Where to move in montgomery county for good schools???

[Anonymous]

What are the websites that everyone accesses for these statistics? I am curious, for the same reason as the original poster, but I also find it interesting that parents are commenting on multiple schools at multiple grade levels. I imagine it is impossible to have first hand experience with such a volume of schools, there must be statistics available to all. Are these statistics biased?

[Anonymous]

I'm not a pp, but I've read plenty of posts by parents of gifted kids in the eastern/downcounty part of the MoCo, comparing their children's assigned books, etc., to those of kids in the same grade in other parts of the county, and finding them less rigorous. I'm sure this is not always the case, but I wouldn't ignore there concerns either.

Check out http://groups.yahoo.com/group/GTAletters/ for this kind of discussion of MoCo's "red zone" and "green zone" and the different services provided to them.

[Anonymous]

I think there's just a troll making up shit to derail the thread. Sorry OP that you won't be able to get real answers. Good luck with your search. Some people are just complete assholes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
This assumes that the college-track curriculum at Whitman is more rigorous than it is at Einstein (or Blair or wherever). I don't believe that, and you have nothing to substantiate that claim (which is inherent in your post).

The courses are more rigorous, the teachers are, on average, of higher quality (given a choice, they will accept positions at higher-performing schools), and the number of high-achieving students is substantially larger. If the converse were true, you'd expect to see affluent families flocking to schools like Einstein and Kennedy so their children could reap the benefits you've identified during the college admissions process, and it's just not happening. Instead, test scores continue to decline at a number of the schools in this part of the county. Sorry.

PP,

Let me be kind and refer to you as ignorant instead of using some obscenity to illustrate my disgust with your post.

Point 1:
The courses are the same across the county, as there are standardized curriculum guides. AP classes and other programs, such as IB (PYP and MYP), are under the umbrella of the College Board and IBO. So there are rigid guidelines to follow regardless of where you teach in the county. Even at schools like Springbrook and Einstein, where admissions for IB is open, the schools adhere to strict assessment practices or risk losing accreditation.

Point 2:
The "educated elite" who "flock" to the W schools usually belong to the White Flight group. And although many have PhDs attached to their names, it's money that talks. My husband once taught at a W feeder. The kids were no brighter than some of our kids in those "terrible" downcounty schools with the low scores. But they did have one thing - money to buy them tutors. Teachers at the W schools are able to slide by b/c the kids can rely on outside help. So don't think the "better" teachers congregate in the Fur Belt.

The downcounty schools (and I'm including Northeast Consortium schools) have very diverse populations (ESOL, high FARMS), which you obviously look down upon and blame for bringing the scores down. nice job, PP - Your tolerance level is showing through nicely.

Furthermore, keep in mind that the dedicated teachers are the ones who will gladly NOT run from an English inclusion class for 9th graders in a majority minority school. They're the ones staying after school to help the students for whom English is not their first language. They spend countless hours preparing differentiated lessons to challenge all students - regardless of race, socioeconomic level or language strengths - to help them succeed. And guess what? Who recognizes them? certainly not people like you

So unless you can recognize your own prejudices, PP, please don't make assumptions about our teachers and students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
The downcounty schools (and I'm including Northeast Consortium schools) have very diverse populations (ESOL, high FARMS), which you obviously look down upon and blame for bringing the scores down. nice job, PP - Your tolerance level is showing through nicely.

I'm not sure that PP "blamed" any particular group for bringing scores down, but that aside, what relevance do you think test scores do or do not have? For me, when I look up information about test scores in the Whitman/Pyle/feeder elementary areas, the test scores are significantly higher when compared to, let's say, Silver Spring or Wheaton schools. What am I, a parent, supposed to think about that? I understand the theory that has been put forward, that a bright child of accomplished parents will do "well" at any MoCo school if "well" is defined as getting into a good college. I understand that that "bright" child might even have an advantage coming from Wheaton in the sense that at Whitman, there are 30 qualified kids applying to Princeton and Princeton is just not going to take all of them no matter how accomplished; so the bright kid who is one of 3 from Wheaton who apply to Princeton, well that bright one has an advantage in a way (not even thinking about race/diversity issues here).

