What are W schools?

[Anonymous]

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These are fairly objection quantitative and qualitative ways to judge a school. Besides special magnet or arts programs embedded in a host school. It is not difficult to see why MoCo planners put special programs in far off schools in order to bolster real estate there and test scores at the school.

Our neighborhood has lots of african americans, but they all go to DC private schools and do very well. They don't trust MCPS.

They're not far off schools for those of us who live near them.

Right. But for these people, the center of the world is the District/Potomac/Bethesda. Everything is determined in relation to those places.

And this is why I didn't want my kids to go to schools in those areas. Too many self-absorbed, righteous, and snobby people. I didn't want my kids to be influenced or surrounded by those types of people.

And yet here you are posting on a thread about "W schools," which suggests that you have more than a passing interest in how those schools are perceived and characterized. How big is that chip on your shoulder?

No chip here. Just responding to folks like the PP who spreads misinformation about "far off schools" and the pervasive but incorrect assumption that special programs must be placed in those schools to bolster their test scores.

Clearly the magnets at Poolesville, RM and Blair bolster the test scores at those schools. Whether they "had to be placed" in those schools is a different question.

There was a post here a few weeks back that crunched the actual numbers for this. The results weren't that significant. For example, at Blair there are 100 juniors in the magnet of which 80 are from out of boundary and around 40% of those students are white. This boosted the SAT average from 1296 to 1326 within that cohort. Point being even without the magnet kids that cohort still outperforms any W.

Interesting. Thanks

[Anonymous]

And yet, Blair is never at or near the top of MCPS HS rankings, and yet Poolesville is either 1 or 2.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The point is that MC/UMC kids tend to do relatively well, regardless of where they are.

Take Watkins Mill, for example. The school's overall GS score is 4, but White and Asian kids' test scores are a 7. Yes, lower than the 9s and 10s you see at the W schools (and QO), but much higher than the Hispanic and Black kids at Watkins Mill, whose scores are a 2.

Point being, black and hispanic kids (for reasons that are out of their control and which require a much broader discussion) tend to score lower than white and Asian kids. When you're looking at schools in the same district (so implementing the same curriculum) this means that the metrics normally used to determine a school's quality really become a proxy for the school's demographic, making it ridiculous for W parents to say W schools are objectively better.

Except this is not true. Show me the math.

[Anonymous]

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LOL I'm a W parent and no one here looks down on QO, just too far out for DH and I to want to live there. If you don't mind the longer commute to DC then its fine. QO is like a border-line W, the people on here referring badly to non-Ws are talking about Gaithersburg, Watkins Mill, Seneca Valley, Northwest, Wheaton, etc. not QO or Poolesville.

Lol, only in DCUM is Northwest a bad school. I don't know who started this ridiculous rumor on here but here are the facts: GS rated 7 (higher than RM or Blair), 95% graduation rate, 91% for FARM kids (one of the highest grad rates in the county, if not the highest for both farm and non- farm). Stats are pretty much the same as QO with the exception that QO has more white kids (45% vs 29%) and slighly lower FARM rates at 23% vs 28%. This is honestly a blatant example of how here we consider white = better.

Northwest (bad! gangs!) vs. Quince Orchard (good! school spirit!) is really the proof that on DCUM, the higher the white population, the "better" the school. Really the ONLY meaningful difference between Northwest and Quince Orchard is that Quince Orchard has a higher percentage of white kids.

Well no. There have been a lot of incidents at Northwest, and no one choosing Northwest as their first choice for a school(no one wants to live in germantown but its all they can afford). QO is pretty well-regarded, but not the same level as WJ or Churchill.

You are so ignorant it’s actually comical.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

These are fairly objection quantitative and qualitative ways to judge a school. Besides special magnet or arts programs embedded in a host school. It is not difficult to see why MoCo planners put special programs in far off schools in order to bolster real estate there and test scores at the school.

Our neighborhood has lots of african americans, but they all go to DC private schools and do very well. They don't trust MCPS.

They're not far off schools for those of us who live near them.

Right. But for these people, the center of the world is the District/Potomac/Bethesda. Everything is determined in relation to those places.

