How is it possible that Walt Whitman high school has a score of 4 on greatschools.org??

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I know that each schools scores are based on test results & NOT the opinions or reviews of the parents (as some seem to think the scores are correlated by).

So how does:

Walter Johnson score an 8
BCC score a 7
Churchill score a 6 and
Whitman score a 4 out of 10??

The kids from Whitman are always bragging about how much money they have & they say they're "slumming it" when they hang out with kids from the other "W" schools & BCC (I've heard it myself & saw it written on social media).

So how are these kids who are so well off, going to a school with a ranking of 4 on great schools??

Aren't the parents livid?

I haven't seen anyone bragging about money or pretend slumming it, and neither have my 3 kids at Whitman. The kids we see around are all very busy and have a lot going on for them, and too much to lose to muck it up with drugs, slip ups, misjudgment. They good kids, can't wait to see them continue to grow!

I agree. It sounds like there is Whitman envy on this board. My kids don't brag about money because we don't have much of it! I can say that my kids work their butts off at Whitman and have gotten amazing educations. As far as I am concerned the county can stick their PARCC tests up their asses.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I know that each schools scores are based on test results & NOT the opinions or reviews of the parents (as some seem to think the scores are correlated by).

So how does:

Walter Johnson score an 8
BCC score a 7
Churchill score a 6 and
Whitman score a 4 out of 10??

The kids from Whitman are always bragging about how much money they have & they say they're "slumming it" when they hang out with kids from the other "W" schools & BCC (I've heard it myself & saw it written on social media).

So how are these kids who are so well off, going to a school with a ranking of 4 on great schools??

Aren't the parents livid?

I haven't seen anyone bragging about money or pretend slumming it, and neither have my 3 kids at Whitman. The kids we see around are all very busy and have a lot going on for them, and too much to lose to muck it up with drugs, slip ups, misjudgment. They good kids, can't wait to see them continue to grow!

I agree. It sounds like there is Whitman envy on this board. My kids don't brag about money because we don't have much of it! I can say that my kids work their butts off at Whitman and have gotten amazing educations. As far as I am concerned the county can stick their PARCC tests up their asses.

I also agree. It is silly to suggest that Whitman students are bragging about slumming it with kids from other area schools. For among other reasons, lots of Whitman kids have less money than kids at other schools, particularly BCC. We wound up zoned for Whitman rather than BCC in large part because we could get more bang for our buck being a 5 minute drive from downtown Bethesda rather than being walkable. It is true that Whitman has fewer truly (not DCUM) middle-class and lower SES students than Whitman, but for students that are UMC/wealthy, many at BCC have equal or greater wealth than similar students at Whitman.

My kids are younger, but the Whitman kids I have met in the neighborhood and through other things have generally been good, relatively grounded, kids. I have no doubt their are cocksure a$$holes at the school too, but that will be the case at any of these schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

I agree. It sounds like there is Whitman envy on this board. My kids don't brag about money because we don't have much of it! I can say that my kids work their butts off at Whitman and have gotten amazing educations. As far as I am concerned the county can stick their PARCC tests up their asses.

If you are zoned for Whitman, you probably actually do have a lot of it. Maybe not compared to your neighbors, but compared to people in Montgomery County, in Maryland, and in the US, you do. I wish that affluent people would stop saying that they don't have a lot of money.

[Anonymous]

^^^Also, it's not Whitman envy. It's Schadenfreude.

[Anonymous]

I think you guys are looking at this the wrong way. Now when your kid applies to college, they will be viewed as thriving despite attending an underperforming school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I agree. It sounds like there is Whitman envy on this board. My kids don't brag about money because we don't have much of it! I can say that my kids work their butts off at Whitman and have gotten amazing educations. As far as I am concerned the county can stick their PARCC tests up their asses.

If you are zoned for Whitman, you probably actually do have a lot of it. Maybe not compared to your neighbors, but compared to people in Montgomery County, in Maryland, and in the US, you do. I wish that affluent people would stop saying that they don't have a lot of money.

This x1000. If you live in a W-school district, by and large you have a lot of money relative to everyone else in the county. How can any parents advocate that their kids to complete blow off a test regardless of whether it "matters"?

[Anonymous]

Ok, I just want to point out that on the thread about diversity and why some of us choose a more diverse school for our kids, many folks commented that the reason they disdain diverse schools had to do with the "environment for their kids" and the "involvement of the parents". Now I'm to understand that kids in a W school are actually encouraged by both parents and teachers to blow off tests? It's kind of crazy, the double standard. If parents are less involved because they have trouble with English or work two jobs, that's bad, but if they encourage blowing off educational standards in a sort of devil may care, mischief making way, then it's fine and it's an outrage that their scores would be dropped. Hmm.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I totally agree with the poster who wrote about the calibre of kids from BCC & Walter Johnson.

My kids are in college now, but I'm a member of the neighborhood bulletin board app NextDoor & I live in the Wildwood section of Bethesda (off Grosvenor).
If you look under the classified section of NextDoor, you'll see hundreds of posts from kids that go to Walter Johnson who are soliciting their services for babysitting, lawn cutting, dog walking, tutoring, snow shoveling, etc. All of our lifeguards at Wildwood pool are from WJ & they are truly the nicest, most respectful bunch of kids you've ever met.

They're putting themselves out there & trying to make their own money with hard work & integrity, not just asking for the debit card or dipping into mommies wallet when she's not looking. It's really quite impressive to see.

