MCPS and Starr will probably need to change boundaries

[Anonymous]

Actually, bussing the best students out of the bad schools and into the good schools is not what's meant when discussing potential boundary changes. How on earth would they determine who would be moved that way? By a standardized test? Report card grades? It would most likely simply mean having students attend the school that is closest in proximity to their house. For instance, we live closer in proximity to one elementary school than the one my DC is actually assigned to. Growing up, I lived closer to a non W school than the W school I was actually assigned to. Proposing that students will be bussed cross-county is not a feasible option budget-wise for MCPS. It would completely mess up the ability to use school buses for 4 different start times: high school, middle school, Tier A elementary and Tier B elementary. If you had followed the bell times proposal, you would know that there is not money in the budget to be allocated for the extra buses that your understanding of how the (hypothetical) boundary changes would be executed.

I agree with you that that busing would be a huge expense. I don't think anybody's proposing selectively busing the best students. It's sending half of Wooton to Kennedy and vice versa.

Busing was tried extensively in the 70s and 80s. School systems have moved away from that approach to other approaches (like magnets) because it hasn't worked or it had disruptive consequences or unintended side effects. Would the courts reject a legal challenge to busing today when there is proof that district wide busing is not a cure all? Probably not. It's better to focus on approaches that have a better track record or new approaches than to propose repeating failed, expensive ones that would be challenged in court.

Some of you come across as more motivated by your antipathy to bethesda and Potomac than by the idea of actually helping kids!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

There are typically a lot of resources provided for children who are struggling especially in elementary school. These "pullouts" by reading specialists and ESL teachers are a form of tracking. Why not put them all in one class but have flexible tracking so that the child is allowed to move to a different track at least once a year is they qualify. It is harder to have flexible tracking in higher grades when classes frequently have pre reqs but it should be possible (except in Math) for all of elem. school and some of middle school.

That isn't tracking, it's within-class ability grouping, and MCPS already officially has it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Enlighten me! I thought my property tax bill depended on the county's assessment of my home's market value. We moved from a dcc zoned home to a "W" home and I can tell you we pay significantly higher taxes. I was also under the impression that property tax revenue is used to fund the school system. Perhaps I'm wrong- let me know.

Property taxes are not user fees. You don't get access to more/better education because you pay more in property taxes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:To 16:34 - you sound unhinged. People understand that there are bright kids at bad schools. And people understand these kids aren't riff raff and deserve better. Here's the issue people are discussing: the fact that bussing the best and brightest out of the bad school and into the good school won't solve the problem...because the smart kids aren't the problem. Rather, the poorly performing students are the issue. And leaving them behind or mixing them in with other better performing students won't address the underlying cause of their poor performance. Understand? If not, then perhaps you (as an MCPS teacher) are part of the problem.

The problem with this argument is that the research shows that putting low-performing poor kids into low-poverty schools does improve their performance.

Here's a good place to start reading:

http://tcf.org/assets/downloads/tcf-Schwartz.pdf

"Housing Policy Is School Policy: Economically Integrative Housing Promotes Academic Success in Montgomery County, Maryland", by Heather Schwartz, The Century Foundation, 2010

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Simple boundary changes won't work. All the bad schools essentially border each other. And you can't bus them all.

Boundary changes won't solve all of the problems. But they might solve some of the problems.

[Anonymous]

"I think the question to be asked is what people consider to be "good" schools vs "bad" schools. Is it the kids? The teachers and staff? Administration? Performance on standardized tests? SES of the student population? It's a subjective opinion as to what makes a school good or bad. Are we all talking about the same things when we say "good" schools or "bad" schools? I would be very interested in hearing peoples' opinions on this."

Agree. We know which schools we are discussing but not what the problem is. If the issue is teachers then work to switch the union contract to pay more qualified teachers more for working in those schools. But I think it is most likely the challenge of having too many needy kids in one spot - so that the problem is the need to "dilute" the neediness basically. Busing some to better schools will not really help ship the situation in that school. The Blair magnet model seems to be pretty successful. You could further help that by giving extra chances to DCC families to qualify as compared to now when it pulls from the whole county. I think programs with a school can be a good model to keep the many middle class families in the DCC attending the local school which helps with providing some degree of positive peer group and middle class families to help support the school and PTA. If you just figure you plan to give up on the middle class neighborhoods that largely surround Kennedy for instance rather than figure out how to address their concerns to entice them back to the school then you cannot fix it.

I agree with another poster that tracking needs to be part of this. That is just the reality.

[Anonymous]

To 18:01 - ha ha! I've posted that link before in other threads, and I'm the poster you are quoting. That scenario only works in small doses. Ie: put twenty kids whose moms receive housing vouchers in Bethesda instead of Wheaton or Silver Spring or Takoma Park or Germantown (where most vouchers are utilized in cheap rent areas with majority low income schools) and those kids will do better...because they are living in a nice neighborhood, enrolled in aftercare with those kids, going on play dates and to parties with those kids and (don't get mad at me now) observing stable two-parent families and the social norms of good neighborhoods. They thrive not simply because they go to school with these kids for six hours a day. Rather, they thrive because they are living in a good neighborhood surrounded by middle class people.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:To 18:01 - ha ha! I've posted that link before in other threads, and I'm the poster you are quoting. That scenario only works in small doses. Ie: put twenty kids whose moms receive housing vouchers in Bethesda instead of Wheaton or Silver Spring or Takoma Park or Germantown (where most vouchers are utilized in cheap rent areas with majority low income schools) and those kids will do better...because they are living in a nice neighborhood, enrolled in aftercare with those kids, going on play dates and to parties with those kids and (don't get mad at me now) observing stable two-parent families and the social norms of good neighborhoods. They thrive not simply because they go to school with these kids for six hours a day. Rather, they thrive because they are living in a good neighborhood surrounded by middle class people.

