How is it possible that Walt Whitman high school has a score of 4 on greatschools.org??

[Anonymous]

I million people, 857 square miles of land, combined rural, urban and suburban.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I million people, 857 square miles of land, combined rural, urban and suburban.

Sounds like Wake County schools. If they can redistrict that often, that's a big feat. I know for our area, it has a lot of issues redistricting that often, such as

Traffic implications and bus routes
cascading redistricting complexity

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

I loved living in a different state where the school district rebalanced and redrew districts, if necessary, every couple of years. There were fewer lower performing scjools, compared to others in the area, and the real estate values were also more stable countywide.

Have you ever followed an MCPS boundary study? For example, the boundary study for B-CC MS#2? And that boundary study only involved 7 elementary schools, 2 middle schools, and 1 high school. Now imagine doing that every few years for 133 elementary schools, 39 middle schools, and 25 high schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Someone had mentioned earlier in the thread that they had heard that Harvard had rescinded admissions for some of this years incoming students, then another poster had asked if it was true.

Here's the actual story.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/06/05/harvard-withdraws-10-acceptances-for-offensive-memes-in-private-chat/

I had asked whether a Whitman student was among the 10, as an earlier poster claimed. But the article doesn't address that issue.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Someone had mentioned earlier in the thread that they had heard that Harvard had rescinded admissions for some of this years incoming students, then another poster had asked if it was true.

Here's the actual story.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/06/05/harvard-withdraws-10-acceptances-for-offensive-memes-in-private-chat/

I had asked whether a Whitman student was among the 10, as an earlier poster claimed. But the article doesn't address that issue.

Agreed... I'm the one who posted the article & I didn't read that either.

There were only 10 acceptance letters rescinded out of the entire country, which means the odds were probably astronomical that 1 out of those 10 came from Whitman (let alone more than 1).

I imagine it was probably a very heavy assumption by someone.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:While confounding factors may be at play here, this kind of reminds me of when everyone was super offended when Arnie Duncan said that it was fascinating that some of the fiercest opponents to common core standards were from "white suburban moms who — all of a sudden — their child isn’t as brilliant as they thought they were, and their school isn’t quite as good as they thought they were."

Whitman is a top 98-99 percentile high school in the U.S. Pretty sure Duncan was referring the big chunk of 25-75 percentile safe, mostly white, suburban high schools that have God awful academics.

[Anonymous]

Ironic part is Whittman and Churchill are lower rated than some Bronx public schools. Look it up. Move to the Bronx if you want good schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ironic part is Whittman and Churchill are lower rated than some Bronx public schools. Look it up. Move to the Bronx if you want good schools.

Why is that ironic. Bronx Science is one of the top public schools in the country and has been for some time. It certainly blows Whitman, Churchill and Blair out of the water.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Oh yeah, here's the exact quote:

“It’s fascinating to me that some of the pushback is coming from, sort of, white suburban moms who — all of a sudden — their child isn’t as brilliant as they thought they were and their school isn’t quite as good as they thought they were, and that’s pretty scary,” Duncan said. “You’ve bet your house and where you live and everything on, ‘My child’s going to be prepared.’ That can be a punch in the gut.”

People took a dim view of that statement, but to me, it rung true. The sooner people wake up to the fact that basing your home choice primarily on the school cluster is a risky strategy, the sooner they will be able to make better choices. The fact is that, at any time, the maps can be redrawn, or an act of God or politics can force you into a different school, or-- in the case of Whitman-- there can be a steady decline until one day, the place has gone to crap. It's much better to have multiple plans for education in case one fails. If you stretch to get into a cluster and then need to go private, you may not be able to.

Rung true to me, too. Money can buy tutors and SAT prep classes. The test scores don't necessarily reflect the quality of the teachers/schools. The only good thing about being surrounded by upper middle class families in the school is that almost all of the students will head off to college; it's a given in such schools, which translates into kids trying to do well in school, though not necessarily state standardized test scores which don't reflect on your transcripts.

