Disappointed by the MoCo gifted programs?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Meanwhile no-one in the suburbs ever worries about this because it's exactly what they went to the suburbs for. Once you're already in that monochromatic environment you can wring your hands with dismay and verbally promote "diversity" as loudly as you can. (Ah, the sweet, sweet peace of mind of white flight...)

This is absolutely hysterical. Have you ever actually, you know, been to a close-in suburb like Silver Spring or Takoma Park? These close-in 'burbs are so much more diverse than my old DC neighborhood, Cleveland Park, which had nothing but whites and some foreign nationals, all of them wealthy. You must be living in a parallel universe if you think there are not diverse places to live outside of DC, and it's just plain wrong to somehow imagine that all suburbs are the same.

[Anonymous]

[quote=Anonymous
Meanwhile no-one in the suburbs ever worries about this because it's exactly what they went to the suburbs for. Once you're already in that monochromatic environment you can wring your hands with dismay and verbally promote "diversity" as loudly as you can. (Ah, the sweet, sweet peace of mind of white flight...)

I invite you to check out the suburban towns of Wheaton and Gaithersburg. I think they are a tad more diverse than Dupont, Georgetown, Woodley, Cleveland Park and Chevy Chase.

[Anonymous]

14:06/19:38 here. OP, I mentioned that we don't have a child in school yet. We may end up going private, even in MoCo. The reason is that we felt there's something of a forced choice here: If you want to have a neighborhood elementary school with really high test scores, your neighbors will be pretty homogeneous economically and probably ethnically too. If you want to live in a more diverse neighborhood, the local schools seem to have lower test scores. All the elementary schools we've looked at have larger class sizes than we liked for K, and the schools themselves are crowded. TPES is going to relocate their kids for a year to renovate and expand the school. Perhaps it's not really as binary as we perceive it to be. But that's been our take on it so far.

[Anonymous]

OP here; 14:06/19:38: Do you live in Takoma Park? That seems like an area we would like, so I'm disappointed to hear that private schools are more appealing than TPES, which I've heard is great.

And isn't there a core group of high-achieving students in Takoma Park schools? I imagine lower test scores reflect demographics, rather than the quality of the school?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here; 14:06/19:38: Do you live in Takoma Park? That seems like an area we would like, so I'm disappointed to hear that private schools are more appealing than TPES, which I've heard is great.

And isn't there a core group of high-achieving students in Takoma Park schools? I imagine lower test scores reflect demographics, rather than the quality of the school?

Yes. TPES really is an excellent school and there's certainly a high-achieving core group of kids in Takoma Park schools. You're right: because Takoma Park is so diverse economically, aggregate test scores are lower than in more homogenous parts of MoCo. The main problem for us is that TPES will be under construction during the 2009-10 school year and the children will be bused to a school in Grosvenor, which is a bit farther than I want to send a kindergartner. For an older child I don't think it would be a problem. Our daughter is also very interested in art and music, and a private school might offer more opportunities for those. We have many friends and neighbors with children in Takoma Park schools, though, and they really are happy with those schools. We haven't made any decisions yet.

[Anonymous]

OP,

I found a blog recently called "The More Child" written by a mom who has 2 daughters in MoCo GT programs. She is less than satisfied with MoCo's GT programs. You may want to give it a look to get the other side of giftedness in MoCo. I find it extremely interesting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP,

I found a blog recently called "The More Child" written by a mom who has 2 daughters in MoCo GT programs. She is less than satisfied with MoCo's GT programs. You may want to give it a look to get the other side of giftedness in MoCo. I find it extremely interesting.

Love the blog, but I think the specifics matter--her older daughter is profoundly gifted, for example. Also, I may be mistaken, but she may be dealing with so-called "red-zone" schools in Montgomery County? In any case, she certainly includes posts about those schools. (See, for example, http://themorechild.wordpress.com/2008/10/20/red-zone-guinea-pigs/)

It's hard to find a definition of the "red zone," since it's an unofficial designation, but it includes low-scoring downcounty schools in the southern and eastern part of the county. Here's one discussion of "low expectations in the red zone": http://groups.yahoo.com/group/GTAletters/message/18971

Other postings from GTAletters suggest that other parts of the county have higher expectations for gifted kids. See, for example, http://groups.yahoo.com/group/GTAletters/message/19266

[Anonymous]

Perhaps the blogger does live in the so-called Red Zone. The problem for OP, perhaps, is that areas she might like to live in would also be designated in that way. (Though I don't know that MoCo does that any longer, actually.) I'm the PP who lives in Takoma Park, and I mentioned that our schools are focus schools. That means they have a higher percentage of kids receiving FARMS than the county average. Schools in the "Green Zone" are in the more homogeneous areas of the county. So we're back to the same dichotomy that I, at least, have faced. Do we choose a diverse neighborhood with "Red Zone" schools? Or a more economically and racially homogeneous neighborhood with "Green Zone" schools?

[Anonymous]

I do think there are some green zone schools that are more heterogeneous. Certainly there are some that aren't in the most expensive neighborhoods. But you're right, in general the more challenging schools are also in the more affluent, more homogeneous areas.