But, as a parent, I look at the stats on the number of kids performing at advanced, proficient, basic at each grade level. Most of the schools on the east side have comparatively lower percentages of kids at the advanced level. When teachers have to pitch instruction to the class as a whole, the pitch is lower. Yes, the curriculum might specify that a teacher teach about slavery one year. But the books he/she picks to do so might be quite different depending on the level of reading skills in the class. "Differentiation" is very difficult to do well. And if you are a reader that is two or more years ahead of grade level, at an eastern MoCo school, you might be the only one in your class, whereas in a western MoCo school there might be a few per class. How is "differentiation" going to help you in the former situation? "Differentiation" usually requires at least being able to group the class into 3 groups, not teaching every kid individually.

This is what the conversation reflects when GT parents complain about red zone/green zone inequities. If 75% of your incoming class at a particular grade is basic/proficient in one school, and 75% of the class at another school is proficient/advanced, then you ARE going to get a different/higher level of teaching because the kids themselves have greater skills. Yes, the basic curriculum might be the same, but the depth, complexity and level of detail will be different.

As a parent, I relied heavily on a lot of statistical information available on the MCPS website to make decisions about schooling choices. I could find out test scores, splits on test scores by subgroups, suspension rates, mobility rates, parent satisfaction surveys, kid satisfactions surveys, AP and IB program/test rates, etc. I based my choices on this data, and I have to say that schools like Wheaton did not come out very well.

That said, there is no solid red/green zone split. In each area there are some schools that don't fit the pattern. For example, I noticed that the # of advanced students at Oakland Terrace is comparatively high for the Silver Spring area, and the number of advanced students at North Chevy Chase is low compared to other Chevy Chase schools. I'm sure there are other examples.

[Anonymous]

Somerset ES

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: But, as a parent, I look at the stats on the number of kids performing at advanced, proficient, basic at each grade level. Most of the schools on the east side have comparatively lower percentages of kids at the advanced level. When teachers have to pitch instruction to the class as a whole, the pitch is lower.

But just isn't how it works, because within the schools there are honors classes starting around middle school. And some kids take algebra while others are still doing basic math. The kids are therefore sorted out by ability, to some extent at least. I don't think it's ideal and personally would like to see more tracking, which seems to be very controversial in MoCo. But it's just not the case that your kid in eastern MoCo is always going to be in classes with a majority of lower performing kids.

That said, our kids are both in magnets, and we'd probably do private if they hadn't gotten into the magnets. The magnets are extremely high performing, and probably better than Whitman.

How do I know this? DH went to Whitman, and his mom's friend still substitutes at the place, so I know a few things about it. That said, I simply don't believe the poster who is making all the broad brush comparisons about very different schools -- who has kids in all these schools?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They are in a language immersion program and we have been very happy with their education to date. I think Sligo Creek ES, Woodlin, and other elementary schools in close-in Silver Spring are A-ok. I know that the schools in Silver Spring are not as highly-rated as the ones in Bethesda/Chevy Chase, and suspect this is mostly about test scores.

I imagine I'm in the minority in my thinking, but IMO, a child who has an intellectually stimulating and stable home life will do as well in a Silver Spring school as s/he will in a B/CC or Potomac (or wherever) school. And a bonus: That child will stand out when it is time to apply for college. Our babysitter, a product of Oakland Terrace ES, Sligo Middle School, and Einstein HS - all "bad" schools - is headed to Princeton this fall. She was accepted at several other top-tier colleges as well. Had she applied from Whitman or Wooton or the like, her application would not have stood out in the same way.

There are some great magnets available for both elementary and middle schools in this area. My older son is headed to Takoma Park's nationally-recognized math/science magnet this fall and we are delighted. Even if we could send him to Pyle over Takoma's magnet, we wouldn't.

Wow, we will probably see you in TPMS's magnet next month. I won't give any more information because it could start to look weird or stalkerish.

