MoCo is diverse, for sure, but MCPS schools are not

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Traffic is a concern.

Then how about busing the kids from the RM district to the Churchill district, or Wootton. RM is *very* close to Wootton. The Horizon Hill neighborhood, which is a stones throw from Wootton, is bused to RM. Why aren't the areas closer to RM bused to Wootton then?

That's great! but wait, Wootton is already super-crowded, we need to bus some kids out to RM. Who to bus out? En ..... definitely the white kids, otherwise it won't make any difference. We can't bus out all the white kids, have to leave some to preserve the diversity. to make it fair, the best performing white students should be bused out so that the inter-school achievement gap can be further reduced.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Traffic is a concern.

Then how about busing the kids from the RM district to the Churchill district, or Wootton. RM is *very* close to Wootton. The Horizon Hill neighborhood, which is a stones throw from Wootton, is bused to RM. Why aren't the areas closer to RM bused to Wootton then?

That's great! but wait, Wootton is already super-crowded, we need to bus some kids out to RM. Who to bus out? En ..... definitely the white kids, otherwise it won't make any difference. We can't bus out all the white kids, have to leave some to preserve the diversity. to make it fair, the best performing white students should be bused out so that the inter-school achievement gap can be further reduced.

Carve out portions of neighborhoods to be bused to other schools.

It's done all the time here in the eastern downcounty. We are very accustomed to it, have been for years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

There ARE apartments and condos in Bethesda. Unless you make them public housing developments, the rent and cost to buy will rise with the market. The demand is huge, so even basic 2 BR apartments will rent at $2400 and up, and 2 BR 1400 sf condos will cost $500K and up. And there are houses that are available for rent. Just drive around. But I think most rent for $4000/mo. I wasn't aware of any rule against renting rooms. Again, unless you're talking about public housing projects, how will you control for market pricing? And the issue is not "allowing" developers to build apartments and condos -- really, the state/county should be *requiring* developers to set aside some lower priced units. Otherwise the developers will only build luxury units. Developers are not interested in building affordable housing. They want top dollar for their projects.

Supply and demand works in the housing market just as it does everywhere else. So, why is the rent so high in Bethesda? Because demand for apartments in Bethesda far exceeds the supply of apartments in Bethesda. What happens if you add supply (i.e., build more apartments in Bethesda)? The rent gets cheaper. Nobody has to force anybody to do anything. It's the free market at work!

As for renting an apartment in your house, yes, actually, there are rules. A lot of rules. See here:

http://www6.montgomerycountymd.gov/apps/dhca/licensing/pdf/Fact_Sheet.pdf

Also, the county does *require* developers to set aside some lower-priced units -- specifically, 12.5-15%. The county has been doing this since 1973. See here:

http://www.montgomerycountymd.gov/DHCA/housing/singlefamily/mpdu/index.html

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Traffic is a concern.

Then how about busing the kids from the RM district to the Churchill district, or Wootton. RM is *very* close to Wootton. The Horizon Hill neighborhood, which is a stones throw from Wootton, is bused to RM. Why aren't the areas closer to RM bused to Wootton then?

That's great! but wait, Wootton is already super-crowded, we need to bus some kids out to RM. Who to bus out? En ..... definitely the white kids, otherwise it won't make any difference. We can't bus out all the white kids, have to leave some to preserve the diversity. to make it fair, the best performing white students should be bused out so that the inter-school achievement gap can be further reduced.

Carve out portions of neighborhoods to be bused to other schools.

It's done all the time here in the eastern downcounty. We are very accustomed to it, have been for years.

Is that a rezoning?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

That's great! but wait, Wootton is already super-crowded, we need to bus some kids out to RM. Who to bus out? En ..... definitely the white kids, otherwise it won't make any difference. We can't bus out all the white kids, have to leave some to preserve the diversity. to make it fair, the best performing white students should be bused out so that the inter-school achievement gap can be further reduced.

