Bethesda Today gives Josh Starr several quotes while downplaying MCEA, MCCPTA and petitions with 100s of signatures

[Anonymous]

The NAACP wrote a letter supporting it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Black and Brown "coalition" is just 2 dudes, like Parents Coalition is just one lady.

Give yourself a phony name and file some palers and you can be a Coalition or an Institution or a Foundation to.

No, Black and Brown Coalition has more but they are the same as the NAACP people.

Half of Black and Brown Coalition is NAACP Parents’ Council, which is what Byron leads. The other half is led by Diego and his organization Identity.

Identity is made up of 100% of employees who are paid with county dollars to run programs for MCPS students. Total conflict of interest for Uriburu - one hand washes the other.

To be fair it's really Byron Johns who has been pushing the support. What bothers me is this is clearly him backing up his MCPS buddies but they and the media act like they speak for all the Black and Latino families in MCPS.

The NAACP Parents Council doesn't have a formal process to "sign on" to things. They never polled their members or discussed it in detail with them to understand pros and cons. And when members said that process felt wrong, they got yelled at.

So anytime they are saying they have a stance on something, remember that it's how Byron Johns feels on any given day, not a rigorous process. MCCPTA has its issues, but they go through a documented (tedious) process for any public resolutions or advocacy stances.

Sad.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The NAACP wrote a letter supporting it.

Linda Plummer did

How many people signed onto that letter?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Black and Brown "coalition" is just 2 dudes, like Parents Coalition is just one lady.

Give yourself a phony name and file some palers and you can be a Coalition or an Institution or a Foundation to.

No, Black and Brown Coalition has more but they are the same as the NAACP people.

Half of Black and Brown Coalition is NAACP Parents’ Council, which is what Byron leads. The other half is led by Diego and his organization Identity.

Identity is made up of 100% of employees who are paid with county dollars to run programs for MCPS students. Total conflict of interest for Uriburu - one hand washes the other.

To be fair it's really Byron Johns who has been pushing the support. What bothers me is this is clearly him backing up his MCPS buddies but they and the media act like they speak for all the Black and Latino families in MCPS.

Agree. He used to be a great guy and he turned real quick once he started getting money. He doesn’t represent lower income or Black and Brown families anymore. The organizations have changed a lot in the last 8 years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The NAACP wrote a letter supporting it.

You mean Byron Jones wrote a letter supporting it.

[Anonymous]

Didn't Linda Plummer also support McKnight? Kind of a cold move to the community given McKnight promoted Beidleman to be principal of Paint Branch HS which is majority Black. Classic case of moving bad apples to majority BIPOC schools

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This article about the regional program model spends multiple paragraphs lifting up the voices of people like Josh Starr, Thomas Taylor, the BOE and the two men that lead the Black and Brown Coalition but you have to read all the way to the bottom of the article to learn that the MCEA, MCCPTA have approved resolutions urging to slow down and change their approach in addition to the petitions signed by hundreds of people.

Seriously. The M.ad M.ommies of M.o.Co are always Big_Mad about something. It’s comical.

Thank you MCPS Comms.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This article about the regional program model spends multiple paragraphs lifting up the voices of people like Josh Starr, Thomas Taylor, the BOE and the two men that lead the Black and Brown Coalition but you have to read all the way to the bottom of the article to learn that the MCEA, MCCPTA have approved resolutions urging to slow down and change their approach in addition to the petitions signed by hundreds of people.

Seriously. The M.ad M.ommies of M.o.Co are always Big_Mad about something. It’s comical.

Thank you MCPS Comms.

You wish

[Anonymous]

It doesn't matter what consortiums are called or which programs and created or folded, there were good schools and the rest getting by and there will be good schools with the rest just getting by after this. The only changes being a couple will shuffle around from mid tiers schools to losers and a couple just getting by into mid tier but the strong ones will be the same. All the gripes i see on this board are from the mid tier schools afraid of going backwards draping themself in the flag of justice. But if it took a disproportionate amount of funds to make a DCC school look less mediocre then what is it really whats the justice on shifting those funds to prop up a couple inside on one? Blair got to be mid tier by picking off motivated students from the DCC and pulling in hundreds of affluent rock stars, sure on paper it looks less DCC but it was really inflicting on the home schools of those kids what it is decrying will happen to it when it is clustered to better schools and loses the STEM program. All while not making a huge difference to its local kids other than appeasing the middle class who owned homes IB to it. Now each cluster will have a best school and many will have access to a W they never had before. Seems like a step in the right direction

