On Oct. 18, MCPS’s new superintendent of schools, Dr. Joshua Starr, met with reporters from high schools across the county. Below are excerpts of questions asked by reporters and Starr’s answers.

Q: What is the biggest problem that MCPS has?
A: Variability [among schools] is the biggest problem. It is a wonderful system in many ways, but there are differences in performance. Not everyone is performing at the level that I would like.

Q: You have said that you want to visit every school in MCPS. How does this help you do your job?
A: I would like to get a ‘kid fix’ to see what is going on with kids in classes. It helps me to understand what is happening and why it is happening. I like to hear directly from teachers, students and principals. I also see curriculum taught in different schools in different ways and I want to see why that is happening.

Q: Do you have plans to cut extra-curricular activity budgets?
A: I don’t get to choose how much money we have; it’s unfortunate. I have no plans to cut funding, but I won’t make any promises either until I go through the budget. Every class period already costs $18,000 each.

Q: How will you stay connected with students in the future?
A: I plan to visit schools, understand the formal structures of each school, contact students through Twitter and make sure that students have an appropriate voice in their school.

Q: How is MCPS’s math curriculum changing now that the policy of accelerating students in math classes has been stopped?
A: I have heard the complaint of students being accelerated too quickly in math from many people. I’m also concerned about the competitiveness of the American high school system. The technical term is that math is a big old mess right now. We teach math like it’s just a procedure and not analytical thinking.

Q: What do you think the future of the No Child Left Behind Act is?
A: I think the president missed an opportunity when he was first elected to change it. I’m a supporter of his but this overreliance on test scores is tragic and needs to end. I am glad that the president brought up the issue, but I have very little hope that the government will come up with a meaningful solution.