Wootton High School was at 105% of capacity last year. If that's super-crowded, I wonder what you call Matsunaga Elementary School, which was at 147% of capacity last year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

There ARE apartments and condos in Bethesda. Unless you make them public housing developments, the rent and cost to buy will rise with the market. The demand is huge, so even basic 2 BR apartments will rent at $2400 and up, and 2 BR 1400 sf condos will cost $500K and up. And there are houses that are available for rent. Just drive around. But I think most rent for $4000/mo. I wasn't aware of any rule against renting rooms. Again, unless you're talking about public housing projects, how will you control for market pricing? And the issue is not "allowing" developers to build apartments and condos -- really, the state/county should be *requiring* developers to set aside some lower priced units. Otherwise the developers will only build luxury units. Developers are not interested in building affordable housing. They want top dollar for their projects.

Supply and demand works in the housing market just as it does everywhere else. So, why is the rent so high in Bethesda? Because demand for apartments in Bethesda far exceeds the supply of apartments in Bethesda. What happens if you add supply (i.e., build more apartments in Bethesda)? The rent gets cheaper. Nobody has to force anybody to do anything. It's the free market at work!

As for renting an apartment in your house, yes, actually, there are rules. A lot of rules. See here:

http://www6.montgomerycountymd.gov/apps/dhca/licensing/pdf/Fact_Sheet.pdf

Also, the county does *require* developers to set aside some lower-priced units -- specifically, 12.5-15%. The county has been doing this since 1973. See here:

http://www.montgomerycountymd.gov/DHCA/housing/singlefamily/mpdu/index.html

And they are building MORE apartments/condos in Bethesda, in the Westbard area. Where will those kids go? The school that is zoned for Westbard is something like 150 students overcapacity, at over 800 students. Should the school go to 1000 students, so the kids can start lunch shifts at 9:30 am until 2:30 pm? There may never be enough housing made available in Bethesda to make sure that everyone who wants to live there can live there affordably. The MPDU units are gone in a flash. So I guess the solution people here want is to make a county-wide lottery so that people who spent their life's savings on houses in certain neighborhoods (and left DC to avoid constant school lotteries) will just have to suck it up and go wherever their lottery draw sends them? And when the entire county is in gridlock because people are schlepping their kids all over the county daily, then what? I mean, really -- this is the utopia people are hoping for? You won't get diversity because the people who have the means will leave MCPS or MoCo altogether if they have to bus their kids out of what they consider a good school cluster.

In any event, my kids' classes ARE actually pretty diverse. It's not like it was in DC, that's for sure, but it's not lily-white...in part because MY kids are not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

And they are building MORE apartments/condos in Bethesda, in the Westbard area. Where will those kids go? The school that is zoned for Westbard is something like 150 students overcapacity, at over 800 students. Should the school go to 1000 students, so the kids can start lunch shifts at 9:30 am until 2:30 pm? There may never be enough housing made available in Bethesda to make sure that everyone who wants to live there can live there affordably. The MPDU units are gone in a flash. So I guess the solution people here want is to make a county-wide lottery so that people who spent their life's savings on houses in certain neighborhoods (and left DC to avoid constant school lotteries) will just have to suck it up and go wherever their lottery draw sends them? And when the entire county is in gridlock because people are schlepping their kids all over the county daily, then what? I mean, really -- this is the utopia people are hoping for? You won't get diversity because the people who have the means will leave MCPS or MoCo altogether if they have to bus their kids out of what they consider a good school cluster.

In any event, my kids' classes ARE actually pretty diverse. It's not like it was in DC, that's for sure, but it's not lily-white...in part because MY kids are not.

They will go to new schools that MCPS needs to build, with the developers contributing to the school construction funding. This is not an argument against building apartments and affordable housing. It's an argument for making school construction keep up with housing construction.

Also, I think that there is a middle ground here, which you are missing. It's good to build more housing where people want more housing, even if that doesn't mean that every person who wants to live there will be able to live there. It's good to have school policies that reduce segregation, even if that doesn't mean that every child in MCPS will go to a unsegregated school. Less segregation may not be the perfect outcome, but it's a whole lot better than more segregation.

And yes, if you bought in Bethesda based on the assumption that that you would never be rezoned, then you were gambling, and the whole point about gambling is sometimes you win the gamble, and sometimes you don't.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

That's great! but wait, Wootton is already super-crowded, we need to bus some kids out to RM. Who to bus out? En ..... definitely the white kids, otherwise it won't make any difference. We can't bus out all the white kids, have to leave some to preserve the diversity. to make it fair, the best performing white students should be bused out so that the inter-school achievement gap can be further reduced.