And this is why I didn't want my kids to go to schools in those areas. Too many self-absorbed, righteous, and snobby people. I didn't want my kids to be influenced or surrounded by those types of people.

And yet here you are posting on a thread about "W schools," which suggests that you have more than a passing interest in how those schools are perceived and characterized. How big is that chip on your shoulder?

No chip here. Just responding to folks like the PP who spreads misinformation about "far off schools" and the pervasive but incorrect assumption that special programs must be placed in those schools to bolster their test scores.

Clearly the magnets at Poolesville, RM and Blair bolster the test scores at those schools. Whether they "had to be placed" in those schools is a different question.

There was a post here a few weeks back that crunched the actual numbers for this. The results weren't that significant. For example, at Blair there are 100 juniors in the magnet of which 80 are from out of boundary and around 40% of those students are white. This boosted the SAT average from 1296 to 1326 within that cohort. Point being even without the magnet kids that cohort still outperforms any W.

That was just some moron making up numbers, no one gives them any weight.

Also no one is arguing that the 80 best students shipped in from a million person county won’t give test scores a bump. What you are arguing is that if you consitrict the sample pool to 20 or so students out of the 3000 (person control group that is blair) using fictitious criteria, you can get an average score that is comparable to the full school multi-thousand person sample of the stronger high schools. Even assuming that is true, who wouldn’t just send their kids to a school where all of the kids are competitive compared to the thousands you write off at Blair and don’t include in your averages. The high peer group argument is fine and dandy but most people don’t think especially favorably to the Blair peer group. Once again if W parents wanted their kid part of that, they would have bought one of the nicest homes IB to Blair as it a fairly cheep place to live.

When I look at Blair’s scores and graduation rates I see an average score towards the bottom of county and then when I factor in that those scores are despite those power students shipped in, well that paints a different picture.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:They are public schools in Montgomery County.

Walt Whitman
Winston Churchill
Thomas Wootten
Walter Johnson

Notice they all have a W in their name. They are on the West side of the county and tend to have less economic (and therefore racial) diversity than the other schools in the county.

Wooten is a W school now? From my impression, they are Whitman, Churchill, WJ, and B-CC

Wootton has always been a W school.

You must not be from MoCo bc Wootton has not always been a W school. W schools in the past referred to Winston Churchill, Walt Whitman and Walter Johnson bc their names begin with the letter W and they were also rivals. They are also situated in the richest part of MoCo and were more white (another meaning to W schools). Wootton still isn’t really a W school but parents in that area have tried to place it in that group (you can guess why). The Wootton area wasn’t always expensive or nice. Same with B-CC, which used to be a horrible area. Many ppl don’t even realize what actually happens at W schools...lots of drugs, alcohol, racism, classism, cheating scandals, parents getting minorities and low income kids kicked out, focus groups to help with testing stats.

-signed someone who’s lived in MoCo way too long, graduated from MCPS and has worked for MCPS.

Wootton is now a W? THOMAS S. Wootton, not a W!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:And yet, Blair is never at or near the top of MCPS HS rankings, and yet Poolesville is either 1 or 2.

And yet Poolesville wishes it could have half of Blair academics accomplishments.
The point is ranking on paper doesn't mean sh$t. It's on the field performances that count.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They are public schools in Montgomery County.

Walt Whitman
Winston Churchill
Thomas Wootten
Walter Johnson

Notice they all have a W in their name. They are on the West side of the county and tend to have less economic (and therefore racial) diversity than the other schools in the county.

Wooten is a W school now? From my impression, they are Whitman, Churchill, WJ, and B-CC

Wootton has always been a W school.

You must not be from MoCo bc Wootton has not always been a W school. W schools in the past referred to Winston Churchill, Walt Whitman and Walter Johnson bc their names begin with the letter W and they were also rivals. They are also situated in the richest part of MoCo and were more white (another meaning to W schools). Wootton still isn’t really a W school but parents in that area have tried to place it in that group (you can guess why). The Wootton area wasn’t always expensive or nice. Same with B-CC, which used to be a horrible area. Many ppl don’t even realize what actually happens at W schools...lots of drugs, alcohol, racism, classism, cheating scandals, parents getting minorities and low income kids kicked out, focus groups to help with testing stats.

