The REAL issue with the proposals to shift boundaries & how MCPS can fix it

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Spanish immersion is one idea and a good one. I just don’t think expanding buildings and revisiting boundaries is enough. MCPS needs to be innovative here to compete with the private schools. They are losing - at least in the DCC.

Do you have any proof of that? My kids are at DCC schools and I can count on one hand the number of kids in the whole neighborhood who are in private schools. Of those who are, two have parents who work at that school, and one has special needs that MCPS couldn't accommodate. I guess there's one other family that homeschools, but I get the impression they would homeschool no matter where they live, as it is a pretty integral part of their self-conception.

I mean, genuinely, what gives you the impression that families in DCC neighborhoods are, en masse, using private schools?

I think the consultant should look at that. It’s relevant. And I personally know a lot of families in the Catholic schools from Silver Spring.

As a geographic area, Silver Spring is huge. So it would make perfect sense that some parts of Silver Spring, namely those parts that are heavily Catholic, would be full of families using parish schools. It also makes sense that other parts would not, and that most of the kids would be in their local public schools.

However, the same can be said of any other part of the county or region. There are parts of Bethesda where people moved so they could be close to a specific parochial school. That doesn't mean the Bethesda schools are bad - it means people are choosing to live near specific schools because they are committed to a specific educational model.

Well, it’s relevant data for the consultant to consider in the boundary survey. Silver Spring is wonderfully diverse and mostly middle class. That could/should be better reflected in the public schools. It’s a cycle - people think the schools are bad, so they send them to private/Catholic, then at some point, you lose that middle class base that makes for a strong public school.

[Anonymous]

I am super ready for "number of families using private schools" to be used as a metric to tell us how terrible Chevy Chase public schools are. I mean, why would any families be at SFS or GDS or Prep?

Must be because the local schools are terrible.

[Anonymous]

Or we could just keep building schools and moving boundaries around and never address the quality of education and resources provided in the different schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Exactly - MCPS can draw the line wherever it wants, including somewhere that's intended to reduce the segregation that people who have big bucks are willing to pay big bucks for.

You can demagogue all you want, but people pay the big bucks for performance not segregation. It may feel good to stick it to some of those rich people, but it doesn't solve anything.

"Performance" (as it's defined here) and segregation are collinear variables. You can't separate them.

I define performance as test scores and admissions to top colleges. So you are saying this a co-linear variable? That you can't separate high test scores and college admissions from whiteness? This is quite frankly the most racist thing I've heard today, but I guess there's still a few hours left...

You can't separate high test scores and affluence. Who said anything about race?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I can't even with you, OP.

1. Just because someone voted for Democrats doesn't mean they're not racist. You are a case in point.

2. Poor kids are not inherently less well-behaved or violent than rich kids. See: the Stanford swimmer who sexually assaulted a girl behind a dumpster, or any number of Duke lacrosse players.

3. You need basic grammar classes because you don't know the difference between there and their.

Off topic, but the Duke lacrosse players were falsely accused. Get over your fake news.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

According to US Census, Silver Spring has only 11% poverty. Median income is somewhere around $72,000. Why are many all the kids in the public schools? Why such a high concentration of poverty in the public schools?

This is weird. Even Blair is 50% FARMS. All the other DCC schools seem to be at least half FARMS too. It could be that the census is counting households and lots of retirees are being counted? Still 11% seems very low considering the level of poverty within the schools.

Illegals aren’t in the census. Neither are their four children per household.

Oh hey, more made-up "facts".

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Or we could just keep building schools and moving boundaries around and never address the quality of education and resources provided in the different schools.

...you think we shouldn't build more schools? Why?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:From my experience with MCCPTA, it was the families in the east that were most concerned and vocal about the problems with MCPS no discipline policy and putting violent kids back in the classroom. The W parents were clueless to the entire issue.

Lovely.

This post makes OP's point.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Ok, let’s look at Woodside. Built at the same time as Kensington and Garrett Park. About to get a stop on the Purple Line. See at least one house listed at $1.2M. (Actually with the Purple Line, Woodside’s going to be a boom town.) But anyways, are those kids in the public high schools? I think there’s a lot of Catholic school kids there. What can MCPS do to get this neighborhood to go to their home school?

No, they're in the public elementary schools, because they're not old enough for high school yet.

https://montgomeryplanning.org/blog-design/2019/02/schools-and-growth-part-four-where-are-all-these-kids-coming-from/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Or we could just keep building schools and moving boundaries around and never address the quality of education and resources provided in the different schools.

...you think we shouldn't build more schools? Why?

