If you're in Takoma Park schools...

[Anonymous]

If you're in Takoma Park schools, do you wish you could send your kids to another MoCo or NW DC school instead? Why or why not? We are currently in TP and are interested in hearing people's experiences with the schools as our children aren't yet school-aged. Do you have concerns about the quality of education your child is receiving and/or their safety?

[Anonymous]

Why don't you post this to Takomapakk?

[Anonymous]

Safety? My friends and neighbors have never mentioned a word about safety concerns in Takoma Park schools. In fact, most people we know bought here for the schools, as well as the family friendly vibe. I'm not sure I understand your concerns.

[Anonymous]

I'm not the OP. However, what about the middle and high schools that feed into Takoma Park? Everytime I hear about the "good schools" in Takoma Park I always hear about parents scrambling to find good middle and high schools in that area. That Diversity in Article in the Washington Post along with the folks who live in other parts of Montgomery County seem to think otherwise. So, is it a fact that most parents in Takoma Park choose private, parochial, or place their homes up for sale after the elementary school years? Or do most end up going to Blair?


I'm wondering about the great schools as well. I like the vibe of Takoma Park. However, there must be a reason as to why many people choose elementary schools that feed into BCC, Walter Johnson, Whitman, Churchill, and Wootton. It seems like those are the only schools that people on DC Urban Mom Forum talk about. Why are those schools so popular?

[Anonymous]

PP - I'm curious how many Takoma Park families you know that are "scrambling to find middle and high schools". The vast majority of Takoma Park kids go to Takoma Middle and Blair unless they end up at one of the MS or HS magnets in the DCC and most families remain very satisfied with their kids' education.

I think these schools get a bit of a bad rap because there is such incredible SES diversity in this area. And we know that, on average, kids who come from homes with less resources, perform worse on standardized tests than kids who come from higher income homes. However, most of the families I know in TP have kids that are thriving in this diverse environment. There are more than enough high achievers to have strong peer groups who are performing at similar academic levels. And both TPMS and Blair HS have a large group of active and engaged parents, PTA, etc.

To be frank, the Bethesda schools are popular because there are fewer poor kids that go there. Sad, but true.

[Anonymous]

I live in TP and I can think of one family who sends their kids to private. The thing I live about TP is how invested people are in the community, including the schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I live in TP and I can think of one family who sends their kids to private. The thing I live about TP is how invested people are in the community, including the schools.

Agree with PP. Out of 20 school-aged kids on my block, 18 go to local Takoma public elementary or middle schools. In 10+ years, only two families with school-aged children on our block have moved, and they moved overseas, not to some other school district in MD. Takoma Park public schools are really good.

[Anonymous]

Lately I've heard negative things about the Middle School in TP-- like there's a "bad crop" of kids right now that the administration doesn't quite know how to handle. Not sure? But my understanding is that Blair is a very good, solid HS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Lately I've heard negative things about the Middle School in TP-- like there's a "bad crop" of kids right now that the administration doesn't quite know how to handle. Not sure? But my understanding is that Blair is a very good, solid HS.

Not sure where you're hearing this. My kid graduated from TPMS last year, and it was a good crop of kids. It's possible the incoming 6th graders are trouble, but I hadn't heard that.

[Anonymous]

More tiresome Takoma Park hype -- and self congratulation -- about how their kids "are thriving in this diverse environment."

Truth is, what little racial interaction there is -- and there's not all that much -- for the most part is all done and dusted by middle school.

Take a walk around Takoma Park Middle School or Blair High School on a typical day, and peer into the classrooms. You'll find one classroom of kids who are predominantly (as in almost 100 percent save one or two) kids of color, and another next door that's nearly all white. And yes, I'm a member of the community, and know whereof I speak.

Just walk along the streets in downtown Takoma, Old Town Takoma -- for that matter, anywhere except the outer fringes of Takoma, and you'll see block after block where no people of color reside. The pattern is duplicated in the schools, where kids of color and kids who are white are educated separately for the most part.

