Should MCPS start busing or open enrollment?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I agree, but I suggest that busing be designed so that no elementary school has more than 20% of students on FARMS. That means that some low SES kids get bused to Potomac, Chevy Chase, and Bethesda and some high SES kids get bused to Silver Spring, Wheaton, Gaithersburg.
All middle schools and high schools should either have a magnet program, immersion program, or some other special program to attract high performing students and those that have potential, but have not yet been motivated to highly perform. There should be some programs that you must test into and some that are purely lottery based.

Of course, this will never happen because high SES parents would vote out any school board members who dared suggest it. Starr would be ridden out of town on a rail for even hinting that their snowflakes might rub elbows with a poor kid.

So the gap will remain.

Given that 33 % of MCPS kids are on FARMS, what do you propose to do with that 13%?

I'm torn on this. On one hand, I'd love to see more diversity in our local school. On the other hand, having lived in DC and traipsed across the city for "school choice" and experienced living on a block where the 10 kids went to 9 different schools, I really appreciate the fact that my kid can walk to school, and walk to friends' houses, and see school friends at the local park, etc . . . I would hate to give that up.

What MoCo really needs is more scattered site low income housing. Rather than busing low income kids to our neighborhood, I wish they'd figure out a way for those families to live here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was in an elementary down south where they bused in kids from the projects to integrate. There were days when it was like a scene out of Lord of the Flies. No way would I put any child of mine through that. I seriously doubt it would do much of anything to reduce any gap, and would be very expensive. The schools in the good districts are good because of the kids that go there. I read one study where the performance of poor children improved when they went to a school in a more affluent neighborhood, but only if the percentages were <20%. Since 40% of MoCo qualifies for FARMs, it's hard to see it being effective. In addition, it's been shown that bringing in poorer children also has a detrimental effect on the acheivement of higher performing children. Not sure how to fix the problem, but bussing sure isn't it.

That's not really an accurate summary. The data showed that poor children improved even when the percentages were >20%. Just not as much. Here's the study:

http://tcf.org/work/education/detail/housing-policy-is-school-policy/

From the report: "Children who lived in public housing and attended schools where no more than 20 percent of students qualified for a free or reduced price meal did best, whereas those children in public housing who attended schools where as many as 35 percent of students who qualified for a free or reduced price meal performed no better academically over time than public housing children who attended schools where 35 to 85 percent of students qualified for a free or reduced price meal."

Yes. But if you read the report, you will see that children who lived in public housing and attended schools where 20-34% were FARMS did better than children with 35-85% FARMS but not as well as children with <20% FARMS. And it would also have been good to break the 35-85% category into smaller groups, but that may not have been statistically possible. Nonetheless, 35-85% FARMS is a very, very broad category.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was in an elementary down south where they bused in kids from the projects to integrate. There were days when it was like a scene out of Lord of the Flies. No way would I put any child of mine through that. I seriously doubt it would do much of anything to reduce any gap, and would be very expensive. The schools in the good districts are good because of the kids that go there. I read one study where the performance of poor children improved when they went to a school in a more affluent neighborhood, but only if the percentages were <20%. Since 40% of MoCo qualifies for FARMs, it's hard to see it being effective. In addition, it's been shown that bringing in poorer children also has a detrimental effect on the acheivement of higher performing children. Not sure how to fix the problem, but bussing sure isn't it.

That's not really an accurate summary. The data showed that poor children improved even when the percentages were >20%. Just not as much. Here's the study:

http://tcf.org/work/education/detail/housing-policy-is-school-policy/

From the report: "Children who lived in public housing and attended schools where no more than 20 percent of students qualified for a free or reduced price meal did best, whereas those children in public housing who attended schools where as many as 35 percent of students who qualified for a free or reduced price meal performed no better academically over time than public housing children who attended schools where 35 to 85 percent of students qualified for a free or reduced price meal."

Yes. But if you read the report, you will see that children who lived in public housing and attended schools where 20-34% were FARMS did better than children with 35-85% FARMS but not as well as children with <20% FARMS. And it would also have been good to break the 35-85% category into smaller groups, but that may not have been statistically possible. Nonetheless, 35-85% FARMS is a very, very broad category.

