Gang Activity in Montgomery County Shcools?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And, as has been reiterated many times in this thread. A child can thrive and do very well in many environments, and the idea that a kid who goes to Blair is automatically getting a lesser education or will be less prepared to take their place in society than a kid who went to Whitman just doesn't hold water.

A few exceptions at Blair may do as well or better than kids at Whitman, but statistically speaking, a kid that goes to Blair is not prepared as well as a kid that goes to Whitman. Look at the student body as populations, do not judge based on the fringes.

Your opinion only convinces me that my kid is doing just fine where he is. Why are you trying so hard to prove your subjective point?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And, as has been reiterated many times in this thread. A child can thrive and do very well in many environments, and the idea that a kid who goes to Blair is automatically getting a lesser education or will be less prepared to take their place in society than a kid who went to Whitman just doesn't hold water.

A few exceptions at Blair may do as well or better than kids at Whitman, but statistically speaking, a kid that goes to Blair is not prepared as well as a kid that goes to Whitman. Look at the student body as populations, do not judge based on the fringes.

Your opinion only convinces me that my kid is doing just fine where he is. Why are you trying so hard to prove your subjective point?

+1 The thing is, you can't win an argument with someone like this. If you point out some of the great colleges that Blair grads attend, PP will just tell you it must be the (Bethesda or Potomac based) magnet students. If you talk about how happy your child is there, and how well they've done, PP will tell you that you are imagining things, or just have low standards.

You literally cannot win, even with data, because PP doesn't want to admit that middle class families who choose to live on the east side of the county might be making a smart choice.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And test scores do not tell the whole story about schools. I wish people would stop pretending they do. It's so annoying to pick up one of those magazines named after a city, look at the article that says something like, "We rank all the high schools! Is yours in the top five?" And then look at the methodology they used only to find that it's just a ranking of test scores. Nothing more.

I am all ears to learn about a better metric than test scores.

You know what, lady? Seriously just send your kid to Whitman and be happy and stop antagonizing all the people you don't believe could possibly be happy with their schools. May your children be kinder (but with such high test scores, of course).

I am not a lady and I am in the Richard Montgomery cluster. Now that we cleared that up, what metric is better than test scores?

DP.. I live in the RM cluster. Test scores usually equates to high SES. That's about it. It's not that hard to look for metrics other than test scores.

One measure is how well a school educates its lower income students. Obviously, that is not fair to schools that have a very or no lower income students, but the saying, "You're only strongest as your weakest link" comes to mind when evaluating how "good" a school is. It's not that much of a challenge for a school to educate higher income kids who have involved parents. It's much more of a challenge to educate those lower income kids with not as much support at home. If such kids are able to have pretty good test scores, IMO, that tells me the teaching and admin staff are strong and dedicated.

IMO, another measure of how good a school is is how responsive the admin/teachers are to issues, and also what kinds of programs they have. These are harder to measure, and so that's why most of the rankings of schools can't factor this in. The only thing really measurable are test scores, but as many have stated, that can't give you the whole picture of how "good" a school is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And, as has been reiterated many times in this thread. A child can thrive and do very well in many environments, and the idea that a kid who goes to Blair is automatically getting a lesser education or will be less prepared to take their place in society than a kid who went to Whitman just doesn't hold water.

A few exceptions at Blair may do as well or better than kids at Whitman, but statistically speaking, a kid that goes to Blair is not prepared as well as a kid that goes to Whitman. Look at the student body as populations, do not judge based on the fringes.

Your opinion only convinces me that my kid is doing just fine where he is. Why are you trying so hard to prove your subjective point?

+1 The thing is, you can't win an argument with someone like this. If you point out some of the great colleges that Blair grads attend, PP will just tell you it must be the (Bethesda or Potomac based) magnet students. If you talk about how happy your child is there, and how well they've done, PP will tell you that you are imagining things, or just have low standards.

You literally cannot win, even with data, because PP doesn't want to admit that middle class families who choose to live on the east side of the county might be making a smart choice.