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It doesn't matter what consortiums are called or which programs and created or folded, there were good schools and the rest getting by and there will be good schools with the rest just getting by after this. The only changes being a couple will shuffle around from mid tiers schools to losers and a couple just getting by into mid tier but the strong ones will be the same. All the gripes i see on this board are from the mid tier schools afraid of going backwards draping themself in the flag of justice. But if it took a disproportionate amount of funds to make a DCC school look less mediocre then what is it really whats the justice on shifting those funds to prop up a couple inside on one? Blair got to be mid tier by picking off motivated students from the DCC and pulling in hundreds of affluent rock stars, sure on paper it looks less DCC but it was really inflicting on the home schools of those kids what it is decrying will happen to it when it is clustered to better schools and loses the STEM program. All while not making a huge difference to its local kids other than appeasing the middle class who owned homes IB to it. Now each cluster will have a best school and many will have access to a W they never had before. Seems like a step in the right direction

I would love for someone from MCPS or the BOE to come out and say this is why they dismantled the DCC and NEC. However they didn't talk about it at all, they just slammed people who correctly stated the regional model as proposed is going to reproduce the harms of the DCC across the county while taking access to established programs (the interest based academies) away from students in very diverse areas.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It doesn't matter what consortiums are called or which programs and created or folded, there were good schools and the rest getting by and there will be good schools with the rest just getting by after this. The only changes being a couple will shuffle around from mid tiers schools to losers and a couple just getting by into mid tier but the strong ones will be the same. All the gripes i see on this board are from the mid tier schools afraid of going backwards draping themself in the flag of justice. But if it took a disproportionate amount of funds to make a DCC school look less mediocre then what is it really whats the justice on shifting those funds to prop up a couple inside on one? Blair got to be mid tier by picking off motivated students from the DCC and pulling in hundreds of affluent rock stars, sure on paper it looks less DCC but it was really inflicting on the home schools of those kids what it is decrying will happen to it when it is clustered to better schools and loses the STEM program. All while not making a huge difference to its local kids other than appeasing the middle class who owned homes IB to it. Now each cluster will have a best school and many will have access to a W they never had before. Seems like a step in the right direction

The expectation from many is that DCC kids are desperate to go to W schools and this will give them the opportunity to, which isn't true. For the wealtheir families, with smart kids, we specifically avoided those schools, which means we may have to move out of the county or private.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It doesn't matter what consortiums are called or which programs and created or folded, there were good schools and the rest getting by and there will be good schools with the rest just getting by after this. The only changes being a couple will shuffle around from mid tiers schools to losers and a couple just getting by into mid tier but the strong ones will be the same. All the gripes i see on this board are from the mid tier schools afraid of going backwards draping themself in the flag of justice. But if it took a disproportionate amount of funds to make a DCC school look less mediocre then what is it really whats the justice on shifting those funds to prop up a couple inside on one? Blair got to be mid tier by picking off motivated students from the DCC and pulling in hundreds of affluent rock stars, sure on paper it looks less DCC but it was really inflicting on the home schools of those kids what it is decrying will happen to it when it is clustered to better schools and loses the STEM program. All while not making a huge difference to its local kids other than appeasing the middle class who owned homes IB to it. Now each cluster will have a best school and many will have access to a W they never had before. Seems like a step in the right direction

It will be a hunger games scenario (like MCPS claimed it was getting rid of), with eastside students trying to get into the small number of available seats in westside schools, and westside students staying home in their high achieving home schools. Everyone who can will be trying to get out of the low performing high schools, which will not improve.

MCPS has just rearranged the deck chairs into an arrangement with increased segregation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It doesn't matter what consortiums are called or which programs and created or folded, there were good schools and the rest getting by and there will be good schools with the rest just getting by after this. The only changes being a couple will shuffle around from mid tiers schools to losers and a couple just getting by into mid tier but the strong ones will be the same. All the gripes i see on this board are from the mid tier schools afraid of going backwards draping themself in the flag of justice. But if it took a disproportionate amount of funds to make a DCC school look less mediocre then what is it really whats the justice on shifting those funds to prop up a couple inside on one? Blair got to be mid tier by picking off motivated students from the DCC and pulling in hundreds of affluent rock stars, sure on paper it looks less DCC but it was really inflicting on the home schools of those kids what it is decrying will happen to it when it is clustered to better schools and loses the STEM program. All while not making a huge difference to its local kids other than appeasing the middle class who owned homes IB to it. Now each cluster will have a best school and many will have access to a W they never had before. Seems like a step in the right direction

