Why do parents from high FARMS school

[Anonymous]

My kid attends a high farms school. All of her friends have part time jobs and/or helping their families with child care. Driving to another school everyday is vastly different than driving to a close part time job on weekends and maybe a couple days during the week.
On a separate note: there needs to be a gpa restriction or prerequisite to entering an AP class. It did not serve my kid well to have low performing kids in her classes. As a result, the instruction slowed down significantly resulting in not all lessons being covered.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is poolesville the wealthiest school in its region? I honestly don’t know. I am wondering if the poolesville magnet was meant to be like the Blair magnet — enticing kids to a poorly performing school so that the school’s test scores go up and it doesn’t look so bad (and so no one actually has to address the educational issues of gen pop).

Yes, it is by a large amount. Part of that may be due to the demographics of the out-of-bound magnet students, but I think by demographics of resident students it's probably the highest income as well.

So what was the original idea of putting a magnet at a high income school versus a lower income one (like Blair)?

It was a way to add students to a school they wanted to keep open but that had very low enrollment numbers.

[Anonymous]

[twitter]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is poolesville the wealthiest school in its region? I honestly don’t know. I am wondering if the poolesville magnet was meant to be like the Blair magnet — enticing kids to a poorly performing school so that the school’s test scores go up and it doesn’t look so bad (and so no one actually has to address the educational issues of gen pop).

Yes, it is by a large amount. Part of that may be due to the demographics of the out-of-bound magnet students, but I think by demographics of resident students it's probably the highest income as well.

So what was the original idea of putting a magnet at a high income school versus a lower income one (like Blair)?

It was a way to add students to a school they wanted to keep open but that had very low enrollment numbers.

Because it is far away, as someone suggested upthread?

Just wondering if the same logic is being used for Whitman, since it is underutilized.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My kid attends a high farms school. All of her friends have part time jobs and/or helping their families with child care. Driving to another school everyday is vastly different than driving to a close part time job on weekends and maybe a couple days during the week.
On a separate note: there needs to be a gpa restriction or prerequisite to entering an AP class. It did not serve my kid well to have low performing kids in her classes. As a result, the instruction slowed down significantly resulting in not all lessons being covered.

It's not about your kid. It's about all kids. Move to a W school if you don't like other kids in your kids classes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is poolesville the wealthiest school in its region? I honestly don’t know. I am wondering if the poolesville magnet was meant to be like the Blair magnet — enticing kids to a poorly performing school so that the school’s test scores go up and it doesn’t look so bad (and so no one actually has to address the educational issues of gen pop).

Yes, it is by a large amount. Part of that may be due to the demographics of the out-of-bound magnet students, but I think by demographics of resident students it's probably the highest income as well.

I don't think that is true. It probably has the lowest FARMS rate but I would guess the families at Churchill and Whitman are wealthier and have higher incomes.

Some are wealthy, some stretched, some sold other properties/got lucky, some have family help.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Low income students can't travel far. They have jobs and sibling care responsibilities. So if you put magnets in the high income schools, you basically siphon off highest resourced high performing students from the low income schools. The kids that are left have a very small cohort and the school can no longer sustain advanced coursework. It is truly better not to have a magnet at all
High income students already have advanced classes at their home schools.

It

I think the idea that low income high school students are working jobs to support their families is a fantasy.

How exactly can they travel to get to these jobs they have but can’t travel to get to a nearby school?

They use jobs as a talking point but busses, walking, family, etc. These schools are not nearby.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid attends a high farms school. All of her friends have part time jobs and/or helping their families with child care. Driving to another school everyday is vastly different than driving to a close part time job on weekends and maybe a couple days during the week.
On a separate note: there needs to be a gpa restriction or prerequisite to entering an AP class. It did not serve my kid well to have low performing kids in her classes. As a result, the instruction slowed down significantly resulting in not all lessons being covered.

It's not about your kid. It's about all kids. Move to a W school if you don't like other kids in your kids classes.

Huh? PP needs to move because she wants her school to enforce the Advanced Placement in APs? What if the W school she moves to also allows kids who don't qualify into those classes?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is poolesville the wealthiest school in its region? I honestly don’t know. I am wondering if the poolesville magnet was meant to be like the Blair magnet — enticing kids to a poorly performing school so that the school’s test scores go up and it doesn’t look so bad (and so no one actually has to address the educational issues of gen pop).