That's not really how I interpreted it. The 0-30% group had a slight improvement, but that also included the 0-20% group as well. To really support the claim you're making they would have had to be able to break out the 0-20% from the 20-30% which I don't think the data supported. In other words it's entirely possible that all of the gains in the 0-30 group were driven by kids in the 0-20 group.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

That's not really how I interpreted it. The 0-30% group had a slight improvement, but that also included the 0-20% group as well. To really support the claim you're making they would have had to be able to break out the 0-20% from the 20-30% which I don't think the data supported. In other words it's entirely possible that all of the gains in the 0-30 group were driven by kids in the 0-20 group.

Agreed that it's possible. But we don't know. What we do know is that the study showed improvement in math scores for 0-20% vs. 20-85%, 0-25% vs. 25-85%, 0-30% vs. 30-85%, and even 0-35% vs. 35-85% (in year 7) -- see Appendix 3. So it is really not valid to say that the study showed that there was improvement only if FARMS was 20% or less.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

That's not really how I interpreted it. The 0-30% group had a slight improvement, but that also included the 0-20% group as well. To really support the claim you're making they would have had to be able to break out the 0-20% from the 20-30% which I don't think the data supported. In other words it's entirely possible that all of the gains in the 0-30 group were driven by kids in the 0-20 group.

Agreed that it's possible. But we don't know. What we do know is that the study showed improvement in math scores for 0-20% vs. 20-85%, 0-25% vs. 25-85%, 0-30% vs. 30-85%, and even 0-35% vs. 35-85% (in year 7) -- see Appendix 3. So it is really not valid to say that the study showed that there was improvement only if FARMS was 20% or less.

I'm not the one making that statement; I'm repeating the statement made in the executive summary of the report. If they could have made the claims you suggest and backed them up statistically they would have. I think you're over interpreting some summary graphs. The language they use is very clear:

Children who lived in public housing and attended schools where no more than 20 percent of students qualified for a free or reduced price meal did best, whereas those children in public housing who attended schools where as many as 35 percent of students who qualified for a free or reduced price meal performed no better academically over time than public housing children who attended schools where 35 to 85 percent of students qualified for a free or reduced price meal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

That's not really how I interpreted it. The 0-30% group had a slight improvement, but that also included the 0-20% group as well. To really support the claim you're making they would have had to be able to break out the 0-20% from the 20-30% which I don't think the data supported. In other words it's entirely possible that all of the gains in the 0-30 group were driven by kids in the 0-20 group.

Agreed that it's possible. But we don't know. What we do know is that the study showed improvement in math scores for 0-20% vs. 20-85%, 0-25% vs. 25-85%, 0-30% vs. 30-85%, and even 0-35% vs. 35-85% (in year 7) -- see Appendix 3. So it is really not valid to say that the study showed that there was improvement only if FARMS was 20% or less.

I'm not the one making that statement; I'm repeating the statement made in the executive summary of the report. If they could have made the claims you suggest and backed them up statistically they would have. I think you're over interpreting some summary graphs. The language they use is very clear:

Children who lived in public housing and attended schools where no more than 20 percent of students qualified for a free or reduced price meal did best, whereas those children in public housing who attended schools where as many as 35 percent of students who qualified for a free or reduced price meal performed no better academically over time than public housing children who attended schools where 35 to 85 percent of students qualified for a free or reduced price meal.

I do understand your point though; there's some point at which the benefits trail off, and I don't think this report is definitive enough to be able to confidently state that it's 20%. It could be 25%, 30% or even 15%. I think there were real limitations in the data being used.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have a question. Since many ESOL students struggle with English, and their parents may not be able to help them because of the language barrier, why not also provide instruction in other subjects in the language that they do speak?

Why not have a school that only teaches all subjects in Spanish (I know there are other ESOL population - but majority of ESOL students speak Spanish as first language) and also teach English as a foreign language? Make this school for children who are low SES and not performing very well and see if this can make a difference?

I think this will allow the parents to also help out in the homework - and if text book and answer keys are provided - who knows, we may actually educated parents who may not have been fortunate enough to have a proper education in their own language!

IMO you need to get the kids immersed in English at as young an age as possible when they're still really good at picking up languages. I could also easily see lawsuits from advocates of kids who spike a language other than Spanish.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

That's not really how I interpreted it. The 0-30% group had a slight improvement, but that also included the 0-20% group as well. To really support the claim you're making they would have had to be able to break out the 0-20% from the 20-30% which I don't think the data supported. In other words it's entirely possible that all of the gains in the 0-30 group were driven by kids in the 0-20 group.

