Educational Inequities in MCPS

[Anonymous]

You can’t keep blaming this on slavery.

[Anonymous]

LMAO what moron wrote this:

"In theory, Montgomery County should spend the same amount of around 17 thousand dollars per student. However, in practice, the high-performing expectation of the county leads to funding that sways in the favor of high-performing schools."

Lower performing schools do get more resources, lower student teacher ratios, all of that. If there were numbers showing that wealthy schools get more, it would be plastered everywhere. I hate that people oversimplify this issue with lies.

(I saw this as someone who is fine spending more where needs are greater. But don't misrepresent the actual facts!)

[Anonymous]

My father grew up dirt poor. He worked from the time he was a young kid until he retired. He worked hard at school, on homework, at work, and he excelled in life. He didn't let poverty be an excuse for not succeeding academically. Kids at the "W" schools work their asses off. The author of this article paints a picture of easy success for "W" school kids. It is not easy. They work, work, work and they CARE about doing well at school. There will need to be cultural shift for their to be a reduction in the learning gap. There are plenty of students who do incredibly well at the poorer performing schools because they work hard. There are tutoring programs for kids who can't afford a tutor in Montgomery County. Excuses, excuses. Work hard and you will succeed. Make school and education a priority in your family, and your children will succeed. The harder you work, the luckier you get.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Fix the root of the problem. Bussing kids around to inflate test scores does not work. Universal Pre-K, hire the best teachers and pay the best ones amazingly well. Decrease the number of standardized testing, give teachers more freedom to teach based on their students, and make all programs accessible to everyone. Free tutoring available to everyone. Oh, and demand an environment that is conducive to learning. Fights and being disrespectful to teachers will not be tolerated. None of this restorative justice crap. Basically make all schools great.

None of those things fix a broken home environment or unengaged and uninvolved parents, which are the most significant contributing to students' poor performance in school and life.

There's nothing we can do to fix that though. All I know is that what they're doing now at the schools...it's not working. I pulled my kid from a high farms middle school to a much lower one. Curriculum is the same but the stark difference is that there is such rampant misbehavior and fights at the high farms school and the administrators don't do anything about it vs the low farm school where the kids are much more respectful and kids can actually concentrate on learning. When the environment is conducive to learning, everyone benefits..the teachers are happier, parents are happier and students are happier. We need to start expecting better from all students and stop tolerating the disrespectful behavior at schools.

What can they do, truly? What are they allowed to do any more?

"Expecting" better behavior or "not tolerating" bad behavior is just buzzwords.

Most of the old school consequences are gone (suspensions, separate schools for disruptive violent kids etc). Esp if parents are totally disengaged and not imposing their own consequences, the teachers and admin are SOL.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Fix the root of the problem. Bussing kids around to inflate test scores does not work. Universal Pre-K, hire the best teachers and pay the best ones amazingly well. Decrease the number of standardized testing, give teachers more freedom to teach based on their students, and make all programs accessible to everyone. Free tutoring available to everyone. Oh, and demand an environment that is conducive to learning. Fights and being disrespectful to teachers will not be tolerated. None of this restorative justice crap. Basically make all schools great.

None of those things fix a broken home environment or unengaged and uninvolved parents, which are the most significant contributing to students' poor performance in school and life.

There's nothing we can do to fix that though. All I know is that what they're doing now at the schools...it's not working. I pulled my kid from a high farms middle school to a much lower one. Curriculum is the same but the stark difference is that there is such rampant misbehavior and fights at the high farms school and the administrators don't do anything about it vs the low farm school where the kids are much more respectful and kids can actually concentrate on learning. When the environment is conducive to learning, everyone benefits..the teachers are happier, parents are happier and students are happier. We need to start expecting better from all students and stop tolerating the disrespectful behavior at schools.

But does discipline alone get us the healthy learning environment that you're describing? It doesn't seem like it.

[Anonymous]

As mentioned in the article, many of the high farms schools have non existent PTA's. My DD is at a title 1 school with a non existent PTA. While she gets a small class size (which is nice) there is no community spirit. No PTA means no after school clubs, no buses to after school community centers or programs that I see other schools getting. There are few school based events other than the ones the school plans. It's very unequal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Right, it's long established fact that money, sweat, interest, novel programs- none of these things solve education problems. LeBron James ' I promise school failed with 3+ years of failing 8th grade math tests.
Hedgies have tried innumerable times and failed.

The problem is that home stress and uneducated parents are the problem and the school district has no authority to try to fix that.

drop some links regarding the lebron school failing there achievement tests.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Most of educational achievement is genetic. We probably should help people get pregnant with children with better intellectual and social emotional potential.

