Shortly after this week's news that the Baltimore County school system has the fourth-highest graduation rate among the nation's 50 largest school districts, I caught up with county schools Superintendent Joe A. Hairston at the Community College of Baltimore County in Essex. (See today's article.)

Hairston was there with a group of eighth-graders from Golden Ring Middle School, as part of a partnership between the school system and the community college to encourage the kids to start thinking about, and planning for, college.

While pleased with the county's graduation rate, he grew serious as he talked about the challenges that the school system faces to keep that high ranking. Not for the sake of rankings, but because of what those rankings represent, he said --- stability and effectiveness.

That means building strong programs at the elementary school level that will send students onto middle school ready for challenging courses that will prepare them for advance work in high school, he said. Middle school students have to come to the table with a solid foundation, ready to start thinking about their futures. He said he worries about the "bottle-neck" that is produced at the middle school level when too many students arrive behind grade level. But, he said, middle school is not the time to try to teach elementary-school concepts.

Hairston said he understands that some people may be worried about his plans to stop giving its middle schools federal Title I money that is aimed at schools with high concentrations of low-income students. (Click here for Wednesday's article on this news.) He said he understands that it sounds like he is taking away precious resources from the middle schools. But I think he summed it up best with these remarks:

"Spending (Title I) money for kids at the middle school level doesn't help if they are in eighth grade reading at the third-grade level. It makes more sense to invest that money in the elementary schools so those students don't get behind."

I've talked to some national education advocates, who seem to generally agree with Hairston's line of thinking. What are you thoughts?