Agreed that it's possible. But we don't know. What we do know is that the study showed improvement in math scores for 0-20% vs. 20-85%, 0-25% vs. 25-85%, 0-30% vs. 30-85%, and even 0-35% vs. 35-85% (in year 7) -- see Appendix 3. So it is really not valid to say that the study showed that there was improvement only if FARMS was 20% or less.

I'm not the one making that statement; I'm repeating the statement made in the executive summary of the report. If they could have made the claims you suggest and backed them up statistically they would have. I think you're over interpreting some summary graphs. The language they use is very clear:

Children who lived in public housing and attended schools where no more than 20 percent of students qualified for a free or reduced price meal did best, whereas those children in public housing who attended schools where as many as 35 percent of students who qualified for a free or reduced price meal performed no better academically over time than public housing children who attended schools where 35 to 85 percent of students qualified for a free or reduced price meal.

Yes, that's what the executive summary says. But the data they included in their report don't support that statement. If they had data that do support that statement, they should have included them in the report.

tl;dr -- look at all the data, not just what the executive summary (or the abstract) says.

[Anonymous]

Busing,open enrollment and charters is usually a mechanism to shut down low performing schools and achieve deeper RIFs in the teacher positions. DC went this direction because it was the only way to shut down and reduce long standing problems.

IF MCPS keeps declining then this could happen in the future but its highly unpopular with the teacher's union and long time staff for obvious reasons. Its politically risky because the areas with the shut down low performing schools lose their neighborhood school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

That's not really how I interpreted it. The 0-30% group had a slight improvement, but that also included the 0-20% group as well. To really support the claim you're making they would have had to be able to break out the 0-20% from the 20-30% which I don't think the data supported. In other words it's entirely possible that all of the gains in the 0-30 group were driven by kids in the 0-20 group.

Agreed that it's possible. But we don't know. What we do know is that the study showed improvement in math scores for 0-20% vs. 20-85%, 0-25% vs. 25-85%, 0-30% vs. 30-85%, and even 0-35% vs. 35-85% (in year 7) -- see Appendix 3. So it is really not valid to say that the study showed that there was improvement only if FARMS was 20% or less.

I'm not the one making that statement; I'm repeating the statement made in the executive summary of the report. If they could have made the claims you suggest and backed them up statistically they would have. I think you're over interpreting some summary graphs. The language they use is very clear:

Children who lived in public housing and attended schools where no more than 20 percent of students qualified for a free or reduced price meal did best, whereas those children in public housing who attended schools where as many as 35 percent of students who qualified for a free or reduced price meal performed no better academically over time than public housing children who attended schools where 35 to 85 percent of students qualified for a free or reduced price meal.

Yes, that's what the executive summary says. But the data they included in their report don't support that statement. If they had data that do support that statement, they should have included them in the report.

tl;dr -- look at all the data, not just what the executive summary (or the abstract) says.

I don't want to quibble, but you didn't look at the data; you looked at a curve fitted line on a graph; i.e. their interpretation of the data. None of the data they based their analysis on was in the report. Again, IMO if the data supported it they would have stated it. It's that simple.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I agree, but I suggest that busing be designed so that no elementary school has more than 20% of students on FARMS. That means that some low SES kids get bused to Potomac, Chevy Chase, and Bethesda and some high SES kids get bused to Silver Spring, Wheaton, Gaithersburg.
All middle schools and high schools should either have a magnet program, immersion program, or some other special program to attract high performing students and those that have potential, but have not yet been motivated to highly perform. There should be some programs that you must test into and some that are purely lottery based.

Of course, this will never happen because high SES parents would vote out any school board members who dared suggest it. Starr would be ridden out of town on a rail for even hinting that their snowflakes might rub elbows with a poor kid.

So the gap will remain.

Given that 33 % of MCPS kids are on FARMS, what do you propose to do with that 13%?

I'm torn on this. On one hand, I'd love to see more diversity in our local school. On the other hand, having lived in DC and traipsed across the city for "school choice" and experienced living on a block where the 10 kids went to 9 different schools, I really appreciate the fact that my kid can walk to school, and walk to friends' houses, and see school friends at the local park, etc . . . I would hate to give that up.