I am zoned to Richard Montgomery HS (which is an ok school, but not great). I believe test scores are meaningful. If you have a better quantitative metric on how to evaluate school quality, I still haven't heard any.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And, as has been reiterated many times in this thread. A child can thrive and do very well in many environments, and the idea that a kid who goes to Blair is automatically getting a lesser education or will be less prepared to take their place in society than a kid who went to Whitman just doesn't hold water.

A few exceptions at Blair may do as well or better than kids at Whitman, but statistically speaking, a kid that goes to Blair is not prepared as well as a kid that goes to Whitman. Look at the student body as populations, do not judge based on the fringes.

OK, PP, you've persuaded me. Whitman provides a better education than Blair. Therefore we should send the kids from Blair to Whitman. It's not fair to the kids at Blair to leave them languishing in an inferior school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
I am zoned to Richard Montgomery HS (which is an ok school, but not great). I believe test scores are meaningful. If you have a better quantitative metric on how to evaluate school quality, I still haven't heard any.

Really? Several PPs have suggested metrics.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
I am zoned to Richard Montgomery HS (which is an ok school, but not great). I believe test scores are meaningful. If you have a better quantitative metric on how to evaluate school quality, I still haven't heard any.

Really? Several PPs have suggested metrics.

There was no usable metric. Putting more weight on education of disadvantaged kids (what Great School started doing) is still based on test scores.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OK, PP, you've persuaded me. Whitman provides a better education than Blair. Therefore we should send the kids from Blair to Whitman. It's not fair to the kids at Blair to leave them languishing in an inferior school.

The bold part just expresses the obvious. Now that we acknowledged that we have a problem, we can look for solutions. And the solution should involve improving Blair, not leaving it empty by sending all the kids to Whitman.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OK, PP, you've persuaded me. Whitman provides a better education than Blair. Therefore we should send the kids from Blair to Whitman. It's not fair to the kids at Blair to leave them languishing in an inferior school.

The bold part just expresses the obvious. Now that we acknowledged that we have a problem, we can look for solutions. And the solution should involve improving Blair, not leaving it empty by sending all the kids to Whitman.

OK, then we will only send the poor kids from Blair to Whitman. It is well-established that poor kids score higher on standardized tests when they attend schools with a low percentage of poor kids than when they attend schools with a high percentage of poor kids. Meanwhile we will send some of the affluent kids from Whitman to Blair. Then the overall test scores at Blair will go up, which will mean that the school has improved.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And, as has been reiterated many times in this thread. A child can thrive and do very well in many environments, and the idea that a kid who goes to Blair is automatically getting a lesser education or will be less prepared to take their place in society than a kid who went to Whitman just doesn't hold water.

A few exceptions at Blair may do as well or better than kids at Whitman, but statistically speaking, a kid that goes to Blair is not prepared as well as a kid that goes to Whitman. Look at the student body as populations, do not judge based on the fringes.

Your opinion only convinces me that my kid is doing just fine where he is. Why are you trying so hard to prove your subjective point?

+1 The thing is, you can't win an argument with someone like this. If you point out some of the great colleges that Blair grads attend, PP will just tell you it must be the (Bethesda or Potomac based) magnet students. If you talk about how happy your child is there, and how well they've done, PP will tell you that you are imagining things, or just have low standards.

You literally cannot win, even with data, because PP doesn't want to admit that middle class families who choose to live on the east side of the county might be making a smart choice.

This.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And, as has been reiterated many times in this thread. A child can thrive and do very well in many environments, and the idea that a kid who goes to Blair is automatically getting a lesser education or will be less prepared to take their place in society than a kid who went to Whitman just doesn't hold water.

A few exceptions at Blair may do as well or better than kids at Whitman, but statistically speaking, a kid that goes to Blair is not prepared as well as a kid that goes to Whitman. Look at the student body as populations, do not judge based on the fringes.

Your opinion only convinces me that my kid is doing just fine where he is. Why are you trying so hard to prove your subjective point?