The study does not actually show this. You are making assumptions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To 16:34 - you sound unhinged. People understand that there are bright kids at bad schools. And people understand these kids aren't riff raff and deserve better. Here's the issue people are discussing: the fact that bussing the best and brightest out of the bad school and into the good school won't solve the problem...because the smart kids aren't the problem. Rather, the poorly performing students are the issue. And leaving them behind or mixing them in with other better performing students won't address the underlying cause of their poor performance. Understand? If not, then perhaps you (as an MCPS teacher) are part of the problem.

The problem with this argument is that the research shows that putting low-performing poor kids into low-poverty schools does improve their performance.

Here's a good place to start reading:

http://tcf.org/assets/downloads/tcf-Schwartz.pdf

"Housing Policy Is School Policy: Economically Integrative Housing Promotes Academic Success in Montgomery County, Maryland", by Heather Schwartz, The Century Foundation, 2010

And other studies have shown that these students impact the performance of the higher achievers. That's one study; has it been replicated?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To 16:34 - you sound unhinged. People understand that there are bright kids at bad schools. And people understand these kids aren't riff raff and deserve better. Here's the issue people are discussing: the fact that bussing the best and brightest out of the bad school and into the good school won't solve the problem...because the smart kids aren't the problem. Rather, the poorly performing students are the issue. And leaving them behind or mixing them in with other better performing students won't address the underlying cause of their poor performance. Understand? If not, then perhaps you (as an MCPS teacher) are part of the problem.

The problem with this argument is that the research shows that putting low-performing poor kids into low-poverty schools does improve their performance.

Here's a good place to start reading:

http://tcf.org/assets/downloads/tcf-Schwartz.pdf

"Housing Policy Is School Policy: Economically Integrative Housing Promotes Academic Success in Montgomery County, Maryland", by Heather Schwartz, The Century Foundation, 2010

And other studies have shown that these students impact the performance of the higher achievers. That's one study; has it been replicated?

PP #1: *makes assertion*
PP #2: *provides link showing that the assertion is factually incorrect*
PP #3: "One study isn't good enough. I'll only believe it's true if I see more studies."

Please provide links to studies that show that putting poor students in low-poverty schools reduces the performance of the students in those schools.

[Anonymous]

To 18:11 - I'm a poverty law analyst (been doing this work since the late 90s), and my comments weren't solely related to that one report. Rather, they were based on all the research I've read or heard about at conferences along with my decades of working on these issues with service providers and policymakers on the national, state and local levels. In short: you can't expect poor kids from low income homes to learn just as easily as their more advantaged peers. Family life, housing instability, food insecurity, exposure to violence, etc have a significant impact on a child's ability to succeed in school and life. Teachers are not social workers. Period.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Enlighten me! I thought my property tax bill depended on the county's assessment of my home's market value. We moved from a dcc zoned home to a "W" home and I can tell you we pay significantly higher taxes. I was also under the impression that property tax revenue is used to fund the school system. Perhaps I'm wrong- let me know.

Property taxes are not user fees. You don't get access to more/better education because you pay more in property taxes.

This is like saying "you don't get a better car because you pay for a Lexus."

Actually, you do. Right or wrong, you do. Why do you think one of the first questions parents ask when considering a home is "how/what are the schools?"

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Enlighten me! I thought my property tax bill depended on the county's assessment of my home's market value. We moved from a dcc zoned home to a "W" home and I can tell you we pay significantly higher taxes. I was also under the impression that property tax revenue is used to fund the school system. Perhaps I'm wrong- let me know.

Property taxes are not user fees. You don't get access to more/better education because you pay more in property taxes.

This is like saying "you don't get a better car because you pay for a Lexus."

Actually, you do. Right or wrong, you do. Why do you think one of the first questions parents ask when considering a home is "how/what are the schools?"

No. You may (or may not) get access to more/better education as a result of buying a residence in a certain neighborhood that is more expensive because people are bidding up the prices because they think the schools for that neighborhood are good. That still doesn't mean that paying more in property taxes entitles you to more/better education. Because property taxes are not user fees.

[Anonymous]

Lets say across the board all schools are equally accessible. Let's also agree that people in the W districts tend to have the means to afford private if need be. If W parents are dissatisfied with all access, would they move to private? And if they did, would a W school still be sought after?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Enlighten me! I thought my property tax bill depended on the county's assessment of my home's market value. We moved from a dcc zoned home to a "W" home and I can tell you we pay significantly higher taxes. I was also under the impression that property tax revenue is used to fund the school system. Perhaps I'm wrong- let me know.

Property taxes are not user fees. You don't get access to more/better education because you pay more in property taxes.

This is like saying "you don't get a better car because you pay for a Lexus."

Actually, you do. Right or wrong, you do. Why do you think one of the first questions parents ask when considering a home is "how/what are the schools?"

Schools are definitely what keep property values so high near the W schools. Many of us decide it makes more sense to pay obscene amounts for a house to avoid the expense of private school, expecting that the property will hold its value because future buyers will also want good schools. But there are never any guarantees. It would be a pretty crappy deal for property owners, but it wouldn't be the first time boundary changes caught property ownersby surprise. The good news is that the privilege of having sufficient resources to buy into the good schools also tends to carry political influence, making it extraordinarily unlikely that MCPS would just ignore the interests of the wealthy contingent that has helped give the school system the reputation of being excellent.