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

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It depends on the school, but there are some incredibly diverse schools in Montgomery County. That is one of the things I like most about my kid's schools.

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Interesting. Here are the moco stats:

Per the map 90% of black and Latino kids are in majority non-white schools while being 21% and 26% respectively of the county's kids overall.
47% of white kids are in majority white schools despite making up 34% of the county.

With whites being only 34% of the county it's interesting that a school that fit the county averages would be strongly non-white which probably helps some to account for the VERY high numbers of black & latino kids in non-white majority schools.

While housing policy could help with this challenge, it's not automatically the case that that is the only solution. Busing could be used - although of course it's politically challenging to consider. Also deciding to create a "down county consortium" that excludes the SW portion of "down county" is pretty funny. That was a school line decision made - not simply a natural housing policy consequence.

Changes in housing policy could do something about this but aren't the only way to address the segregation.

Agreed. But housing policy = school integration policy. You really cannot separate them.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/05/15/housing-segregation-is-holding-back-the-promise-of-brown-v-board-of-education/

I agree that the "down county consortium" really means the "have-nots consortium, we'll leave the western downcounty out of it." LOL On a related note, many of the neighborhoods in the eastern downcounty areas are districted to schools for economic diversity engineering, whereas this doesn't occur in the western downcounty areas. W school students *could* be bused to e.g. Rockville or Gaithersburg or to the east. But they are not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:But a school can be "majority non-white" and still be very diverse. I think this describes a lot of MoCo schools.

Did you read the article?

Not PP you are quoting, but yes, I did rad the article. DD's school follows the county percentages of black, white and hispanic almost exactly. I consider it to be a diverse school. No single race is in the majority, and there are students from many different countries.

I agree - our school is not majority (over 50%) of any race. On international night - there were around 30 countries represented.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

I agree that the "down county consortium" really means the "have-nots consortium, we'll leave the western downcounty out of it." LOL On a related note, many of the neighborhoods in the eastern downcounty areas are districted to schools for economic diversity engineering, whereas this doesn't occur in the western downcounty areas. W school students *could* be bused to e.g. Rockville or Gaithersburg or to the east. But they are not.

It occurs in the upcounty schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I agree that the "down county consortium" really means the "have-nots consortium, we'll leave the western downcounty out of it." LOL On a related note, many of the neighborhoods in the eastern downcounty areas are districted to schools for economic diversity engineering, whereas this doesn't occur in the western downcounty areas. W school students *could* be bused to e.g. Rockville or Gaithersburg or to the east. But they are not.

It occurs in the upcounty schools.

what occurs in the upcounty schools?

[Anonymous]

I raised the busing question on the thread about the new BCC middle school - we are in the Rosemary Hills catchment although not the neighborhood and while I love our schools (kids in both elementaries), I do question why these kids are bused while none of the other W schools are subject to any effort to promote desegregation. There was a very articulate and well-informed (nonpolemical) response in that thread explaining the difficulties of gerrymandering diverse elementaries in much of Bethesda and Potomac.

I don't have a good solution to any of this. But I do wonder whether the county is exposed to civil rights challenges.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:But a school can be "majority non-white" and still be very diverse. I think this describes a lot of MoCo schools.

Did you read the article?

Not PP you are quoting, but yes, I did rad the article. DD's school follows the county percentages of black, white and hispanic almost exactly. I consider it to be a diverse school. No single race is in the majority, and there are students from many different countries.

I agree - our school is not majority (over 50%) of any race. On international night - there were around 30 countries represented.

That said - and I do realize there are schools in MoCo that aren't as diverse. But a lot are. I realized that when we were searching for a home and looking at schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I agree that the "down county consortium" really means the "have-nots consortium, we'll leave the western downcounty out of it." LOL On a related note, many of the neighborhoods in the eastern downcounty areas are districted to schools for economic diversity engineering, whereas this doesn't occur in the western downcounty areas. W school students *could* be bused to e.g. Rockville or Gaithersburg or to the east. But they are not.

It occurs in the upcounty schools.

what occurs in the upcounty schools?

Zoning schools for economic diversity.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:But a school can be "majority non-white" and still be very diverse. I think this describes a lot of MoCo schools.

Did you read the article?

Not PP you are quoting, but yes, I did rad the article. DD's school follows the county percentages of black, white and hispanic almost exactly. I consider it to be a diverse school. No single race is in the majority, and there are students from many different countries.

I agree - our school is not majority (over 50%) of any race. On international night - there were around 30 countries represented.

That said - and I do realize there are schools in MoCo that aren't as diverse. But a lot are. I realized that when we were searching for a home and looking at schools.

+1 My DC's ES school is not majority any one race. I quite like that about the school. This is why we chose to buy where we did.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I raised the busing question on the thread about the new BCC middle school - we are in the Rosemary Hills catchment although not the neighborhood and while I love our schools (kids in both elementaries), I do question why these kids are bused while none of the other W schools are subject to any effort to promote desegregation. There was a very articulate and well-informed (nonpolemical) response in that thread explaining the difficulties of gerrymandering diverse elementaries in much of Bethesda and Potomac.

I don't have a good solution to any of this. But I do wonder whether the county is exposed to civil rights challenges.