+1 The thing is, you can't win an argument with someone like this. If you point out some of the great colleges that Blair grads attend, PP will just tell you it must be the (Bethesda or Potomac based) magnet students. If you talk about how happy your child is there, and how well they've done, PP will tell you that you are imagining things, or just have low standards.

You literally cannot win, even with data, because PP doesn't want to admit that middle class families who choose to live on the east side of the county might be making a smart choice.

This.

+1. We aren't happy, we're imagining it. We have a "different" definition of "fulfilling life," settle for less, we are lying in a desperate attempt to preserve property values, We lie about diversity and put our kids in magnet programs just to keep them away from minorities. Big fish in a small pond and gloat about it. OK, I'm done. I need to clean my sh** shack.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And, as has been reiterated many times in this thread. A child can thrive and do very well in many environments, and the idea that a kid who goes to Blair is automatically getting a lesser education or will be less prepared to take their place in society than a kid who went to Whitman just doesn't hold water.

A few exceptions at Blair may do as well or better than kids at Whitman, but statistically speaking, a kid that goes to Blair is not prepared as well as a kid that goes to Whitman. Look at the student body as populations, do not judge based on the fringes.

Your opinion only convinces me that my kid is doing just fine where he is. Why are you trying so hard to prove your subjective point?

+1 The thing is, you can't win an argument with someone like this. If you point out some of the great colleges that Blair grads attend, PP will just tell you it must be the (Bethesda or Potomac based) magnet students. If you talk about how happy your child is there, and how well they've done, PP will tell you that you are imagining things, or just have low standards.

You literally cannot win, even with data, because PP doesn't want to admit that middle class families who choose to live on the east side of the county might be making a smart choice.

I am zoned to Richard Montgomery HS (which is an ok school, but not great). I believe test scores are meaningful. If you have a better quantitative metric on how to evaluate school quality, I still haven't heard any.

I live in RM cluster. You do understand that test scores are mostly a reflection of the SES of the student body? What you are saying is that you think a school is only good if the lower income kids who don't have the support and opportunities at home, and probably parents who are less educated, to have similar test scores as those kids who have lots of enrichment and educated parents. Seriously?

http://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/info/pdf/160929%20SAT%20Exam%20Participation%20Perform.pdf

Pg 16 shows you the SAT score breakdown by FARMS in each HS. RM and QO have somewhat similar FARMS rate and very similar SAT scores for this group. Then compare the test scores between RM and Churchill for FARMS students. You will see RM does much better. Is RM the best at educating lower income students? No. But it's certainly doing pretty well by that metric.

Lower income students don't fare any better at Churchill than they do at Gaithersburg HS by this measure, and the oft deried Watkins Mill HS shows better scores for FARMS students than for Churchill.

Given that there are some RM cluster students in the IB program, it's a bit harder to extrapolate how well the RM cluster in bound only students do on the SATs. I don't know the demographics of the IB student body well enough to come up with an accurate number, but the numbers for the FARMs students is pretty telling.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And, as has been reiterated many times in this thread. A child can thrive and do very well in many environments, and the idea that a kid who goes to Blair is automatically getting a lesser education or will be less prepared to take their place in society than a kid who went to Whitman just doesn't hold water.

A few exceptions at Blair may do as well or better than kids at Whitman, but statistically speaking, a kid that goes to Blair is not prepared as well as a kid that goes to Whitman. Look at the student body as populations, do not judge based on the fringes.

Your opinion only convinces me that my kid is doing just fine where he is. Why are you trying so hard to prove your subjective point?

+1 The thing is, you can't win an argument with someone like this. If you point out some of the great colleges that Blair grads attend, PP will just tell you it must be the (Bethesda or Potomac based) magnet students. If you talk about how happy your child is there, and how well they've done, PP will tell you that you are imagining things, or just have low standards.

You literally cannot win, even with data, because PP doesn't want to admit that middle class families who choose to live on the east side of the county might be making a smart choice.

I am zoned to Richard Montgomery HS (which is an ok school, but not great). I believe test scores are meaningful. If you have a better quantitative metric on how to evaluate school quality, I still haven't heard any.

