Op-Ed from previous MCPS SMOBs

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Certain zip codes succeeded at preventing construction of rental housing and public transportation. Fix that, and the W schools will magically become more diverse.

And, let’s make each W school a magnet so high performing kids from anywhere in the county can attend.

Easy.

How would that fix things to bus kids into the W schools that are overcrowded? Every school should have their own magnet program, especially the underperforming to encourage families to stay in those.

Every school does have signature programs already.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Stanford professor: “the only way to close the [achievement] gap is to racially integrate schools.”

In the days of segregation, black students in the segregated Dunbar High School in DC outperformed white students in white schools.

Today, in some NYC charter schools with mostly poor black and Latino kids, those kids outperform white kids in the suburbs.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/10/books/review/how-the-other-half-learns-robert-pondiscio.html

According to the NYT: "Decades of research have shown that engaged parents and a stable family are far more important than schools and teachers to a child’s academic achievement."

Thomas Sowell just published a book on charter schools and black-and-white achievement gap:
https://www.amazon.com/Charter-Schools-Enemies-Thomas-Sowell/dp/1541675134

Must black and brown kids be with whites and Asians to succeed? Of course not.

Ah yes, Dunbar - the high school that Black students in Montgomery County attended (if they could afford room and board in DC during the week), in the good old days of segregation, when Montgomery County didn't even offer education past 8th grade for Black students.

Also, I don't know about where you live, but where I live, almost all of the students with an ethnic heritage from a country in Asia are Asian-Americans, not Asians.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Certain zip codes succeeded at preventing construction of rental housing and public transportation. Fix that, and the W schools will magically become more diverse.

And, let’s make each W school a magnet so high performing kids from anywhere in the county can attend.

Easy.

How would that fix things to bus kids into the W schools that are overcrowded? Every school should have their own magnet program, especially the underperforming to encourage families to stay in those.

Every school does have signature programs already.

Don’t be daft, people. Everyone with a pulse knows the famed W schools are considered the best in the area. They are also the whitest since they are in areas that succeeded at preventing affordable/rental housing and public transportation.

Go look at how many apartments you have in Aspen Hill, Glenmont, Wheaton, and Silver Spring. Compare # of rentals East and West County. Now pull out the metro map. I’ll wait.

MCPS isn’t segregated, but *certain* school pyramids effectively are because of zoning and development choices by the county lobbied by developers and homeowners for decades. The good news is there’s still green space on the western side of the county; let’s start building mixed use development (commercial and affordable rentals). Because that will take a long time, let’s implement an affirmative action style optional magnet-esque program.

I take issue with the mention of Sherwood in the linked article. We are practically up-county with a nearly hour long commute during rush hour to the DCC schools. Personally, I think the clusters were a half-a$$ way to address diversity and opportunity rather than doing the hard work of addressing the housing affordability and zoning issues. And, there’s a lot to be said about creating community through neighborhood schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Stanford professor: “the only way to close the [achievement] gap is to racially integrate schools.”


In the days of segregation, black students in the segregated Dunbar High School in DC outperformed white students in white schools.

Today, in some NYC charter schools with mostly poor black and Latino kids, those kids outperform white kids in the suburbs.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/10/books/review/how-the-other-half-learns-robert-pondiscio.html

According to the NYT: "Decades of research have shown that engaged parents and a stable family are far more important than schools and teachers to a child’s academic achievement."

Thomas Sowell just published a book on charter schools and black-and-white achievement gap:
https://www.amazon.com/Charter-Schools-Enemies-Thomas-Sowell/dp/1541675134


Must black and brown kids be with whites and Asians to succeed? Of course not.

Interestingly, charter schools operate like private schools. Instead of lowering bar, they raise it.

Why can’t mcps do the same?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Interestingly, charter schools operate like private schools. Instead of lowering bar, they raise it.

Why can’t mcps do the same?

Factually incorrect statement.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Interestingly, charter schools operate like private schools. Instead of lowering bar, they raise it.

Why can’t mcps do the same?

Factually incorrect statement.

https://www.city-journal.org/html/new-kind-catholic-school-15326.html

The Cristo Rey Jesuit model has impressive results.

There are other charter schools that do raise the bar and similarly have impressive results.

Does anyone think mcps is a model worth preserving when it comes to closing the gap AND preparing all students (including white kids, native English speakers, etc) for success? Please don’t bother weighing in if your kid landed in a HGC and magnet; your kid is one of the anointed ones receiving a different education than the rest.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Interestingly, charter schools operate like private schools. Instead of lowering bar, they raise it.

Why can’t mcps do the same?

Factually incorrect statement.

https://www.city-journal.org/html/new-kind-catholic-school-15326.html

The Cristo Rey Jesuit model has impressive results.

There are other charter schools that do raise the bar and similarly have impressive results.

Does anyone think mcps is a model worth preserving when it comes to closing the gap AND preparing all students (including white kids, native English speakers, etc) for success? Please don’t bother weighing in if your kid landed in a HGC and magnet; your kid is one of the anointed ones receiving a different education than the rest.

Dude, that's ONE charter school organization. ONE. It's like saying Michael Jordan is representative of all NBA players. Or like saying application magnets in MCPS are representative of MCPS education overall.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Interestingly, charter schools operate like private schools. Instead of lowering bar, they raise it.

Why can’t mcps do the same?

Factually incorrect statement.

https://www.city-journal.org/html/new-kind-catholic-school-15326.html

The Cristo Rey Jesuit model has impressive results.

