Has the fall off of MCPS been as bad as people say?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I avoid this by sending my kids to private. If I couldn’t afford that I’d likely home school. At least that way I know my kids would be able to learn how to read.

Ohhhhkay. Good for you? Or not good for you since the jury is still out on whether that money was well spent?

But either way maybe you could skedaddle back over to the private school board?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Lot of people in here have very long drawn out and downright creative ways of saying they are afraid of black and brown kids associating with their precious angels

Also lots of people just want to destroy public education in America which is depressing on its own and when they are here giving people “advice”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:What are the chances that all the positive comments are coming from parents of Ws (including "honorary" BCC), Blair/Poolesville magnets or RMIB? The OP/topic clearly is system-wide, and we know MCPS doesn't provide equitable experiences across clusters.

The vast majority of MoCo parents IRL are happy with MCPS.
Most of the ones posting here are private schools parents, trolls and wannabes.
DCUM is not real life.

And that's not true but it's okkay...

It's true. Over 80%

No, it's not.

https://montgomeryperspective.com/2025/03/06/county-survey-resident-perception-of-moco-declines/

K-12 education received a 68% positive rating in 2024. That’s below the 81-82% range of the earlier surveys, a precipitous drop. Superintendent Thomas Taylor’s recommended budget increase is so huge that it will probably require a property tax increase to fully fund. If residents’ perceptions of MCPS are indeed declining, are they willing to pay?

13% response rate. < 1000 responses.

Happy people don’t take surveys.

So 42% of 13% are unhappy. That is 5% so that’s a 95% positivity rating

That response rate is up from 2021. Did you dismiss the previous survey results as invalid based on response rate or do you only dismiss the results when they’re unfavorable to MCPS?

If you have issues with the county’s methodology, take it up with the county.

I just miss the response rates for every survey that’s only 13%.

That’s not a good measurement of anything.

Every school has a safety report. You should read that, that’s much better and more informative than this stupid survey.

You're ridiculous. It's a statistically valid survey run by professionals from the county. The 1,000 responses is based on a randomized sampling of 6,000 residents. If you don't know what sampling is, then that's on you.

Furthermore, the Security at a Glance reports you're referencing have not been updated since the 2021-2022 school year: https://ww2.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/sharedaccountability/safetyglance/

So what insightful, significant information is to be gleaned from a report the system has stopped issuing since 2022?

13% is not considered statistically significant.

Anything less than 30% the results are called into question. And 13% of sampling is in no way shape or form considered a good survey.

Also, if you think that 13% is enough and you do the math that’s an 80% approval rating.

So since you love to say how terrible Montgomery County public schools are, why don’t you go on and on about? They can’t even run a survey..

Yeah, and the at a glance documents should be update yearly because they actually are significant.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's truly amazing the bubble we live in here in Montgomery County when people can say the school system is "bad". Have you people never lived anywhere else in the country? Even if things were to truly crater here it would still be a better education than like 90% of the country.

And your bar is that low? We moved here for the schools 20-something years ago, and pulled our kids out - they graduated from private

You moved to a W district and pulled your kids out?

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:The Takoma Park crowd and County Council has really led the County and MCPS to a bad place. 15 years ago MCPS had the best schools in the DMV. Now, folks are trying wondering what happened and how did it get so bad so quickly. Well, its likely going to get worse, unless the County realizes its mistakes and MCPS will continue the trend of most of the best student leaving for private school which will further erode school performance.

So your understanding is that "school performance" is driven by the best students and if those students leave then the schools become worse?

Doesnt it stand to reason?

If MCPS increases their offerings and preformance at the lower preforming schools, more will attend.

I am sorry but what??

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's truly amazing the bubble we live in here in Montgomery County when people can say the school system is "bad". Have you people never lived anywhere else in the country? Even if things were to truly crater here it would still be a better education than like 90% of the country.

I think the issue is that folks are remembering THEIR high school experience, typically in an UMC highly segregated suburb of a Midwestern city. So, because this was pre social media, they knew less about what was going on even in the school they attended, AND their own experience was heavily curated/cloistered and they can't understand why they can't afford such a rarefied experience for their own kids so they blame MCPS.

