Residents appeal MCPS boundary changes, challenge legality of diversity focus

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s not about racial discrimination PP. it’s about whether MCPS is trying to racially balance the two middle schools. Look at the numbers above. Trying to racially balance a school or use racial quotas is unconstitutional, like it or not. See what you think.

Discriminating (or "balancing") on the basis of race is racism.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s not about racial discrimination PP. it’s about whether MCPS is trying to racially balance the two middle schools. Look at the numbers above. Trying to racially balance a school or use racial quotas is unconstitutional, like it or not. See what you think.

Discriminating (or "balancing") on the basis of race is racism.

Yes, and relying on gerrymandered boundaries from the 1960s to exclude less affluent people from a school zone is also illegal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s not about racial discrimination PP. it’s about whether MCPS is trying to racially balance the two middle schools. Look at the numbers above. Trying to racially balance a school or use racial quotas is unconstitutional, like it or not. See what you think.

.

Calling it FARMS rebalancing doesn’t really matter with the way the FARMS numbers are in MCPS - highly correlated with race. A rose by any other name ........

The same middle-class people who don't want to send their kids to higher-poverty schools, refuse to acknowledge that MCPS might have a valid and sincere interest in poverty rates at schools. I don't get it.

I understand that. But the state BOE really needs to weigh in here on the legal side. They might say it’s fine. Then MCPS can move ahead with their redistricting.

Here's the standard of review.

http://www.dsd.state.md.us/comar/comarhtml/13a/13a.01.05.06.htm

It starts with "Decisions of a local board involving a local policy or a controversy and dispute regarding the rules and regulations of the local board shall be considered prima facie correct, and the State Board may not substitute its judgment for that of the local board unless the decision is arbitrary, unreasonable, or illegal."

The decision wasn't arbitrary or unreasonable. And it didn't exceed the board's statutory authority or jurisdiction, misconstrue the law, result from an unlawful procedure, or abuse the board's discretionary powers. So that leaves "unconstitutional". I am not a lawyer, but I find it very difficult to believe that the Maryland Board of Education, in the absence of any court decisions, is going to decide that it's unconstitutional to use school poverty rates as a factor in boundary studies.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s not about racial discrimination PP. it’s about whether MCPS is trying to racially balance the two middle schools. Look at the numbers above. Trying to racially balance a school or use racial quotas is unconstitutional, like it or not. See what you think.

.

Calling it FARMS rebalancing doesn’t really matter with the way the FARMS numbers are in MCPS - highly correlated with race. A rose by any other name ........

The same middle-class people who don't want to send their kids to higher-poverty schools, refuse to acknowledge that MCPS might have a valid and sincere interest in poverty rates at schools. I don't get it.

I understand that. But the state BOE really needs to weigh in here on the legal side. They might say it’s fine. Then MCPS can move ahead with their redistricting.

The state is going to laugh this appeal out of the room.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Not really, it would have made more sense for proximity, continuity and articulation to keep Daly/Fox Chapel at Neelsville and then go to SV leaving CB and Gibbs at RH and Clarksburg. I can understand why from a racial diversity perspective MCPS did not want to do this. MCPS should be honest about it though and its a much stronger case to try to get the 2007 ruling overturned than to try to claim you didn't use race, especially when you published a racial impact table on your website as part of the announcement.

If MCPS admits racial balancing, the lower courts have to follow Supreme Court precedents and rule against it. In most cases, only the Supreme Court can overrule itself. Because the Supreme Court may not even take up this case, MCPS will have no choice but insists it is not about racial balancing.

The good thing is that it will be super-easy to say that it wasn't about racial balancing, because it wasn't about racial balancing.

To repeat: MCPS looks at FOUR factors:

1. geography
2. demographics
3. facility utilization
4. continuity

This is not a secret. It's explicitly stated in the policy. It's been explicitly stated in the policy for years.

Sheesh, dude stop telling people facts. They aren't interested in reality and it's so much more fun to read the hysteria and conspiracy theories based on Fox news inspired fever dreams.

[Anonymous]

Well I personally look forward to seeing how the State BOE comes out on this. And I think it will help all of us in the county to have an answer rather than debating/arguing/getting nasty about it on DCUM and elsewhere.

Also a great opportunity for students (and all of us) to learn constitutional law and how state law in Maryland works.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s not about racial discrimination PP. it’s about whether MCPS is trying to racially balance the two middle schools. Look at the numbers above. Trying to racially balance a school or use racial quotas is unconstitutional, like it or not. See what you think.

Discriminating (or "balancing") on the basis of race is racism.

Yes, and relying on gerrymandered boundaries from the 1960s to exclude less affluent people from a school zone is also illegal.

Neelsville MS opened in 1981, Clarksburg HS opened in 2006, and building in Cabin Branch didn't start until around 2015. So although I think that the "Cabin Branch getting reassigned to Neelsville MS is racial discrimination!" argument is dumb, your statement really isn't relevant to this thread.

(Random thought: like most school districts in the US, MCPS closed lots of schools in the late 1970s and early 1980s. What were they doing, opening a new school in 1981?)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Well I personally look forward to seeing how the State BOE comes out on this. And I think it will help all of us in the county to have an answer rather than debating/arguing/getting nasty about it on DCUM and elsewhere.

