Why aren’t the Ws part of the consortiums?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a W-school alum and current DCC-bounded resident, you could not pay me to send my kids to a W school. Nope. No, thank you. Why do you assume those of us who live here even want that “opportunity”?

+1, There is nothing that special beyond bragging rights. I went, which is why we purposely choose not to live in that area. I don't get why people assume things. We comfortably make enough to but most people wouldn't guess our income.

My children attended a W school and we definitely don’t think that the education was anything to brag about.

What I don’t understand is the idea that parents at a school can challenge whether or not a school is in a consortium or not. I wouldn’t care if students wanted to come to our school. Perhaps it would create greater diversity. If MCPS wants outside boundary students to come to a W school then there’s nothing parents can do to stop it. However, we would need more classroom space and teachers because our school is overcapacity.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a W-school alum and current DCC-bounded resident, you could not pay me to send my kids to a W school. Nope. No, thank you. Why do you assume those of us who live here even want that “opportunity”?

+1, There is nothing that special beyond bragging rights. I went, which is why we purposely choose not to live in that area. I don't get why people assume things. We comfortably make enough to but most people wouldn't guess our income.

My children attended a W school and we definitely don’t think that the education was anything to brag about.

What I don’t understand is the idea that parents at a school can challenge whether or not a school is in a consortium or not. I wouldn’t care if students wanted to come to our school. Perhaps it would create greater diversity. If MCPS wants outside boundary students to come to a W school then there’s nothing parents can do to stop it. However, we would need more classroom space and teachers because our school is overcapacity.

Except most families move to that area to get away from the schools in the consortium and then it’s a transportation issue.

[Anonymous]

Going to a non-neighborhood school sucks. I did that, and hated ithe commute and not living near my friends. We moved to MoCo from PG solely because of schools and certainly would not have done that if I didn’t know they could attend a neighborhood school.
The dirty truth is that MoCo is using the rich folks’ tax base to find all the county schools and services. One of the top reasons people move to MoCo is for the neighborhood public schools. Without them, I’d like in DC and cut my commute in half . It’s also true for the state—MoCo pays a dispoprtionate amount of the state’s revenue. It’s too easy to leave MoCo and find a perfectly nice house elsewhere, so if you remove the main incentive for upper income people to live here, you’ll likely see it in your revenue stream.
Fwiw, I had never heard of a W school before moving here. We just wanted a suburban neighbor close to metro where kids attended the local schools—most of the kids in our PG neighborhood went to privates.

[Anonymous]

People on this thread don't seem to realize that you can still attend your local school, even if it's part of a consortium. You just rank it #1 on your choice form and you're guaranteed a spot there. So no one is forced to attend another school, but some may want to make that choice because of different programs that are offered.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:People on this thread don't seem to realize that you can still attend your local school, even if it's part of a consortium. You just rank it #1 on your choice form and you're guaranteed a spot there. So no one is forced to attend another school, but some may want to make that choice because of different programs that are offered.

The w school families are complaining they don’t have school choice like the dcc has. Granted they could if they moved.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People on this thread don't seem to realize that you can still attend your local school, even if it's part of a consortium. You just rank it #1 on your choice form and you're guaranteed a spot there. So no one is forced to attend another school, but some may want to make that choice because of different programs that are offered.

The w school families are complaining they don’t have school choice like the dcc has. Granted they could if they moved.

Where are they complaining about that? I don't read OP's post that way.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Going to a non-neighborhood school sucks. I did that, and hated ithe commute and not living near my friends. We moved to MoCo from PG solely because of schools and certainly would not have done that if I didn’t know they could attend a neighborhood school.
The dirty truth is that MoCo is using the rich folks’ tax base to find all the county schools and services. One of the top reasons people move to MoCo is for the neighborhood public schools. Without them, I’d like in DC and cut my commute in half . It’s also true for the state—MoCo pays a dispoprtionate amount of the state’s revenue. It’s too easy to leave MoCo and find a perfectly nice house elsewhere, so if you remove the main incentive for upper income people to live here, you’ll likely see it in your revenue stream.
Fwiw, I had never heard of a W school before moving here. We just wanted a suburban neighbor close to metro where kids attended the local schools—most of the kids in our PG neighborhood went to privates.