This. If the 140 IQ's and 90 IQ's had sex and got pregnant, achievement gap will close. Any DCUM's willing to get pregnant with a 140 IQer?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As mentioned in the article, many of the high farms schools have non existent PTA's. My DD is at a title 1 school with a non existent PTA. While she gets a small class size (which is nice) there is no community spirit. No PTA means no after school clubs, no buses to after school community centers or programs that I see other schools getting. There are few school based events other than the ones the school plans. It's very unequal.

They don't need clubs, they need 2 more hours of school. MCPS should provide that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Fix the root of the problem. Bussing kids around to inflate test scores does not work. Universal Pre-K, hire the best teachers and pay the best ones amazingly well. Decrease the number of standardized testing, give teachers more freedom to teach based on their students, and make all programs accessible to everyone. Free tutoring available to everyone. Oh, and demand an environment that is conducive to learning. Fights and being disrespectful to teachers will not be tolerated. None of this restorative justice crap. Basically make all schools great.

None of those things fix a broken home environment or unengaged and uninvolved parents, which are the most significant contributing to students' poor performance in school and life.

There's nothing we can do to fix that though. All I know is that what they're doing now at the schools...it's not working. I pulled my kid from a high farms middle school to a much lower one. Curriculum is the same but the stark difference is that there is such rampant misbehavior and fights at the high farms school and the administrators don't do anything about it vs the low farm school where the kids are much more respectful and kids can actually concentrate on learning. When the environment is conducive to learning, everyone benefits..the teachers are happier, parents are happier and students are happier. We need to start expecting better from all students and stop tolerating the disrespectful behavior at schools.

What can they do, truly? What are they allowed to do any more?

"Expecting" better behavior or "not tolerating" bad behavior is just buzzwords.

Most of the old school consequences are gone (suspensions, separate schools for disruptive violent kids etc). Esp if parents are totally disengaged and not imposing their own consequences, the teachers and admin are SOL.

DP. Well if it’s a lost cause than families that can will keep leaving (similar to PP we tried a high farms school but it was awful).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Right, it's long established fact that money, sweat, interest, novel programs- none of these things solve education problems. LeBron James ' I promise school failed with 3+ years of failing 8th grade math tests.
Hedgies have tried innumerable times and failed.

The problem is that home stress and uneducated parents are the problem and the school district has no authority to try to fix that.

drop some links regarding the lebron school failing there achievement tests.

DP but Mark Zuckerberg gave $100M to Newark public schools and it vanished without a trace of impact

[Anonymous]

Water seeks it's own level.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Right, it's long established fact that money, sweat, interest, novel programs- none of these things solve education problems. LeBron James ' I promise school failed with 3+ years of failing 8th grade math tests.
Hedgies have tried innumerable times and failed.

The problem is that home stress and uneducated parents are the problem and the school district has no authority to try to fix that.

drop some links regarding the lebron school failing there achievement tests.

https://cbsaustin.com/news/nation-world/every-eighth-grader-failed-state-math-tests-at-lebron-james-backed-i-promise-school-ohio-akron-northeast-oh-io-education-school-crisis-in-the-classroom-

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Fix the root of the problem. Bussing kids around to inflate test scores does not work. Universal Pre-K, hire the best teachers and pay the best ones amazingly well. Decrease the number of standardized testing, give teachers more freedom to teach based on their students, and make all programs accessible to everyone. Free tutoring available to everyone. Oh, and demand an environment that is conducive to learning. Fights and being disrespectful to teachers will not be tolerated. None of this restorative justice crap. Basically make all schools great.

None of those things fix a broken home environment or unengaged and uninvolved parents, which are the most significant contributing to students' poor performance in school and life.

There's nothing we can do to fix that though. All I know is that what they're doing now at the schools...it's not working. I pulled my kid from a high farms middle school to a much lower one. Curriculum is the same but the stark difference is that there is such rampant misbehavior and fights at the high farms school and the administrators don't do anything about it vs the low farm school where the kids are much more respectful and kids can actually concentrate on learning. When the environment is conducive to learning, everyone benefits..the teachers are happier, parents are happier and students are happier. We need to start expecting better from all students and stop tolerating the disrespectful behavior at schools.

But does discipline alone get us the healthy learning environment that you're describing? It doesn't seem like it.

Yeah. They do. They were taken away because of wrong think:
More poc get in trouble therefore the system is racist and we need to stop giving consequences.
What that leaves everyone with is stressful school, stressed out teachers where everyone does worse.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Right, it's long established fact that money, sweat, interest, novel programs- none of these things solve education problems. LeBron James ' I promise school failed with 3+ years of failing 8th grade math tests.
Hedgies have tried innumerable times and failed.

The problem is that home stress and uneducated parents are the problem and the school district has no authority to try to fix that.

drop some links regarding the lebron school failing there achievement tests.

Buddy if you can't get out there and google it yourself, i know which side of the achievement chasm you're living on.