Schools splitting from large ineffective school systems - could the 4 Ws split from MCPS?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m trying to wrap my mind around being this self-centered and entitled but it’s hard to grapple with

So, it’s self centered and entitled to assume that your money at least goes towards adequately educating your children? Some people don’t have any money left over for extra tutors, classes or therapies to educate their children outside of the public school. The county shouldn’t be taking people’s money - raising taxes frequently and having some of the highest taxes in the nation - and then squandering it and redistributing it in such a way that leaves middle class people needing to pay for private school or hire expensive tutors. That’s rudicous.
Of course people expect a good education for their children with the rates of taxes paid. Yes they are entitled to that - they worked to pay their taxes and an good education is expected. If the county wants to provide a crappy education they can reduce taxes so that people can choose their own private school for their kids if need be.

If you send your kid to a private school and pay the tuition you expect a good education for your child. The public school system is only different in that many people whose children don’t go to the schools and those who have no children are paying towards the schools. There’s plenty of money provided it’s just being mismanaged.

The four high schools mentioned at the top of this thread are the very best in the state. If your child can't be adequately educated there, it's hard to please you.

[Anonymous]

Folks, the best way to get your voice heard is to write a note to your school's principal stating that your child will not be sitting for any MAP or PARCC tests until the school addresses X, Y and Z which your student needs.

Don't let your kid be a pawn juicing PARCC test scores so more funds come in and get funneled away from your kid.


And if you really want an eye-opening experience, go tour a few parochial, montessori and independent schools near your house to better compare education options in 2018. Just take notes on all the things MCPS could be doing.

Several parents at our school tried to organize to do just this. They were told that MCPS has a four week window for PARCC and your child will be tested without your permission. You would have to keep your child out for four weeks which is right at the window to where you would need to de-enroll your child. I have no idea whether the school can really force your child to take the test but MCPS was pretty heavy handed with parents that wanted to sit out the tests.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sigh, I don't think you are getting it. There are always three pathways to any civic change a.) political b.) courts or c.) legislative.

For political - representatives of the new district petition for their own school district and the state of MD grants the request. The state doesn't dismantle the Montgomery County level system but removes the residents from the new district.

For the courts -when the state denies the petition the representatives file suit. As they did in many of the other states. There are several avenues where the practice of the county system which would deny the creation local independent district would run counter to other state constitutional protections. If the representatives of the new district lose and they can make a broader constitutional argument they can then escalate up to the Supreme Court.

For legislative- sure the residents can work to pass a new law explicitly stating that residents have a right to form their own independent school system.

You don't need a new law to do something that isn't prohibited by law and just has not been done or pursued in the past. The entire premise behind state level rather federal control to enable states to change and grow to be flexible to the shifting needs of their jurisdictions and communities. The population and areas within Montgomery County are much different today than they were 50-100 years ago.

What do the laws of Maryland say about this?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Folks, the best way to get your voice heard is to write a note to your school's principal stating that your child will not be sitting for any MAP or PARCC tests until the school addresses X, Y and Z which your student needs.

Don't let your kid be a pawn juicing PARCC test scores so more funds come in and get funneled away from your kid.


And if you really want an eye-opening experience, go tour a few parochial, montessori and independent schools near your house to better compare education options in 2018. Just take notes on all the things MCPS could be doing.

Which funds come from PARCC test scores?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm just dreaming of not having a snow day when there is no snow or ice on the roads. Normal start and end times for HS, MS and ES! Having a curriculum and textbooks that are available to parents rather than some closely guarded collection of internally produced nonsense! Grades with percentages! Not having bad employees and staff suspected of being sex offenders transferred around the schools because its easier to hide them than fire them. Teacher driven innovation not central office nonsense. Parents fund raising for things that actually help the classroom like additional aides. Really being able to focus on the needs of your school.

Sounds like DCPS would fit your needs.

Aside from the painfully incompetent administration?

[Anonymous]

School systems are supposed to be local and responsive to the community needs. This is why school systems are not nationalized. As the surrounding suburbs of metro areas grow, they out grow their original school system. Breaking up is really the only solution.

