Would folks at richer schools rather have longer travel or lower funding/bigger classes?

[Anonymous]

Since everyone seems to hate options that include longer travel times to try to balance out demographics, maybe the answer is to pick a different option that doesn't improve demographic disparities, but then try to make the schools fairer in other ways? Like crank up the funding to poorer schools so they can have smaller class sizes, better supports, help cover some of the things well-funded PTAs cover at richer schools, etc? I personally would be glad to fund this through higher taxes but people seem to hate that so it probably would have to involve larger class sizes/etc at the richer schools. Do folks prefer that if you had to choose?

It just feels like we can't go on this way with some schools with only a handful of poorer kids and English language learners, and others with tons of them, and yet act like funding levels and class sizes should be similar. In fact, my understanding is that although schools with more poor and special ed kids get some extra state and federal funding, MCPS itself doesn't use county funds to provide more to poorer schools, but actually provides more county funding to richer schools (i.e. if school A gets, say, $9000 per kid in state and federal funding because it has higher-need kids and school B gets $6000 per kid in state and federal funding because it has fewer, MCPS might give $9,000 in local funds to school A and $10,000 to school B, so even though the total per-student funding at school A ends up higher than school B, the local funding amounts are actually weighted towards the richer and less needy schools.). This has always struck me as pretty unfair, that my local tax dollars are going disproportionately to the richer schools despite there being some extremely poor schools that could really use more support.

As someone in a medium-poverty school/area who likes it for multiple reasons, I lean towards the idea of having more mixed-income schools and more equal funding, but I understand people's hesitation about longer travel times. So would folks prefer funding changes instead?

[Anonymous]

Aren’t rich people already subsidizing poorer schools? It’s not the resources. It’s the social structure, the engagement of parents in two parent households, the stability at home, the funds and time for extracurricular activities, etc. The amount of funding that would be needed to do what you’re suggesting is not politically possible on a mass scale. And it would cause a revolt among the more affluent parents who are already paying a disproportionate amount of funding. And this is at a time when the local economy is going to be hit by Federal layoffs and funding cuts.

[Anonymous]

Does MCPS still have Focus schools?

It wasn't only based on FARMS but it used to be schools that had a certain percentage of FARMS qualified as Title I schools. This was federal funds and did things like limit class sizes.

Then there was the next tier of FARMS percentages which qualified for Focus schools and this was locally funded. And did similar things such as limit class sizes, which may have been slightly bigger then classes at Title I schools.

I'm all for closing the gap and providing resources to help do so.

But while there are some benefits to balancing out schools, I don't think it really solves the problems and just dilutes the numbers. So the poor performing students will still perform poorly but it's not as big of a percentage at the school if there is a mix of high performing students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Aren’t rich people already subsidizing poorer schools? It’s not the resources. It’s the social structure, the engagement of parents in two parent households, the stability at home, the funds and time for extracurricular activities, etc. The amount of funding that would be needed to do what you’re suggesting is not politically possible on a mass scale. And it would cause a revolt among the more affluent parents who are already paying a disproportionate amount of funding. And this is at a time when the local economy is going to be hit by Federal layoffs and funding cuts.

At the state and federal level, yes, but at the local level poorer schools actually get less on average than richer schools from MCPS/county tax dollars, not more. (Unless something has changed since the last time I looked at this a couple years ago.)

[Anonymous]

Doesn't this already happen? Aren't title 1 schools lower ratio than w schools

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Does MCPS still have Focus schools?

It wasn't only based on FARMS but it used to be schools that had a certain percentage of FARMS qualified as Title I schools. This was federal funds and did things like limit class sizes.

Then there was the next tier of FARMS percentages which qualified for Focus schools and this was locally funded. And did similar things such as limit class sizes, which may have been slightly bigger then classes at Title I schools.

I'm all for closing the gap and providing resources to help do so.

But while there are some benefits to balancing out schools, I don't think it really solves the problems and just dilutes the numbers. So the poor performing students will still perform poorly but it's not as big of a percentage at the school if there is a mix of high performing students.

I think it's worse -- schools can lose Title I status by artificial changes to the population (like happened to Oak View Elementary School, where a CES is housed).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Aren’t rich people already subsidizing poorer schools? It’s not the resources. It’s the social structure, the engagement of parents in two parent households, the stability at home, the funds and time for extracurricular activities, etc. The amount of funding that would be needed to do what you’re suggesting is not politically possible on a mass scale. And it would cause a revolt among the more affluent parents who are already paying a disproportionate amount of funding. And this is at a time when the local economy is going to be hit by Federal layoffs and funding cuts.

