Cliff Notes summary of MCPS boundary study fight?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

The additional boundary analysis would be **much** cheaper. It is a simple optimization problem where the capture radius of each school is expanded until it fills its capacity, or intersects another school radius, or intersects a county boundary.

It would be very helpful for families to help understand why they are being assigned to a particular school district.

In other words, yes, you do want to pay for an additional study.

And it wouldn't be helpful at all to understand families why they are being assigned to particular schools in the Montgomery County Public Schools district, because boundary decisions in MCPS are based on four factors: geography, facility utilization, stability of school assignments, and demographics.

Yes, but *which* of the four factors are mainly responsible for a particular school boundary? By isolating the the effects of geography and school capacities, it would provide greater transparency to the public as to how decisions are made.

The whole thing about balancing the factors is that there is not one factor that is mainly responsible for a particular school boundary.

What's more, many of these school boundaries are DECADES old. The factor that is mainly responsible for those boundaries is inertia.

Yep, exactly. MCPS hasn't done a full-scale analysis of boundaries in decades. That in itself is ridiculous. Public school systems should be doing these analyses on a much, much more regular basis.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

or they could use that money for more forced busing

Forced busing, like the situation for students who are assigned to Lakewood ES even though they live in walking distance of Stone Mill ES? Is that what you're refering to?

Was referring to the kids that live near Einstein but are bused to a W :{

[Anonymous]

Serious question. Do you think that local governments should make all decisions based on the criterion of whether or not it increases affluent property owners' assesed property values?

No. But the fact of the matter is that those with the most to lose also have the means to effectively lobby and advocate for themselves in the way that the BOE has shown themselves to be responsive to. Hint: It's not offering logical, fact-based testimony at public meetings.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

or they could use that money for more forced busing

Forced busing, like the situation for students who are assigned to Lakewood ES even though they live in walking distance of Stone Mill ES? Is that what you're refering to?

Was referring to the kids that live near Einstein but are bused to a W :{

This kind of "what if game" works all ways.

What about kids who could walk 2 blocks to Bradley Hills (Whitman cluster) but are BUSSED to Wyngate (and WJ)?
Or those who could walk to Westland yet are BUSSED to Pyle?

When you bought a house zoned for Einstein, you passed on spending more money to live in the KP or GP parts of town.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is a helpful site others have linked to before, but I thought it was worth revisiting. You can select Montgomery County to see a map of what it would look like if each neighborhood was assigned to the closest school (according to 2013 data):

https://www.vox.com/2018/1/8/16822374/school-segregation-gerrymander-map

Thanks. I disagree with forced diversity, but the site does make a good case.

If you look at how some of the boundaries were drawn previously, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that some of the boundaries amounted to "forced segregation." Not all of them, but some of them. So, those boundaries might become a little more natural and at the same time address over/under utilization, which isn't "forced diversity" so much as a course correction.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

or they could use that money for more forced busing

Forced busing, like the situation for students who are assigned to Lakewood ES even though they live in walking distance of Stone Mill ES? Is that what you're refering to?

Was referring to the kids that live near Einstein but are bused to a W :{

This kind of "what if game" works all ways.

What about kids who could walk 2 blocks to Bradley Hills (Whitman cluster) but are BUSSED to Wyngate (and WJ)?
Or those who could walk to Westland yet are BUSSED to Pyle?

When you bought a house zoned for Einstein, you passed on spending more money to live in the KP or GP parts of town.

and that means you also passed on getting your child a first-rate education?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

or they could use that money for more forced busing

Forced busing, like the situation for students who are assigned to Lakewood ES even though they live in walking distance of Stone Mill ES? Is that what you're refering to?

Was referring to the kids that live near Einstein but are bused to a W :{

This kind of "what if game" works all ways.

What about kids who could walk 2 blocks to Bradley Hills (Whitman cluster) but are BUSSED to Wyngate (and WJ)?
Or those who could walk to Westland yet are BUSSED to Pyle?

When you bought a house zoned for Einstein, you passed on spending more money to live in the KP or GP parts of town.

1) Even more examples of why a boundary analysis is overdue!

2) "passed on spending more money" = buying a house we could afford. One upshot of that is that I can look at a boundary analysis a bit more objectively since I don't have to fret about inflated property values.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is a helpful site others have linked to before, but I thought it was worth revisiting. You can select Montgomery County to see a map of what it would look like if each neighborhood was assigned to the closest school (according to 2013 data):

https://www.vox.com/2018/1/8/16822374/school-segregation-gerrymander-map

Thanks for posting this -- it's very interesting!

I also find it interesting to look at the current boundary maps, which are nicely summarized here: http://gis.mcpsmd.org/cipmasterpdfs/CIP21_AppendixU.pdf
I'm in the Northeast Consortium, and the elementary and secondary maps show a lot of non-intuitive boundaries. I'm very curious to see what the new boundary analysis shows, particularly if there are ways to improve the number of kids going to their closest school without adversely affecting the other factors being considered.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Where do they think much of their funding comes from?

Serious question. Do you think that local governments should make all decisions based on the criterion of whether or not it increases affluent property owners' assesed property values?

It shows a lack of perspective that affluent homeowners seem to think their property values will go down if they can’t go to a certain school, but fail to consider that other people’s property values will then go up if they can go to that school. So it’s not at all clear that the tax revenue in the county will change at all.

[Anonymous]

Students and parents are pushing MCPS to redistrict school boundaries to increase diversity and close the achievement gap that persists in schools throughout Montgomery County.

