MoCo is diverse, for sure, but MCPS schools are not

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Instead of suggestions about 2 hour bus commutes a day, razing neighborhoods inside the Beltway in order to build subsidized middle class housing, forcing school integration by income, and attacking educated white collar families, how about focusing on something easier, more likely to happen and that can have a real impact: IMPROVING YOUR OWN SCHOOL. Get involved. Work from within. Complain and report class disruptions. Sit in on your kids’ class. Demand accountability from your teacher and principal. Know where your tax dollars are going. Get to know other parents. Raise your expectations. Demand tracking for high performers. Be noisy at the school, not on DCUM. Look how noisy Casa de Maryland is for all the Hispanics, legal or illegal. Get going!!!

Seriously, if you pay federal, Maryland state and MoCo county income tax, property tax, gas tax, sales tax then YOU fund the MCPS, state and county budget. Demand a well-functioning neighborhood school.

Because most of us work for a living. I had to do all that and it cost me a great deal in stress & lost income. Kept fighting for three years and gave up. One DC is in an independent and love it, the other early elementary MCPS.

[Anonymous]

Honestly, does anyone have a success story to share of how MCPS was failing them and through devoted efforts they were able to turn things around for their school? Does anyone have a story of how MCPS responded positively to constructive criticism? Or have you all had the same experience as us, which was to be told that the curriculum is uniform across the county and therefore the quality of education being delivered is uniform across the board? If they don't concede there's a problem, they don't want to hear about a solution. That was our experience, but maybe others have had more luck.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

+1

I come from a lower SES background, and one thing you don't find, and that is often echoed by other poster who come from a similar background is that higher SES parents are moe involved in their schools. Often ridiculously so.

If everyone that was of a lower SES started demanding more of their schools more would happen.

Yes, if everyone with a lower SES behaved more like people with a high SES, then the schools wouldn't have the problems that go with having lots of students with low-SES parents. That kind of goes without saying. It's not a policy solution, though. Unless you think that, "Hey! Poors! Start behaving more like affluent people!" is a policy solution?

pp, think about what you wrote. Then this week, go early and drop your kid off at school and watch the student body and parents.
Do the kids or parents or teachers look like they give a damn? If not, then start squawking. You are getting railroaded by a poorly performing school that is probably focusing mainly on the troublemakers, apathetic kids and ESOLs.
Demand tracking and attention for your middle class kid. Just the fact that you're on dcum regarding this topic means you care. Do something more. Ask questions. Ask the school what it is doing for your middle class kid? Take the answer and call the press. The press is all over what generous MoCo is doing for illegals (special testing, special counseling, special meals, special English classes); go tell the press what most of MoCo does for a middle class, legal, net tax-paying family. Go tell presidential candidate O'Malley what his agenda has done to middle class kids in one of the largest counties in the country.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

+1

I come from a lower SES background, and one thing you don't find, and that is often echoed by other poster who come from a similar background is that higher SES parents are moe involved in their schools. Often ridiculously so.

If everyone that was of a lower SES started demanding more of their schools more would happen.

Yes, if everyone with a lower SES behaved more like people with a high SES, then the schools wouldn't have the problems that go with having lots of students with low-SES parents. That kind of goes without saying. It's not a policy solution, though. Unless you think that, "Hey! Poors! Start behaving more like affluent people!" is a policy solution?

A policy of personal responsibility and accountability might change uninvolved parents' behavior. But continued policies of enabling and excuses will not. Since Maryland is a socially and fiscally liberal state, it will continue more of the same, the latter. Generational government dependency.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
pp, think about what you wrote. Then this week, go early and drop your kid off at school and watch the student body and parents.
Do the kids or parents or teachers look like they give a damn? If not, then start squawking. You are getting railroaded by a poorly performing school that is probably focusing mainly on the troublemakers, apathetic kids and ESOLs.
Demand tracking and attention for your middle class kid. Just the fact that you're on dcum regarding this topic means you care. Do something more. Ask questions. Ask the school what it is doing for your middle class kid? Take the answer and call the press. The press is all over what generous MoCo is doing for illegals (special testing, special counseling, special meals, special English classes); go tell the press what most of MoCo does for a middle class, legal, net tax-paying family. Go tell presidential candidate O'Malley what his agenda has done to middle class kids in one of the largest counties in the country.