Wootton High School was at 105% of capacity last year. If that's super-crowded, I wonder what you call Matsunaga Elementary School, which was at 147% of capacity last year.

RM is projected to be more overcrowded that Wooton, so this is not such a good plan.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

And they are building MORE apartments/condos in Bethesda, in the Westbard area. Where will those kids go? The school that is zoned for Westbard is something like 150 students overcapacity, at over 800 students. Should the school go to 1000 students, so the kids can start lunch shifts at 9:30 am until 2:30 pm? There may never be enough housing made available in Bethesda to make sure that everyone who wants to live there can live there affordably. The MPDU units are gone in a flash. So I guess the solution people here want is to make a county-wide lottery so that people who spent their life's savings on houses in certain neighborhoods (and left DC to avoid constant school lotteries) will just have to suck it up and go wherever their lottery draw sends them? And when the entire county is in gridlock because people are schlepping their kids all over the county daily, then what? I mean, really -- this is the utopia people are hoping for? You won't get diversity because the people who have the means will leave MCPS or MoCo altogether if they have to bus their kids out of what they consider a good school cluster.

In any event, my kids' classes ARE actually pretty diverse. It's not like it was in DC, that's for sure, but it's not lily-white...in part because MY kids are not.

They will go to new schools that MCPS needs to build, with the developers contributing to the school construction funding. This is not an argument against building apartments and affordable housing. It's an argument for making school construction keep up with housing construction.

Also, I think that there is a middle ground here, which you are missing. It's good to build more housing where people want more housing, even if that doesn't mean that every person who wants to live there will be able to live there. It's good to have school policies that reduce segregation, even if that doesn't mean that every child in MCPS will go to a unsegregated school. Less segregation may not be the perfect outcome, but it's a whole lot better than more segregation.

And yes, if you bought in Bethesda based on the assumption that that you would never be rezoned, then you were gambling, and the whole point about gambling is sometimes you win the gamble, and sometimes you don't.

I agree that development should be made to consider schooling needs. I find it bizarre that developers aren't contributing to school construction or even apparently required to consider where students living in their buildings/developments would go. I don't disagree that policies to enhance diversity are good. My problem is the idea that this is the silver bullet to closing the achievement gap -- that if only everyone could live in Potomac or Bethesda, or go to a W school, our problems would be solved.

And no one buys in a school district in MoCo thinking they could be involuntarily rezoned to a school across the county on a lottery basis. If I wanted to subject my kids to that, I would have stayed in DC. Rezoning on the margins, yes, that's always a possibility, but that's not what people on this thread are advocating for -- because apparently even the margins of Potomac and Bethesda are too rich and there's no other way to spread or dilute the wealth of these communities besides forced busing county-wide.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

That's great! but wait, Wootton is already super-crowded, we need to bus some kids out to RM. Who to bus out? En ..... definitely the white kids, otherwise it won't make any difference. We can't bus out all the white kids, have to leave some to preserve the diversity. to make it fair, the best performing white students should be bused out so that the inter-school achievement gap can be further reduced.

Wootton High School was at 105% of capacity last year. If that's super-crowded, I wonder what you call Matsunaga Elementary School, which was at 147% of capacity last year.

RM is projected to be more overcrowded that Wooton, so this is not such a good plan.

+1 Pretty much all of the RM ES clusters are way over capacity, while some of the Wootton ESs are undercapacity, so by the time these ES kids get to HS, RM will be way more overcrowded than Wootton.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

I agree that development should be made to consider schooling needs. I find it bizarre that developers aren't contributing to school construction or even apparently required to consider where students living in their buildings/developments would go. I don't disagree that policies to enhance diversity are good. My problem is the idea that this is the silver bullet to closing the achievement gap -- that if only everyone could live in Potomac or Bethesda, or go to a W school, our problems would be solved.

