Challenge: Open a Mission Hill School in Montgomery County

Montgomery County Public Schools chief Joshua Starr continues to publicly praise small "boutique" public schools.  

Click here to read his latest praise, and here for a link to the website of the school he praised—the Mission Hill School in Boston, MA.

Previously, I blogged about this issue challenging Starr to stop talking and to start acting. If these small boutique public schools are so great—and I believe they are great—then go to the mat and begin to open such schools in MCPS. Build a legacy beyond just talking.

But I will once again put on the table that big-picture question that continues to float around in my head: Would MCPS ever really welcome a school like Mission Hill with open arms?

My answer is no.

In my lifetime, I cannot imagine a MCPS school like this, especially in terms of size (no more than 200 students), structure (odd grade arrangements: K-8, K-9, etc.), and governance (parents actually running the joint). I am willing to be proven wrong. In fact, here is a challenge for someone out there in Montgomery County-land: Bring a Mission Hill-like school to our school board as a charter school application. Test my "no" theory.

Perhaps Starr, and others, can "pick off" the best parts or pieces of schools like Mission Hill and adapt them to MCPS. Certainly, we can have elementary school students doing cool project-based learning, porfolio assessments of "real" student work with less reliance on standardized testing, and an emphasis on developing social skills as well as academic skills. But doing any of this in our schools certainly wouldn't make these "hybrid MCPS schools" equal to a Mission Hill. In reality, schools like Mission Hill are special because of the whole package and not because of their individual parts and characteristics.

It is the whole package that is the challenge!