Yeah, no. My situation is not what you assume it is.

Also, the kids you call "illegals", I call "US citizens".

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

A policy of personal responsibility and accountability might change uninvolved parents' behavior. But continued policies of enabling and excuses will not. Since Maryland is a socially and fiscally liberal state, it will continue more of the same, the latter. Generational government dependency.

What would this "policy of personal responsibility and accountability" look like? What specific actions would it entail?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
pp, think about what you wrote. Then this week, go early and drop your kid off at school and watch the student body and parents.
Do the kids or parents or teachers look like they give a damn? If not, then start squawking. You are getting railroaded by a poorly performing school that is probably focusing mainly on the troublemakers, apathetic kids and ESOLs.
Demand tracking and attention for your middle class kid. Just the fact that you're on dcum regarding this topic means you care. Do something more. Ask questions. Ask the school what it is doing for your middle class kid? Take the answer and call the press. The press is all over what generous MoCo is doing for illegals (special testing, special counseling, special meals, special English classes); go tell the press what most of MoCo does for a middle class, legal, net tax-paying family. Go tell presidential candidate O'Malley what his agenda has done to middle class kids in one of the largest counties in the country.

Yeah, no. My situation is not what you assume it is.

Also, the kids you call "illegals", I call "US citizens".

What is your "situation"?

My situation is my school is overcome with anchor babies and their illegal, undocumented mothers who never show up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
pp, think about what you wrote. Then this week, go early and drop your kid off at school and watch the student body and parents.
Do the kids or parents or teachers look like they give a damn? If not, then start squawking. You are getting railroaded by a poorly performing school that is probably focusing mainly on the troublemakers, apathetic kids and ESOLs.
Demand tracking and attention for your middle class kid. Just the fact that you're on dcum regarding this topic means you care. Do something more. Ask questions. Ask the school what it is doing for your middle class kid? Take the answer and call the press. The press is all over what generous MoCo is doing for illegals (special testing, special counseling, special meals, special English classes); go tell the press what most of MoCo does for a middle class, legal, net tax-paying family. Go tell presidential candidate O'Malley what his agenda has done to middle class kids in one of the largest counties in the country.

Yeah, no. My situation is not what you assume it is.

Also, the kids you call "illegals", I call "US citizens".

How do you know the actual citizenship of your school's students? Is this published somewhere? There are a ton of Central American kids who showed up in MoCo between the ages of 4-18. They are not U.S. citizens, nor are their parents. Furthermore, most entered the country illegally or overstayed their 90 day tourist visa thus are here illegally and undocumented. Marrying a US citizen Hispanic is a well-used loophole to overstaying your 90 days and filling for a greencar. Casa de Maryland lawyers can help you file your "Oops, I got married while a tourist" spousal greencard app.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What's the big deal about redrawing school boundaries to increase diversity? Or busing? Or really anything that the school district could do to lessen the segregation of the schools? Is your expensive house really going to suddenly drastically drop in value? Should it matter if the market value of your house does drop? Will it lead to massive white flight to... somewhere else? I just really don't think it would be that big of a deal to have the schools become a little more reflective of the socioeconomic and racial diversity of our area. As some posters have pointed out, their schools already are diverse. I'm sure the sky wouldn't fall if more schools were like those. Honestly, who doesn't value and benefit from a diverse student population?

Let's please have the county pay for more diversity by advertising incentives for folk to move to our great county from other places. Once they are here, let's heavily subsidize them to ensure they are happy and bring everyone they know. MoCo is a kind and gracious place, and can look after the U.S.'s unemployed and under-employed because we have great revenues from our over achieving population.