What I am saying is that I haven't heard of a better metric than the test scores to assess school performance. What you are trying to do is use test scores to prove me wrong.
I live in RM cluster. You do understand that test scores are mostly a reflection of the SES of the student body? What you are saying is that you think a school is only good if the lower income kids who don't have the support and opportunities at home, and probably parents who are less educated, to have similar test scores as those kids who have lots of enrichment and educated parents. Seriously?

http://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/info/pdf/160929%20SAT%20Exam%20Participation%20Perform.pdf

Pg 16 shows you the SAT score breakdown by FARMS in each HS. RM and QO have somewhat similar FARMS rate and very similar SAT scores for this group. Then compare the test scores between RM and Churchill for FARMS students. You will see RM does much better. Is RM the best at educating lower income students? No. But it's certainly doing pretty well by that metric.

Lower income students don't fare any better at Churchill than they do at Gaithersburg HS by this measure, and the oft deried Watkins Mill HS shows better scores for FARMS students than for Churchill.

Given that there are some RM cluster students in the IB program, it's a bit harder to extrapolate how well the RM cluster in bound only students do on the SATs. I don't know the demographics of the IB student body well enough to come up with an accurate number, but the numbers for the FARMs students is pretty telling.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And, as has been reiterated many times in this thread. A child can thrive and do very well in many environments, and the idea that a kid who goes to Blair is automatically getting a lesser education or will be less prepared to take their place in society than a kid who went to Whitman just doesn't hold water.

A few exceptions at Blair may do as well or better than kids at Whitman, but statistically speaking, a kid that goes to Blair is not prepared as well as a kid that goes to Whitman. Look at the student body as populations, do not judge based on the fringes.

Your opinion only convinces me that my kid is doing just fine where he is. Why are you trying so hard to prove your subjective point?

+1 The thing is, you can't win an argument with someone like this. If you point out some of the great colleges that Blair grads attend, PP will just tell you it must be the (Bethesda or Potomac based) magnet students. If you talk about how happy your child is there, and how well they've done, PP will tell you that you are imagining things, or just have low standards.

You literally cannot win, even with data, because PP doesn't want to admit that middle class families who choose to live on the east side of the county might be making a smart choice.

I am zoned to Richard Montgomery HS (which is an ok school, but not great). I believe test scores are meaningful. If you have a better quantitative metric on how to evaluate school quality, I still haven't heard any.

I live in RM cluster. You do understand that test scores are mostly a reflection of the SES of the student body? What you are saying is that you think a school is only good if the lower income kids who don't have the support and opportunities at home, and probably parents who are less educated, to have similar test scores as those kids who have lots of enrichment and educated parents. Seriously?

http://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/info/pdf/160929%20SAT%20Exam%20Participation%20Perform.pdf

Pg 16 shows you the SAT score breakdown by FARMS in each HS. RM and QO have somewhat similar FARMS rate and very similar SAT scores for this group. Then compare the test scores between RM and Churchill for FARMS students. You will see RM does much better. Is RM the best at educating lower income students? No. But it's certainly doing pretty well by that metric.

Lower income students don't fare any better at Churchill than they do at Gaithersburg HS by this measure, and the oft deried Watkins Mill HS shows better scores for FARMS students than for Churchill.

Given that there are some RM cluster students in the IB program, it's a bit harder to extrapolate how well the RM cluster in bound only students do on the SATs. I don't know the demographics of the IB student body well enough to come up with an accurate number, but the numbers for the FARMs students is pretty telling.

Oops... typed in the wrong place in the previous post: What I am saying is that I haven't heard of a better metric than the test scores to assess school performance. What you are trying to do is use test scores to prove me wrong.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Oops... typed in the wrong place in the previous post: What I am saying is that I haven't heard of a better metric than the test scores to assess school performance. What you are trying to do is use test scores to prove me wrong.

PP, nobody has said that test scores should be disregarded entirely. So that's a straw man. The discussion has been over whether overall average test scores for a school are a good measure of how good the school is.

And, speaking of goodness, I hope that you're not the PP who thinks that people with more money are more good than people with less money.