New Superintendent Should Listen to Students

What issues should be highlighted next year?

How can the new superintendent incorporate student voices more effectively?

What can the new superintendent learn from Starr?

MCPS Superintendent Joshua Starr announced his resignation after having served three-and-a-half years. While Starr may have had his detractors, there is no doubt that he had to deal with a lot of issues. If the next superintendent wants to build off of where Starr may have went right or wrong, he or she should solicit students’ perspectives on the county’s pressing issues.

On February 10, the MCPS Board of Education (BOE) passed a plan promoted by Starr in his last week in office that will push start times for elementary schools back 10 minutes and middle and high schools back 20 minutes. Although this may appease the clusters of outraged parents crooning for later start times, the fact of the matter is that 20 minutes is not likely to change students’ lives that much. Since students are ultimately supposed to be the ones most influenced by this change, it is essential to know if this change will help. If a survey was given to students at the end of the first semester next year that collected results about whether or not the 20 minutes was a sufficient amount of time, then MCPS would have a better idea about whether this change is truly helping students.

Among Starr’s most emphatic stances was his positions on the national trend of evaluating teachers based off of standardized test scores. Starr claimed that it would be “insanity” to judge a teacher based in large part off these scores. Instead of determining a teacher’s effectiveness from a test, the county should instead rely on more direct means of evaluation. Surveys to students at the end of each quarter asking for input regarding their teacher’s performance could reveal just how effective certain teachers are in educating their students.

It has been nearly impossible to walk the halls of Sherwood without hearing the word “chromebook.” The 40,000 chromebooks cost MCPS nearly $15 million and have been met with extreme skepticism at Sherwood, from students and teachers alike. While chromebooks certainly are interesting and interactive, the teachers do not use the machines nearly enough to warrant such a large chunk of cash to be spent on them. The flimsy, delicate laptops may not even be able to handle the wear and tear of continued student usage throughout the years. If MCPS truly wants to be ahead of the technological curve, they should let students be a part of the process in bringing technology to the classrooms. Since teenagers use technology more than most teachers and board members, and since $15 million has already been spent, it should be common sense that students have a significant voice in determining how chromebooks are used in the classroom.

Starr made a point of visiting schools, holding community forums and interacting with students through Twitter. The next superintendent should continue these efforts to interact with students, and should go even further by recognizing that students themselves might have the best ideas for how they can most successfully learn. He or she should look to students to be more than the audience members at a town hall. Instead, students should be the ones on the stage holding the microphone.