Yes, it is by a large amount. Part of that may be due to the demographics of the out-of-bound magnet students, but I think by demographics of resident students it's probably the highest income as well.

So what was the original idea of putting a magnet at a high income school versus a lower income one (like Blair)?

To alleviate white flight and to reduce social-economic disparity. See wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montgomery_Blair_High_School (right under "Academics").

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is poolesville the wealthiest school in its region? I honestly don’t know. I am wondering if the poolesville magnet was meant to be like the Blair magnet — enticing kids to a poorly performing school so that the school’s test scores go up and it doesn’t look so bad (and so no one actually has to address the educational issues of gen pop).

Yes, it is by a large amount. Part of that may be due to the demographics of the out-of-bound magnet students, but I think by demographics of resident students it's probably the highest income as well.

So what was the original idea of putting a magnet at a high income school versus a lower income one (like Blair)?

To alleviate white flight and to reduce social-economic disparity. See wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montgomery_Blair_High_School (right under "Academics").

That’s about Blair. I’m asking about the Poolesville magnet.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid attends a high farms school. All of her friends have part time jobs and/or helping their families with child care. Driving to another school everyday is vastly different than driving to a close part time job on weekends and maybe a couple days during the week.
On a separate note: there needs to be a gpa restriction or prerequisite to entering an AP class. It did not serve my kid well to have low performing kids in her classes. As a result, the instruction slowed down significantly resulting in not all lessons being covered.

It's not about your kid. It's about all kids. Move to a W school if you don't like other kids in your kids classes.

Huh? PP needs to move because she wants her school to enforce the Advanced Placement in APs? What if the W school she moves to also allows kids who don't qualify into those classes?

That's been the suggestion to the rest of us is to move. She doesn't want her kids with kids she considers less than so her option is to risk losing AP classes or deal with it or move.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Low income students can't travel far. They have jobs and sibling care responsibilities. So if you put magnets in the high income schools, you basically siphon off highest resourced high performing students from the low income schools. The kids that are left have a very small cohort and the school can no longer sustain advanced coursework. It is truly better not to have a magnet at all
High income students already have advanced classes at their home schools.

It

This. No more all county magnets. Focus resources on all the home schools so all kids have access to challenging course. And be ok that sometimes it's 10 kids in a hard class in some schools.

This. If you want everything to be fair, cut the magnets out and have advanced classes in every school where the kids who meet the criteria go into.

That is what FCPS does. And for the uber smart have one school like TJ where participating school systems can get into.

The school divisions currently participating in TJHSST are:
Arlington County
Fairfax County (includes City of Fairfax)
Falls Church City
Loudoun County
Prince William County

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Low income students can't travel far. They have jobs and sibling care responsibilities. So if you put magnets in the high income schools, you basically siphon off highest resourced high performing students from the low income schools. The kids that are left have a very small cohort and the school can no longer sustain advanced coursework. It is truly better not to have a magnet at all
High income students already have advanced classes at their home schools.

It

This. No more all county magnets. Focus resources on all the home schools so all kids have access to challenging course. And be ok that sometimes it's 10 kids in a hard class in some schools.

This. If you want everything to be fair, cut the magnets out and have advanced classes in every school where the kids who meet the criteria go into.

That is what FCPS does. And for the uber smart have one school like TJ where participating school systems can get into.

The school divisions currently participating in TJHSST are:
Arlington County
Fairfax County (includes City of Fairfax)
Falls Church City
Loudoun County
Prince William County

The thing about TJ that I think is really good is that it's no one's "home school." That helps a lot with fairness, I think.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:The equity add on is roughly in line across schools and is related to the number of FARMS kids. But I don’t know how they did the allocation (it likely adjusts for things other than FARMS).

I thought that at first, but I do not think that is accurate. First of all that amount is tiny to the point of being insulting if it is indeed the equity add on. Moreover, what is it being added to? The number they are adding it to is not the total funding for the school. You can't staff a high school on $300k.

This is not the total for the school. See the other document.

the fact you are still trying to say high poverty schools get any significant funding based on their FARMS rates is actually insulting at this point. Please stop.

What? Look I’m trying to tell you what the columns mean since clearly you or someone else is not interpreting it correctly. Read what is written versus assuming you are talking to a single person.

