Banner Article on Declining Enrollment

[Anonymous]

Read the Baltimore Banners article on declining school enrollment. (MD/MCPS) Leaders quoted blame everything BUT the obvious: school quality affects enrollment as does the broader impacts of county governments social and economic decisions.

If our schools are already over crowded and underperforming why harp on wanting more enrollment? It’s not going to get better adding thousands more students - the funding per student only goes so far. And those thousands they reference aren’t necessarily the ones whose parents pay top dollar in property taxes or are active donors to the PTA.

Honestly, mcps has been such a disappointment. Property taxes keep increasing, quality of services decrease. Fights over development and housing don’t add up to more revenue and better schools. Montgomery county can’t compete with business friendly nova to attract large companies. Housing is expensive and traffic into the city/va is bumper to bumper.

Sorry for the rant, but maybe they can focus on making it a better place to live than hitting a magic number for a measly percentage of federal tax dollars…

[Anonymous]

It kind of helps if you post the link to the article. Here it is for those interested:

https://www.thebanner.com/education/k-12-schools/maryland-school-enrollment-shrinking-why-UDZRSMI5FZFC7GOYWCSVUCYDR4/

I'm just reading it now, so don't really know what it says yet. But from what I understand, declining enrollment isn't limited to just MCPS and some people say it's due to declining birth rates. And some people say change in immigration policies.

[Anonymous]

Here are some of the other points the Banner says about MCPS kind of leading in the drop in enrollment and some of the reasons why:

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Montgomery County Public Schools experienced one of the steepest declines in enrollment this year, losing about 2% of its population. Superintendent Thomas Taylor said part of the reason is fewer students coming from other countries.

Other political factors may be factoring in, too. Maryland is losing federal jobs faster than any other state, as the Trump administration slashed positions traditionally viewed as stable employment.

Maryland was already losing residents to other states at a high rate in recent years.

“It’s entirely possible that losing 15,000 jobs could have contributed to families having to relocate for other jobs,” Meyer said.

Taylor said skyrocketing housing costs could also be pushing families with young children away.

On top of that, far more families chose to homeschool their children after the pandemic. More than 42,000 kids now learn at home, compared to about 28,000 in 2020.

Private school growth has been far less dramatic since the pandemic. The percentage of Maryland students attending private schools has fluctuated between roughly 12% and 13% since 2017.

--------------------------------------

I think that parents choosing to home school kind of indirectly points to the dissatisfaction with the quality of the school system.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Here are some of the other points the Banner says about MCPS kind of leading in the drop in enrollment and some of the reasons why:

---------------

Montgomery County Public Schools experienced one of the steepest declines in enrollment this year, losing about 2% of its population. Superintendent Thomas Taylor said part of the reason is fewer students coming from other countries.

Other political factors may be factoring in, too. Maryland is losing federal jobs faster than any other state, as the Trump administration slashed positions traditionally viewed as stable employment.

Maryland was already losing residents to other states at a high rate in recent years.

“It’s entirely possible that losing 15,000 jobs could have contributed to families having to relocate for other jobs,” Meyer said.

Taylor said skyrocketing housing costs could also be pushing families with young children away.

On top of that, far more families chose to homeschool their children after the pandemic. More than 42,000 kids now learn at home, compared to about 28,000 in 2020.

Private school growth has been far less dramatic since the pandemic. The percentage of Maryland students attending private schools has fluctuated between roughly 12% and 13% since 2017.

--------------------------------------

I think that parents choosing to home school kind of indirectly points to the dissatisfaction with the quality of the school system.

True, and people are fleeing Maryland for Virginia and further south for numerous reasons.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Read the Baltimore Banners article on declining school enrollment. (MD/MCPS) Leaders quoted blame everything BUT the obvious: school quality affects enrollment as does the broader impacts of county governments social and economic decisions.

If our schools are already over crowded and underperforming why harp on wanting more enrollment? It’s not going to get better adding thousands more students - the funding per student only goes so far. And those thousands they reference aren’t necessarily the ones whose parents pay top dollar in property taxes or are active donors to the PTA.

Honestly, mcps has been such a disappointment. Property taxes keep increasing, quality of services decrease. Fights over development and housing don’t add up to more revenue and better schools. Montgomery county can’t compete with business friendly nova to attract large companies. Housing is expensive and traffic into the city/va is bumper to bumper.