We certainly need to build more schools and reopen more elementary schools. I personally think all the schools are too big and overcrowded - and some are at the point of bursting. But construction and maps aren’t going to solve our problems. Most of the W schools (other than WJ and BCC) need more diversity. DCC schools need more resources to bring them up to par and break the cycle with the privates/Catholics. But the schools need to engage the kids more with more interesting programs. We could do a lot better for them in this county.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

According to US Census, Silver Spring has only 11% poverty. Median income is somewhere around $72,000. Why are many all the kids in the public schools? Why such a high concentration of poverty in the public schools?

This is weird. Even Blair is 50% FARMS. All the other DCC schools seem to be at least half FARMS too. It could be that the census is counting households and lots of retirees are being counted? Still 11% seems very low considering the level of poverty within the schools.

Kemp Mill area? It is very heavily o
Are you shocked that people with means won't send their kids to bad schools? Take Kemp Mill ES, GS-4. Median income per the census of the vast majority of the property zoned for that school is $124k. Farms rate at the school is 70%. When the schools suck, anyone who can leave will leave, by whatever means possible. Redrawing boundaries will change this exactly zero percent.

Did you deliberately choose Kemp Mill to try to get an extreme example? Or do you really not know anything about the kemp mill area? There is a very high concentration of orthodox Jewish families who send their kids to religious schools. So the local school is not representative of the neighborhood.
Why not look st Woodside, Seven Oaks, Woodmoor, Indian Spring? The public schools those neighborhoods feed to are much lower than 70% FARMS.

Kemp Mill may indeed be an outlier, but let’s go to Arcola (GS 2) right next door. Median income of circa 62k, or put another way half the households make at least $14,000 more that the reduced meal threshold for a family of 4. FARMs rate of 76%. Not quite as extreme as Kemp mill but indicative of the fact that those who can leave do.

[Anonymous]

They don’t leave the area. It’s a nice place (about to get better with Purple Line access to College Park and NIH/Bethesda). They just leave the schools. But maybe MCPS has started to turn that ship around with Wheaton’s outstanding Engineering and Robotics Program.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Spanish immersion is one idea and a good one. I just don’t think expanding buildings and revisiting boundaries is enough. MCPS needs to be innovative here to compete with the private schools. They are losing - at least in the DCC.

Do you have any proof of that? My kids are at DCC schools and I can count on one hand the number of kids in the whole neighborhood who are in private schools. Of those who are, two have parents who work at that school, and one has special needs that MCPS couldn't accommodate. I guess there's one other family that homeschools, but I get the impression they would homeschool no matter where they live, as it is a pretty integral part of their self-conception.

I mean, genuinely, what gives you the impression that families in DCC neighborhoods are, en masse, using private schools?

I think the consultant should look at that. It’s relevant. And I personally know a lot of families in the Catholic schools from Silver Spring.

As a geographic area, Silver Spring is huge. So it would make perfect sense that some parts of Silver Spring, namely those parts that are heavily Catholic, would be full of families using parish schools. It also makes sense that other parts would not, and that most of the kids would be in their local public schools.

However, the same can be said of any other part of the county or region. There are parts of Bethesda where people moved so they could be close to a specific parochial school. That doesn't mean the Bethesda schools are bad - it means people are choosing to live near specific schools because they are committed to a specific educational model.

Well, it’s relevant data for the consultant to consider in the boundary survey. Silver Spring is wonderfully diverse and mostly middle class. That could/should be better reflected in the public schools. It’s a cycle - people think the schools are bad, so they send them to private/Catholic, then at some point, you lose that middle class base that makes for a strong public school.

Well this is your chance to provide input on the scope of the consultants work, right? For as many times as you’ve brought it up on this thread I sure hope you bring it up at an actual meeting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am super ready for "number of families using private schools" to be used as a metric to tell us how terrible Chevy Chase public schools are. I mean, why would any families be at SFS or GDS or Prep?

Must be because the local schools are terrible.

The difference is that there is still a huge amount of wealthy/UMC kids who go to BCC. Parents haven’t lost faith in the public schools in Chevy Chase. BCC has great sports, IB, I think they have Spanish immersion, plus great spirit/engagement and open campus at lunch. My point is that some DCC parents (too many) have lost faith in DCC schools and pay for private/Catholic schools. They could move but don’t because SS is a nice place too (great close-in location, walkable etc).

Now I don’t have any idea of what’s going on up county.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Or we could just keep building schools and moving boundaries around and never address the quality of education and resources provided in the different schools.

...you think we shouldn't build more schools? Why?

We certainly need to build more schools and reopen more elementary schools. I personally think all the schools are too big and overcrowded - and some are at the point of bursting. But construction and maps aren’t going to solve our problems. Most of the W schools (other than WJ and BCC) need more diversity. DCC schools need more resources to bring them up to par and break the cycle with the privates/Catholics. But the schools need to engage the kids more with more interesting programs. We could do a lot better for them in this county.

They won't solve all of our problems. But they will certainly help fix some of them.