Some schools in MCPS have local neighborhoods whereas there are many that do not. Several even bus cross-county or have oddly shaped boundaries where the school is a remote corner. Perhaps, you live in one of the few that isn't like that but most are not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Going to a non-neighborhood school sucks. I did that, and hated ithe commute and not living near my friends. We moved to MoCo from PG solely because of schools and certainly would not have done that if I didn’t know they could attend a neighborhood school.
The dirty truth is that MoCo is using the rich folks’ tax base to find all the county schools and services. One of the top reasons people move to MoCo is for the neighborhood public schools. Without them, I’d like in DC and cut my commute in half . It’s also true for the state—MoCo pays a dispoprtionate amount of the state’s revenue. It’s too easy to leave MoCo and find a perfectly nice house elsewhere, so if you remove the main incentive for upper income people to live here, you’ll likely see it in your revenue stream.
Fwiw, I had never heard of a W school before moving here. We just wanted a suburban neighbor close to metro where kids attended the local schools—most of the kids in our PG neighborhood went to privates.

Some schools in MCPS have local neighborhoods whereas there are many that do not. Several even bus cross-county or have oddly shaped boundaries where the school is a remote corner. Perhaps, you live in one of the few that isn't like that but most are not.

8 of the 20ish high schools in MCPS are part of the two consortia. The rest are local. No one buses "cross-county" except for magnets and special ed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Going to a non-neighborhood school sucks. I did that, and hated ithe commute and not living near my friends. We moved to MoCo from PG solely because of schools and certainly would not have done that if I didn’t know they could attend a neighborhood school.
The dirty truth is that MoCo is using the rich folks’ tax base to find all the county schools and services. One of the top reasons people move to MoCo is for the neighborhood public schools. Without them, I’d like in DC and cut my commute in half . It’s also true for the state—MoCo pays a dispoprtionate amount of the state’s revenue. It’s too easy to leave MoCo and find a perfectly nice house elsewhere, so if you remove the main incentive for upper income people to live here, you’ll likely see it in your revenue stream.
Fwiw, I had never heard of a W school before moving here. We just wanted a suburban neighbor close to metro where kids attended the local schools—most of the kids in our PG neighborhood went to privates.

Some schools in MCPS have local neighborhoods whereas there are many that do not. Several even bus cross-county or have oddly shaped boundaries where the school is a remote corner. Perhaps, you live in one of the few that isn't like that but most are not.

8 of the 20ish high schools in MCPS are part of the two consortia. The rest are local. No one buses "cross-county" except for magnets and special ed.

And even the 8 consortia schools have local base areas, so kids aren't bussed to other schools unless they prefer them over the local school.

[Anonymous]

Pure and simple: Wealthy people think they are inherently better, entitled, virtuous, smarter, harder working, and all-up more deserving of a top public school than poor and middle class people who cannot afford the W school neighborhoods. Consortiums would give poor and middle class families access to the schools that wealthy families have bought into in order to AVOID us.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Going to a non-neighborhood school sucks. I did that, and hated ithe commute and not living near my friends. We moved to MoCo from PG solely because of schools and certainly would not have done that if I didn’t know they could attend a neighborhood school.
The dirty truth is that MoCo is using the rich folks’ tax base to find all the county schools and services. One of the top reasons people move to MoCo is for the neighborhood public schools. Without them, I’d like in DC and cut my commute in half . It’s also true for the state—MoCo pays a dispoprtionate amount of the state’s revenue. It’s too easy to leave MoCo and find a perfectly nice house elsewhere, so if you remove the main incentive for upper income people to live here, you’ll likely see it in your revenue stream.
Fwiw, I had never heard of a W school before moving here. We just wanted a suburban neighbor close to metro where kids attended the local schools—most of the kids in our PG neighborhood went to privates.