Welcome to the concepts of equal protection as applied to public services and Maryland's rooting the provision of public education at the county level. I'll let you argue the revenue side, but I don't think that dog will hunt.

Sure, family engagement plays, but it does not follow that current levels of differential funding provide similar levels of educational services/opportunities to individuals across the system.

[Anonymous]

Lower funding and bigger classes. I HATE long commutes with the force of a thousand suns.

We're in downtown Bethesda, and declined a spot in magnets for one kid. At Bethesda Elementary many years ago, my son had 31 kids in his first grade class! Then in high school classes, there are 30+ kids per class as a matter of course.

Due to high school start times, some kids need to be at bus stops at 6am. That is NOT healthy for the average teen, at a period in their lives where their circadian rhythms naturally slide towards to later hours.

So no. We'd rather be close to the high school.

[Anonymous]

How about discounted price for attending RSM, AOPS, and Dr. Li Classes?

However, do you think all families are willing to spend close to 2 hrs to just to get the math tutor that would help the kids?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Does MCPS still have Focus schools?

It wasn't only based on FARMS but it used to be schools that had a certain percentage of FARMS qualified as Title I schools. This was federal funds and did things like limit class sizes.

Then there was the next tier of FARMS percentages which qualified for Focus schools and this was locally funded. And did similar things such as limit class sizes, which may have been slightly bigger then classes at Title I schools.

I'm all for closing the gap and providing resources to help do so.

But while there are some benefits to balancing out schools, I don't think it really solves the problems and just dilutes the numbers. So the poor performing students will still perform poorly but it's not as big of a percentage at the school if there is a mix of high performing students.

Yes, focus schools/funding still exists and is helpful to support lower class sizes in the earliest grades, but 1) that's just for elementary schools, there should be something similar for middle and high schools, and 2) even that is more about providing extra local funding to middling-to--highish poverty schools (30-45% FARMS kids, I believe), which I agree is needed, but there are also schools with like 50-80% FARMS kids who don't get extra funding from MCPS (yes they do get extra from the state and feds, which I think is the argument for MCPS giving them less is county funds, but it still doesn't seem right to me given all the disadvantages and challenges a high-poverty school like that is dealing with.)

[Anonymous]

I'm all for it. But as PP noted it would be an untenable amount of $. For many schools you need $ for all the wraparound services the families can't provide. Safe after school clubs for MS kids with transportation. Money so that kids don't go straight to a mom wage job or take care of their little siblings and have time to study, read, do extra curricular. And yes smaller classes - where is the room in those schools for more classrooms?

[Anonymous]

Hi OP - You are not accounting for the fact that I paid a fortune for a house in an expensive area just so I could send my kid to a better school.

I pay a huge amount in property taxes, so I'm definitely subsidizing schools in other parts of the county. I don't feel that I need to do so even more than I bargained for when I bought my high cost/high tax home.

[Anonymous]

Stuyvesant is #1 high school in NYC, 48% students come from economically disadvantaged households. It’s not about the money, it’s the culture of your family that will determine and influence a kid’s academic success.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Stuyvesant is #1 high school in NYC, 48% students come from economically disadvantaged households. It’s not about the money, it’s the culture of your family that will determine and influence a kid’s academic success.

And Stuyvesant has no greater funding per pupil than any other un NY with ~50% economically disadvantaged households, right? And it's not as though it selects students of similar ability/interest to form a more efficiently manageable cohort, right?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does MCPS still have Focus schools?

It wasn't only based on FARMS but it used to be schools that had a certain percentage of FARMS qualified as Title I schools. This was federal funds and did things like limit class sizes.

Then there was the next tier of FARMS percentages which qualified for Focus schools and this was locally funded. And did similar things such as limit class sizes, which may have been slightly bigger then classes at Title I schools.

I'm all for closing the gap and providing resources to help do so.

But while there are some benefits to balancing out schools, I don't think it really solves the problems and just dilutes the numbers. So the poor performing students will still perform poorly but it's not as big of a percentage at the school if there is a mix of high performing students.

Yes, focus schools/funding still exists and is helpful to support lower class sizes in the earliest grades, but 1) that's just for elementary schools, there should be something similar for middle and high schools, and 2) even that is more about providing extra local funding to middling-to--highish poverty schools (30-45% FARMS kids, I believe), which I agree is needed, but there are also schools with like 50-80% FARMS kids who don't get extra funding from MCPS (yes they do get extra from the state and feds, which I think is the argument for MCPS giving them less is county funds, but it still doesn't seem right to me given all the disadvantages and challenges a high-poverty school like that is dealing with.)

It'd need to be more than just an adjustment for FARMS to result in the provision of reasonably equivalent services. EML, too, for example.