One of the PR flops in the Starr office years ago was trying to constantly claim that MCPS was the #1 school system in the country. It was part of the twitter campaign to make him a national leader in education. No one could understand where he was getting the impression that MCPS was #1. He was only comparing MCPS to school systems of equal size for which there were only five - LA, Chicago, Detroit and one other one. They finally stopped doing this.

It highlights an important point though that there are only 5 systems in the country this large and they don't work

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:School systems are supposed to be local and responsive to the community needs. This is why school systems are not nationalized. As the surrounding suburbs of metro areas grow, they out grow their original school system. Breaking up is really the only solution.

One of the PR flops in the Starr office years ago was trying to constantly claim that MCPS was the #1 school system in the country. It was part of the twitter campaign to make him a national leader in education. No one could understand where he was getting the impression that MCPS was #1. He was only comparing MCPS to school systems of equal size for which there were only five - LA, Chicago, Detroit and one other one. They finally stopped doing this.

It highlights an important point though that there are only 5 systems in the country this large and they don't work

Your numbers are off. MCPS is the 17th largest school system in the country. FCPS is slightly larger. I'm not saying the size is great -- I think it should probably be broken up -- but let's at least use accurate data.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:School systems are supposed to be local and responsive to the community needs. This is why school systems are not nationalized. As the surrounding suburbs of metro areas grow, they out grow their original school system. Breaking up is really the only solution.

One of the PR flops in the Starr office years ago was trying to constantly claim that MCPS was the #1 school system in the country. It was part of the twitter campaign to make him a national leader in education. No one could understand where he was getting the impression that MCPS was #1. He was only comparing MCPS to school systems of equal size for which there were only five - LA, Chicago, Detroit and one other one. They finally stopped doing this.

It highlights an important point though that there are only 5 systems in the country this large and they don't work

What is the source for your numbers?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Folks, the best way to get your voice heard is to write a note to your school's principal stating that your child will not be sitting for any MAP or PARCC tests until the school addresses X, Y and Z which your student needs.

Don't let your kid be a pawn juicing PARCC test scores so more funds come in and get funneled away from your kid.


And if you really want an eye-opening experience, go tour a few parochial, montessori and independent schools near your house to better compare education options in 2018. Just take notes on all the things MCPS could be doing.

Several parents at our school tried to organize to do just this. They were told that MCPS has a four week window for PARCC and your child will be tested without your permission. You would have to keep your child out for four weeks which is right at the window to where you would need to de-enroll your child. I have no idea whether the school can really force your child to take the test but MCPS was pretty heavy handed with parents that wanted to sit out the tests.

If you really want to do that kind of protest, just tell your kid to leave the test blank, or otherwise throw it. Bad scores might bother them more than no scores.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This really has nothing to do with illegal immigration. MCPS would love for you to believe that its problems are just because of illegal immigrants. Its failing all students.

Two-way swing with the Montgomery County ever-increasing illegals and anchor baby debacle. Poor performers + Take more $$$ per head.

1) The hispanic FARMs cohort is the lower performing cohort in the county. doesn't help that their parent(s) are unskilled, uneducated and illiterate in any language.

2) More and more money gets shoveled at them trying to be their mothers, doctors, counselors, dentists, 24/7 food providers, ESOL teachers, and then maybe learn some math or reading before middle school. MS is when the pregnancy and drop-out rates skyrocket.

You are officially a self-entitled meanspirited parent here. An educated Populace serves us ALL, thus the children are being educated. I cant believe you are not in an alt Right group or swinging for Betsy Devos with the statements you are making.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

If you really want to do that kind of protest, just tell your kid to leave the test blank, or otherwise throw it. Bad scores might bother them more than no scores.

That happened at Whitman. I can't tell that it bothered MCPS any, but Whitman's GreatSchools rating did go down.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This really has nothing to do with illegal immigration. MCPS would love for you to believe that its problems are just because of illegal immigrants. Its failing all students.