What MoCo really needs is more scattered site low income housing. Rather than busing low income kids to our neighborhood, I wish they'd figure out a way for those families to live here.

This. We can debate the point at which the %FARMS starts to become counterproductive, but what to do to make the theory into reality? On some other thread someone explained how school choice worked in another state -- the county published lists of schools with open slots and parents could apply for those spaces, but would need to reapply at the next stage (MS or HS) and were responsible for their own transportation. That's more or less the way that DC works, and those of us who had kids in DC and who lived through this process can attest to how chaotic it can be. We got into our first choice out of the block, and with sibling preferences, we were set for ES. But many people applied every year (and sometimes mid-year) to try to get into a school, drove their kids all over town in the meantime, and we all missed out on the concept of a neighborhood school, school friends you could visit on foot or by bike, and the simple pleasure of not spending 2 hours a day in transit. I can see where open enrollment can, on the margins, even out some places like the Cold Spring/Ritchie Park imbalance pointed out elsewhere, but it's no silver bullet for county-wide imbalances, especially in a county as big as Montgomery.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

I don't want to quibble, but you didn't look at the data; you looked at a curve fitted line on a graph; i.e. their interpretation of the data. None of the data they based their analysis on was in the report. Again, IMO if the data supported it they would have stated it. It's that simple.

It's their curves. They fitted the curves to their data. The graphs in their appendix do not support their statement in the executive summary. That is a problem with the paper. The statements that you make in the executive summary should be supported by the data/graphs/whatever you present in the paper. That is basic scientific report-writing.

[Anonymous]

What happens to the social imbalances? The county can allow/force people to move between school districts. But that doesn't change where you come from.

So for example, if you live in a DCC cluster and are not wealthy and end up in a W district, how do you address some of social/financial inequities? Does your child just learn to feel left out? Does the local PTA take responsibility for paying for things like prom tickets that your family might not be able to afford?

Conversely, what about the W child who now goes to a DCC school. For years the child dreamed of HS in a certain manner--a car to drive, a limo to prom, the most fashionable clothes. Her neighbors go to the local W school and have this lifestyle. It's what she was brought up with and what she expects. But now her reality is very different and she is teased and mocked for her fashionable clothes. Her prom is not a high end production as her friends have but rather a lower cost dance.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

This. We can debate the point at which the %FARMS starts to become counterproductive, but what to do to make the theory into reality? On some other thread someone explained how school choice worked in another state -- the county published lists of schools with open slots and parents could apply for those spaces, but would need to reapply at the next stage (MS or HS) and were responsible for their own transportation. That's more or less the way that DC works, and those of us who had kids in DC and who lived through this process can attest to how chaotic it can be. We got into our first choice out of the block, and with sibling preferences, we were set for ES. But many people applied every year (and sometimes mid-year) to try to get into a school, drove their kids all over town in the meantime, and we all missed out on the concept of a neighborhood school, school friends you could visit on foot or by bike, and the simple pleasure of not spending 2 hours a day in transit. I can see where open enrollment can, on the margins, even out some places like the Cold Spring/Ritchie Park imbalance pointed out elsewhere, but it's no silver bullet for county-wide imbalances, especially in a county as big as Montgomery.

Agreed. We don't know at what point the % of FARMS becomes counter-productive for low-income kids, but the report is completely correcting that housing policy is school policy.

The problem is that this is a feature, not a bug. Housing policy reflects the desire of people with money to live over here, as far as possible from the poor people over there. And part of the reason for that desire is schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What happens to the social imbalances? The county can allow/force people to move between school districts. But that doesn't change where you come from.

So for example, if you live in a DCC cluster and are not wealthy and end up in a W district, how do you address some of social/financial inequities? Does your child just learn to feel left out? Does the local PTA take responsibility for paying for things like prom tickets that your family might not be able to afford?

Conversely, what about the W child who now goes to a DCC school. For years the child dreamed of HS in a certain manner--a car to drive, a limo to prom, the most fashionable clothes. Her neighbors go to the local W school and have this lifestyle. It's what she was brought up with and what she expects. But now her reality is very different and she is teased and mocked for her fashionable clothes. Her prom is not a high end production as her friends have but rather a lower cost dance.

What are you saying? Poor kids should go to school with other poor kids, and rich kids should go to school with other rich kids, because otherwise they feel bad?