Let's get back on track to the fact that high poverty high schools do not get a ton of extra money based on their poverty rates. This table is not helpful. It doesn't matter what the columns mean because the amounts are miniscule.

NP. MCPS has stated on numerous occasions that spends $3000-$4000 more per student per year in high poverty schools vs wealthier schools.

And, what exactly are they spending the money on given the low scores?

You're almost there so I'll take you the rest of the way in. There's almost no amount of money that will raise poor kids test scores, en masse, significantly. That's because poor culture eschews and even mocks education. I know because I was raised in that culture. The best we can do is throw as many lifelines to the poor kids who DO want to learn and get them into an environment where they can do just that. The rest should be all belit abandoned. Progressives will howl at this idea but it's the best way to help those who want to be helped without draining most of the school budget on the kids who don't want to learn.

You are a hateful person. Kids are not poor, their parents may be, but that should not define a child or their outcome. Yes, money can help if they are more teachers, reading specialists, SLP's, ESOL, etc and they get evaluated for any learning disabilities and get help specific to those. Most parents want their kids to be successful but its hard when you are struggling and not educated yourself.

I'm a liberal and a realist which is what it takes to tackle difficult problems I've actually experienced. You're a progressive who hasn't been poor so you fantasize what that culture is like and can only make emotionally unregulated assumptions about what it would take to fix the problems there. With my way, we help a lot of kids who want help. With your way, everyone gets dragged downward.

We don’t even try to fix it. You are not a liberal. Parents want their kids to do well but if you aren’t educated it’s hard to know what your kids need and access help. Most schools and staff go out of their way not to help, speaking from experience except for the rare teacher who goes above and beyond. Your way is racist, and horrible. Should we kick the not smart kids out of the w schools and tell them to do a trade?

Liberal doesn't mean "most insane leftist." So yes, I'm liberal. But I'm also a realist. Claiming that "we don't even try to fix it" is laughably incorrect. We spend a fortune trying to educate our kids, many of whom don't want to be educated. Again. 26% of the kids in MCPS aren't showing up to school regularly. It's probably twice that in many east county schools. And why bring race into it? Those are your assumptions, not mine. Again, I grew up super poor and actually live that life and I'm white. And sure, we can kick kids out of the W schools if they are causing trouble as well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Low income students can't travel far. They have jobs and sibling care responsibilities. So if you put magnets in the high income schools, you basically siphon off highest resourced high performing students from the low income schools. The kids that are left have a very small cohort and the school can no longer sustain advanced coursework. It is truly better not to have a magnet at all
High income students already have advanced classes at their home schools.

It

This. No more all county magnets. Focus resources on all the home schools so all kids have access to challenging course. And be ok that sometimes it's 10 kids in a hard class in some schools.

This. If you want everything to be fair, cut the magnets out and have advanced classes in every school where the kids who meet the criteria go into.

That is what FCPS does. And for the uber smart have one school like TJ where participating school systems can get into.

The school divisions currently participating in TJHSST are:
Arlington County
Fairfax County (includes City of Fairfax)
Falls Church City
Loudoun County
Prince William County

Just having TJ isn't great either as college admissions would be very difficult and not all kids get in as they are tracked young.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The equity add on is roughly in line across schools and is related to the number of FARMS kids. But I don’t know how they did the allocation (it likely adjusts for things other than FARMS).

I thought that at first, but I do not think that is accurate. First of all that amount is tiny to the point of being insulting if it is indeed the equity add on. Moreover, what is it being added to? The number they are adding it to is not the total funding for the school. You can't staff a high school on $300k.

This is not the total for the school. See the other document.

the fact you are still trying to say high poverty schools get any significant funding based on their FARMS rates is actually insulting at this point. Please stop.

What? Look I’m trying to tell you what the columns mean since clearly you or someone else is not interpreting it correctly. Read what is written versus assuming you are talking to a single person.

Let's get back on track to the fact that high poverty high schools do not get a ton of extra money based on their poverty rates. This table is not helpful. It doesn't matter what the columns mean because the amounts are miniscule.

NP. MCPS has stated on numerous occasions that spends $3000-$4000 more per student per year in high poverty schools vs wealthier schools.

That’s not enough money to do much of anything.

I mean per pupil it is. Too bad MCPS doesn't do this at the high school level or at most middle schools.

The lost I saw a couple years ago was a lost of high schools so they are doing it in high schools.