The actual factors are much deeper, rising income inequality, college debt, international competition that is raising the stakes for college admissions, and overall rising poverty in the United States.

Yes, always blame someone or something else. I went to school in PG county which was as good as today’s MCPS

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Lot of people in here have very long drawn out and downright creative ways of saying they are afraid of black and brown kids associating with their precious angels

It's actually Brown and Black families who are leaving the county too. So the ones left are the more lower income ones and bringing down the numbers for those groups.

We first started hearing rumblings of how the schools in a predominantly Brown/Black neighborhood were not going to give homework anymore because it put unfair burden on parents who had to work long hours and did not have time to help their kids with homework. This was several years before the pandemic. During the pandemic was when we started to see the no homework policy more widespread.

I've said it before but I'm not convinced that when looking back, people will look at what MCPS is doing as racist agendas and policies. Where they purposely try to limit the ceiling for students, so that higher level education is not even possible for them. Higher level education was always the ticket to a higher income and better life for families. Higher SES (which usually correlates with race) have ways to work around these MCPS policies and initiatives.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I avoid this by sending my kids to private. If I couldn’t afford that I’d likely home school. At least that way I know my kids would be able to learn how to read.

But they cannot compete with MCPS kids.

Not everything is about test scores, I pulled my kid out for less fights as it really disturbed them.

[Anonymous]

I was surprised when we lived in Bethesda, to discover that MOST kids living in the area did not attend MoCo public schools. That blew my mind because the house prices were pushed up higher due to the W schools we were zoned for.

In the time my two kids went thru ES, MS and HS there were significant changes. 2.0 was introduced and dropped, the IB at Blair was one of the most prestigious programs you could attend. Then it was wrecked by that egomanic principal, now it is dust. Literally.

We despaired the fact our kids were not getting end of year exams, and now they are re-introducing them.

It all swings in roundabouts, sometimes for the greater good and sometimes less so.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I was surprised when we lived in Bethesda, to discover that MOST kids living in the area did not attend MoCo public schools. That blew my mind because the house prices were pushed up higher due to the W schools we were zoned for.

In the time my two kids went thru ES, MS and HS there were significant changes. 2.0 was introduced and dropped, the IB at Blair was one of the most prestigious programs you could attend. Then it was wrecked by that egomanic principal, now it is dust. Literally.

We despaired the fact our kids were not getting end of year exams, and now they are re-introducing them.

It all swings in roundabouts, sometimes for the greater good and sometimes less so.

Huh? You mean SMCS?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Takoma Park crowd and County Council has really led the County and MCPS to a bad place. 15 years ago MCPS had the best schools in the DMV. Now, folks are trying wondering what happened and how did it get so bad so quickly. Well, its likely going to get worse, unless the County realizes its mistakes and MCPS will continue the trend of most of the best student leaving for private school which will further erode school performance.

So your understanding is that "school performance" is driven by the best students and if those students leave then the schools become worse?

Doesnt it stand to reason?

If MCPS increases their offerings and preformance at the lower preforming schools, more will attend.

I am sorry but what??

Now that people don’t need to leave their home school to do signature programs more will attend.

Less magnet more signature.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's truly amazing the bubble we live in here in Montgomery County when people can say the school system is "bad". Have you people never lived anywhere else in the country? Even if things were to truly crater here it would still be a better education than like 90% of the country.

I think the issue is that folks are remembering THEIR high school experience, typically in an UMC highly segregated suburb of a Midwestern city. So, because this was pre social media, they knew less about what was going on even in the school they attended, AND their own experience was heavily curated/cloistered and they can't understand why they can't afford such a rarefied experience for their own kids so they blame MCPS.

The actual factors are much deeper, rising income inequality, college debt, international competition that is raising the stakes for college admissions, and overall rising poverty in the United States.

