Can "bad" schools get better?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Huntington High school in WV has an 80 percent white population-median family income is $29,000.00 and FARMS rate is about 54%. Test scores are at or below 50% and AP courses taken are at 8%. Clearly they are not high acheivers or doing very well. Poverty has an adverse effect on every race.

This really should go without saying!

Which is why the comment "poor minority populations bring down a school and there is no doubt that is a fact!" above is racist, or ignorant at best.

That's a true statement for MoCo. We are NOT in WV the last time I checked.

yes, your're right. In MoCo, there isn't a big white *and* poor population (based on % of FARMS kids by race). It just so happens that the majority of the poor people in MoCo are minorities. But the WV example shows that it's a poverty issue, not a race issue. So, there was no reason to use the "minority" word in reference to "bringing down a school". It is a SES issue; not a race issue.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Huntington High school in WV has an 80 percent white population-median family income is $29,000.00 and FARMS rate is about 54%. Test scores are at or below 50% and AP courses taken are at 8%. Clearly they are not high acheivers or doing very well. Poverty has an adverse effect on every race.

This really should go without saying!

Which is why the comment "poor minority populations bring down a school and there is no doubt that is a fact!" above is racist, or ignorant at best.

That's a true statement for MoCo. We are NOT in WV the last time I checked.

Are you saying there are no poor white people in MoCo?

[Anonymous]

^ read 9:04

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Huntington High school in WV has an 80 percent white population-median family income is $29,000.00 and FARMS rate is about 54%. Test scores are at or below 50% and AP courses taken are at 8%. Clearly they are not high acheivers or doing very well. Poverty has an adverse effect on every race.

This really should go without saying!

Which is why the comment "poor minority populations bring down a school and there is no doubt that is a fact!" above is racist, or ignorant at best.

That's a true statement for MoCo. We are NOT in WV the last time I checked.

yes, your're right. In MoCo, there isn't a big white *and* poor population (based on % of FARMS kids by race). It just so happens that the majority of the poor people in MoCo are minorities. But the WV example shows that it's a poverty issue, not a race issue. So, there was no reason to use the "minority" word in reference to "bringing down a school". It is a SES issue; not a race issue.

Not necessarily. In WV example, the whole state is under performing - the entire state lacks resources. In MCPS, the resources are there but there are under performing pockets of population which happened to be minority groups. You can't "ding" states with less resources than we do for performing less than we do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Huntington High school in WV has an 80 percent white population-median family income is $29,000.00 and FARMS rate is about 54%. Test scores are at or below 50% and AP courses taken are at 8%. Clearly they are not high acheivers or doing very well. Poverty has an adverse effect on every race.

This really should go without saying!

Which is why the comment "poor minority populations bring down a school and there is no doubt that is a fact!" above is racist, or ignorant at best.

That's a true statement for MoCo. We are NOT in WV the last time I checked.

yes, your're right. In MoCo, there isn't a big white *and* poor population (based on % of FARMS kids by race). It just so happens that the majority of the poor people in MoCo are minorities. But the WV example shows that it's a poverty issue, not a race issue. So, there was no reason to use the "minority" word in reference to "bringing down a school". It is a SES issue; not a race issue.

Not necessarily. In WV example, the whole state is under performing - the entire state lacks resources. In MCPS, the resources are there but there are under performing pockets of population which happened to be minority groups. You can't "ding" states with less resources than we do for performing less than we do.

Which proves the point that performance is tightly related to income, be it a portion of the county, or the entire state. If you look at the performance measurements for each state, you will find that those states that are the "poorest" have lower academic performance.

While MCPS may have more resources than WV, the lower income families here, and elsewhere, don't have the resources outside of the home for enrichment, or even educated parents with the time to help kids with HW and enrichment. That is the major difference, whether it's in MCPS or WV, or anywhere in this country.

[Anonymous]

10:57 - I don't necessarily disagree with you but I don't fully agree with you either. When the school system has and provides resouces, like MCPS, a lot depends on how hard kids try. You can't always fall back on "oh, I am poor so I can't do well" mentality. Look at the Asian kids. A lot of their families came here with nothing in their pocket - myself included. If kids don't take advantage of what's offered to them free of charge, it's on them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I went to a school in another state that would likely compare to Blair in many ways-Great AP program, Med-science program with lots of smart kids. One kid got a full scholarship to Harvard, many went on to college, while many others did drugs, while some others dropped out.

I posted this and forgot to say that I want better for my kid-Blair is good only due to the magnet-Whitman is good because of the student body, as is Sherwood and the other W schools. Political correctedness aside, poor minority populations bring down a school and there is no doubt that is a fact!

So, if they were all poor but white, they wouldn't bring down the school? So, the problem is "colored people"?

This is actually an interesting question that I would love to get an answer to. I googled it and again, everything was "the achievement gap between low income and minority students vs. middle income whites," "gap between poor minorities and whites persists" and stuff like that. There doesn't seem to be many studies controlling for SES. Of course we know that low income minorities perform worse than upper income whites, but it would be interesting to see the results of a study that compared low income whites to low income minorities.

