Should MCPS start busing or open enrollment?

[Anonymous]

Why not just start busing to diminish the red zone / green zone disparities? Alternatively, why not let kids choose which school they want to go to? Don't some districts do this?

[Anonymous]

Ha ha ha!! Because those in the southwest area of the county would sooner light their hair on fire than allow this and that area happens to be pretty influential.

[Anonymous]

LOL!

Because I paid several million dollars to live in Potomac, and I don't want some illegal ESOL kid intermingling with my precious snowflake.


(I'm with you OP, I think they should either do a lottery, or let kids choose. Or level the playing field by making sure ALL schools are the same across the county, at least facility-wise. None of this crap where one school looks like a beautiful college campus, and another a depressing wasteland.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:LOL!

Because I paid several million dollars to live in Potomac, and I don't want some illegal ESOL kid intermingling with my precious snowflake.


(I'm with you OP, I think they should either do a lottery, or let kids choose. Or level the playing field by making sure ALL schools are the same across the county, at least facility-wise. None of this crap where one school looks like a beautiful college campus, and another a depressing wasteland.)

Agree. And while they're at it, even out the overcrowding. If a school is under enrolled, bus some kids from one of the trailer park elementary schools. But as a PP said, elites in MoCo would scream to their "elected" officials to stop this.

[Anonymous]

Please check out the DC schools forum for further information on the probable reaction to this idea.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why not just start busing to diminish the red zone / green zone disparities? Alternatively, why not let kids choose which school they want to go to? Don't some districts do this?

Because people pay a lot (A LOT!) of money so that their kids can go to a public school with few or no poor kids. Busing would ruin that.

(Plus, also, nobody is really happy about busing. Segregated schools are bad, but so is lots of kids spending lots of time on the school bus every day.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:LOL!

Because I paid several million dollars to live in Potomac, and I don't want some illegal ESOL kid intermingling with my precious snowflake.


(I'm with you OP, I think they should either do a lottery, or let kids choose. Or level the playing field by making sure ALL schools are the same across the county, at least facility-wise. None of this crap where one school looks like a beautiful college campus, and another a depressing wasteland.)

Agree. And while they're at it, even out the overcrowding. If a school is under enrolled, bus some kids from one of the trailer park elementary schools. But as a PP said, elites in MoCo would scream to their "elected" officials to stop this.

This would be Cold Spring ES. They have empty classrooms and had to let some teachers go due to low enrollment. Projected enrollment is not much better. Meanwhile, next door at Ritchie Park ES (literally like a mile away), there are 2 portables. Is this rocket science?

What prompts the county to redistrict? I know they did this about 20 yrs ago. Have they redistricted since then?

[Anonymous]

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.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

This would be Cold Spring ES. They have empty classrooms and had to let some teachers go due to low enrollment. Projected enrollment is not much better. Meanwhile, next door at Ritchie Park ES (literally like a mile away), there are 2 portables. Is this rocket science?

What prompts the county to redistrict? I know they did this about 20 yrs ago. Have they redistricted since then?

Have you ever been through a redistricting? If you had, you would know why MCPS is not always as eager to redistrict as you might think they should be.

[Anonymous]

And look at how successful the forced busing arrangement of New Hampshire Estates and Oak View elementary schools has been!!! Those Silver Spring communities have spent decades trying to get rid of it, and the only reason it still exists is that MCPS can't be bothered/can't afford to deal with the problem - not because it's working out. And that's just busing between two demographically similar communities.

[Anonymous]

Because parents like myself would take their kids out of school sooner than see them bussed to some failing school in Wheaton as part of some social experiment.

Anyone who lives in a million dollar house in Chevy Chase has a choice - and most of us choose to support public schools. But if you started bussing to radically change the demographics, then we would just go private. You wouldn't eliminate the attainment gap, you would make it much worse.

[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.

MCPS as a whole has 35% of students on FARMs. So it's a great goal, but mathematically it wouldn't work, even if it were politically feasible, which it is not (<--understatement).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Because parents like myself would take their kids out of school sooner than see them bussed to some failing school in Wheaton as part of some social experiment.

Anyone who lives in a million dollar house in Chevy Chase has a choice - and most of us choose to support public schools. But if you started bussing to radically change the demographics, then we would just go private. You wouldn't eliminate the attainment gap, you would make it much worse.

I think it would be more accurate to say "and most of us choose to send our child to our local public school". Which is not the same thing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

This would be Cold Spring ES. They have empty classrooms and had to let some teachers go due to low enrollment. Projected enrollment is not much better. Meanwhile, next door at Ritchie Park ES (literally like a mile away), there are 2 portables. Is this rocket science?

What prompts the county to redistrict? I know they did this about 20 yrs ago. Have they redistricted since then?

Have you ever been through a redistricting? If you had, you would know why MCPS is not always as eager to redistrict as you might think they should be.

No, I haven't lived through redistricting. But from what I heard, when they redistricted 20 yrs ago, there was a lot of protestations and demonstrations, but that didn't stop MCPS. Also, if MCPS is hesitant to do this because of a vocal minority (that is probably upper SES), then they are dismissing the majority of MCPS.

From what I understand, MCPS is trying different ways to bring up the lower performing schools. One way they did this was to bring the Magnet, HGC, and IB programs to such schools. Redistricting is a no-brainer way to try to do this as well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Because parents like myself would take their kids out of school sooner than see them bussed to some failing school in Wheaton as part of some social experiment.

Anyone who lives in a million dollar house in Chevy Chase has a choice - and most of us choose to support public schools. But if you started bussing to radically change the demographics, then we would just go private. You wouldn't eliminate the attainment gap, you would make it much worse.

I have to agree. The higher SES folks can afford to send their children to private. If you tell them that they have to go to a lower performing school than they are currently zoned for, most probably will. They what...you will have the lower SES folks bussed into a building in Bethesda, Potomac, Chevy Chases but their classmates will also be bussed in lower SES students. The parent support, motivated students will flee and you'll be left with a Wheaton HS demographic and motivation in the Churchill building.