Sorry for the rant, but maybe they can focus on making it a better place to live than hitting a magic number for a measly percentage of federal tax dollars…

Yep, MCPS is too big for its own good. In theory it could leverage resources across schools to create better academic environment in practice due the way in which MCPS forces school participation to be tied to zip code they essentially are creating winners and losers with all the special programs and lotteries. For example, they say Rockville has a fabulous IB program, but it's at Richard Montgomery and my kids will go to Rockville High School so it's completely unavailable to me except by lottery, might as well be on the moon.

They really need to break up MCPS. I would also be for having parents be able to opt out for home school or private and have the funds made available for the students.

When the schools are a real estate problem you know you've messed up.

[Anonymous]

The majority of the money is county money and the more students, the more money they get. They need a full financial audit and cut out the waste. Taylor promised accountability, and there has been none. He cut vital programs like the MVA and early education, saying there was no money and then went on a spending spree.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Read the Baltimore Banners article on declining school enrollment. (MD/MCPS) Leaders quoted blame everything BUT the obvious: school quality affects enrollment as does the broader impacts of county governments social and economic decisions.

If our schools are already over crowded and underperforming why harp on wanting more enrollment? It’s not going to get better adding thousands more students - the funding per student only goes so far. And those thousands they reference aren’t necessarily the ones whose parents pay top dollar in property taxes or are active donors to the PTA.

Honestly, mcps has been such a disappointment. Property taxes keep increasing, quality of services decrease. Fights over development and housing don’t add up to more revenue and better schools. Montgomery county can’t compete with business friendly nova to attract large companies. Housing is expensive and traffic into the city/va is bumper to bumper.

Sorry for the rant, but maybe they can focus on making it a better place to live than hitting a magic number for a measly percentage of federal tax dollars…

Yep, MCPS is too big for its own good. In theory it could leverage resources across schools to create better academic environment in practice due the way in which MCPS forces school participation to be tied to zip code they essentially are creating winners and losers with all the special programs and lotteries. For example, they say Rockville has a fabulous IB program, but it's at Richard Montgomery and my kids will go to Rockville High School so it's completely unavailable to me except by lottery, might as well be on the moon.

They really need to break up MCPS. I would also be for having parents be able to opt out for home school or private and have the funds made available for the students.

When the schools are a real estate problem you know you've messed up.

They are splitting it as you want to regions. And, many of us will get burned and we'll probably move out of the county once our oldest graduates as our homeowner school has very little to offer and our oldest has suffered academically because of it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Read the Baltimore Banners article on declining school enrollment. (MD/MCPS) Leaders quoted blame everything BUT the obvious: school quality affects enrollment as does the broader impacts of county governments social and economic decisions.

If our schools are already over crowded and underperforming why harp on wanting more enrollment? It’s not going to get better adding thousands more students - the funding per student only goes so far. And those thousands they reference aren’t necessarily the ones whose parents pay top dollar in property taxes or are active donors to the PTA.

Honestly, mcps has been such a disappointment. Property taxes keep increasing, quality of services decrease. Fights over development and housing don’t add up to more revenue and better schools. Montgomery county can’t compete with business friendly nova to attract large companies. Housing is expensive and traffic into the city/va is bumper to bumper.

Sorry for the rant, but maybe they can focus on making it a better place to live than hitting a magic number for a measly percentage of federal tax dollars…

Yep, MCPS is too big for its own good. In theory it could leverage resources across schools to create better academic environment in practice due the way in which MCPS forces school participation to be tied to zip code they essentially are creating winners and losers with all the special programs and lotteries. For example, they say Rockville has a fabulous IB program, but it's at Richard Montgomery and my kids will go to Rockville High School so it's completely unavailable to me except by lottery, might as well be on the moon.

They really need to break up MCPS. I would also be for having parents be able to opt out for home school or private and have the funds made available for the students.

When the schools are a real estate problem you know you've messed up.

We know you'd love to make sure that the public funding intended to be distributed to address the needs of all on a more or less equivalent basis inured more greatly to you and yours, instead.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Read the Baltimore Banners article on declining school enrollment. (MD/MCPS) Leaders quoted blame everything BUT the obvious: school quality affects enrollment as does the broader impacts of county governments social and economic decisions.

