Your Thoughts on Montgomery County Schools

[Anonymous]

Hello. MyDH just received a nice job offer in the DMV area. If he accepts we will be moving to Montgomery County. How are the schools in this district? Are they improving or declining? We currently have 3 kids in great public schools and want to make sure we maintain great school quality.

[Anonymous]

OP, your post is perfectly designed to push all of the buttons on the MD Public Schools forum on DCUM.

[Anonymous]

Historically fantastic schools, nationally many are ranked very well; it's a large school district so much depends on where on you are in MoCo. There's some differing opinions on how "Curriculum 2.0" has impacted the quality, and of course differences of opinion on what makes which school(s) the "best". The "W" schools (Whitman, Winston Churchill, Wooton, maybe Walter Johnson too?) are often referred to as the best/ elite schools, but as in any district every school has pluses and minuses. What criteria do you have for your schools? That might help guide feedback.

[Anonymous]

The system is under going a huge curriculm change. I am finding it really hard to sort through things..and my kids are there. Certainly there is a good deal of criticsm (which I am sure you will soon read on this thread) but a good chunk of it is resistance to change..and I think the whole country needs a few years to really tackly the common core. It was implemented pretty quickly. I would take most thing your read here with a grain of salt. Most of my neighbors are happy ( not necessarily ecstatic and raving) with the schools. I have to remind myself of this after read DCUM.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The system is under going a huge curriculm change. I am finding it really hard to sort through things..and my kids are there. Certainly there is a good deal of criticsm (which I am sure you will soon read on this thread) but a good chunk of it is resistance to change..and I think the whole country needs a few years to really tackly the common core. It was implemented pretty quickly. I would take most thing your read here with a grain of salt. Most of my neighbors are happy ( not necessarily ecstatic and raving) with the schools. I have to remind myself of this after read DCUM.

Mine too. My advice is: pick some neighborhoods you like, and then talk to real live people who are currently send their real live children to the local schools. That's worth a lot more than the opinions of nameless posters on DCUM (except for mine, of course!).

[Anonymous]

You are probably still reading now but you probably won't be for long, so let me sneak in this primer: It's a very large (150,000 students, 25 high schools), historically high-performing school district going through a lot of demographic change. It used to be a primarily white, upper-middle class suburban district. Along with the rest of the country it has become increasingly minority and, in some areas, lower income over the years. It is currently implementing what it calls "Curriculum 2.0," which is its brand of the Common Core that other states are adopting. Since it is such a large school district, schools differ tremendously demographically by where in the county you live. There is a large achievement gap along race and class lines. Housing prices tend to follow these lines as well, i.e. some very high performing schools with very high home prices, and many more modest homes with schools with more average performance. The country tries to allocate resources so the schools in the less wealthy areas have smaller class sizes in the early years to help improve outcomes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You are probably still reading now but you probably won't be for long, so let me sneak in this primer: It's a very large (150,000 students, 25 high schools), historically high-performing school district going through a lot of demographic change. It used to be a primarily white, upper-middle class suburban district. Along with the rest of the country it has become increasingly minority and, in some areas, lower income over the years. It is currently implementing what it calls "Curriculum 2.0," which is its brand of the Common Core that other states are adopting. Since it is such a large school district, schools differ tremendously demographically by where in the county you live. There is a large achievement gap along race and class lines. Housing prices tend to follow these lines as well, i.e. some very high performing schools with very high home prices, and many more modest homes with schools with more average performance. The country tries to allocate resources so the schools in the less wealthy areas have smaller class sizes in the early years to help improve outcomes.

Interesting.......does anyone know if this strategy has in fact improved outcomes?

[Anonymous]

OP, how much will you be spending on a house and where are you moving from?

In addition to the "W" schools, I'd recommend BCC cluster. But you can look at school performance and school climate reports on the school system website - they do a good job with the reports.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You are probably still reading now but you probably won't be for long, so let me sneak in this primer: It's a very large (150,000 students, 25 high schools), historically high-performing school district going through a lot of demographic change. It used to be a primarily white, upper-middle class suburban district. Along with the rest of the country it has become increasingly minority and, in some areas, lower income over the years. It is currently implementing what it calls "Curriculum 2.0," which is its brand of the Common Core that other states are adopting. Since it is such a large school district, schools differ tremendously demographically by where in the county you live. There is a large achievement gap along race and class lines. Housing prices tend to follow these lines as well, i.e. some very high performing schools with very high home prices, and many more modest homes with schools with more average performance. The country tries to allocate resources so the schools in the less wealthy areas have smaller class sizes in the early years to help improve outcomes.