Of course, in this area (well, this country actually) poor and minority tend to go hand in hand, and white and wealthy go hand in hand. The wealthiest schools have the highest white populations, the poorest have the lowest white populations.

SAT scores go up w/ SES; that makes sense in many ways. Smart people tend to make more money, tend to value education more, and pass their smarts and values down to their kids to a greater or lesser degree. When comparing by SES between races it's not quite so clear about SES. For example, AA children of parents in the top income brackets generally perform at the same level as the poorest white children. So, it terms of SAT scores, poor whites == affluent blacks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Not necessarily. In WV example, the whole state is under performing - the entire state lacks resources. In MCPS, the resources are there but there are under performing pockets of population which happened to be minority groups. You can't "ding" states with less resources than we do for performing less than we do.

Nobody's dinging anybody. It's just a fact that student performance is highly correlated to SES, whether in West Virginia or in Montgomery County.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:10:57 - I don't necessarily disagree with you but I don't fully agree with you either. When the school system has and provides resouces, like MCPS, a lot depends on how hard kids try. You can't always fall back on "oh, I am poor so I can't do well" mentality. Look at the Asian kids. A lot of their families came here with nothing in their pocket - myself included. If kids don't take advantage of what's offered to them free of charge, it's on them.

Who is doing this?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Huntington High school in WV has an 80 percent white population-median family income is $29,000.00 and FARMS rate is about 54%. Test scores are at or below 50% and AP courses taken are at 8%. Clearly they are not high acheivers or doing very well. Poverty has an adverse effect on every race.

This really should go without saying!

Which is why the comment "poor minority populations bring down a school and there is no doubt that is a fact!" above is racist, or ignorant at best.

That's a true statement for MoCo. We are NOT in WV the last time I checked.

yes, your're right. In MoCo, there isn't a big white *and* poor population (based on % of FARMS kids by race). It just so happens that the majority of the poor people in MoCo are minorities. But the WV example shows that it's a poverty issue, not a race issue. So, there was no reason to use the "minority" word in reference to "bringing down a school". It is a SES issue; not a race issue.

The poor minorities are bringing down the MoCo schools-look at the stats-likely the poor whites live in those clusters as well so if you want to count them in, do so!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:10:57 - I don't necessarily disagree with you but I don't fully agree with you either. When the school system has and provides resouces, like MCPS, a lot depends on how hard kids try. You can't always fall back on "oh, I am poor so I can't do well" mentality. Look at the Asian kids. A lot of their families came here with nothing in their pocket - myself included. If kids don't take advantage of what's offered to them free of charge, it's on them.

Who is doing this?

All the poor non-Asians! The ones who want hand outs without doing the hard work-Asians lift themselves out of poverty through education-the other "minorities" do not do this sadly...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:10:57 - I don't necessarily disagree with you but I don't fully agree with you either. When the school system has and provides resouces, like MCPS, a lot depends on how hard kids try. You can't always fall back on "oh, I am poor so I can't do well" mentality. Look at the Asian kids. A lot of their families came here with nothing in their pocket - myself included. If kids don't take advantage of what's offered to them free of charge, it's on them.

Who is doing this?

All the poor non-Asians! The ones who want hand outs without doing the hard work-Asians lift themselves out of poverty through education-the other "minorities" do not do this sadly...

Grandpa, is that you? How did you find this board?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Huntington High school in WV has an 80 percent white population-median family income is $29,000.00 and FARMS rate is about 54%. Test scores are at or below 50% and AP courses taken are at 8%. Clearly they are not high acheivers or doing very well. Poverty has an adverse effect on every race.

This really should go without saying!

Which is why the comment "poor minority populations bring down a school and there is no doubt that is a fact!" above is racist, or ignorant at best.

That's a true statement for MoCo. We are NOT in WV the last time I checked.

yes, your're right. In MoCo, there isn't a big white *and* poor population (based on % of FARMS kids by race). It just so happens that the majority of the poor people in MoCo are minorities. But the WV example shows that it's a poverty issue, not a race issue. So, there was no reason to use the "minority" word in reference to "bringing down a school". It is a SES issue; not a race issue.

The poor minorities are bringing down the MoCo schools-look at the stats-likely the poor whites live in those clusters as well so if you want to count them in, do so!

Right, so this is a classism issue. Let's kick out all the poor people then we'd have the perfect test scores!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

The poor minorities are bringing down the MoCo schools-look at the stats-likely the poor whites live in those clusters as well so if you want to count them in, do so!

What does "bringing down a school" mean? How can a person "bring down" a school whose purpose is to serve the needs of that person?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:10:57 - I don't necessarily disagree with you but I don't fully agree with you either. When the school system has and provides resouces, like MCPS, a lot depends on how hard kids try. You can't always fall back on "oh, I am poor so I can't do well" mentality. Look at the Asian kids. A lot of their families came here with nothing in their pocket - myself included. If kids don't take advantage of what's offered to them free of charge, it's on them.

Who is doing this?

All the poor non-Asians! The ones who want hand outs without doing the hard work-Asians lift themselves out of poverty through education-the other "minorities" do not do this sadly...

I think there are plenty of poor whites who can't lift themselves out of poverty, too.