What do you mean by "But if it took a disproportionate amount of funds to make a DCC school look less mediocre then what is it really whats the justice on shifting those funds to prop up a couple inside on one?" Schools like Einstein and Northwood are not mid-tier because of a disproportionate amount of funds being spent on them (and I don't see any reason to think they "look less mediocre than [they] really [are]") and the issue is not that funds are being shifted away from them, it's that they are going to lose half or more of their advanced kids to Blair, BCC, and Whitman and may well end up in an academic death spiral. MCPS easily could have avoided this by putting academic programs for high-achievers like IB and humanities at Einstein and Northwood rather than BCC and Whitman (which would have helped Einstein and Northwood without hurting BCC and Whitman at all), but they just don't care. I'm sure the same story is going on in other regions too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It doesn't matter what consortiums are called or which programs and created or folded, there were good schools and the rest getting by and there will be good schools with the rest just getting by after this. The only changes being a couple will shuffle around from mid tiers schools to losers and a couple just getting by into mid tier but the strong ones will be the same. All the gripes i see on this board are from the mid tier schools afraid of going backwards draping themself in the flag of justice. But if it took a disproportionate amount of funds to make a DCC school look less mediocre then what is it really whats the justice on shifting those funds to prop up a couple inside on one? Blair got to be mid tier by picking off motivated students from the DCC and pulling in hundreds of affluent rock stars, sure on paper it looks less DCC but it was really inflicting on the home schools of those kids what it is decrying will happen to it when it is clustered to better schools and loses the STEM program. All while not making a huge difference to its local kids other than appeasing the middle class who owned homes IB to it. Now each cluster will have a best school and many will have access to a W they never had before. Seems like a step in the right direction

What do you mean by "But if it took a disproportionate amount of funds to make a DCC school look less mediocre then what is it really whats the justice on shifting those funds to prop up a couple inside on one?" Schools like Einstein and Northwood are not mid-tier because of a disproportionate amount of funds being spent on them (and I don't see any reason to think they "look less mediocre than [they] really [are]") and the issue is not that funds are being shifted away from them, it's that they are going to lose half or more of their advanced kids to Blair, BCC, and Whitman and may well end up in an academic death spiral. MCPS easily could have avoided this by putting academic programs for high-achievers like IB and humanities at Einstein and Northwood rather than BCC and Whitman (which would have helped Einstein and Northwood without hurting BCC and Whitman at all), but they just don't care. I'm sure the same story is going on in other regions too.

Einstein and Northwood don't have the same course offerings as the W schools, so the assumption that many of us want to be at W schools isn't accurate. What's going to happen due to lack of offerings, which are going to decline more with the redistricting and losing students/staff is a greater divide in course offerings and families whose kids prop up these schools with higher scores are going to flee. Many of us cannot make the transportation to somewhere like Whitman, nor would I ever want my kids at that school. We could afford a W school home comfortably, but we don't want that kind of enviroment for our kids. We are going to monitor things but we may move to somewhere like Howard as we are not pleased with MCPS. We have some great individual teachers, but the admin at our schools are terrible and not responsive and they are tone death to kids needs/wants.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It doesn't matter what consortiums are called or which programs and created or folded, there were good schools and the rest getting by and there will be good schools with the rest just getting by after this. The only changes being a couple will shuffle around from mid tiers schools to losers and a couple just getting by into mid tier but the strong ones will be the same. All the gripes i see on this board are from the mid tier schools afraid of going backwards draping themself in the flag of justice. But if it took a disproportionate amount of funds to make a DCC school look less mediocre then what is it really whats the justice on shifting those funds to prop up a couple inside on one? Blair got to be mid tier by picking off motivated students from the DCC and pulling in hundreds of affluent rock stars, sure on paper it looks less DCC but it was really inflicting on the home schools of those kids what it is decrying will happen to it when it is clustered to better schools and loses the STEM program. All while not making a huge difference to its local kids other than appeasing the middle class who owned homes IB to it. Now each cluster will have a best school and many will have access to a W they never had before. Seems like a step in the right direction

Many of us don't want our kids at a W school. You all keep pushing and believing we do but if we did we'd be living in your community. Best is subjective.