Are the non "W" schools really that bad?

[Anonymous]

I went to a non-W school (top 10 in the county) and do well for myself.

My college roommate went to JFK, maybe the worst high school in the county, and probably will reach millionaire status before 40 if he wanted to. I'm probably 10 years behind him.

If you are a bright student, you will succeed regardless.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And how would all these people posting actually KNOW the difference, u less they've sent their kids to both? You're only hearing from those saying "we went to a non-W and it was fine." Same as me saying we went to a W and it was fine. It's anecdotal and irrelevant.

Look at HS graduation rates (if your kid falls into the wrong cohort, will they still graduate?). Look at test scores (what percentage get top test scores/have a chance at top colleges)? And, as others have stated, poverty is the true problem, so look at the percentages of FARMs students.

And, what do we do about poverty? Solving that will be more difficult than solving the elusive opportunity/achievement gap!

I agree that this is anecdotal and worthless but still - I grew up in the area and had groups of friends who went to both W and non W schools. The W friends were FAR more successful in life overall, even though our family's HHIs were fairly similar. I ended up paying a **** ton later in life to move to their W district.

Yes, the children of wealthy parents tend to benefit from their parents' wealth. But you don't make your parents wealthier by living in an area zoned for Whitman.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I went to a non-W school (top 10 in the county) and do well for myself.

My college roommate went to JFK, maybe the worst high school in the county, and probably will reach millionaire status before 40 if he wanted to. I'm probably 10 years behind him.

If you are a bright student, you will succeed regardless.

This is a great example of not having a clue as to what the purpose of school are.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And how would all these people posting actually KNOW the difference, u less they've sent their kids to both? You're only hearing from those saying "we went to a non-W and it was fine." Same as me saying we went to a W and it was fine. It's anecdotal and irrelevant.

Look at HS graduation rates (if your kid falls into the wrong cohort, will they still graduate?). Look at test scores (what percentage get top test scores/have a chance at top colleges)? And, as others have stated, poverty is the true problem, so look at the percentages of FARMs students.

And, what do we do about poverty? Solving that will be more difficult than solving the elusive opportunity/achievement gap!

I agree that this is anecdotal and worthless but still - I grew up in the area and had groups of friends who went to both W and non W schools. The W friends were FAR more successful in life overall, even though our family's HHIs were fairly similar. I ended up paying a **** ton later in life to move to their W district.

Yes, the children of wealthy parents tend to benefit from their parents' wealth. But you don't make your parents wealthier by living in an area zoned for Whitman.

People aren't friends with people in different socioeconomic groups. Duh.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And how would all these people posting actually KNOW the difference, u less they've sent their kids to both? You're only hearing from those saying "we went to a non-W and it was fine." Same as me saying we went to a W and it was fine. It's anecdotal and irrelevant.

Look at HS graduation rates (if your kid falls into the wrong cohort, will they still graduate?). Look at test scores (what percentage get top test scores/have a chance at top colleges)? And, as others have stated, poverty is the true problem, so look at the percentages of FARMs students.

And, what do we do about poverty? Solving that will be more difficult than solving the elusive opportunity/achievement gap!

I agree that this is anecdotal and worthless but still - I grew up in the area and had groups of friends who went to both W and non W schools. The W friends were FAR more successful in life overall, even though our family's HHIs were fairly similar. I ended up paying a **** ton later in life to move to their W district.

Yes, the children of wealthy parents tend to benefit from their parents' wealth. But you don't make your parents wealthier by living in an area zoned for Whitman.

People aren't friends with people in different socioeconomic groups. Duh.

People aren't?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I went to a non-W school (top 10 in the county) and do well for myself.

My college roommate went to JFK, maybe the worst high school in the county, and probably will reach millionaire status before 40 if he wanted to. I'm probably 10 years behind him.

If you are a bright student, you will succeed regardless.

This is a great example of not having a clue as to what the purpose of school are.