Then for the people who are working hard and paying taxes - either income taxes or very high property taxes (driven by their school districts), let's make MoCo even less appealing by telling them we are redrawing school boundaries so their children have to go to less-well performing schools, or so that they pay even more to go to private schools. This way, eventually all high tax payers will leave, and we can all be happy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
pp, think about what you wrote. Then this week, go early and drop your kid off at school and watch the student body and parents.
Do the kids or parents or teachers look like they give a damn? If not, then start squawking. You are getting railroaded by a poorly performing school that is probably focusing mainly on the troublemakers, apathetic kids and ESOLs.
Demand tracking and attention for your middle class kid. Just the fact that you're on dcum regarding this topic means you care. Do something more. Ask questions. Ask the school what it is doing for your middle class kid? Take the answer and call the press. The press is all over what generous MoCo is doing for illegals (special testing, special counseling, special meals, special English classes); go tell the press what most of MoCo does for a middle class, legal, net tax-paying family. Go tell presidential candidate O'Malley what his agenda has done to middle class kids in one of the largest counties in the country.

Yeah, no. My situation is not what you assume it is.

Also, the kids you call "illegals", I call "US citizens".

How do you know the actual citizenship of your school's students? Is this published somewhere? There are a ton of Central American kids who showed up in MoCo between the ages of 4-18. They are not U.S. citizens, nor are their parents. Furthermore, most entered the country illegally or overstayed their 90 day tourist visa thus are here illegally and undocumented. Marrying a US citizen Hispanic is a well-used loophole to overstaying your 90 days and filling for a greencar. Casa de Maryland lawyers can help you file your "Oops, I got married while a tourist" spousal greencard app.

I'll ask you the same question.

Also, I'll repost the link from earlier in the thread:

http://www.pewhispanic.org/2014/09/03/as-growth-stalls-unauthorized-immigrant-population-becomes-more-settled/

About 40% of adults who are unauthorized immigrants live with their US-born children.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
pp, think about what you wrote. Then this week, go early and drop your kid off at school and watch the student body and parents.
Do the kids or parents or teachers look like they give a damn? If not, then start squawking. You are getting railroaded by a poorly performing school that is probably focusing mainly on the troublemakers, apathetic kids and ESOLs.
Demand tracking and attention for your middle class kid. Just the fact that you're on dcum regarding this topic means you care. Do something more. Ask questions. Ask the school what it is doing for your middle class kid? Take the answer and call the press. The press is all over what generous MoCo is doing for illegals (special testing, special counseling, special meals, special English classes); go tell the press what most of MoCo does for a middle class, legal, net tax-paying family. Go tell presidential candidate O'Malley what his agenda has done to middle class kids in one of the largest counties in the country.

Yeah, no. My situation is not what you assume it is.

Also, the kids you call "illegals", I call "US citizens".

How do you know the actual citizenship of your school's students? Is this published somewhere? There are a ton of Central American kids who showed up in MoCo between the ages of 4-18. They are not U.S. citizens, nor are their parents. Furthermore, most entered the country illegally or overstayed their 90 day tourist visa thus are here illegally and undocumented. Marrying a US citizen Hispanic is a well-used loophole to overstaying your 90 days and filling for a greencar. Casa de Maryland lawyers can help you file your "Oops, I got married while a tourist" spousal greencard app.

I'll ask you the same question.

Also, I'll repost the link from earlier in the thread:

http://www.pewhispanic.org/2014/09/03/as-growth-stalls-unauthorized-immigrant-population-becomes-more-settled/

About 40% of adults who are unauthorized immigrants live with their US-born children.

This makes me think two things:

1) They should have been deported long before they had kids and settled down.
2) We need to remove birthright citizenship.

[Anonymous]

Racism doesn't help. Doesn't matter how we all got here or what papers we have in our pockets, the point is that MCPS should be trying to meet the needs of all the kids in its borders and it's failing. This is MCPS falling short. Scapegoating is pretty much always the wrong answer.

[Anonymous]

25 yrs ago Einstein was one if the roughest schools in the county. Now it is a good if not great school. Change can happen when the community wants it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

This makes me think two things:

1) They should have been deported long before they had kids and settled down.
2) We need to remove birthright citizenship.

Because it's great for a country to have a large group of people who are native to the country but have no right to live there?

And this has what to do with MCPS, exactly?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

This makes me think two things:

1) They should have been deported long before they had kids and settled down.
2) We need to remove birthright citizenship.

Because it's great for a country to have a large group of people who are native to the country but have no right to live there?

And this has what to do with MCPS, exactly?

Because a lot of the poverty and poor school performance is being driven by this immigration.