Two-way swing with the Montgomery County ever-increasing illegals and anchor baby debacle. Poor performers + Take more $$$ per head.

1) The hispanic FARMs cohort is the lower performing cohort in the county. doesn't help that their parent(s) are unskilled, uneducated and illiterate in any language.

2) More and more money gets shoveled at them trying to be their mothers, doctors, counselors, dentists, 24/7 food providers, ESOL teachers, and then maybe learn some math or reading before middle school. MS is when the pregnancy and drop-out rates skyrocket.

You are officially a self-entitled meanspirited parent here. An educated Populace serves us ALL, thus the children are being educated. I cant believe you are not in an alt Right group or swinging for Betsy Devos with the statements you are making.

MCPS has not tried to integrate neighborhoods. Why is this statement such an issue with you? The poor seem to be clustered together and continue to have similar problems. Placing these people around those like themselves is not the best for their future or anyone else's.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

MCPS has not tried to integrate neighborhoods. Why is this statement such an issue with you? The poor seem to be clustered together and continue to have similar problems. Placing these people around those like themselves is not the best for their future or anyone else's.

MCPS is not in charge of planning or zoning.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This really has nothing to do with illegal immigration. MCPS would love for you to believe that its problems are just because of illegal immigrants. Its failing all students.

Two-way swing with the Montgomery County ever-increasing illegals and anchor baby debacle. Poor performers + Take more $$$ per head.

1) The hispanic FARMs cohort is the lower performing cohort in the county. doesn't help that their parent(s) are unskilled, uneducated and illiterate in any language.

2) More and more money gets shoveled at them trying to be their mothers, doctors, counselors, dentists, 24/7 food providers, ESOL teachers, and then maybe learn some math or reading before middle school. MS is when the pregnancy and drop-out rates skyrocket.

You are officially a self-entitled meanspirited parent here. An educated Populace serves us ALL, thus the children are being educated. I cant believe you are not in an alt Right group or swinging for Betsy Devos with the statements you are making.

DP here. In order for us to come up with a solution, we need to accept all facts. Nothing stated by the person you are responding to is untrue although they could've said it a nicer way. I think majority of us agree that we want an educated populace but in order to come up with solutions on how to achieve this, let's evaluate the data. Let's evaluate where we are spending the money and why.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yet Baltimore City is a separate school district from Baltimore County. You don't have to incorporate a new town or city to have a separate school system. On the west coast there are many instances where separate smaller school districts broke away from their larger county or city level-wide district decades ago. Many of these smaller districts are geographically contiguous but draw their boundaries across towns, across part of a city and town, across part of an unincorporated area and city or town etc etc. Courts do not like it when smaller areas try to split off and draw a gerrymandered area but there is often precedent for supporting local representation where disfunction in a larger school system exists.

Would this be easy? No, MCPS would fight this with everything that it has. It would put far more effort into maintaining its own power base than it has ever put forward in actually educating students. This is exactly why it should be pursued.

A great example is the recent experiment with grading in elementary school. Parents were never consulted about doing away with normal measurements and adopting the P standard system. Parents were furious and complained. Many teachers didn't like it either. MCPS could care less - it was their little experiment. They met any complaint with the usual arrogance of oh well people always complain, oh well we're better than Detroit, oh well you just don't understand the brilliance behind our new little system. It was a pile of BS! The MCPS apologist posters was all over these boards constantly with her two line condensing little posts with no logic. Now, MCPS has done away with their little experiment and they are actually surprised that they aren't receiving lots of pats on their backs for doing it. It doesn't occur to them that they screwed ES students for several years. They don't care, they get to experiment with the kids as much as they want. The system is so big that it is completely unaccountable to the people that it serves.

Smaller systems aren't perfect by any means but they don't allow the level of corruption, ineptitude and utter lack of accountability that exists with MCPS. The W schools have cause to separate and it is probably the only way to protect their schools and students from MCPS.

You do realize that Baltimore City is not in Baltimore County?