If our schools are already over crowded and underperforming why harp on wanting more enrollment? It’s not going to get better adding thousands more students - the funding per student only goes so far. And those thousands they reference aren’t necessarily the ones whose parents pay top dollar in property taxes or are active donors to the PTA.

Honestly, mcps has been such a disappointment. Property taxes keep increasing, quality of services decrease. Fights over development and housing don’t add up to more revenue and better schools. Montgomery county can’t compete with business friendly nova to attract large companies. Housing is expensive and traffic into the city/va is bumper to bumper.

Sorry for the rant, but maybe they can focus on making it a better place to live than hitting a magic number for a measly percentage of federal tax dollars…

Yep, MCPS is too big for its own good. In theory it could leverage resources across schools to create better academic environment in practice due the way in which MCPS forces school participation to be tied to zip code they essentially are creating winners and losers with all the special programs and lotteries. For example, they say Rockville has a fabulous IB program, but it's at Richard Montgomery and my kids will go to Rockville High School so it's completely unavailable to me except by lottery, might as well be on the moon.

They really need to break up MCPS. I would also be for having parents be able to opt out for home school or private and have the funds made available for the students.

When the schools are a real estate problem you know you've messed up.

We know you'd love to make sure that the public funding intended to be distributed to address the needs of all on a more or less equivalent basis inured more greatly to you and yours, instead.

Really? You got that from the post? Thomas working the chat rooms today?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Here are some of the other points the Banner says about MCPS kind of leading in the drop in enrollment and some of the reasons why:

---------------

Montgomery County Public Schools experienced one of the steepest declines in enrollment this year, losing about 2% of its population. Superintendent Thomas Taylor said part of the reason is fewer students coming from other countries.

Other political factors may be factoring in, too. Maryland is losing federal jobs faster than any other state, as the Trump administration slashed positions traditionally viewed as stable employment.

Maryland was already losing residents to other states at a high rate in recent years.

“It’s entirely possible that losing 15,000 jobs could have contributed to families having to relocate for other jobs,” Meyer said.

Taylor said skyrocketing housing costs could also be pushing families with young children away.

On top of that, far more families chose to homeschool their children after the pandemic. More than 42,000 kids now learn at home, compared to about 28,000 in 2020.

Private school growth has been far less dramatic since the pandemic. The percentage of Maryland students attending private schools has fluctuated between roughly 12% and 13% since 2017.

--------------------------------------

I think that parents choosing to home school kind of indirectly points to the dissatisfaction with the quality of the school system.

I agree. I was disappointed the Banner didn't dig into that angle a lot more in their piece.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here are some of the other points the Banner says about MCPS kind of leading in the drop in enrollment and some of the reasons why:

---------------

Montgomery County Public Schools experienced one of the steepest declines in enrollment this year, losing about 2% of its population. Superintendent Thomas Taylor said part of the reason is fewer students coming from other countries.

Other political factors may be factoring in, too. Maryland is losing federal jobs faster than any other state, as the Trump administration slashed positions traditionally viewed as stable employment.

Maryland was already losing residents to other states at a high rate in recent years.

“It’s entirely possible that losing 15,000 jobs could have contributed to families having to relocate for other jobs,” Meyer said.

Taylor said skyrocketing housing costs could also be pushing families with young children away.

On top of that, far more families chose to homeschool their children after the pandemic. More than 42,000 kids now learn at home, compared to about 28,000 in 2020.

Private school growth has been far less dramatic since the pandemic. The percentage of Maryland students attending private schools has fluctuated between roughly 12% and 13% since 2017.

--------------------------------------

I think that parents choosing to home school kind of indirectly points to the dissatisfaction with the quality of the school system.

True, and people are fleeing Maryland for Virginia and further south for numerous reasons.

That cannot be true since VA is losing population too

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here are some of the other points the Banner says about MCPS kind of leading in the drop in enrollment and some of the reasons why:

---------------

Montgomery County Public Schools experienced one of the steepest declines in enrollment this year, losing about 2% of its population. Superintendent Thomas Taylor said part of the reason is fewer students coming from other countries.