Yes, always blame someone or something else. I went to school in PG county which was as good as today’s MCPS

lol trying to put PG down? PG is an amazing school system.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's truly amazing the bubble we live in here in Montgomery County when people can say the school system is "bad". Have you people never lived anywhere else in the country? Even if things were to truly crater here it would still be a better education than like 90% of the country.

I think the issue is that folks are remembering THEIR high school experience, typically in an UMC highly segregated suburb of a Midwestern city. So, because this was pre social media, they knew less about what was going on even in the school they attended, AND their own experience was heavily curated/cloistered and they can't understand why they can't afford such a rarefied experience for their own kids so they blame MCPS.

The actual factors are much deeper, rising income inequality, college debt, international competition that is raising the stakes for college admissions, and overall rising poverty in the United States.

Yes, always blame someone or something else. I went to school in PG county which was as good as today’s MCPS

lol trying to put PG down? PG is an amazing school system.

We seriously considered living in PG County. There are parts that are nice that we used to go to. When we were looking it was commonly said that the areas with issues were inside the beltway and the areas outside were nicer.

But if you're willing to say that PG County as a whole doesn't have issues, that just shows how some people aren't really choosing to see what's really going on. And the first step in fixing things is to identify the what the issue is and the cause of it.

We did decide to live in Montgomery County because the schools seemed like a safer bet. When schools are not a factor anymore, we may end up moving there. I tell people that you can kind of get a measure of the area based on the Costco in the area. In Lanham/Glenarden, the people at Costco are super nice and courteous. In my area of Montgomery County, people choose to drive past the Gaithersburg Costco to drive another half an hour or so to go to the Frederick Costco, which they say is nicer. Same thing with people who have a choice to go between the Costco near Arundel Mills but lives by the Gaithersburg Costco. People who regularly go to the Columbia Costco talks about what a zoo that Gaithersburg Costco is. And personally I'd have to agree.

I think in some ways you can say say that maybe Montgomery County is going the way of Prince Georges County. Way back before, from what we can tell Prince Georges County was more middle class and also had decent access to DC. So had a lot of government workers living around there.

But you see how it is now and it seems like Montgomery County is heading in that direction. One of the things is that I think Montgomery County has more affluent areas then PG County ever did. So they will always prop up the entire school system.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Lot of people in here have very long drawn out and downright creative ways of saying they are afraid of black and brown kids associating with their precious angels

It's actually Brown and Black families who are leaving the county too. So the ones left are the more lower income ones and bringing down the numbers for those groups.

We first started hearing rumblings of how the schools in a predominantly Brown/Black neighborhood were not going to give homework anymore because it put unfair burden on parents who had to work long hours and did not have time to help their kids with homework. This was several years before the pandemic. During the pandemic was when we started to see the no homework policy more widespread.

I've said it before but I'm not convinced that when looking back, people will look at what MCPS is doing as racist agendas and policies. Where they purposely try to limit the ceiling for students, so that higher level education is not even possible for them. Higher level education was always the ticket to a higher income and better life for families. Higher SES (which usually correlates with race) have ways to work around these MCPS policies and initiatives.

Lies

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's truly amazing the bubble we live in here in Montgomery County when people can say the school system is "bad". Have you people never lived anywhere else in the country? Even if things were to truly crater here it would still be a better education than like 90% of the country.

I think the issue is that folks are remembering THEIR high school experience, typically in an UMC highly segregated suburb of a Midwestern city. So, because this was pre social media, they knew less about what was going on even in the school they attended, AND their own experience was heavily curated/cloistered and they can't understand why they can't afford such a rarefied experience for their own kids so they blame MCPS.

The actual factors are much deeper, rising income inequality, college debt, international competition that is raising the stakes for college admissions, and overall rising poverty in the United States.

Yes, always blame someone or something else. I went to school in PG county which was as good as today’s MCPS

lol trying to put PG down? PG is an amazing school system.

Absolutely not. PGPS has improved compared to when I was growing up. MCPS back then was light years ahead of PGPS. MCPS has declined so much now I don’t think it’s that much better than PGPS.