Concerned citizens of the county argue that the way schools are currently arranged allows for segregation within MCPS. Some schools are primarily white and usually in high income neighborhoods such as Walt Whitman High School (HS) in Bethesda and Winston Churchill HS in Potomac, among others. While other schools primarily consist of minorities and have higher poverty rates, known as the Downcounty Consortium (DCC) schools. The DCC high schools include Blair HS, Einstein HS, Kennedy HS, Northwood HS and Wheaton HS.

(…)

The idea to redistrict schools was proposed by the 41st Student Member of Board, Ananya Tadikonda. The issue of redistricting was brought to the Board of Education (BOE) during the 2018 summer and was officially added to their agenda Sept. 13, 2018. MCPS hired an external consultant to do a districtwide school boundary study Jan. 8. The results are expected by the spring of 2020. This will give MCPS more information about how the schools are districted now and what changes should be made. ….

https://rockvillerampage.com/14010/uncategorized/mcps-considers-possible-redistricting/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

or they could use that money for more forced busing

Forced busing, like the situation for students who are assigned to Lakewood ES even though they live in walking distance of Stone Mill ES? Is that what you're refering to?

Was referring to the kids that live near Einstein but are bused to a W :{

This kind of "what if game" works all ways.

What about kids who could walk 2 blocks to Bradley Hills (Whitman cluster) but are BUSSED to Wyngate (and WJ)?
Or those who could walk to Westland yet are BUSSED to Pyle?

When you bought a house zoned for Einstein, you passed on spending more money to live in the KP or GP parts of town.

What do “KP” and “GP” mean here?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is a helpful site others have linked to before, but I thought it was worth revisiting. You can select Montgomery County to see a map of what it would look like if each neighborhood was assigned to the closest school (according to 2013 data):

https://www.vox.com/2018/1/8/16822374/school-segregation-gerrymander-map

Thanks for posting this -- it's very interesting!

I also find it interesting to look at the current boundary maps, which are nicely summarized here: http://gis.mcpsmd.org/cipmasterpdfs/CIP21_AppendixU.pdf
I'm in the Northeast Consortium, and the elementary and secondary maps show a lot of non-intuitive boundaries. I'm very curious to see what the new boundary analysis shows, particularly if there are ways to improve the number of kids going to their closest school without adversely affecting the other factors being considered.

There are currently several boundaries that make no sense. I posted a few up thread - Lakeland ES, Fallsmead ES, etc.. This boundary analysis will be looking at the entire county, including those boundaries where neighborhoods are not zoned for their nearest school. This was the slide provided by the consultants where they showed that about 35+% of students don't go to their closest school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Students and parents are pushing MCPS to redistrict school boundaries to increase diversity and close the achievement gap that persists in schools throughout Montgomery County.

Concerned citizens of the county argue that the way schools are currently arranged allows for segregation within MCPS. Some schools are primarily white and usually in high income neighborhoods such as Walt Whitman High School (HS) in Bethesda and Winston Churchill HS in Potomac, among others. While other schools primarily consist of minorities and have higher poverty rates, known as the Downcounty Consortium (DCC) schools. The DCC high schools include Blair HS, Einstein HS, Kennedy HS, Northwood HS and Wheaton HS.

(…)

The idea to redistrict schools was proposed by the 41st Student Member of Board, Ananya Tadikonda. The issue of redistricting was brought to the Board of Education (BOE) during the 2018 summer and was officially added to their agenda Sept. 13, 2018. MCPS hired an external consultant to do a districtwide school boundary study Jan. 8. The results are expected by the spring of 2020. This will give MCPS more information about how the schools are districted now and what changes should be made. ….

https://rockvillerampage.com/14010/uncategorized/mcps-considers-possible-redistricting/

This is from the Rockville High School student newspaper. I will take MCPS’s word about this process over that of a 16 year old.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

or they could use that money for more forced busing

Forced busing, like the situation for students who are assigned to Lakewood ES even though they live in walking distance of Stone Mill ES? Is that what you're refering to?

Was referring to the kids that live near Einstein but are bused to a W :{

This kind of "what if game" works all ways.

What about kids who could walk 2 blocks to Bradley Hills (Whitman cluster) but are BUSSED to Wyngate (and WJ)?
Or those who could walk to Westland yet are BUSSED to Pyle?

When you bought a house zoned for Einstein, you passed on spending more money to live in the KP or GP parts of town.

What do “KP” and “GP” mean here?

Kensington-Parkwood and Garrett Park

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Students and parents are pushing MCPS to redistrict school boundaries to increase diversity and close the achievement gap that persists in schools throughout Montgomery County.

Concerned citizens of the county argue that the way schools are currently arranged allows for segregation within MCPS. Some schools are primarily white and usually in high income neighborhoods such as Walt Whitman High School (HS) in Bethesda and Winston Churchill HS in Potomac, among others. While other schools primarily consist of minorities and have higher poverty rates, known as the Downcounty Consortium (DCC) schools. The DCC high schools include Blair HS, Einstein HS, Kennedy HS, Northwood HS and Wheaton HS.

(…)

The idea to redistrict schools was proposed by the 41st Student Member of Board, Ananya Tadikonda. The issue of redistricting was brought to the Board of Education (BOE) during the 2018 summer and was officially added to their agenda Sept. 13, 2018. MCPS hired an external consultant to do a districtwide school boundary study Jan. 8. The results are expected by the spring of 2020. This will give MCPS more information about how the schools are districted now and what changes should be made. ….

https://rockvillerampage.com/14010/uncategorized/mcps-considers-possible-redistricting/

This is from the Rockville High School student newspaper. I will take MCPS’s word about this process over that of a 16 year old.

I don't see anything non-factual in there. If you do, please say what.