Other political factors may be factoring in, too. Maryland is losing federal jobs faster than any other state, as the Trump administration slashed positions traditionally viewed as stable employment.

Maryland was already losing residents to other states at a high rate in recent years.

“It’s entirely possible that losing 15,000 jobs could have contributed to families having to relocate for other jobs,” Meyer said.

Taylor said skyrocketing housing costs could also be pushing families with young children away.

On top of that, far more families chose to homeschool their children after the pandemic. More than 42,000 kids now learn at home, compared to about 28,000 in 2020.

Private school growth has been far less dramatic since the pandemic. The percentage of Maryland students attending private schools has fluctuated between roughly 12% and 13% since 2017.

--------------------------------------

I think that parents choosing to home school kind of indirectly points to the dissatisfaction with the quality of the school system.

True, and people are fleeing Maryland for Virginia and further south for numerous reasons.

That cannot be true since VA is losing population too

It's all work-from-home. There are cheaper places to get acceptable quality education further out. There are many middle-class workers that can't afford top ten school districts that are in mediocre school districts, that can afford better schools further out now. Often these people are quite intelligent and value education, just can't afford Potomac housing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Read the Baltimore Banners article on declining school enrollment. (MD/MCPS) Leaders quoted blame everything BUT the obvious: school quality affects enrollment as does the broader impacts of county governments social and economic decisions.

If our schools are already over crowded and underperforming why harp on wanting more enrollment? It’s not going to get better adding thousands more students - the funding per student only goes so far. And those thousands they reference aren’t necessarily the ones whose parents pay top dollar in property taxes or are active donors to the PTA.

Honestly, mcps has been such a disappointment. Property taxes keep increasing, quality of services decrease. Fights over development and housing don’t add up to more revenue and better schools. Montgomery county can’t compete with business friendly nova to attract large companies. Housing is expensive and traffic into the city/va is bumper to bumper.

Sorry for the rant, but maybe they can focus on making it a better place to live than hitting a magic number for a measly percentage of federal tax dollars…

Yep, MCPS is too big for its own good. In theory it could leverage resources across schools to create better academic environment in practice due the way in which MCPS forces school participation to be tied to zip code they essentially are creating winners and losers with all the special programs and lotteries. For example, they say Rockville has a fabulous IB program, but it's at Richard Montgomery and my kids will go to Rockville High School so it's completely unavailable to me except by lottery, might as well be on the moon.

They really need to break up MCPS. I would also be for having parents be able to opt out for home school or private and have the funds made available for the students.

When the schools are a real estate problem you know you've messed up.

They are splitting it as you want to regions. And, many of us will get burned and we'll probably move out of the county once our oldest graduates as our homeowner school has very little to offer and our oldest has suffered academically because of it.

Did the Banner investigate mvc?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Read the Baltimore Banners article on declining school enrollment. (MD/MCPS) Leaders quoted blame everything BUT the obvious: school quality affects enrollment as does the broader impacts of county governments social and economic decisions.

If our schools are already over crowded and underperforming why harp on wanting more enrollment? It’s not going to get better adding thousands more students - the funding per student only goes so far. And those thousands they reference aren’t necessarily the ones whose parents pay top dollar in property taxes or are active donors to the PTA.

Honestly, mcps has been such a disappointment. Property taxes keep increasing, quality of services decrease. Fights over development and housing don’t add up to more revenue and better schools. Montgomery county can’t compete with business friendly nova to attract large companies. Housing is expensive and traffic into the city/va is bumper to bumper.

Sorry for the rant, but maybe they can focus on making it a better place to live than hitting a magic number for a measly percentage of federal tax dollars…

Yep, MCPS is too big for its own good. In theory it could leverage resources across schools to create better academic environment in practice due the way in which MCPS forces school participation to be tied to zip code they essentially are creating winners and losers with all the special programs and lotteries. For example, they say Rockville has a fabulous IB program, but it's at Richard Montgomery and my kids will go to Rockville High School so it's completely unavailable to me except by lottery, might as well be on the moon.

They really need to break up MCPS. I would also be for having parents be able to opt out for home school or private and have the funds made available for the students.

When the schools are a real estate problem you know you've messed up.

Rockville HS also has local IB diploma and career-related programs.

[Anonymous]

Most of the local systems have declining enrollment. People can’t afford kids.