What are the purpose of school?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Btw there are plenty of examples of kids of color being failed by the school system itself (for example, being steered into ESL programs when they don't need them) and mountains of research on how teachers treat kids of color differently. So no, it's not just things "outside of school" that are to blame. Everyone should be concerned about MCPS low performing schools and gaslighting people by saying they don't exist is terrible.

? you seem to be blaming teachers for the low test scores of URM, when in fact, it's mostly the home life that is to blame. You can't seriously think that the low test scores for that group is mostly due to teacher bias.

You're suggesting teacher bias plays no role at all. We don't know how much is due to each but there absolutely are educational disparities (and health, and housing, and everything else) by race independent of income. Racism is real, and we know MCPS isn't meeting these kids' needs. It's true that some of these needs may be difficult to meet, but that doesn't mean we should dismiss the low test scores as signs of "bad home life". Most of the Latino students at Kennedy aren't even EML. These are English speaking kids many of which were born here or grew up here most of their lives. We're failing them.

How? How is MCPS responsible for their home life? That 100% impacts them more than anything in MCPS would. Administrators and counselors practically bend over backward to find ways to get kids to come to school consistently. How is this the fault of the school system? There are staff members out in the community trying to help as many families as they can.

+1 MCPS bends over backwards for URMs. They are so focused on the achievement gap that they have lowered the bar for everyone.

Is there some racism involved? Yes. But, you can't convince me that most of the low test scores are due to racism.

Doesn't matter if the kids aren't considered EML or were born here. If the student doesn't care about their education, no amount of hand holding by the teacher is going to help that student get high test scores.

I went to a majority minority HS out west, and most of the kids did not care about school. The AP classes were mostly white/Asian, even as they were the minorities at the school. Most of the disruptive kids were black/brown at our school; most of the fights were between black/brown students.

There were some Asian students who didn't so well in school (I knew several). These kids didn't really care that much about their academics. It had nothing to do with race, and everything to do with how much the kid (and family) valued education.

If you keep blaming the teachers, and pretend like most of the failing academics is because of the teachers rather than the home life, then you will never help those kids.

That's not to say that teachers are 100% blameless. Lord knows I and my kids have had some lackluster teachers who definitely should not be teaching.

I'm not saying we should give up on these kids, but not recognizing the root cause of the issue and looking elsewhere for the blame is not helpful. How can you help these kids if you won't acknowledge the root cause?

I've literally said multiple times the causes are complex. I am not the one not acknowledging the issues. You insist the issues are all outside the school, when the research says there are definitely issues inside schools. So why don't you tell me, how can your help these kids if you won't acknowledge the root CAUSES?

You write with a level of incoherency that can only mean you are an MCPS graduate.

Lol

[Anonymous]

W schools are overrated, especially Churchill. My kids are there and there are good teachers but also plenty of not so good and a few really bad teachers. I mean really bad.

Churchill is very cutthroat. Everyone can afford SAT prep course and tutoring. Everyone gets private coaching and private lessons for everything.

Go elsewhere and you will be less stressed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:W schools are overrated, especially Churchill. My kids are there and there are good teachers but also plenty of not so good and a few really bad teachers. I mean really bad.

Churchill is very cutthroat. Everyone can afford SAT prep course and tutoring. Everyone gets private coaching and private lessons for everything.

Go elsewhere and you will be less stressed.

Good teachers are nice to have, not a necessity. Guess what, plenty of ivy leagues have bad teachers too. Those students still go on to be wildly successful for the same reasons that students who go to good high schools do. If you think it's the teachers, you don't get it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And how would all these people posting actually KNOW the difference, u less they've sent their kids to both? You're only hearing from those saying "we went to a non-W and it was fine." Same as me saying we went to a W and it was fine. It's anecdotal and irrelevant.

Look at HS graduation rates (if your kid falls into the wrong cohort, will they still graduate?). Look at test scores (what percentage get top test scores/have a chance at top colleges)? And, as others have stated, poverty is the true problem, so look at the percentages of FARMs students.

