‘Putting his money where his mouth is’: Some hopeful about MCPS programming changes despite opposition

What to know about Superintendent Thomas Taylor’s plans for high schools

April 9, 2026 11:47 a.m. | Updated: April 9, 2026 11:54 a.m.

signs — Signs brought by parent advocates against the program analysis at an Oct. 9 County Council Education and Culture committee meeting. Photo credit: Ashlyn Campbell

Nearly 12 years ago, former Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) Superintendent Joshua Starr proposed a study of MCPS choice and magnet programs to determine if they contributed to narrowing achievement gaps, but hit roadblocks from school board and community members, Starr said.

“A lot of people just want more of the same, and they were sort of either afraid of or unwilling to sort of address some of the deeper issues we had,” Starr told Bethesda Today on Tuesday.

That’s why Starr took to social media last week to praise Thomas Taylor, the current MCPS superintendent, and his successful effort to convince the county school board to shift the district’s programming to a regional model — despite significant pushback from stakeholders. On March 26, the school board approved the change after a yearlong analysis of the district’s programming system – a move that Taylor says will increase equity and access for all students.

Starr said the decision has been a “long time coming.”

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“Taylor is putting his money where his mouth is,” he said. “I think it’s necessary. I give them tons of credit.”

Starr, a Bethesda resident, served as MCPS superintendent from 2011 to 2015. He resigned in 2015 after learning the school board would not renew his contract. He is currently the superintendent in residence for Right at School, according to his LinkedIn profile.

While Starr and some local advocates have expressed support for the MCPS programming changes, others are concerned the regional model could result in the elimination of successful programs and that the district is moving forward without a comprehensive plan.

The regional model will replace the district’s mix of competitive regional, countywide and consortia-based programs, such as the Science, Mathematics, and Computer Science Magnet Program at Montgomery Blair, the countywide International Baccalaureate Programme at Richard Montgomery and the Downcounty Consortium.

District hopes to address inequities within current programs

The district has been working on revising its programming since January 2025 and introduced in May a proposal for the regional model. MCPS officials say the goal is to create more equity and accessibility, noting that the existing system provides some students with more options than others because of where they live and accessibility to the programming.

After recommending the move to a regional program model in February, Taylor told Bethesda Today that the decision was a “critical inflection point for our community, for us to decide whether or not we want to espouse values and not live by them or espouse values and live by them.”

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On its program analysis webpage, the district notes several inequities resulting from the existing programming including:

More than 3,000 students apply for admission to programs every year, but more than 2,000 eighth graders remain on waitlists because of limited seats;

A small number of schools dominate the most in-demand programs, the district said, which restrict opportunities for students across the county;

A lack of central bus stop transportation makes some programs inaccessible to students.

During the March 26 school board meeting, Vice President Brenda Wolff and board member Rita Montoya pointed to those issues as reasons to move to a regional model.

“So why do I support the idea of expanding access through a regional program model? Because Black and brown students deserve access to these programs as well,” Montoya said during the board’s meeting. “A vote against this model is a vote to perpetuate the racist access to these programs that has been going on for quite some time.”

Stakeholders criticize, support programming model

Some stakeholders, such as the Black and Brown Coalition for Educational Equity and Excellence and the Montgomery County NAACP, support the changes because they are expected to fix programming inequities that impact Black and brown children.

“Nothing is ever perfect — it’s certainly going to be better than the current hodgepodge of how programs have been distributed to whichever schools,” coalition co-founder Byron Johns told Bethesda Today on Tuesday. “MCPS has had a tradition of, ‘Well, we’ll just throw more money at it, we’ll just put another program over there’ … and then you end up with this patchwork of who’s got access to what, based on the loudest voices at the moment.”

Starr said the coalition’s support for the regional model “means something,” but he’s not surprised the proposed changes have been controversial.

“There’s no leader that’s ever done anything bold and worthwhile that actually truly supports kids and addresses equity issues … that has not gotten serious pushback from folks who benefit from the current systems,” Starr said.

Starr argued that many of the concerns raised by opponents, such as arguing that the district used a flawed process to develop the regional model and that successful programs such as the International Baccalaureate Programme at Rockville’s Richard Montgomery High School will no longer be as successful, are not new.

“The American ethos is that if I have something and you don’t, it is valuable, regardless of intrinsic value … so just because more people have access to something doesn’t mean that it loses its inherent value,” Starr said. “But a lot of people like to think of education as a zero-sum game.”

The pushback has come from several groups, including the Montgomery County Council of PTAs (MCCPTA); the Montgomery County Education Association, which is the local teachers union; and others who have urged MCPS to pause or shift its plan for regional programming.

The Montgomery County Council of PTAs overwhelmingly passed a resolution in October urging the district to decelerate its program analysis, asking the school board to refrain from approving any systemwide changes until the district “conducts multiple rounds of proposals and public feedback.”

After the school board vote on March 26, Rebekah Kuschmider, a parent of a student at Kensington’s Albert Einstein High School, told Bethesda Today the vote gave MCPS “a blank check to do whatever they want on a timeline that doesn’t necessarily make sense in terms of the promises they’re making.”

Kuschmider said the changes dissolved the two high school consortiums within the district “like they were nothing” and gave the community “very little consideration.”

MCPS “acted like we were hoarding opportunity when it wasn’t our fault, but they had not extended similar opportunities to the rest of the county,” Kuschmider said. “We only wanted to keep what we had.”

In November, the teachers union voted to oppose the regional program model. While the union said it supported the goal of increasing access, members didn’t have confidence that the plan would meet those goals.

Union President David Stein told Bethesda Today on Wednesday that since the board approved the move to a regional model, the union will have to be vigilant to ensure all of the offerings aren’t “programs in name only.”

Stein noted Taylor hired the former coordinator of the Science, Mathematics, and Computer Science Magnet Program at Montgomery Blair to oversee the regional programs.

“I think that that is an encouraging sign that we’re going to have people in there who at least know what the programs are supposed to look like,” Stein said. “We have to ensure that they do that with fidelity.”

School board requires regular updates on district’s progress

During the March 26 meeting, the board also approved President Grace Rivera-Oven’s amendment directing Taylor to provide the board with “quarterly or regular updates” on the implementation of the regional models.

Those updates are to include “accomplishments, challenges, budget implications, key implementation metrics (i.e. application process, teacher recruitment, curriculum selection, etc.), metrics of success as well as any recommended adjustments to ensure successful and timely implementation,” according to the amendment.

Other than the updates to the board, MCPS isn’t required to make or share any major updates. The next time the district will present numbers on the impact of the regional model may not be until enrollment and program admissions numbers roll in.

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Originally published at Bethesdamagazine