Why aren’t the Ws part of the consortiums?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The consortiums are in large part smoke and mirrors to attract students to schools that are sub par to those in Bethesda/Potomac etc. The W schools tend to have a lot more course offerings than the consortium schools. For example, it is the standard for W schools to offer 5-6 foreign languages. In a consortium school, they tend to offer just a couple of languages but they differ depending on the school.

Our W school doesn’t offer 5-6 foreign languages.

Name any school that has 5-6 foreign languages and what those languages are.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The consortiums are in large part smoke and mirrors to attract students to schools that are sub par to those in Bethesda/Potomac etc. The W schools tend to have a lot more course offerings than the consortium schools. For example, it is the standard for W schools to offer 5-6 foreign languages. In a consortium school, they tend to offer just a couple of languages but they differ depending on the school.

Our W school doesn’t offer 5-6 foreign languages.

Name any school that has 5-6 foreign languages and what those languages are.

That makes no sense. At best they offer 3-4. Our non-W MS only offers Spanish and French.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Again, the W schools get less money. They are spending the little they get to offer more because there is demand. Other schools that get more money might not have the demand for 6 languages. Or maybe they do, but their much larger pot of money is spent on other things those schools seem more important for their students.

Totally misses the point. Within a school district, there should be roughly equivalent quality of education available to each student. That includes quality of teachers, quality of facilities, types of courses available, etc. You can point out inefficiencies, sure, but the fact that W gets less per student to deliver the educational service is an artifact of the ease of delivery to that population in comparison to other populations in the district.

As it stands in MD, districts are basically equivalent to counties (Baltimore City, I think, is an exception), with elements from the US and state governments providing certain supports, regulation & funding -- that's the US Federal system for many things, not just education. You can argue that a district should be broken up to serve only a particular HS pyramid. Or that it should be enlarged so that the state (or country!) manages and delivers the service. Or that it's OK to violate the equal protections clause of the Constitution. Each of these would require a large political effort and likely would result in a county/society not so nice as currently exists, but, hey, you could go for it.

Or you could work to ensure that the funding (tax!) levels are enough so that, taking into account the need to provide that roughly equivalent service to all, there's enough to make that service level great, both at the Ws and elsewhere in the county. There used to be a time when education funding measures (municipal bonds) were on the ballot, and they pretty much always passed. It's been over 20 years since the County Council has regularly funded the MCPS need. It's no wonder there are a lot of cracks in what was once a stellar educational system. Not Fairfax of that time, perhaps, but close. It's still pretty good, but not at the level it used to be. Changing demographics have made things challenging, to be sure, but that has nearly always been the case in modern times in the DC area, and the factor is dwarfed by the effect of general underfunding.

MCPS gets additional money for FARMS kids. The W schools don't have a high farms population so they cannot designate FARMS money that lowers class sizes and other things to W schools because they simply don't have the population that needs it. What those benefits. Move to a school that has them.

Smaller class sizes for higher FARMS schools only occur in elementary schools

Correct. In MS, the big difference is class offerings and the W schools generally have better elective offerings but the other schools have more in terms of remediation math/english classes as more kids are struggling with reading/writing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The consortiums are in large part smoke and mirrors to attract students to schools that are sub par to those in Bethesda/Potomac etc. The W schools tend to have a lot more course offerings than the consortium schools. For example, it is the standard for W schools to offer 5-6 foreign languages. In a consortium school, they tend to offer just a couple of languages but they differ depending on the school.

Our W school doesn’t offer 5-6 foreign languages.

Name any school that has 5-6 foreign languages and what those languages are.

Larger schools have the ability to offer greater numbers of courses. Higher enrollment = more staff allocated. It has nothing to do with "W" schools. Blair, RM, and WJ each offer five languages, for example.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The consortiums are in large part smoke and mirrors to attract students to schools that are sub par to those in Bethesda/Potomac etc. The W schools tend to have a lot more course offerings than the consortium schools. For example, it is the standard for W schools to offer 5-6 foreign languages. In a consortium school, they tend to offer just a couple of languages but they differ depending on the school.

Our W school doesn’t offer 5-6 foreign languages.

Name any school that has 5-6 foreign languages and what those languages are.

I compiled this back in 2019. I don't know if things have changed after covid. Whitman offered 9. WJ offered 6. Wooton offered 5. The numbers in parentheses are total student body.

Whitman (2085): French, Spanish, Arabic, Italian, Latin (I&II), Chinese, Russian, ASL, Japanese

Blair (3083): ASL, Spanish, French, Japanese, Latin, Arabic
WJ (2475): Chinese, ASL, Spanish, French, Italian, Latin

Springbrook (1796): Arabic, French, German, Italian, Spanish
Northwood (1731): Arabic (I only), Chinese, French, Russian (I only), Spanish
Wootton (2134): ASL, French, Spanish, Latin, Chinese
Churchill (2123): ASL, French, Spanish, Chinese, Russian
Clarksburg (2148): ASL, French, German, Italian, Spanish
QO (2031): ASL, Chinese, French, Latin, Spanish

RM (2438): Chinese, Spanish, French, Latin
BCC (2102): Arabic, Chinese, French, Spanish
Wheaton (1958): Chinese, French, Italian, Spanish
Blake (1624): ASL, French, Italian (only offering II), Spanish
Einstein (1803): Spanish, French, Japanese, Chinese (I&II only)