We're a mixed-race family in a pretty diverse neighborhood in the Whitman cluster. One year one of our kids had a classroom that was close to 50% non-white. It's true that diversity overall is less than elsewhere in the county. The cluster is heavily single-family homes, and yes, they are expensive. There are plans to build a lot of new apartments in the Westbard area of Bethesda, which may create some lower-cost housing opportunities and could help with diversity as well. I support the idea, but want the county/city to think about how this will impact the schools, which are very overcrowded as it is. Wood Acres, which would serve most or all of the new units in Westbard, has something like 850 kids already and is about to close for 18 months to undergo a much needed expansion. Other than that, creating more diversity might require busing, which, given where Bethesda and Potomac are, could end up subjecting kids to heinously long bus rides. I agree with the previous poster that gerrymandering boundaries would be hard because of geographics and existing overcapacity for most of the schools. I don't see an easy solution either.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I raised the busing question on the thread about the new BCC middle school - we are in the Rosemary Hills catchment although not the neighborhood and while I love our schools (kids in both elementaries), I do question why these kids are bused while none of the other W schools are subject to any effort to promote desegregation. There was a very articulate and well-informed (nonpolemical) response in that thread explaining the difficulties of gerrymandering diverse elementaries in much of Bethesda and Potomac.

I don't have a good solution to any of this. But I do wonder whether the county is exposed to civil rights challenges.

We're a mixed-race family in a pretty diverse neighborhood in the Whitman cluster. One year one of our kids had a classroom that was close to 50% non-white. It's true that diversity overall is less than elsewhere in the county. The cluster is heavily single-family homes, and yes, they are expensive. There are plans to build a lot of new apartments in the Westbard area of Bethesda, which may create some lower-cost housing opportunities and could help with diversity as well. I support the idea, but want the county/city to think about how this will impact the schools, which are very overcrowded as it is. Wood Acres, which would serve most or all of the new units in Westbard, has something like 850 kids already and is about to close for 18 months to undergo a much needed expansion. Other than that, creating more diversity might require busing, which, given where Bethesda and Potomac are, could end up subjecting kids to heinously long bus rides. I agree with the previous poster that gerrymandering boundaries would be hard because of geographics and existing overcapacity for most of the schools. I don't see an easy solution either.

Besides most parents don't want their kids around Whitman kids, so there is an issue getting them to want to bus.

[Anonymous]

This is the line in the article that just isn't true. Yes, segregation is still an issue, but many black and Hispanic children attend very diverse schools in MoCo. Just because a school is majority non-white doesn't make it not diverse.

"Montgomery County, Md. is relatively diverse, with 34 percent of students white, 21 percent black and 26 percent Latino. But nearly 90 percent of both black and Hispanic children attend majority non-white schools. These children, in other words, live in a diverse county, but they don't attend diverse schools."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:and why did you buy your house where you did?

what are the real reasons? you had money to spend, you wanted a good school district, you wanted low crime so far so good?

or did you want bad schhools, high crime and you thoguht it would be good to raise kids around such factors?

if you are trying to make a point -- just come out with it.

trying to? it is a point that is very obvious. poeple want to be in good arease when they can afford it, it will never go away, it will always be the differnece. simple as that. look at a school in WV, one in Charleston vs one in morgantown, you can't compare the two because one area is better then the other simple as that.

PP, you obviously did not get a great schooling, as your grammar and punctuation is atrocious. So, is is quite a stretch to take seriously whatever you are frothing about!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I raised the busing question on the thread about the new BCC middle school - we are in the Rosemary Hills catchment although not the neighborhood and while I love our schools (kids in both elementaries), I do question why these kids are bused while none of the other W schools are subject to any effort to promote desegregation. There was a very articulate and well-informed (nonpolemical) response in that thread explaining the difficulties of gerrymandering diverse elementaries in much of Bethesda and Potomac.

I don't have a good solution to any of this. But I do wonder whether the county is exposed to civil rights challenges.

We're a mixed-race family in a pretty diverse neighborhood in the Whitman cluster. One year one of our kids had a classroom that was close to 50% non-white. It's true that diversity overall is less than elsewhere in the county. The cluster is heavily single-family homes, and yes, they are expensive. There are plans to build a lot of new apartments in the Westbard area of Bethesda, which may create some lower-cost housing opportunities and could help with diversity as well. I support the idea, but want the county/city to think about how this will impact the schools, which are very overcrowded as it is. Wood Acres, which would serve most or all of the new units in Westbard, has something like 850 kids already and is about to close for 18 months to undergo a much needed expansion. Other than that, creating more diversity might require busing, which, given where Bethesda and Potomac are, could end up subjecting kids to heinously long bus rides. I agree with the previous poster that gerrymandering boundaries would be hard because of geographics and existing overcapacity for most of the schools. I don't see an easy solution either.

Besides most parents don't want their kids around Whitman kids, so there is an issue getting them to want to bus.

Huh? Was this a joke? What's the deal with Whitman kids?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is the line in the article that just isn't true. Yes, segregation is still an issue, but many black and Hispanic children attend very diverse schools in MoCo. Just because a school is majority non-white doesn't make it not diverse.

"Montgomery County, Md. is relatively diverse, with 34 percent of students white, 21 percent black and 26 percent Latino. But nearly 90 percent of both black and Hispanic children attend majority non-white schools. These children, in other words, live in a diverse county, but they don't attend diverse schools."

What are the options for diversity here? White, Asian, black, Hispanic, and multiple.

Now, I don't think that there are many schools in Montgomery County with a high proportion of Asian students and few white students -- although perhaps I'm wrong. And the proportion of multiple in MCPS is very small. So that leaves what?

In other words, lots of black and Hispanic children are going to schools where the majority of students is black and Hispanic. The 8 Northeast and Downcounty consortium high schools account for almost half of Montgomery County's black and Hispanic high school students. Meanwhile, 6 high schools (guess which ones?) account for more than half of Montgomery County's white high school students. That's de facto segregation.

http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post/19285/de-facto-segregation-threatens-montgomery-public-schools/