Whether it's sports teams, recreation league activities, housing patterns within Takoma Park, social interaction within the school or after school, it's hard to imagine a more segregated set-up.
Yet, parents in Takoma Park continue to talk as if they're part of some sort of Rainbow Nation. The fact is their kids are educated in classrooms that are very nearly as homogeneous as those in Potomac or Bethesda.

Not that I begrudge them that. I suspect that had there been true diversity -- with people of color living as their next door neighbors and not in Langley Park or the apartment complexes of Maple Avenue -- many would never have been tempted to buy homes in Takoma Park.

My guess is that its the same with the schools: Create true integration of the classroom and see how long it takes for white flight to commence.
I tire of the readiness of folks in Takoma Park to try to have it both ways, giving lip service to the virtues of diversity, even while most -- with the exception of people they hire to watch their kids and clean their homes -- seem to have precious little interaction with people who don't look just like them.

So folks who have chosen to send their kids to private schools or to public ones in McLean -- don't let the TP folks guilt-trip you. They've made very much the same choices about whom their kids will be educated alongside. They've just disguised it in such a way as to be able to hang on to their "diversity" bragging rights.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:More tiresome Takoma Park hype -- and self congratulation -- about how their kids "are thriving in this diverse environment."

Truth is, what little racial interaction there is -- and there's not all that much -- for the most part is all done and dusted by middle school.

Take a walk around Takoma Park Middle School or Blair High School on a typical day, and peer into the classrooms. You'll find one classroom of kids who are predominantly (as in almost 100 percent save one or two) kids of color, and another next door that's nearly all white. And yes, I'm a member of the community, and know whereof I speak.

Just walk along the streets in downtown Takoma, Old Town Takoma -- for that matter, anywhere except the outer fringes of Takoma, and you'll see block after block where no people of color reside. The pattern is duplicated in the schools, where kids of color and kids who are white are educated separately for the most part.

Whether it's sports teams, recreation league activities, housing patterns within Takoma Park, social interaction within the school or after school, it's hard to imagine a more segregated set-up.
Yet, parents in Takoma Park continue to talk as if they're part of some sort of Rainbow Nation. The fact is their kids are educated in classrooms that are very nearly as homogeneous as those in Potomac or Bethesda.

Not that I begrudge them that. I suspect that had there been true diversity -- with people of color living as their next door neighbors and not in Langley Park or the apartment complexes of Maple Avenue -- many would never have been tempted to buy homes in Takoma Park.

My guess is that its the same with the schools: Create true integration of the classroom and see how long it takes for white flight to commence.
I tire of the readiness of folks in Takoma Park to try to have it both ways, giving lip service to the virtues of diversity, even while most -- with the exception of people they hire to watch their kids and clean their homes -- seem to have precious little interaction with people who don't look just like them.

So folks who have chosen to send their kids to private schools or to public ones in McLean -- don't let the TP folks guilt-trip you. They've made very much the same choices about whom their kids will be educated alongside. They've just disguised it in such a way as to be able to hang on to their "diversity" bragging rights.

Wow, fuck you. And you don't live here.

[Anonymous]

Geez 20:37, you sound bitter. I don't live in TP, but have close friends as well as acquaintances who do. Those friends and acquaintances are black, white and hispanic, and they all live in single family homes in desirable parts of town. I do agree that TP is economically segregated though. I would suspect that by middle and high school the classes are more segregated by economic status than by race.
We live close to Blair, and see the kids after school at STarbucks and the like. I don't know if those kids all take classes together, but at for after school socializing, I see pretty integrated groups of kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:More tiresome Takoma Park hype -- and self congratulation -- about how their kids "are thriving in this diverse environment."

Truth is, what little racial interaction there is -- and there's not all that much -- for the most part is all done and dusted by middle school.

Take a walk around Takoma Park Middle School or Blair High School on a typical day, and peer into the classrooms. You'll find one classroom of kids who are predominantly (as in almost 100 percent save one or two) kids of color, and another next door that's nearly all white. And yes, I'm a member of the community, and know whereof I speak.

Just walk along the streets in downtown Takoma, Old Town Takoma -- for that matter, anywhere except the outer fringes of Takoma, and you'll see block after block where no people of color reside. The pattern is duplicated in the schools, where kids of color and kids who are white are educated separately for the most part.