Damascus (1,271): ASL, French, Spanish
Northwest (2508): ASL, French, Spanish
Rockville (1476): ASL, French, Spanish
Sherwood (1967): French, Italian, Spanish
Paint Branch (2000): French, Japanese, Spanish
Kennedy (1720): French, Spanish, Italian
Watkins Mill (1660): ASL, French, Spanish

Poolesville (1183): French, Spanish
SV (1187): French, Spanish
Gaithersburg (2388): French, Spanish
Magruder (1,617): French, Spanish

[Anonymous]

Parents of these schools will elect home school as their choice and there will be no room for other kids anyway.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The consortiums are in large part smoke and mirrors to attract students to schools that are sub par to those in Bethesda/Potomac etc. The W schools tend to have a lot more course offerings than the consortium schools. For example, it is the standard for W schools to offer 5-6 foreign languages. In a consortium school, they tend to offer just a couple of languages but they differ depending on the school.

Our W school doesn’t offer 5-6 foreign languages.

Name any school that has 5-6 foreign languages and what those languages are.

I compiled this back in 2019. I don't know if things have changed after covid. Whitman offered 9. WJ offered 6. Wooton offered 5. The numbers in parentheses are total student body.

Whitman (2085): French, Spanish, Arabic, Italian, Latin (I&II), Chinese, Russian, ASL, Japanese

Blair (3083): ASL, Spanish, French, Japanese, Latin, Arabic
WJ (2475): Chinese, ASL, Spanish, French, Italian, Latin

Springbrook (1796): Arabic, French, German, Italian, Spanish
Northwood (1731): Arabic (I only), Chinese, French, Russian (I only), Spanish
Wootton (2134): ASL, French, Spanish, Latin, Chinese
Churchill (2123): ASL, French, Spanish, Chinese, Russian
Clarksburg (2148): ASL, French, German, Italian, Spanish
QO (2031): ASL, Chinese, French, Latin, Spanish

RM (2438): Chinese, Spanish, French, Latin
BCC (2102): Arabic, Chinese, French, Spanish
Wheaton (1958): Chinese, French, Italian, Spanish
Blake (1624): ASL, French, Italian (only offering II), Spanish
Einstein (1803): Spanish, French, Japanese, Chinese (I&II only)

Damascus (1,271): ASL, French, Spanish
Northwest (2508): ASL, French, Spanish
Rockville (1476): ASL, French, Spanish
Sherwood (1967): French, Italian, Spanish
Paint Branch (2000): French, Japanese, Spanish
Kennedy (1720): French, Spanish, Italian
Watkins Mill (1660): ASL, French, Spanish

Poolesville (1183): French, Spanish
SV (1187): French, Spanish
Gaithersburg (2388): French, Spanish
Magruder (1,617): French, Spanish

For next year, Churchill is offering ASL, Chinese, French and Spanish.

[Anonymous]

NP here. Looks like Northwood has dropped Arabic and Russian, Blake has dropped Italian, and Einstein has dropped Chinese. I expect these were pandemic casualties.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:NP here. Looks like Northwood has dropped Arabic and Russian, Blake has dropped Italian, and Einstein has dropped Chinese. I expect these were pandemic casualties.

Einstein did drop Chinese, but they have added Arabic to their course listing for 2022-23.

[Anonymous]

The Whitman list looks less impressive when you realize there aren't separate sections of some of those languages. So, maybe Russian III is offered that year but the kids from Russian II are in the same room at the same time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The Whitman list looks less impressive when you realize there aren't separate sections of some of those languages. So, maybe Russian III is offered that year but the kids from Russian II are in the same room at the same time.

At least you have Russian. Two years is better than nothing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Whitman list looks less impressive when you realize there aren't separate sections of some of those languages. So, maybe Russian III is offered that year but the kids from Russian II are in the same room at the same time.

At least you have Russian. Two years is better than nothing.

Whitman's 22-23 course bulletin doesn't include any Russian courses.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/134qoIt7Dma9XtYOVOe_wZKD1Rr-HojQzz9XC1srS_zQ/edit

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Pure and simple: Wealthy people think they are inherently better, entitled, virtuous, smarter, harder working, and all-up more deserving of a top public school than poor and middle class people who cannot afford the W school neighborhoods. Consortiums would give poor and middle class families access to the schools that wealthy families have bought into in order to AVOID us.

Not everyone is poor or middle class though.

mostly though, the troupe of the real rich people live on the poor side of town isn't a real thing

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The consortiums are in large part smoke and mirrors to attract students to schools that are sub par to those in Bethesda/Potomac etc. The W schools tend to have a lot more course offerings than the consortium schools. For example, it is the standard for W schools to offer 5-6 foreign languages. In a consortium school, they tend to offer just a couple of languages but they differ depending on the school.

Our W school doesn’t offer 5-6 foreign languages.

Name any school that has 5-6 foreign languages and what those languages are.

That makes no sense. At best they offer 3-4. Our non-W MS only offers Spanish and French.

Several schools in MCPS offer 5-6 languages. And to the PP’s point, most are not W’s schools. Look to schools with diverse community demographics or IB programs.