MCPS Superintendent Dr. Joshua Starr held his second annual State of the Schools address Nov. 11 to discuss the county’s new plans as well as the latest statistics on student success.

In several ways, students in MCPS are outperforming others throughout the state and the country. According to Dr. Starr, over half of graduating MCPS students have earned at least one college-ready score on their AP exams. The average SAT score in the county is 1648, higher than the state and national averages of 1483 and 1498, respectively.

However, Dr. Starr also recognized that there are aspects of the system that need work. Racial achievement gaps are still present within the system when it comes to test scores. Academic ineligibility is another important issue, especially among students with learning disorders or lower economic status.

“We simply must do better,” said Dr. Starr. “And we can do better.”

MCPS recently worked with Wheaton High School to construct a new building for the school designed for Project-Based Learning. With the ready availability of information on students’ computers and phones, MCPS strove to deal with the new student-teacher relationship by creating the Strategic Planning Framework that sets more explicit standards for teachers and schools.

There are five crucial “milestones” covered in the framework where MCPS will measure how well its students are doing. These milestones come along in third, fifth, eighth and ninth grade and finally just before graduation, when students take exams like the SAT and ACT.

Two new initiatives are Innovation schoolsa��for embracing new educational opportunitiesa��and Intervention schoolsa��for closing long-standing achievement gaps.

One of the major themes of Dr. Starr’s speech was the idea of hope in schools and in the system. This recurring idea was inspired by the poem read at the address by Richard Montgomery HS junior Blessed Sheriff, “On the Meaning of Hope.”

Sheriff refers to hope as “a spirit that lives on the inside, like a wish waiting to come true.” This message appeared repeatedly in Dr. Starr’s discussions relating to Common Core, education frameworks, rising test scores and closing score gaps between demographics.

Ultimately, Dr. Starr believes that MCPS has one true mission for its students that has lasted for decades: “preparing all students to thrive in their future.”