Should MCPS start busing or open enrollment?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Folks, we live in a democracy. As a result, there will be a wide variety of incomes and the choice to live where you want. If you want to dictate how much someone earns and where they live this really isn't the country for you.

This reminds me of the quote by Anatole France: La majestueuse égalité des lois, qui interdit au riche comme au pauvre de coucher sous les ponts, de mendier dans les rues et de voler du pain. Translated as: The infinite majesty of the law, which forbids rich and poor like to sleep under bridges, beg in the streets, and steal bread.

That fact is that we actually don't all have the choice to live where we want. Only some of us do. Guess which ones?

*applause*

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

But isn't it really which came first, the chicken or the egg? What makes the schools in the red zone bad? Is it the teachers and curriculum? Or the students? As far as I know, MCPS curriculum is standardized, and there are good and bad teachers at all schools. So, it's the students. The poor students. And a high percentage if them scares people.

FWIW my kids go to a school with a high number of FARMS kids, have only a handful of white, upper MC kids in their entire grade, and are learning just fine. The bigger issue is social, but that's another story.

Which came first? Housing policy. Specifically, post-World War II housing policy, which was specifically designed to keep poor people and black people out of the suburbs.

^^^Another thing to remember is that MCPS was segregated by law until the early 1960s. (After that it was just de facto segregation.)

^^^Another thing to remember is that MCPS was segregated by law until the early 1960s. (After that it has been, and continues to be de facto segregation.)

Fixed that for you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My husband and I made a lot of sacrifices to be able to afford a house in a W cluster. Needless to say, I would be extremely upset if the county decided to bus our children to another school because they wanted to "improve" the other school. Quite frankly, it is not my children's responsibility (or mine) to add stability to a school three towns over. The parents in that area are just as capable of engaging and working to improve their school as I am. I recognize that my opinion is not popular on this board, but my job is to parent my children not an entire school district.

That is the point. There are no towns here. This is ONE LARGE COUNTY. ONE school district. We are all entitled (yes, ENTITLED) to the same degree of support, resources, education from our ONE school district.

Good point. Perhaps Bethesda should secede. I'm joking, but a lot of these problems seem indemic to the county system of education. The schools are trying to be one size fits all, the administration is too big and to top it off, they can't produce a decent meal because everything has to come from a central kitchen.

[Anonymous]

Which goes back to my question, for the third time, are the schools in MCPS receiving the same amount of tax dollars per student? If tax dollars are being distributed evenly what resource are you looking for?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My husband and I made a lot of sacrifices to be able to afford a house in a W cluster. Needless to say, I would be extremely upset if the county decided to bus our children to another school because they wanted to "improve" the other school. Quite frankly, it is not my children's responsibility (or mine) to add stability to a school three towns over. The parents in that area are just as capable of engaging and working to improve their school as I am. I recognize that my opinion is not popular on this board, but my job is to parent my children not an entire school district.

That is the point. There are no towns here. This is ONE LARGE COUNTY. ONE school district. We are all entitled (yes, ENTITLED) to the same degree of support, resources, education from our ONE school district.

I thought some people had made it clear that actually more tax money goes to schools in poorer area, isn't that so? They had data to support.

I got the information from the PTA funds sharing thread.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

But isn't it really which came first, the chicken or the egg? What makes the schools in the red zone bad? Is it the teachers and curriculum? Or the students? As far as I know, MCPS curriculum is standardized, and there are good and bad teachers at all schools. So, it's the students. The poor students. And a high percentage if them scares people.

FWIW my kids go to a school with a high number of FARMS kids, have only a handful of white, upper MC kids in their entire grade, and are learning just fine. The bigger issue is social, but that's another story.

Which came first? Housing policy. Specifically, post-World War II housing policy, which was specifically designed to keep poor people and black people out of the suburbs.

^^^Another thing to remember is that MCPS was segregated by law until the early 1960s. (After that it was just de facto segregation.)

^^^Another thing to remember is that MCPS was segregated by law until the early 1960s. (After that it has been, and continues to be de facto segregation.)

Fixed that for you.

Quite right. Thanks.

[Anonymous]

I am confused, if the curriculum is identical and more tax dollars are being funneled to schools with a high FARMS percentage what support are you looking for?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am confused, if the curriculum is identical and more tax dollars are being funneled to schools with a high FARMS percentage what support are you looking for?

I don't know whom you're asking, but my opinion is that it would be nice if Montgomery County public schools were not so segregated by race and income. High-poverty schools are bad for the education of poor children.

