Where do you consider MCPS high schools on a scale of good-bad

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This thread!!

1. West county snobs who are defensive their kids aren't in magnets.
2. East county hippies who are defensive their kids are in magnets.
3. Some annoyed Asian moms who just want good test scores.
4. All of the groups tying themselves into knots to explain that it isn't racism that makes them frightened of poor children. They want to say it's the gangs, but they're too frightened that will sound racist.

Seriously, after having experienced high Ses moco schools and low ses Moco schools, you couldn't pay me to send my kids to a W or Blair. It's just so toxic.

I’m a lower MC AA teacher mom. I’ve taught at both a W and Blair. I have one Blair grad and a son currently there. I also have a daughter at a HS magnet elsewhere. How do you pathologize my choices?

I don't.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

BCC is 15% Black and Blair is 24% Black. Nearly all of the Black students at BCC live in Silver Spring and would be assigned to Blair if they lived literally in the next apartment building over. So why is it that those Black kids at BCC are doing significantly better than kids one block away?

Even this is not true. There are no buildings zoned to BCC which are next to buildings zoned to Blair. You are probably referring to the Summit Hills apartments at the eastern end of the BCC zone. Some of their buildings are zoned for BCC, and others are zoned for Einstein. None are zoned for Blair.

+1 This is one of those times when it helps to break out the map: https://gis.mcpsmd.org/ServiceAreaMaps/BCCHS.pdf

You can see the that B-CC has kind of a weird boundary, reaching across the part to pick up the RH and RCF neighborhoods. Which....fine. But the places where you have dense housing right next to each other, some is zoned for B-CC and some is zoned for Einstein, as PP says.

There are places where a neighborhood zones for Blair and a neighborhood zoned for B-CC are close, but it's mostly buildings with few kids (near the SS Metro Station).

I am not sure why this makes a difference to the point, which is why are Black kids who live in the Summit Hills apartments doing to so well academically compared to Black kids are Blair? Can you explain that?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

BCC is 15% Black and Blair is 24% Black. Nearly all of the Black students at BCC live in Silver Spring and would be assigned to Blair if they lived literally in the next apartment building over. So why is it that those Black kids at BCC are doing significantly better than kids one block away?

Even this is not true. There are no buildings zoned to BCC which are next to buildings zoned to Blair. You are probably referring to the Summit Hills apartments at the eastern end of the BCC zone. Some of their buildings are zoned for BCC, and others are zoned for Einstein. None are zoned for Blair.

Okay, so why are the Black kids in those buildings doing substantially better than Black kids at Blair?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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I remember reading the post a while back that showed Blair's SAT average was 50 points higher for the largest common cohort to it and any W in order to isolate for demographic differences and gauge the school's actual value. Some people argued but the magnet responsible which was ridiculous because it's a small program in a large school that's also mostly Asian. These silly posts that are based on outdated notions from 30 years ago are mostly laughable.
I believe these were the SAT scores for the largest cohort common to each of these high-schools

Blair 1326
Walter Johnson 1275
Wootton 1262
Churchill 1257

The data was published by the county here.
https://ww2.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/sharedaccountability/reports/2017/1771102HS%20Princ_SAT%20Partic_Perf%20Class%20of%202017.pdf

This makes a lot more sense than just dumping raw data.

The smartest white kids means it’s the best school? I cannot imagine anything more racist and classist than that, considering 90% of Blair kids are from rich liberal families in Takoma Park. I know a few of them myself.

Yup. To me, the best schools are the schools where Black and Hispanic students perform the best. So the top 4 are Poolesville, Whitman, Churchill and BCC. Black and Hispanic students at Blair perform worse than Northwest, Sherwood and Watkins Mill which says a lot about Blair. That’s a lot of inequality in one school and it’s hard to understand how white kids are getting taught so well while Black and Brown kids are not.

Yeah but they have to be a significant number/percentage to mean anything. The percentage of Black and Hispanic students at Whitman and Poolesville is less than 5%. Comparing the scores of 5 ~10 to 200 kids is comparing apples to oranges. That is why the comparison should be with the group that has a significant number/percentage of students on each school.
I mean when you have 5 African diplomatic kids at Whitman, do you think they live in poverty, don't get the support they need?