I agree that applying to college from Whitman could be a liability because there are just so many high achievers there. Has anybody else here read the book "The Overachievers" about Whitman students a few years ago? They were each other's worst competition.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Actually our babysitter is a white upper-middle-class girl whose parents are both highly educated professionals. She did not have any advantage in the admissions process vis-a-vis her race. She may have had an advantage in terms of the high school she came from. At Whitman etc., students like her are a dime a dozen.

I love that this poster assumed that your babysitter was a minority, probably foreign-born, nanny. Gives you an idea about her perspective...!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm not a pp, but I've read plenty of posts by parents of gifted kids in the eastern/downcounty part of the MoCo, comparing their children's assigned books, etc., to those of kids in the same grade in other parts of the county, and finding them less rigorous. I'm sure this is not always the case, but I wouldn't ignore there concerns either.

Check out http://groups.yahoo.com/group/GTAletters/ for this kind of discussion of MoCo's "red zone" and "green zone" and the different services provided to them.

I tried this site, but there are hundreds of posts each month and the rudimentary search function wasn't much help. Could you please give a month and year, or even some sort of timeframe (like "around spring break a year ago"), and I'll do the digging from there? Thanks!

[Anonymous]

Ugh. 19:25 was so irritating I had to respond. I went to Princeton after a very mediocre public high school (not in the DC area) where less than 50% of my graduating class went on to college. I landed at Princeton and was fine. No adjustment period. I had been a highly self-motivated learner in high school and I continued to be in college, graduating near the top of the class. The only place where my less-fancy academic preparation held me back was in foreign languages -- my classmates who had spent summers abroad in foreign-language-speaking countries spoke, not surprisingly, much better than I did. But I ended up majoring in Romance languages and spent time abroad during college, so obviously it was a surmountable hurdle.

One of the major things I take from this is: there is some truth to the maxim that the hardest thing about Princeton (or Harvard, or Yale) is getting in.

[Anonymous]

Here's one thread on "Low expectations in red zone?": http://groups.yahoo.com/group/GTAletters/message/18971

Here's another on "Differences between MCPS programs":
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/GTAletters/message/17435

And one on "middle school summer reading":
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/GTAletters/message/17428

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

But just isn't how it works, because within the schools there are honors classes starting around middle school. And some kids take algebra while others are still doing basic math. The kids are therefore sorted out by ability, to some extent at least. I don't think it's ideal and personally would like to see more tracking, which seems to be very controversial in MoCo. But it's just not the case that your kid in eastern MoCo is always going to be in classes with a majority of lower performing kids.

That said, our kids are both in magnets, and we'd probably do private if they hadn't gotten into the magnets. The magnets are extremely high performing, and probably better than Whitman.

I am the PP to whom you respond, and I was talking about evaluating elementary schools. You are right that there is more stratification by skill/class level in high school, but even at that level I would look hard at stats like type of AP classes available, number of kids taking AP, number of kids taking multiple AP and pass rates. Also looking at suspension/disciplinary/attendance rates at the high school level. Personally, I want my kid at a school where as many people as possible are college bound and taking challenging course work, of course, balancing that against judging whether my kid would personally risk being burned out in that kind of environment.

[Anonymous]

go to greatschools.org and see which school has the lowest free lunches. Riches area, most money poured into the school, better school. most of the time

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
I am the PP to whom you respond, and I was talking about evaluating elementary schools. You are right that there is more stratification by skill/class level in high school, but even at that level I would look hard at stats like type of AP classes available, number of kids taking AP, number of kids taking multiple AP and pass rates. Also looking at suspension/disciplinary/attendance rates at the high school level. Personally, I want my kid at a school where as many people as possible are college bound and taking challenging course work, of course, balancing that against judging whether my kid would personally risk being burned out in that kind of environment.

Exactly. It's great that the "Einstein nanny" stood out at that school, but that also means that she probably was leaps and bounds above the vast majority of her classmates. There are exceptional students who will thrive at any school, or no school at all, but the typical high school student benefits from going to school with motivated, high-achieving peers. That's what most MoCo parents believe, for good reason, as the statistics make abundantly clear.