Also a great opportunity for students (and all of us) to learn constitutional law and how state law in Maryland works.

Most of us in the county already know the answer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Well I personally look forward to seeing how the State BOE comes out on this. And I think it will help all of us in the county to have an answer rather than debating/arguing/getting nasty about it on DCUM and elsewhere.

Also a great opportunity for students (and all of us) to learn constitutional law and how state law in Maryland works.

Most of us in the county already know the answer.

Actually PP, I think there are a lot of people who don’t know what to make of all this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Well I personally look forward to seeing how the State BOE comes out on this. And I think it will help all of us in the county to have an answer rather than debating/arguing/getting nasty about it on DCUM and elsewhere.

Also a great opportunity for students (and all of us) to learn constitutional law and how state law in Maryland works.

Most of us in the county already know the answer.

Actually PP, I think there are a lot of people who don’t know what to make of all this.

Well, then they'll learn.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Here's the standard of review.

http://www.dsd.state.md.us/comar/comarhtml/13a/13a.01.05.06.htm

It starts with "Decisions of a local board involving a local policy or a controversy and dispute regarding the rules and regulations of the local board shall be considered prima facie correct, and the State Board may not substitute its judgment for that of the local board unless the decision is arbitrary, unreasonable, or illegal."

The decision wasn't arbitrary or unreasonable. And it didn't exceed the board's statutory authority or jurisdiction, misconstrue the law, result from an unlawful procedure, or abuse the board's discretionary powers. So that leaves "unconstitutional". I am not a lawyer, but I find it very difficult to believe that the Maryland Board of Education, in the absence of any court decisions, is going to decide that it's unconstitutional to use school poverty rates as a factor in boundary studies.

If they did this in places where FARMS students are diverse racially, it is fine. But in Montgomery County 87% of FARMS students are Hispanic (55%) or African American (32%). FARMS rate is a good proxy for race in Montgomery County. MCPS did balance out FARMS rates but MCPS also balanced out racial compositions in Rocky Hill MS and Neelsville MS. It is up to the State Board or a court to decide whether this is constitutional.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Well I personally look forward to seeing how the State BOE comes out on this. And I think it will help all of us in the county to have an answer rather than debating/arguing/getting nasty about it on DCUM and elsewhere.

Also a great opportunity for students (and all of us) to learn constitutional law and how state law in Maryland works.

Most of us in the county already know the answer.

Actually PP, I think there are a lot of people who don’t know what to make of all this.

Well, then they'll learn.

Yes. Checks and balances are a good thing PP.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Well I personally look forward to seeing how the State BOE comes out on this. And I think it will help all of us in the county to have an answer rather than debating/arguing/getting nasty about it on DCUM and elsewhere.

Also a great opportunity for students (and all of us) to learn constitutional law and how state law in Maryland works.

Most of us in the county already know the answer.

Actually PP, I think there are a lot of people who don’t know what to make of all this.

Well, then they'll learn.

Yes. Checks and balances are a good thing PP.

PP you're responding to. Actually, I was thinking that it's a good thing for people to learn how their local government works.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here's the standard of review.

http://www.dsd.state.md.us/comar/comarhtml/13a/13a.01.05.06.htm

It starts with "Decisions of a local board involving a local policy or a controversy and dispute regarding the rules and regulations of the local board shall be considered prima facie correct, and the State Board may not substitute its judgment for that of the local board unless the decision is arbitrary, unreasonable, or illegal."

The decision wasn't arbitrary or unreasonable. And it didn't exceed the board's statutory authority or jurisdiction, misconstrue the law, result from an unlawful procedure, or abuse the board's discretionary powers. So that leaves "unconstitutional". I am not a lawyer, but I find it very difficult to believe that the Maryland Board of Education, in the absence of any court decisions, is going to decide that it's unconstitutional to use school poverty rates as a factor in boundary studies.

If they did this in places where FARMS students are diverse racially, it is fine. But in Montgomery County 87% of FARMS students are Hispanic (55%) or African American (32%). FARMS rate is a good proxy for race in Montgomery County. MCPS did balance out FARMS rates but MCPS also balanced out racial compositions in Rocky Hill MS and Neelsville MS. It is up to the State Board or a court to decide whether this is constitutional.

The logical consequence of your argument is that school districts would only be allowed to look at school poverty rates if everybody were equally likely to be poor. In school districts where some groups are more likely to be poor than others, school districts would not be allowed to look at school poverty rates. That would be really dumb.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Well I personally look forward to seeing how the State BOE comes out on this. And I think it will help all of us in the county to have an answer rather than debating/arguing/getting nasty about it on DCUM and elsewhere.

Also a great opportunity for students (and all of us) to learn constitutional law and how state law in Maryland works.

Most of us in the county already know the answer.

Actually PP, I think there are a lot of people who don’t know what to make of all this.

Well, then they'll learn.

Yes. Checks and balances are a good thing PP.

PP you're responding to. Actually, I was thinking that it's a good thing for people to learn how their local government works.

Totally agree.