[Anonymous]

The thing about busing is that it's annoying to be shipped around like a chess piece. Regardless of your rich/poor biases and where you stand on the value of integration, it's still fair to feel annoyed when your kids aren't allowed to attend a nearby school. It's bad for the community and it's inconvenient. I think busing fosters resentment. Isn't that why they decided to implement voluntary magnet programs?

[Anonymous]

"my opinion is that it would be nice if Montgomery County public schools were not so segregated by race and income. High-poverty schools are bad for the education of poor children. "

+1
I don't want to go to a W school; what I would like to see though is less extremes where the county permits schools like the Ws to have like 90%+ kids not on FARMS and other schools the exact opposite rather than proactively try to mix them more. You can then provide in school the right targeting of rigor to the various groups that are ready for it, but you would also have a broader parent pool to pull on. Given how lop sided the county currently is you could start that process by qualifying FARMs kids to be eligible to go to schools that have extremely low FARM rates and bus them (voluntarily) to those schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:"my opinion is that it would be nice if Montgomery County public schools were not so segregated by race and income. High-poverty schools are bad for the education of poor children. "

+1
I don't want to go to a W school; what I would like to see though is less extremes where the county permits schools like the Ws to have like 90%+ kids not on FARMS and other schools the exact opposite rather than proactively try to mix them more. You can then provide in school the right targeting of rigor to the various groups that are ready for it, but you would also have a broader parent pool to pull on. Given how lop sided the county currently is you could start that process by qualifying FARMs kids to be eligible to go to schools that have extremely low FARM rates and bus them (voluntarily) to those schools.

Exactly. And "permits" is the correct word. The status quo is a choice. It is a choice to segregate the county by income. It is a choice not to mix housing so that classrooms are likewise mixed, socioeconomically. These are choices. The results are extremely problematic.

[Anonymous]

I'm in a W district and wish my kids could benefit from the small class sizes that Title 1 schools have. For elem, I would be willing to bus/drive them to a title 1 school if it meant that their class size was capped somewhere between 15-18 students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:LOL!

Because I paid several million dollars to live in Potomac, and I don't want some illegal ESOL kid intermingling with my precious snowflake.


(I'm with you OP, I think they should either do a lottery, or let kids choose. Or level the playing field by making sure ALL schools are the same across the county, at least facility-wise. None of this crap where one school looks like a beautiful college campus, and another a depressing wasteland.)

Agree. And while they're at it, even out the overcrowding. If a school is under enrolled, bus some kids from one of the trailer park elementary schools. But as a PP said, elites in MoCo would scream to their "elected" officials to stop this.

This would be Cold Spring ES. They have empty classrooms and had to let some teachers go due to low enrollment. Projected enrollment is not much better. Meanwhile, next door at Ritchie Park ES (literally like a mile away), there are 2 portables. Is this rocket science?

What prompts the county to redistrict? I know they did this about 20 yrs ago. Have they redistricted since then?

Would something like the IB/OOB with Proximity/OOB DC model work here? If the school was under enrolled, a parent could choose to apply to the school. Given the size of the county and the randomness of spots, I would assume that transportation would be the responsibility of the family.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm in a W district and wish my kids could benefit from the small class sizes that Title 1 schools have. For elem, I would be willing to bus/drive them to a title 1 school if it meant that their class size was capped somewhere between 15-18 students.

Go for it then. As long as a school is not over-enrolled you can petition the principal to enroll your child.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"my opinion is that it would be nice if Montgomery County public schools were not so segregated by race and income. High-poverty schools are bad for the education of poor children. "

+1
I don't want to go to a W school; what I would like to see though is less extremes where the county permits schools like the Ws to have like 90%+ kids not on FARMS and other schools the exact opposite rather than proactively try to mix them more. You can then provide in school the right targeting of rigor to the various groups that are ready for it, but you would also have a broader parent pool to pull on. Given how lop sided the county currently is you could start that process by qualifying FARMs kids to be eligible to go to schools that have extremely low FARM rates and bus them (voluntarily) to those schools.

Exactly. And "permits" is the correct word. The status quo is a choice. It is a choice to segregate the county by income. It is a choice not to mix housing so that classrooms are likewise mixed, socioeconomically. These are choices. The results are extremely problematic.

How is housing a choice? It seems to me that most land has already been purchased by private owners. When the private person sells, they want what the market will bear. How could the county step in to mix housing? How would they afford it?