Who (in particulr) is to blame for the idea of 2.0?

[Anonymous]

Everyone in central is hoping parents will waste time blaming people long gone. Instead, let’s hold the people there now accountable for following through on good change.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Jerry Weast, Pat O'Neil and Barclay (the BOE guy that got caught stealing money to buy stuff at Target and PopEye chicken) were responsible for hatching the bad idea. The plan was to ignore university peer reviewed curriculums and partner with Pearson to make up their own and resell it. Terrible mistake for Pearson and MCPS believing that unqualified MCPS employees could just come up with a curriculum.

The most blame lands on Starr though who took this mistake to a whole new level demonstrating what true incompetence can do to a system. He was so unqualified himself for the job that he didn't recognize how unqualified Marty and Eric Lang were as well. Lang got to staff up his office and filled it with more unqualified people. Rather than providing a shred of quality control or review, they all kept barreling forward. There was a HUGE outpouring of complaints from parents and teachers. Did Starr look into any of the complaints? Nope he hired more PR people and just behaved arrogantly.

It really escalated the creation of a toxic environment where the only ideas allowed in the central office were yes men who fanned over each other. The central office became increasingly insular never learning or addressing its own mistakes-just demonizing anyone that disagreed with them. Starr had a history in Connecticut in always focusing on you scratch my back and I'll scratch your back and punishing staff that rock the boat. He took this to another level in MCPS both with hiding the sex offenders and ignoring all the obvious signs of problems within the curriculum.

I honestly think that Weast would have done something or at least stopped the 30% errors in the materials that were coming out of the central office.

This ^ is exactly what happened. Starr really screwed MCPS and the curriculum has been absolutely horrible and never really improved. It has greatly affected the quality of education and our kids can't get this time back.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Jerry Weast, Pat O'Neil and Barclay (the BOE guy that got caught stealing money to buy stuff at Target and PopEye chicken) were responsible for hatching the bad idea. The plan was to ignore university peer reviewed curriculums and partner with Pearson to make up their own and resell it. Terrible mistake for Pearson and MCPS believing that unqualified MCPS employees could just come up with a curriculum.

The most blame lands on Starr though who took this mistake to a whole new level demonstrating what true incompetence can do to a system. He was so unqualified himself for the job that he didn't recognize how unqualified Marty and Eric Lang were as well. Lang got to staff up his office and filled it with more unqualified people. Rather than providing a shred of quality control or review, they all kept barreling forward. There was a HUGE outpouring of complaints from parents and teachers. Did Starr look into any of the complaints? Nope he hired more PR people and just behaved arrogantly.

It really escalated the creation of a toxic environment where the only ideas allowed in the central office were yes men who fanned over each other. The central office became increasingly insular never learning or addressing its own mistakes-just demonizing anyone that disagreed with them. Starr had a history in Connecticut in always focusing on you scratch my back and I'll scratch your back and punishing staff that rock the boat. He took this to another level in MCPS both with hiding the sex offenders and ignoring all the obvious signs of problems within the curriculum.

I honestly think that Weast would have done something or at least stopped the 30% errors in the materials that were coming out of the central office.

This ^ is exactly what happened. Starr really screwed MCPS and the curriculum has been absolutely horrible and never really improved. It has greatly affected the quality of education and our kids can't get this time back.

+1

My kids started in MCPS 7 years ago and we have been watching the school system since before that. Has been so frustrating to watch. Talk to any teachers who have been there long enough, and they will happily describe their frustrations with the county.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Jerry Weast, Pat O'Neil and Barclay (the BOE guy that got caught stealing money to buy stuff at Target and PopEye chicken) were responsible for hatching the bad idea. The plan was to ignore university peer reviewed curriculums and partner with Pearson to make up their own and resell it. Terrible mistake for Pearson and MCPS believing that unqualified MCPS employees could just come up with a curriculum.

The most blame lands on Starr though who took this mistake to a whole new level demonstrating what true incompetence can do to a system. He was so unqualified himself for the job that he didn't recognize how unqualified Marty and Eric Lang were as well. Lang got to staff up his office and filled it with more unqualified people. Rather than providing a shred of quality control or review, they all kept barreling forward. There was a HUGE outpouring of complaints from parents and teachers. Did Starr look into any of the complaints? Nope he hired more PR people and just behaved arrogantly.

It really escalated the creation of a toxic environment where the only ideas allowed in the central office were yes men who fanned over each other. The central office became increasingly insular never learning or addressing its own mistakes-just demonizing anyone that disagreed with them. Starr had a history in Connecticut in always focusing on you scratch my back and I'll scratch your back and punishing staff that rock the boat. He took this to another level in MCPS both with hiding the sex offenders and ignoring all the obvious signs of problems within the curriculum.

I honestly think that Weast would have done something or at least stopped the 30% errors in the materials that were coming out of the central office.

This ^ is exactly what happened. Starr really screwed MCPS and the curriculum has been absolutely horrible and never really improved. It has greatly affected the quality of education and our kids can't get this time back.

+1

My kids started in MCPS 7 years ago and we have been watching the school system since before that. Has been so frustrating to watch. Talk to any teachers who have been there long enough, and they will happily describe their frustrations with the county.

We've been here almost 30 years and put 3 kids thru MCPS. My last one graduated 2 years ago. It's been very disappointing to see how much the school system has declined. It used to be REALLY good.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Starr left a known sexual predator in a classroom. Fact. Source: The Washington Post.

+1 Starr was also in charge while 2.0 was being created, rolled out and implemented. He was at helm when the decisions were made about the ridiculous P grading system, ending math acceleration, removing final exams because too many kids were failing, and the creation of all the flawed material.

Anyone who has ever walked into organization and taken over from a predecessor knows that they have a short window to assess and then they own it. Who hasn't inherited a project with problems? Starr hadn't and he didn't know what to do. He didn't even know enough to pay attention to anything other than tweeting and trying to get national attention for himself.

Starr could have recognized the problem and course corrected. Starr could have delayed the implementation - remember how this was rolled out and there were almost no materials. It really screwed the teachers. What did Star tell the principals? Starr told them I've got your back if you've got mine. I know several principals and they ALL spoke about how Starr was easy to work for because you just had to keep things quiet and always focus on positive PR. Starr could have demanded quality control and fired staff in the curriculum office who were creating shoddy materials. Starr could have listened to the complaints. Starr could have paid attention to the early data coming in with dropping scores. He didn't. He did nothing and just clung to his talking point that everything was great, teachers just weren't trained in 2.0 and parents just weren't educated enough to see the depth of 2.0

So how did this all work out? Seven years of kids received a crappy education with a failed curriculum. MCPS dropped from being 1st in the state to being 9th in the state. Howard, Frederick, DC, and VA all made strides forward while Starr knocked our school system down to the point that it may never recover. Starr's legacy is failure and hurting over 100K students. After failing in Conn and failing so miserable in MCPS I doubt another school system will ever hire him and he certainly will never get a national appointment that was always his goal.

Agree. Welll said.

I’m waiting for the JHu school of Ed case study on how MCPS cannibalizes itself.

Yep. And maybe it doesn't do any good to figure out who is to blame. However, parents are still at the point of looking at their own kid and saying I think it's okay. One data point is useless, it really was seven years of dropping scores behind the scenes and administrators pretending that once the curriculum was fully implemented, the issues would disappear.