--signed an Asian mom

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ironic part is Whittman and Churchill are lower rated than some Bronx public schools. Look it up. Move to the Bronx if you want good schools.

Why is that ironic. Bronx Science is one of the top public schools in the country and has been for some time. It certainly blows Whitman, Churchill and Blair out of the water.

No it does not blow Blair out of the water. Blair beats Bronx Science (which is a full Magnet) every year in every STEM competition.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I know that each schools scores are based on test results & NOT the opinions or reviews of the parents (as some seem to think the scores are correlated by).

So how does:

Walter Johnson score an 8
BCC score a 7
Churchill score a 6 and
Whitman score a 4 out of 10??

The kids from Whitman are always bragging about how much money they have & they say they're "slumming it" when they hang out with kids from the other "W" schools & BCC (I've heard it myself & saw it written on social media).

So how are these kids who are so well off, going to a school with a ranking of 4 on great schools??

Aren't the parents livid?

I attribute it to jealousy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ironic part is Whittman and Churchill are lower rated than some Bronx public schools. Look it up. Move to the Bronx if you want good schools.

Why is that ironic. Bronx Science is one of the top public schools in the country and has been for some time. It certainly blows Whitman, Churchill and Blair out of the water.

No it does not blow Blair out of the water. Blair beats Bronx Science (which is a full Magnet) every year in every STEM competition.

That is correct.
This year Intel/Regeneron scholars
Blair = 9 scholars
Bronx = 7 scholars

https://student.societyforscience.org/regeneronsts-scholars-2017

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ironic part is Whittman and Churchill are lower rated than some Bronx public schools. Look it up. Move to the Bronx if you want good schools.

Why is that ironic. Bronx Science is one of the top public schools in the country and has been for some time. It certainly blows Whitman, Churchill and Blair out of the water.

No it does not blow Blair out of the water. Blair beats Bronx Science (which is a full Magnet) every year in every STEM competition.

That is correct.
This year Intel/Regeneron scholars
Blair = 9 scholars
Bronx = 7 scholars

https://student.societyforscience.org/regeneronsts-scholars-2017

DP.. but you are comparing whole school magnet vs 100 students/per grade magnet.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ironic part is Whittman and Churchill are lower rated than some Bronx public schools. Look it up. Move to the Bronx if you want good schools.

Why is that ironic. Bronx Science is one of the top public schools in the country and has been for some time. It certainly blows Whitman, Churchill and Blair out of the water.

No it does not blow Blair out of the water. Blair beats Bronx Science (which is a full Magnet) every year in every STEM competition.

That is correct.
This year Intel/Regeneron scholars
Blair = 9 scholars
Bronx = 7 scholars

https://student.societyforscience.org/regeneronsts-scholars-2017

DP.. but you are comparing whole school magnet vs 100 students/per grade magnet.

Even more impressive.
A 100 students/per grade magnet is beating a whole school magnet. In fact, it's beating all the full time magnet schools in the nation.
Wow!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ironic part is Whittman and Churchill are lower rated than some Bronx public schools. Look it up. Move to the Bronx if you want good schools.

Why is that ironic. Bronx Science is one of the top public schools in the country and has been for some time. It certainly blows Whitman, Churchill and Blair out of the water.

No it does not blow Blair out of the water. Blair beats Bronx Science (which is a full Magnet) every year in every STEM competition.

That is correct.
This year Intel/Regeneron scholars
Blair = 9 scholars
Bronx = 7 scholars

https://student.societyforscience.org/regeneronsts-scholars-2017

DP.. but you are comparing whole school magnet vs 100 students/per grade magnet.

Even more impressive.
A 100 students/per grade magnet is beating a whole school magnet. In fact, it's beating all the full time magnet schools in the nation.
Wow!

PP here.. yes, that was my point. And it's the same argument when people compare TJ to Blair magnet -- whole school magnet vs 100 kids/grade. Not a fair or accurate comparison. Maybe take the top 100 performing students in Bronx HS and TJ and compare to Blair. That would be more fair and accurate.