Where are all you families of high performing students planning on moving to?

[Anonymous]

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Can you answer my question please instead of resorting to name calling? THis is the problem. Only in DCUM, if someone questions the solution to a problem to see if it is actually addressing the issue, the immediate response is anger. Do you agree kids should have 45 minutes bus rides to a school? Do you really think that changing the boundaries will decrease the achievement gap?

Let's ask some other questions.

What is the maximum acceptable length of a bus ride, in minutes?

What benefits from boundary adjustments might there be, other than decreasing the achievement gap, or is decreasing the achievement gap the sole measure of educational benefit?

There are other benefits -- people are choosing to focus on the achievement gap because its practically intractable. So if we can't fix it -- hey why do anything?

We should look at it from another way: if doing something would cause negative impact (e.g. longer bus rides), why doing it?

Because other benefits outweigh the positives.

I mean negatives. Oops

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

We should look at it from another way: if doing something would cause negative impact (e.g. longer bus rides), why doing it?

EVERYTHING has both positive and negative impacts. Anything you do. Also anything you don't do.

Geographic proximity has long been 1 of the 4 factors in boundary decisions. You can't optimize for 4 factors. You have to make trade-offs, such that the total benefits outweigh the total disadvantages.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Well, one benefit would be that at least some low-income kids would have access to the crazy 6-digit amounts that rich schools’ PTAs raise every year for “enrichment.” Lower and middle income schools are busy cutting Box Tops to get a few hundred dollars while the rich schools are pulling in obscene amounts to be used for new technology, books, field trips, after-school activities. This is not a case of loving your children more or valuing education more. Normal people just can’t cut $1000 checks for the PTA.

Exactly. It’s simply about spreading the wealth—in a mandatory or forced but “charitable” way.

[Anonymous]

So far what I've gathered is that this is for equity reasons and so that more kids will benefit from PTA funding provided by wealthier parents.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Well, one benefit would be that at least some low-income kids would have access to the crazy 6-digit amounts that rich schools’ PTAs raise every year for “enrichment.” Lower and middle income schools are busy cutting Box Tops to get a few hundred dollars while the rich schools are pulling in obscene amounts to be used for new technology, books, field trips, after-school activities. This is not a case of loving your children more or valuing education more. Normal people just can’t cut $1000 checks for the PTA.

Exactly. It’s simply about spreading the wealth—in a mandatory or forced but “charitable” way.

Our rich school donates upwards of 20K a year to Title 1 schools. So it's happening on some levels. But that 20K will pale compared to the costs of what MCPS is spending on the boundary survey and the chaos that will ensue when they make the recommendations.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Well, one benefit would be that at least some low-income kids would have access to the crazy 6-digit amounts that rich schools’ PTAs raise every year for “enrichment.” Lower and middle income schools are busy cutting Box Tops to get a few hundred dollars while the rich schools are pulling in obscene amounts to be used for new technology, books, field trips, after-school activities. This is not a case of loving your children more or valuing education more. Normal people just can’t cut $1000 checks for the PTA.

Exactly. It’s simply about spreading the wealth—in a mandatory or forced but “charitable” way.

Our rich school donates upwards of 20K a year to Title 1 schools. So it's happening on some levels. But that 20K will pale compared to the costs of what MCPS is spending on the boundary survey and the chaos that will ensue when they make the recommendations.

Chaos! CHAOS, I TELL YOU!!!!!!!

Which recommendations are they going to make?

It seems appropriate here to remind people that public schools are a public good and that taxes are not user fees. If you want the user fee model, that's what private schools are for.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Well, one benefit would be that at least some low-income kids would have access to the crazy 6-digit amounts that rich schools’ PTAs raise every year for “enrichment.” Lower and middle income schools are busy cutting Box Tops to get a few hundred dollars while the rich schools are pulling in obscene amounts to be used for new technology, books, field trips, after-school activities. This is not a case of loving your children more or valuing education more. Normal people just can’t cut $1000 checks for the PTA.

Exactly. It’s simply about spreading the wealth—in a mandatory or forced but “charitable” way.

Our rich school donates upwards of 20K a year to Title 1 schools. So it's happening on some levels. But that 20K will pale compared to the costs of what MCPS is spending on the boundary survey and the chaos that will ensue when they make the recommendations.

Chaos! CHAOS, I TELL YOU!!!!!!!

Which recommendations are they going to make?

It seems appropriate here to remind people that public schools are a public good and that taxes are not user fees. If you want the user fee model, that's what private schools are for.

Exactly. So as part of MCPS providing public schools for the public good, they need to really evaluate if long bus rides are worth it for the public good.

[Anonymous]

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Such as?

I sure hope that it's not the same people arguing, on the one hand, that the world will come to an end if they get rezoned for Seneca Valley High School, and, on the other hand, that a student at a high-poverty high school has exactly the same opportunities as a student at a low-poverty high school.

Yes, this lack of opportunity is BS. There IS opportunity for high achieving kids in practically every high school. SVHS has an IB program. Rockville HS has IB. Gaithersburg HS has Signature Academies. I'm not buying this BS that only schools with low FARMS have opportunity. EVERY kid, rich or poor, with the motivation, guidance, and ambition can succeed in any school in this county, even the ones that are disproportionately poorer than other schools. I've seen it. Yes, I think boundaries need to be reviewed from time to time to make sure they still work and that demographics aren't skewed disproportionately towards one group and where we can make adjustments WITHIN adjacent school clusters, then yes we should. BUt we need to not be supporting 45 minute bus rides. And even if boundaries are adjusted, let's not kid ourselves in thinking that this is actually helping low performing students who don't have the support at home. Let's be honest and realize that all this is doing is raising the AVERAGE test scores at low performing schools so that MCPS can say, "see we fixed it!"

bus routes aren't changing

It's all about closing the achievement gap rightly or wrongly that's what the goal of all of this is. To do that by having less high performing and low performing schools and you do that by tweaking boundaries to try and level out SES levels across attendance areas.

