush league. Maybe a serious mayor would have considered Michelle Rhee, but even she was not of the caliber – Cory Booker tried to recruit her for Newark. The City Council would raise hell if some hick was selected to run the city schools. The dynamic in NYC would be another world to someone from MCPS. The struggles faced by the schools at the bottom of the system to the demands of the top students at the City’s top school, Stuyvesant, which has produced four Nobel laureates, are unlike anything experienced in MoCo. You have schools that cater to gays and schools that cater to single mothers. You have students who are 21 and allowed to attend school with students who are 13. Most high schools have metal detectors. MoCo does not face these issues so why would the Mayor hire someone to run the schools system who has no experience with the challenges faced by NYC. The press would eat the Mayor alive. My guess is the Mayor will try to hire someone of the stature of a Larry Summers but obviously not him. If you want to keep this discussion alive to make you feel good about MoCo – That your school superintendent is being considered for the biggest job in education – Please feel free but know that the idea is a complete joke to anyone who has lived in NYC.

I think most posters aren't interested in the prestige factor that might come with the possibility of Starr being a candidate. I think this thread would probably be just as lively if word got out that Starr was being considered for a job in a small town in the mid-west. He talks a lot about the importance of hope, and I think the possibility of a new superintendent just keeps the hope alive for a lot of MOCO DCUMers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Starr is just a jerk- cocky, full of himself.

Not only that, but I think he's purposefully trying to tank the start late HS times by coupling with the longer elementary school times. The studies don't require them to be coupled, nor do transportation exigencies require it, which makes me think that he's not being above-board.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Starr is just a jerk- cocky, full of himself.

Not only that, but I think he's purposefully trying to tank the start late HS times by coupling with the longer elementary school times. The studies don't require them to be coupled, nor do transportation exigencies require it, which makes me think that he's not being above-board.

Don't they, though? How does it work if everyone gets out at 3-3:30?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Starr is just a jerk- cocky, full of himself.

Not only that, but I think he's purposefully trying to tank the start late HS times by coupling with the longer elementary school times. The studies don't require them to be coupled, nor do transportation exigencies require it, which makes me think that he's not being above-board.

Don't they, though? How does it work if everyone gets out at 3-3:30?

simple buy more buses hire more drivers ad to the traffic and oh my look at what they have done.

the start time thing is a ripple effect. look at after school activities, before school activities, parents work schedules etc etc etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I want de Blasio to succeed. Therefore I hope he doesn't pick Starr.

I know de Blasio will fail. Therefore I expect him to pick Starr or someone else just as bad.