And, what do we do about poverty? Solving that will be more difficult than solving the elusive opportunity/achievement gap!

I agree that this is anecdotal and worthless but still - I grew up in the area and had groups of friends who went to both W and non W schools. The W friends were FAR more successful in life overall, even though our family's HHIs were fairly similar. I ended up paying a **** ton later in life to move to their W district.

Yes, the children of wealthy parents tend to benefit from their parents' wealth. But you don't make your parents wealthier by living in an area zoned for Whitman.

I said the non W and W families had similar household incomes. It is one of the three sentences in the post you are replying to.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And how would all these people posting actually KNOW the difference, u less they've sent their kids to both? You're only hearing from those saying "we went to a non-W and it was fine." Same as me saying we went to a W and it was fine. It's anecdotal and irrelevant.

Look at HS graduation rates (if your kid falls into the wrong cohort, will they still graduate?). Look at test scores (what percentage get top test scores/have a chance at top colleges)? And, as others have stated, poverty is the true problem, so look at the percentages of FARMs students.

And, what do we do about poverty? Solving that will be more difficult than solving the elusive opportunity/achievement gap!

I agree that this is anecdotal and worthless but still - I grew up in the area and had groups of friends who went to both W and non W schools. The W friends were FAR more successful in life overall, even though our family's HHIs were fairly similar. I ended up paying a **** ton later in life to move to their W district.

Yes, the children of wealthy parents tend to benefit from their parents' wealth. But you don't make your parents wealthier by living in an area zoned for Whitman.

I said the non W and W families had similar household incomes. It is one of the three sentences in the post you are replying to.

household income =/= wealth

[Anonymous]

Also consider James Hubert Blake High School and Sherwood High School clusters. The first is in northern Silver Spring, near Ashton, and the second is in Olney. Both are smaller schools that draw from a number of very nice neighborhoods and they are somewhat off the beaten path. They tend to retain their teachers and both have a community feel. Our kids went to Blake but we have plenty of friends whose kids attend(ed) Sherwood. I teach at a W school and would not have sent my kids to that school over Blake or Sherwood in a million years if given the option.

Our feeder elementary school was also excellent and most in our cluster have great reputations. I would call the middle school experience the weakest link, but having taught middle school in the Bethesda area, I would say this is true throughout the county - middle school is just a difficult time all around.

Two things to keep in mind:

1) The workload was much more rigorous at Blake than what I see at the W school where I teach. As are a dime a dozen at a W school, where kids can turn things in whenever they want and teachers are expected to pass everyone. There are still a few expectations at the schools I've mentioned, from our experience.

2) I feel like it is easier for high achieving students to shine at Blake or Sherwood due to the relatively smaller number of students in each grade. At a larger high school or at a W school, you might have 60 kids in a graduating class with a 4.0 unweighted GPA. At a smaller school like Blake or Sherwood, there might be 20-25 of those students, allowing them to stand out more. By the same token, talented musicians, artists, athletes, and scientists have more opportunities to stand out at a smaller school where they are not one of a huge pack with the same talent. It's easier to be a big fish in a smaller pond, and this definitely benefited our kids. This can also become important when applying to college.

[Anonymous]

The exact same curriculum is used at every high school in the county. The only difference between schools is what magnet programs they offer. A W school makes the news almost every year for a swastika graffiti incident. There's a lot of entitlement and affluenza in the peer group that overrides any potential benefit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Both my dcc kids went from CES -> TPMS magnet -> Blair SMCS and I feel this was much stronger education that what any W could provide and is an option for anyone who is serious about their education.

This was our path too in the DCC, although one DS went Wheaton Biomed. I couldn’t imagine a better experience.

Mcps is great in special programs where you are surrounded by an academic cohort and teachers who aren't tasked with arguing with ignorant parents.

If yoire not in a special program you'd better get into a W

Incorrect.

+1

[Anonymous]

W stands for Wealth not Quality