There are other charter schools that do raise the bar and similarly have impressive results.

Does anyone think mcps is a model worth preserving when it comes to closing the gap AND preparing all students (including white kids, native English speakers, etc) for success? Please don’t bother weighing in if your kid landed in a HGC and magnet; your kid is one of the anointed ones receiving a different education than the rest.

Dude, that's ONE charter school organization. ONE. It's like saying Michael Jordan is representative of all NBA players. Or like saying application magnets in MCPS are representative of MCPS education overall.

KIPP and Cristo Rey are networks with schools in low income black and brown communities across the country.

Point being: there actually is a model that works. Their rigorous approach (that squarely addresses discipline btw) raises the bar, equips students to achieve, and results in college and success.

I’m sure there are others. Why focus on the negative? Why not admit a model works and commit to improving our clearly subpar mcps model?

[Anonymous]

https://www.google.com/amp/s/nypost.com/2020/05/01/entire-success-academy-senior-class-accepted-to-college/amp/

Here’s another charter school network success story.

[Anonymous]

Charters self select and push out under achievers back to public schools. That is why they are successful. They don’t have accept special ed students for example. They also have much harsher discipline in terms of suspensions and expulsions to force out troublemakers. You can compare that to public schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

KIPP and Cristo Rey are networks with schools in low income black and brown communities across the country.

Point being: there actually is a model that works. Their rigorous approach (that squarely addresses discipline btw) raises the bar, equips students to achieve, and results in college and success.

I’m sure there are others. Why focus on the negative? Why not admit a model works and commit to improving our clearly subpar mcps model?

You want your kids to go to a school that works like KIPP or Cristo Rey? Really?

[Anonymous]

The divide in MoCo is racial and economic - not surprisingly. Rich whites don’t want to be around poor and middle class people, many of whom are POC. Period. I live in Silver Spring and many of my white neighbors move out of this area for Bethesda and Potomac and Kensington and wealthier parts of Olney so they can avoid poor people. They wouldn’t put it like that but the code is “better schools” and “better peers”.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Certain zip codes succeeded at preventing construction of rental housing and public transportation. Fix that, and the W schools will magically become more diverse.

And, let’s make each W school a magnet so high performing kids from anywhere in the county can attend.

Easy.

How would that fix things to bus kids into the W schools that are overcrowded? Every school should have their own magnet program, especially the underperforming to encourage families to stay in those.

Every school does have signature programs already.

Don’t be daft, people. Everyone with a pulse knows the famed W schools are considered the best in the area. They are also the whitest since they are in areas that succeeded at preventing affordable/rental housing and public transportation.

Go look at how many apartments you have in Aspen Hill, Glenmont, Wheaton, and Silver Spring. Compare # of rentals East and West County. Now pull out the metro map. I’ll wait.

MCPS isn’t segregated, but *certain* school pyramids effectively are because of zoning and development choices by the county lobbied by developers and homeowners for decades. The good news is there’s still green space on the western side of the county; let’s start building mixed use development (commercial and affordable rentals). Because that will take a long time, let’s implement an affirmative action style optional magnet-esque program.

I take issue with the mention of Sherwood in the linked article. We are practically up-county with a nearly hour long commute during rush hour to the DCC schools. Personally, I think the clusters were a half-a$$ way to address diversity and opportunity rather than doing the hard work of addressing the housing affordability and zoning issues. And, there’s a lot to be said about creating community through neighborhood schools.

In addition the affordable housing in the Western part of the county, why don’t we build high end residences/developments in the East side of the County? Won’t be as pricey as West side and UMC people will buy (they love new developments)! Full developments, not one off tear downs. Why was development stopped in East side of county years ago?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The divide in MoCo is racial and economic - not surprisingly. Rich whites don’t want to be around poor and middle class people, many of whom are POC. Period. I live in Silver Spring and many of my white neighbors move out of this area for Bethesda and Potomac and Kensington and wealthier parts of Olney so they can avoid poor people. They wouldn’t put it like that but the code is “better schools” and “better peers”.

Don't worry. If current trends continue, there will only be about 5% of white students in MCPS in a short amount of time and segregation will no longer be an issue.

https://bethesdamagazine.com/january-february-2020/figuratively-speaking-12/

Here’s a look at how MCPS and its student population have changed from the 1998-99 school year to the 2018-19 school year, by the numbers:

206 – Number of schools (an increase of 23)

162,680 – Total enrollment (a jump of 34,828 students)

31.1 – Percentage of students who are Hispanic/Latino (up from 13.9%)

27.7 – Percentage of students who are white (down from 51.9%)

21.6 – Percentage of black or African American students (up from 21%)

14.3 – Percentage of Asian students (up from 12.8%)

33.3 – Percentage of students participating in free and reduced-price meals (up from 22.5%)

I really wish people would focus their energy on the quality of education of school system and less on demographics. Especially with the numerous issues of the 21st century and the rapidly changing global economy that our children will soon be facing.

[Anonymous]

There is an achievement gap--blacks and Latinos are behind whites and Asians.

How can that gap be closed?

Blacks and Latinos must work harder than whites and Asians.

If whites and Asians study 2 hours a day, blacks and Latinos need to study 3 hours a day.

If whites and Asians study 4 hours a day, blacks and Latinos need to study 6 hours a day.

Until that happens, how can the achievement gap be closed?