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Saturday, October 27, 2012

Supt. Joshua Starr’s view of MCPS’s ‘seven keys to college readiness’

Supt. Joshua Starr’s view of MCPS’s ‘seven keys to college readiness’:


Supt. Joshua Starr’s view of MCPS’s ‘seven keys to college readiness’

I asked Montgomery County Public Schools Superintendent Joshua Starr for his view of the school system’s “Seven Keys to College Readiness” in response to a post calling for these “keys” to be abandoned.
The keys, on the school district’s Web site, are a suggested “pathway for students to follow that will increase their chances of being ready for and successful in college.” They aren’t — and can’t, in fact — be mandatory but they do send a message about how the district looks at student achievement. (It would be impossible for the school system to require that someone get a particular grade on the SAT or ACT, for example.)
David Bernstein, the author of the post titled, “Why MCPS’ ‘Seven Keys to College Readiness should be tossed,” argued that the “keys” should be tossed because they would leave behind