Do you agree kids should have 45 minutes bus rides to a school? Do you really think that changing the boundaries will decrease the achievement gap? SO miraculously, a kid who goes to a low performing school who doesn't have the support at home will all of a sudden receive the at home support and the values and the skills needed to succeed in the newly assigned higher performing school?

What are you afraid of that your snowflake will be damaged by having poor kids in your school

Are you that obtuse to think that lower performing kids won't benefit from going to a school with higher performing kids

To be honest, yes, I am indeed very afraid of that. So what assurances can you give me that my precious snowflake won’t be adversely affected in any way in terms of quality of education and social influence? Will the on grade level or high performing students receive EQUAL amount of teacher instruction and attention as a low performing student and not simply get shoved to the carpet. And don’t ignore the FACT that FARMS students tend to be low performing. That has already been established in numerous peer reviewed publications. Just give me some kind of assurance.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Well, one benefit would be that at least some low-income kids would have access to the crazy 6-digit amounts that rich schools’ PTAs raise every year for “enrichment.” Lower and middle income schools are busy cutting Box Tops to get a few hundred dollars while the rich schools are pulling in obscene amounts to be used for new technology, books, field trips, after-school activities. This is not a case of loving your children more or valuing education more. Normal people just can’t cut $1000 checks for the PTA.

Exactly. It’s simply about spreading the wealth—in a mandatory or forced but “charitable” way.

Our rich school donates upwards of 20K a year to Title 1 schools. So it's happening on some levels. But that 20K will pale compared to the costs of what MCPS is spending on the boundary survey and the chaos that will ensue when they make the recommendations.

Chaos! CHAOS, I TELL YOU!!!!!!!

Which recommendations are they going to make?

It seems appropriate here to remind people that public schools are a public good and that taxes are not user fees. If you want the user fee model, that's what private schools are for.

Exactly. So as part of MCPS providing public schools for the public good, they need to really evaluate if long bus rides are worth it for the public good.

I'm sure that will be one thing they will consider as "proximity" is one of the key factors mentioned.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Well, one benefit would be that at least some low-income kids would have access to the crazy 6-digit amounts that rich schools’ PTAs raise every year for “enrichment.” Lower and middle income schools are busy cutting Box Tops to get a few hundred dollars while the rich schools are pulling in obscene amounts to be used for new technology, books, field trips, after-school activities. This is not a case of loving your children more or valuing education more. Normal people just can’t cut $1000 checks for the PTA.

Exactly. It’s simply about spreading the wealth—in a mandatory or forced but “charitable” way.

Our rich school donates upwards of 20K a year to Title 1 schools. So it's happening on some levels. But that 20K will pale compared to the costs of what MCPS is spending on the boundary survey and the chaos that will ensue when they make the recommendations.

Chaos! CHAOS, I TELL YOU!!!!!!!

Which recommendations are they going to make?

It seems appropriate here to remind people that public schools are a public good and that taxes are not user fees. If you want the user fee model, that's what private schools are for.

Exactly. So as part of MCPS providing public schools for the public good, they need to really evaluate if long bus rides are worth it for the public good.

That is why geographic proximity is 1 of the 4 factors that MCPS uses for boundary decisions. There are four factors, and geographic proximity is one of them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

We should look at it from another way: if doing something would cause negative impact (e.g. longer bus rides), why doing it?

EVERYTHING has both positive and negative impacts. Anything you do. Also anything you don't do.

Geographic proximity has long been 1 of the 4 factors in boundary decisions. You can't optimize for 4 factors. You have to make trade-offs, such that the total benefits outweigh the total disadvantages.

Sure. Then when people show negative impacts, it puts pressure on the other side to show more concrete proof of the positive impacts.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

To be honest, yes, I am indeed very afraid of that. So what assurances can you give me that my precious snowflake won’t be adversely affected in any way in terms of quality of education and social influence? Will the on grade level or high performing students receive EQUAL amount of teacher instruction and attention as a low performing student and not simply get shoved to the carpet. And don’t ignore the FACT that FARMS students tend to be low performing. That has already been established in numerous peer reviewed publications. Just give me some kind of assurance.

PP, your kid will most likely be fine. And if your kid isn't fine, it won't be because there are poor kids at your kid's school. Plus, while there may be adverse effects, there may also be benefits. Have you considered the benefits?

-non-poor person whose kids go to school with poor kids

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

We should look at it from another way: if doing something would cause negative impact (e.g. longer bus rides), why doing it?

EVERYTHING has both positive and negative impacts. Anything you do. Also anything you don't do.

Geographic proximity has long been 1 of the 4 factors in boundary decisions. You can't optimize for 4 factors. You have to make trade-offs, such that the total benefits outweigh the total disadvantages.

Sure. Then when people show negative impacts, it puts pressure on the other side to show more concrete proof of the positive impacts.

The public provides input. The MCPS superintendent makes a recommendation. The BoE makes the decision. This isn't a debate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So far what I've gathered is that this is for equity reasons and so that more kids will benefit from PTA funding provided by wealthier parents.

Perhaps the county should consider splitting up the PTA funds much like the way restaurants divvy up credit card tips. Combine them all in one big pot and then divide up the funds equally among all of the schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So far what I've gathered is that this is for equity reasons and so that more kids will benefit from PTA funding provided by wealthier parents.

Perhaps the county should consider splitting up the PTA funds much like the way restaurants divvy up credit card tips. Combine them all in one big pot and then divide up the funds equally among all of the schools.

+1 Eliminates the need for bussing.