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Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS)
Serious Answers Only—How to Fix MCPS?
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Anonymous
not a real problem |
Anonymous
Because they are locked? |
Anonymous
| The real answer is to break it up into a lot of smaller school districts. Different parts of the county have different needs and everyone would be better off with decisions more tailored to particular schools. |
Anonymous
Ah...the sweet refrain of those who do not want to pay taxes to fund reasonably equivalent educational experiences, knowing their local pyramid's needs are more easily addressed. |
Anonymous
You could still have the state pool all tax revenue and then distribute evenly to each school district based on number of students it serves. |
Anonymous
| The only fix would be breaking up the district into towns (which we don't have, but most states with better public schools do) so the school is closer to parents/communities without worthless layers of bureaucracy that insulates from accountability. |
Anonymous
But since that's likely not to happen, what else have you got? |
Anonymous
Except that those states also have much worse public schools, too, largely depending on the wealth of the town/neighborhoods within each district. An interesting analysis might be to compare standardized test scores in MD, statewide, with, say New Jersey, statewide. Maybe top-100 college admissions rates (number admitted divided by the total HS senior population), too. Though I don't dispute the note about insulation from accountability, I wouldn't want to say that all bureaucracy (or all scaled bureaucracy) is bad. Better and more community-responsive bureaucracy might come from a focus on openness and accountability. |
Anonymous
C'mon! "Separate but equal" worked so well! |
Anonymous
That would not provide reasonably equivalent educational experiences due to the differential nature of the local populations served, best achieving equal protection under the law. The idea would be to make it something of a wash as to where a student might live from the perspective of the public education they might receive. For example, meeting the needs of a high-performing student might be less expensive in a district with lots of high-performing peers than in one with few with whom that student could cohort. That might require more funding for a highly diverse socioeconomic population than for a largely homogeneous one, and apportionment of public funds should follow. Or obtaining land for and constructing a school might be less expensive in a rural area than in an urban one. That might, then, require more funding be apportioned to urban areas to achieve similar facility conditions. Conversely, cultural field trips may be more accessible in urban environments than in rural ones, and associated funding might then be higher in rural areas. Costs associated with facilities, of course, carry many times the cost of field trips. One also would expect economies and diseconomies of scale to play a part. One wouldn't expect the overall calculus to result in equal or near-equal funding per student to achieve the aim. |
Anonymous
There is a lot of cross-district/statewide funding in those blue states that take this approach like NJ. Spending per student is way higher in poorer school districts. |
Anonymous
And then it will be grossly inequitable from town to town like it is in those states with town districts. Because we have a system where funding is largely based on property tax. |
Anonymous
"A lot" is relative. Is it enough to result in a kid in Camden getting a reasonably equivalent educational experience to a kid in Cherry Hill? Paterson to Princeton? Elmer to Saddle River? |
Anonymous
| Frederick County Public Schools is looking to close its virtual academy to close the budget shortfalls. Any idea on how much MCPS would save by eliminating its virtual academy? |
Anonymous
Same in CT, Compare Fairfield to Bridgeport. They border each other but he schools are light years different. |