They do, and they are. Just not enough to keep up with the demand.

http://permittingservices.montgomerycountymd.gov/dps/fee/ImpactTaxes.aspx
http://www6.montgomerycountymd.gov/content/council/pdf/agenda/cm/2012/120924/20120924_PHED1.pdf

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

And they are building MORE apartments/condos in Bethesda, in the Westbard area. Where will those kids go? The school that is zoned for Westbard is something like 150 students overcapacity, at over 800 students. Should the school go to 1000 students, so the kids can start lunch shifts at 9:30 am until 2:30 pm? There may never be enough housing made available in Bethesda to make sure that everyone who wants to live there can live there affordably. The MPDU units are gone in a flash. So I guess the solution people here want is to make a county-wide lottery so that people who spent their life's savings on houses in certain neighborhoods (and left DC to avoid constant school lotteries) will just have to suck it up and go wherever their lottery draw sends them? And when the entire county is in gridlock because people are schlepping their kids all over the county daily, then what? I mean, really -- this is the utopia people are hoping for? You won't get diversity because the people who have the means will leave MCPS or MoCo altogether if they have to bus their kids out of what they consider a good school cluster.

In any event, my kids' classes ARE actually pretty diverse. It's not like it was in DC, that's for sure, but it's not lily-white...in part because MY kids are not.

They will go to new schools that MCPS needs to build, with the developers contributing to the school construction funding. This is not an argument against building apartments and affordable housing. It's an argument for making school construction keep up with housing construction.

Also, I think that there is a middle ground here, which you are missing. It's good to build more housing where people want more housing, even if that doesn't mean that every person who wants to live there will be able to live there. It's good to have school policies that reduce segregation, even if that doesn't mean that every child in MCPS will go to a unsegregated school. Less segregation may not be the perfect outcome, but it's a whole lot better than more segregation.

And yes, if you bought in Bethesda based on the assumption that that you would never be rezoned, then you were gambling, and the whole point about gambling is sometimes you win the gamble, and sometimes you don't.

I agree that development should be made to consider schooling needs. I find it bizarre that developers aren't contributing to school construction or even apparently required to consider where students living in their buildings/developments would go. I don't disagree that policies to enhance diversity are good. My problem is the idea that this is the silver bullet to closing the achievement gap -- that if only everyone could live in Potomac or Bethesda, or go to a W school, our problems would be solved.

And no one buys in a school district in MoCo thinking they could be involuntarily rezoned to a school across the county on a lottery basis. If I wanted to subject my kids to that, I would have stayed in DC. Rezoning on the margins, yes, that's always a possibility, but that's not what people on this thread are advocating for -- because apparently even the margins of Potomac and Bethesda are too rich and there's no other way to spread or dilute the wealth of these communities besides forced busing county-wide.

It seems to me that the people who live in Potomac or Bethesda are considered the wealthier citizens of the county. And if they had to go into a county wide lottery, there would be a good chance that those people might pull their children out of the lottery system and choose other educational opportunities. If the local residents were not a part of the W schools, what would that leave you and what benefit would other students gain?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I agree that development should be made to consider schooling needs. I find it bizarre that developers aren't contributing to school construction or even apparently required to consider where students living in their buildings/developments would go. I don't disagree that policies to enhance diversity are good. My problem is the idea that this is the silver bullet to closing the achievement gap -- that if only everyone could live in Potomac or Bethesda, or go to a W school, our problems would be solved.

They do, and they are. Just not enough to keep up with the demand.

http://permittingservices.montgomerycountymd.gov/dps/fee/ImpactTaxes.aspx
http://www6.montgomerycountymd.gov/content/council/pdf/agenda/cm/2012/120924/20120924_PHED1.pdf

Yeah, I don't think what they're doing is sufficient. They need to actually build more schools. Everywhere on the western side of MoCo I'm seeing large apartment/condo buildings going up, but I'm not hearing of new schools being planned. Wootton might be underenrolled (or less overcrowded), but in close-in places with metro accessibility (Rockville, Bethesda), the schools are really overcrowded with no relief in sight.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

It seems to me that the people who live in Potomac or Bethesda are considered the wealthier citizens of the county. And if they had to go into a county wide lottery, there would be a good chance that those people might pull their children out of the lottery system and choose other educational opportunities. If the local residents were not a part of the W schools, what would that leave you and what benefit would other students gain?

Then we must find a way to change a law to force integration. Why can't the poor have the freedom to chose whatever education opportunities for their kids. Every kid deserves good education, not just the ones with money.

[Anonymous]

The RM cluster should not have to take 1 more person. They should all be sent to Wootton, where there is plenty of capacity at their ESs and their brand new MS. It is ridiculous.