Whether it's sports teams, recreation league activities, housing patterns within Takoma Park, social interaction within the school or after school, it's hard to imagine a more segregated set-up.
Yet, parents in Takoma Park continue to talk as if they're part of some sort of Rainbow Nation. The fact is their kids are educated in classrooms that are very nearly as homogeneous as those in Potomac or Bethesda.

Not that I begrudge them that. I suspect that had there been true diversity -- with people of color living as their next door neighbors and not in Langley Park or the apartment complexes of Maple Avenue -- many would never have been tempted to buy homes in Takoma Park.

My guess is that its the same with the schools: Create true integration of the classroom and see how long it takes for white flight to commence.
I tire of the readiness of folks in Takoma Park to try to have it both ways, giving lip service to the virtues of diversity, even while most -- with the exception of people they hire to watch their kids and clean their homes -- seem to have precious little interaction with people who don't look just like them.

So folks who have chosen to send their kids to private schools or to public ones in McLean -- don't let the TP folks guilt-trip you. They've made very much the same choices about whom their kids will be educated alongside. They've just disguised it in such a way as to be able to hang on to their "diversity" bragging rights.

Wow, fuck you. And you don't live here.

I won't stoop to your base language. I assume it strikes a nerve because it's true. Takoma Park is one of the most segregated communities going. Not a crime unto it self, but a little laughable that it holds itself out as some sort of racial paradise.

[Anonymous]

Takoma Park has a huge number of interracial families. Ho do they fit into this supposed uber segregated society you are claiming, PP.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:More tiresome Takoma Park hype -- and self congratulation -- about how their kids "are thriving in this diverse environment."

Truth is, what little racial interaction there is -- and there's not all that much -- for the most part is all done and dusted by middle school.

Take a walk around Takoma Park Middle School or Blair High School on a typical day, and peer into the classrooms. You'll find one classroom of kids who are predominantly (as in almost 100 percent save one or two) kids of color, and another next door that's nearly all white. And yes, I'm a member of the community, and know whereof I speak.

Just walk along the streets in downtown Takoma, Old Town Takoma -- for that matter, anywhere except the outer fringes of Takoma, and you'll see block after block where no people of color reside. The pattern is duplicated in the schools, where kids of color and kids who are white are educated separately for the most part.

Whether it's sports teams, recreation league activities, housing patterns within Takoma Park, social interaction within the school or after school, it's hard to imagine a more segregated set-up.
Yet, parents in Takoma Park continue to talk as if they're part of some sort of Rainbow Nation. The fact is their kids are educated in classrooms that are very nearly as homogeneous as those in Potomac or Bethesda.

Not that I begrudge them that. I suspect that had there been true diversity -- with people of color living as their next door neighbors and not in Langley Park or the apartment complexes of Maple Avenue -- many would never have been tempted to buy homes in Takoma Park.

My guess is that its the same with the schools: Create true integration of the classroom and see how long it takes for white flight to commence.
I tire of the readiness of folks in Takoma Park to try to have it both ways, giving lip service to the virtues of diversity, even while most -- with the exception of people they hire to watch their kids and clean their homes -- seem to have precious little interaction with people who don't look just like them.

So folks who have chosen to send their kids to private schools or to public ones in McLean -- don't let the TP folks guilt-trip you. They've made very much the same choices about whom their kids will be educated alongside. They've just disguised it in such a way as to be able to hang on to their "diversity" bragging rights.

Wow, fuck you. And you don't live here.

I won't stoop to your base language. I assume it strikes a nerve because it's true. Takoma Park is one of the most segregated communities going. Not a crime unto it self, but a little laughable that it holds itself out as some sort of racial paradise.

I use language where appropriate. And granted, I live across he street from TP in East Silver Spring, but I do have racial diversity on my block. And in our schools. And in our friend groups.

It didn't strike a nerve for any other reason than your accusations are absurd and not based jn reality. To be honest, I have no idea why you care about my language or why you have such a prejudice about TP.