-signed someone who’s lived in MoCo way too long, graduated from MCPS and has worked for MCPS.

Wootton is now a W? THOMAS S. Wootton, not a W!

So you basically cannot read or comprehend.

I am fully aware Wootton isn’t a W school. I also know that when ppl refer to W schools most seem to think Wootton is part of that group bc of the reason I mentioned.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And yet, Blair is never at or near the top of MCPS HS rankings, and yet Poolesville is either 1 or 2.

And yet Poolesville wishes it could have half of Blair academics accomplishments.
The point is ranking on paper doesn't mean sh$t. It's on the field performances that count.

Huh? You realize there are inputs to those rankings, right? Poolesville outperforms Blair enough to be ranked higher in every ranking. It’s just the truth.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Wootton is now a W? THOMAS S. Wootton, not a W!

Actually Thomas S. WOOTTON is a W! Whereas Winston CHURCHILL and Walter JOHNSON are not Ws. The W schools are WATKINS Mill, WHEATON, Walt WHITMAN, and Thomas S. WOOTTON - see here, for the high schools, under W: https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/schools/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
LOL I'm a W parent and no one here looks down on QO, just too far out for DH and I to want to live there. If you don't mind the longer commute to DC then its fine. QO is like a border-line W, the people on here referring badly to non-Ws are talking about Gaithersburg, Watkins Mill, Seneca Valley, Northwest, Wheaton, etc. not QO or Poolesville.

Lol, only in DCUM is Northwest a bad school. I don't know who started this ridiculous rumor on here but here are the facts: GS rated 7 (higher than RM or Blair), 95% graduation rate, 91% for FARM kids (one of the highest grad rates in the county, if not the highest for both farm and non- farm). Stats are pretty much the same as QO with the exception that QO has more white kids (45% vs 29%) and slighly lower FARM rates at 23% vs 28%. This is honestly a blatant example of how here we consider white = better.

Northwest (bad! gangs!) vs. Quince Orchard (good! school spirit!) is really the proof that on DCUM, the higher the white population, the "better" the school. Really the ONLY meaningful difference between Northwest and Quince Orchard is that Quince Orchard has a higher percentage of white kids.

Well no. There have been a lot of incidents at Northwest, and no one choosing Northwest as their first choice for a school(no one wants to live in germantown but its all they can afford). QO is pretty well-regarded, but not the same level as WJ or Churchill.

You are so ignorant it’s actually comical.

Yes, Germantown is for the poors!!! I mean, that's where people with only a 600K to 700K (gasp) housing budget can move to. Obviously those people would've loved to live in the DCC or Wooton clusters but sadly could only afford a house that goes to Northwest. Poor things. Now they're stuck with an 8 GS rated school.If they only had a bit more, they could've been in Silver Spring.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

These are fairly objection quantitative and qualitative ways to judge a school. Besides special magnet or arts programs embedded in a host school. It is not difficult to see why MoCo planners put special programs in far off schools in order to bolster real estate there and test scores at the school.

Our neighborhood has lots of african americans, but they all go to DC private schools and do very well. They don't trust MCPS.

They're not far off schools for those of us who live near them.

Right. But for these people, the center of the world is the District/Potomac/Bethesda. Everything is determined in relation to those places.

And this is why I didn't want my kids to go to schools in those areas. Too many self-absorbed, righteous, and snobby people. I didn't want my kids to be influenced or surrounded by those types of people.

And yet here you are posting on a thread about "W schools," which suggests that you have more than a passing interest in how those schools are perceived and characterized. How big is that chip on your shoulder?

No chip here. Just responding to folks like the PP who spreads misinformation about "far off schools" and the pervasive but incorrect assumption that special programs must be placed in those schools to bolster their test scores.

Clearly the magnets at Poolesville, RM and Blair bolster the test scores at those schools. Whether they "had to be placed" in those schools is a different question.

There was a post here a few weeks back that crunched the actual numbers for this. The results weren't that significant. For example, at Blair there are 100 juniors in the magnet of which 80 are from out of boundary and around 40% of those students are white. This boosted the SAT average from 1296 to 1326 within that cohort. Point being even without the magnet kids that cohort still outperforms any W.