A friend of mine has kids who go to BCC & her kids and all of their friends start taking mass transit to work as soon as they get their work permits. They don't need anyone to drive them to or fro, they depend on themselves to get them places & they work hard for the money they get.
Additionally, so many parents come from international backgrounds & instill responsibility & dedication early on.
Could you imagine any one of those kids blowing off a test just because?? Never happening.

Both sets of schools have families that may be well off enough to live in Bethesda & Chevy Chase, but their parents know the value of hard work, being a good neighbor & being together for family time. While the parents may have the means, they don't allow their kids to rest on their laurels, they teach them hard work & the value of a dollar early on.

If you were to ask me which kid I'd want my kid to emulate, the uber rich one who doesn't take PARCC scores seriously because mommy & daddy will always be there to catch them if they fall, or the kids who do it right the first time because it's not even a choice to them. They want to make their parents proud & there is no other alternative.
It's not a hard choice to make at all.

This is ridiculous. I live in Whitman school district and also on Nextdoor app for my area and there are tons of kids offering to babysit, shovel snow, do yard work, etc. Our local pools are also filled with Whitman students as lifeguards - they're not coming from BCC and WJ! My neighborhood is also very international. Like another person who posted, we moved to Whitman area because we couldn't afford the neighborhoods around BCC.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I agree. It sounds like there is Whitman envy on this board. My kids don't brag about money because we don't have much of it! I can say that my kids work their butts off at Whitman and have gotten amazing educations. As far as I am concerned the county can stick their PARCC tests up their asses.

If you are zoned for Whitman, you probably actually do have a lot of it. Maybe not compared to your neighbors, but compared to people in Montgomery County, in Maryland, and in the US, you do. I wish that affluent people would stop saying that they don't have a lot of money.

This x1000. If you live in a W-school district, by and large you have a lot of money relative to everyone else in the county. How can any parents advocate that their kids to complete blow off a test regardless of whether it "matters"?

Sure, but people were responding to posts claiming Whitman kids were rich entitled asses compared to the down to earth folks at BCC and WJ. The majority at all these schools are quite privileged relative to the country as a whole, not to mention the county. No one is denying that, but people are disputing that Whitman is any different on this front than the other schools mentioned.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wow. Great Schools has a bunch of new data. Here's an interesting one. Less than 4% of Whitman's kids are Black, but Black students are 10x as likely to be suspended than their white peers at Whitman.

WOW. That's horrific.

They call it "Whiteman" for a reason.

[Anonymous]

I see that Wootton is an 8. Is it really that good? Are the kids entitled or more down to earth? (Generally speaking, of course. I know any school will have all sorts).

[Anonymous]

There is much bashing to other threads of Sherwood, Blake, Magruder, even some parents claiming that they would never sent their kid to any of these schools because of it"child endangerment," and it all started with bad greatschool ratings for these schools. I didn't partake in those discussions, but many pps were truly racist with claims that just by passing by those schools you can see them going down the drain... Isn't it hypocritical to now say that Whitman is nonetheless a fantastic school despite the new greatschool ranking just because your kids go there and that there are " many poor" kids there? It is beyond insane that any household that feeds into that schools is poor by MoCo standard and far, far from middle class anywhere in the US apart from New York maybe. And, btw, no I don't buy it for a second that Whitman is a bad school at all, clearly such a drop in rating is not the norm but some kind of anomaly. Just pointing out the hypocrisy on there threads. My kids went to Westland and Bethesda and both are insanely good public schools, not as good as their private school, but compared to the public schools they went to in Colorado, MoCo schools are miles ahead.

[Anonymous]

I wouldn't rule out activism. One of the things I liked about Whitman (maybe MoCo in general) was their respect, almost encouragement of activism. Certainly a segment may have been protesting the emphasis on standardized testing ~ they would know this would get attention/press. They would be willing to shoulder the heat.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Looks like students across the board underperformed on PARCC exam. Lots of schools dropped a point or two because PARCC performance has not been as high as olde test.

Yeah, but BCC was a 7 last year, and it's a 7 with this new data too. So you can't blame the PARCC test "across the board."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There is much bashing to other threads of Sherwood, Blake, Magruder, even some parents claiming that they would never sent their kid to any of these schools because of it"child endangerment," and it all started with bad greatschool ratings for these schools. I didn't partake in those discussions, but many pps were truly racist with claims that just by passing by those schools you can see them going down the drain... Isn't it hypocritical to now say that Whitman is nonetheless a fantastic school despite the new greatschool ranking just because your kids go there and that there are " many poor" kids there? It is beyond insane that any household that feeds into that schools is poor by MoCo standard and far, far from middle class anywhere in the US apart from New York maybe. And, btw, no I don't buy it for a second that Whitman is a bad school at all, clearly such a drop in rating is not the norm but some kind of anomaly. Just pointing out the hypocrisy on there threads. My kids went to Westland and Bethesda and both are insanely good public schools, not as good as their private school, but compared to the public schools they went to in Colorado, MoCo schools are miles ahead.

Although really, it doesn't START with bad Greatschools ratings. It starts, as you say, with, "Just drive by those schools, you'll see how bad they are." It's racist ignorance, just like in the thread about the Northwest HS seniors who were killed, where everybody is certain that to set foot anywhere in Montgomery Village is to take your life into your hands.