The record of Joshua Starr, candidate for NYC Chancellor
This is the third in a series examining the record of educators who have been mentioned as serious possiblities for NYC Chancellor. Previously we examined the records of Andres Alonsoand Kathleen Cashin. The following was compiled by Peter Dalmasy, Class Size Matters researcher.
Background
Joshua Starr grew up in Larchmont, New York and holds an undergraduate degree from University of Wisconsin, a Master’s in Special Education from Brooklyn College, and a Master’s and Doctorate from Harvard Graduate School of Education in Administration, Planning, and Social Policy.
After graduating from the University of Wisconsin in 1991, he moved to San Francisco where he worked at a residential treatment center for emotionally disturbed kids.
Starr began his career as an educator in 1993, first as a substitute English teacher and then in 1995 as a special education teacher at PS 753 in Fort Greene, Brooklyn where he taught until 1997. He then served as Director of Accountability for Plainfield (NJ) Public Schools while completing his graduate studies at Harvard, and later as the Executive Director for Operations in Freeport (LI) School District.
In 2003, he was hired by Andres Alonso to be a Deputy Senior Instructional Manager and then Director of School Performance and Accountability at the New York City DOE, where he helped design the initial stages of the school accountability and grading system.
Starr’s record as Stamford Superintendent
Starr was appointed the Superintendent of Stamford (CT) Public Schools in 2005 and served for seven years. The district has 15,000 students in 20 schools. Like Andres Alonso, he had never served as a principal before being hired as superintendent.
While in Stamford, he altered a program in the district’s middle schools that had grouped students by academic ability, known as ‘tracking’, by consolidating five tracks into two, despite facing opposition from some parents, who demanded multiple tracks.
In a December 2012 Washington Post Answer Sheet op-ed, Long Island principal Carol Burris explained, “In 1976, the Connecticut