I remember the post it linked several MCPS PDFs Made sense that the magnet would have minimal impact on the school’s overall statistics for most cohorts other than Asian.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

These are fairly objection quantitative and qualitative ways to judge a school. Besides special magnet or arts programs embedded in a host school. It is not difficult to see why MoCo planners put special programs in far off schools in order to bolster real estate there and test scores at the school.

Our neighborhood has lots of african americans, but they all go to DC private schools and do very well. They don't trust MCPS.

They're not far off schools for those of us who live near them.

Right. But for these people, the center of the world is the District/Potomac/Bethesda. Everything is determined in relation to those places.

And this is why I didn't want my kids to go to schools in those areas. Too many self-absorbed, righteous, and snobby people. I didn't want my kids to be influenced or surrounded by those types of people.

And yet here you are posting on a thread about "W schools," which suggests that you have more than a passing interest in how those schools are perceived and characterized. How big is that chip on your shoulder?

No chip here. Just responding to folks like the PP who spreads misinformation about "far off schools" and the pervasive but incorrect assumption that special programs must be placed in those schools to bolster their test scores.

Clearly the magnets at Poolesville, RM and Blair bolster the test scores at those schools. Whether they "had to be placed" in those schools is a different question.

There was a post here a few weeks back that crunched the actual numbers for this. The results weren't that significant. For example, at Blair there are 100 juniors in the magnet of which 80 are from out of boundary and around 40% of those students are white. This boosted the SAT average from 1296 to 1326 within that cohort. Point being even without the magnet kids that cohort still outperforms any W.

I remember the post it linked several MCPS PDFs Made sense that the magnet would have minimal impact on the school’s overall statistics for most cohorts other than Asian.

Blair envy is strong among W set. Don’t underestimate its ability to get in the way of common sense or facts.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

These are fairly objection quantitative and qualitative ways to judge a school. Besides special magnet or arts programs embedded in a host school. It is not difficult to see why MoCo planners put special programs in far off schools in order to bolster real estate there and test scores at the school.

Our neighborhood has lots of african americans, but they all go to DC private schools and do very well. They don't trust MCPS.

They're not far off schools for those of us who live near them.

Right. But for these people, the center of the world is the District/Potomac/Bethesda. Everything is determined in relation to those places.

And this is why I didn't want my kids to go to schools in those areas. Too many self-absorbed, righteous, and snobby people. I didn't want my kids to be influenced or surrounded by those types of people.

And yet here you are posting on a thread about "W schools," which suggests that you have more than a passing interest in how those schools are perceived and characterized. How big is that chip on your shoulder?

No chip here. Just responding to folks like the PP who spreads misinformation about "far off schools" and the pervasive but incorrect assumption that special programs must be placed in those schools to bolster their test scores.

Clearly the magnets at Poolesville, RM and Blair bolster the test scores at those schools. Whether they "had to be placed" in those schools is a different question.

There was a post here a few weeks back that crunched the actual numbers for this. The results weren't that significant. For example, at Blair there are 100 juniors in the magnet of which 80 are from out of boundary and around 40% of those students are white. This boosted the SAT average from 1296 to 1326 within that cohort. Point being even without the magnet kids that cohort still outperforms any W.

I remember the post it linked several MCPS PDFs Made sense that the magnet would have minimal impact on the school’s overall statistics for most cohorts other than Asian.

Blair envy is strong among W set. Don’t underestimate its ability to get in the way of common sense or facts.

Blair people also can't reconcile the fact that Poolesville continually is ranked higher in composite school rankings. I'll get called "that Poolesville booster" for this comment. And yet, the rankings speak for themselves.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Blair people also can't reconcile the fact that Poolesville continually is ranked higher in composite school rankings. I'll get called "that Poolesville booster" for this comment. And yet, the rankings speak for themselves.

Half of Poolesville's 1,200 students are there because they tested in. And Poolesville is a majority-white (barely), very-low-poverty (6% of students receive FARMs) school. Of course its average test scores/school rankings are higher than Blair's. Is that what you mean by the rankings speaking for themselves?

-upcounty parent