Interesting.......does anyone know if this strategy has in fact improved outcomes?

It would be so hard to tease out how it has helped. The achievement gap persists. The smaller class sizes do give parents an incentive to stay in those schools so it may have helped avert more white flight.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You are probably still reading now but you probably won't be for long, so let me sneak in this primer: It's a very large (150,000 students, 25 high schools), historically high-performing school district going through a lot of demographic change. It used to be a primarily white, upper-middle class suburban district. Along with the rest of the country it has become increasingly minority and, in some areas, lower income over the years. It is currently implementing what it calls "Curriculum 2.0," which is its brand of the Common Core that other states are adopting. Since it is such a large school district, schools differ tremendously demographically by where in the county you live. There is a large achievement gap along race and class lines. Housing prices tend to follow these lines as well, i.e. some very high performing schools with very high home prices, and many more modest homes with schools with more average performance. The country tries to allocate resources so the schools in the less wealthy areas have smaller class sizes in the early years to help improve outcomes.

Montgomery County was not historically an upper-middle class suburban school district. Many of the areas that comprise the county were, and still are mid- to lower-middle class and some areas were downright rural and poor. This is one of the myths that some people like to circulate about MoCo and is evident when you go outside of the Bethesda, Chevy Chase, Potomac areas. There is nothing upper middle class about much of Silver Spring, the original Takoma Park, Clarksburg, Gaithersburg and others. Real estate is every expensive here in the DC area but there is no need in convincing ourselves that those 1,000 square foot ramblers were upper middle class dwellings.

[Anonymous]

Wait, I forgot to add . . . some people might equate a high percentage of white residents with upper middle class status but that is not true.

[PP, who was miffed at the housing directly surrounding Forest Knolls Elementary and the asking price. There was nothing "upper" about those houses.]

[Anonymous]

Some data from the MCPS schools at a glance website: in 10 years the district has gone from 22% free lunch to 34%.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Some data from the MCPS schools at a glance website: in 10 years the district has gone from 22% free lunch to 34%.

Can you send the link to that data? Is that system-wide or one school?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You are probably still reading now but you probably won't be for long, so let me sneak in this primer: It's a very large (150,000 students, 25 high schools), historically high-performing school district going through a lot of demographic change. It used to be a primarily white, upper-middle class suburban district. Along with the rest of the country it has become increasingly minority and, in some areas, lower income over the years. It is currently implementing what it calls "Curriculum 2.0," which is its brand of the Common Core that other states are adopting. Since it is such a large school district, schools differ tremendously demographically by where in the county you live. There is a large achievement gap along race and class lines. Housing prices tend to follow these lines as well, i.e. some very high performing schools with very high home prices, and many more modest homes with schools with more average performance. The country tries to allocate resources so the schools in the less wealthy areas have smaller class sizes in the early years to help improve outcomes.

Montgomery County was not historically an upper-middle class suburban school district. Many of the areas that comprise the county were, and still are mid- to lower-middle class and some areas were downright rural and poor. This is one of the myths that some people like to circulate about MoCo and is evident when you go outside of the Bethesda, Chevy Chase, Potomac areas. There is nothing upper middle class about much of Silver Spring, the original Takoma Park, Clarksburg, Gaithersburg and others. Real estate is every expensive here in the DC area but there is no need in convincing ourselves that those 1,000 square foot ramblers were upper middle class dwellings.

The original Takoma Park -- meaning the streetcar/railroad suburb -- was definitely fancy. Just look at the houses. Historic Clarksburg was a real town, with some fancy houses. Historic Gaithersburg was a real town, with some fancy houses. Conversely, the historic black communities go back to the end of the Civil War (and Montgomery County public schools were segregated by law until the early 1960s). Montgomery County was a place before the streetcar suburbs, and it was a place before the post-World War II suburbs.

And yes, those 1,000 square foot suburban ramblers were not for the upper middle class. But they were for the middle class.

[Anonymous]

When I grew up, they were great schools. Now I think they are good, better than most places but declining. I don't care about how many kids are getting free lunch. I care about the quality of the education my child receives. I am not impressed with the teaching styles or curriculum.