Some schools in MCPS have local neighborhoods whereas there are many that do not. Several even bus cross-county or have oddly shaped boundaries where the school is a remote corner. Perhaps, you live in one of the few that isn't like that but most are not.

8 of the 20ish high schools in MCPS are part of the two consortia. The rest are local. No one buses "cross-county" except for magnets and special ed.

And even the 8 consortia schools have local base areas, so kids aren't bussed to other schools unless they prefer them over the local school.

I’m curious to know from a percentage of MCPS funds are from taxes from W school neighborhoods vs taxes from other neighborhoods. You seem to assume that these Ws pay a majority of taxes and I wonder if that’s true given that there are wealthy people throughout the county - not all of them live in W neighborhoods. Any actual evidence you can share for your assertion?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Pure and simple: Wealthy people think they are inherently better, entitled, virtuous, smarter, harder working, and all-up more deserving of a top public school than poor and middle class people who cannot afford the W school neighborhoods. Consortiums would give poor and middle class families access to the schools that wealthy families have bought into in order to AVOID us.

Not everyone is poor or middle class though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Going to a non-neighborhood school sucks. I did that, and hated ithe commute and not living near my friends. We moved to MoCo from PG solely because of schools and certainly would not have done that if I didn’t know they could attend a neighborhood school.
The dirty truth is that MoCo is using the rich folks’ tax base to find all the county schools and services. One of the top reasons people move to MoCo is for the neighborhood public schools. Without them, I’d like in DC and cut my commute in half . It’s also true for the state—MoCo pays a dispoprtionate amount of the state’s revenue. It’s too easy to leave MoCo and find a perfectly nice house elsewhere, so if you remove the main incentive for upper income people to live here, you’ll likely see it in your revenue stream.
Fwiw, I had never heard of a W school before moving here. We just wanted a suburban neighbor close to metro where kids attended the local schools—most of the kids in our PG neighborhood went to privates.

Yes, the wealthy pay a large portion of the taxes, they also benefit from the services (for example, if the companies they own employ Montgomery County residents, they benefit from the education those residents got here).

School systems all over the country are required to spend extra money on students with additional needs (low-income kids, kids with disabilities, and English language learners). MCPS receives extra funding from the Federal government and the state based on the numbers of students in these groups. It MUST spend the federal dollars on those students (that is what Title I schools are). It is not required to spend all of the state dollars on those students, and it does not. So the wealthy students actually benefit from the low-income students, because the school system gets extra dollars based on the number of low-income students but it just throws that money into the general budget.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Pure and simple: Wealthy people think they are inherently better, entitled, virtuous, smarter, harder working, and all-up more deserving of a top public school than poor and middle class people who cannot afford the W school neighborhoods. Consortiums would give poor and middle class families access to the schools that wealthy families have bought into in order to AVOID us.

Not everyone is poor or middle class though.

Of course not, but that’s not the perception of those in the W school neighborhoods. There’s a reason they picked those locations and there’s a reason they didn’t pick Silver Spring or Rockville or Gaithersburg or North Kensington.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The school choice is to encourage students who might otherwise not go to those schools go to them (i.e. smarter kids to bring up scores).

In terms of demographics (which are often strongly correlated to standardized test scores), the DCC neighborhoods are fairly similar overall. So it's not really changing anything much in the larger picture if a smart Northwood-zoned kid goes to Wheaton for engineering, while a Humanities-focused Wheaton kid shifts to Einstein or Kennedy for their IB programs, or an especially motivated Blair kid wants to go to Northwood for the MC2 community college program. Magnet programs aside, I'm not sure the DCC Choice program really does much to change test scores at any given school because there's so much movement among the kids with specific academic interests.

But Choice does allow MCPS to offer specialized programs at a single school, rather than trying to increase the number of offerings at each school to support a broad range of interests and talents. Which means kids with strong interests in a specific area have options they might not otherwise have.