So please explain the difference between the performance of Black students at BCC vs Blair.

BCC is 15% Black and Blair is 24% Black. Nearly all of the Black students at BCC live in Silver Spring and would be assigned to Blair if they lived literally in the next apartment building over. So why is it that those Black kids at BCC are doing significantly better than kids one block away?

You want to trumpet Blair as a success because the White kids perform better on average than the White kids at Whitman, but why can’t they reach the Black kids? Why does a Black kid who lives across the street and goes to a different school that still has a good number of Black kids from the same neighborhood have substantially better educational outcomes?

I doubt that you can answer that, but the answer is obviously racism and that’s something that these Liberal white Takoma Park folks in their million dollar houses that think they’re so open minded sending their kids to public school need to come to terms with. Their school is privileging their kids and not teaching Black and Brown kids who are unlucky to live in the wrong block. That’s it.

To borrow a phrase, “The greatness of a [school] shall be judged by how it treats its weakest member” and by that metric Blair fails and fails quite horribly.

So let me get this right, according to you, the black kids at BCC are all poor and live in apartment buildings? They aren't the kids of lawyers, business people, and feds - many of the people who are relatively affluent who live in Silver Spring but still go to BCC (that really gets stuck in your craw, doesn't it?). The black kids at BCC - you're trying to tell me - are the same socio-economic background as the black kids who live on Maple Avenue and on the eastern side of University Blvd and in the apartment buildings on Piney Branch and Flower Avenue? Get the hell out with your nonsense racism. News Flash: Black kids can be the kids of the same types of successful professionals who are white and go to Rosemary Hills - BCC.

Imagine that just because the black kids at BCC are black, doesn't mean they are poor. And so, their parents have the time, resources, and perhaps education, to fully support their children's academics.

Not all of the kids at Blair who are black are poor - to the contrary. But the streets I flagged below include some economically disadvantaged neighborhoods where kids may not have the resources to do well academically - or may be working after school to help pay for family expenses. It's not an apple to apple comparison any more than comparing a wealthy white kid from Potomac is to comparing a white child who lives in a poorer neighborhood in the county.

Lastly, why are you so invested in tearing down Blair? It's crazy how many posters resent Blair's success. Get a grip.

As the proud Black parent of a BCC graduate, I regret to inform you that you have no clue what you are talking about and you seem to harbor a significant amount of racial resentment that you need to work out. Something is seriously wrong with you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We purposely put our kids in a diverse, middle of the pack HS to avoid the extreme ends of the spectrum (lots of entitled, rich kids vs lots of troubled, poor kids). We figured a school in the middle of these would make it easy for our kids to find a good group of friends who share the same interests as them and who care about education; without the pressures or the stress of being in either one of these extreme environments.

What does this mean?

What is middle of the pack?

GS rating 7, FARM rate between 20-30%.

How do you feel it’s working out? Genuine curiosity?

We are happy here. Kids have a good number of friends from diverse backgrounds who care about school and while there are plenty of opportunities for advancement/challenge, it's not a pressure cooker either. And most families here are just normal, hard working parents who want the best for their kids. There's no snootiness, or kids who drive fancy cars but we're not in Bethesda or Potomac, so we don't have that type of wealth here. On the other other hand, I'm not going to lie there is a small group of kids (as I'm sure there are at other schools) who cause trouble/fights. Most kids know to just stay away from them and my kids don't even mix with them at all. It's about parenting and what you teach your kids. I've always told my kids since they were little to stay out of trouble, find good friends, and work hard.

what school are you speaking of?

Did you get the drama you were hoping for by digging up this two year old zombie thread? 🤨

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

BCC is 15% Black and Blair is 24% Black. Nearly all of the Black students at BCC live in Silver Spring and would be assigned to Blair if they lived literally in the next apartment building over. So why is it that those Black kids at BCC are doing significantly better than kids one block away?

Even this is not true. There are no buildings zoned to BCC which are next to buildings zoned to Blair. You are probably referring to the Summit Hills apartments at the eastern end of the BCC zone. Some of their buildings are zoned for BCC, and others are zoned for Einstein. None are zoned for Blair.

Okay, so why are the Black kids in those buildings doing substantially better than Black kids at Blair?

We don't know that they are?

As a population, Black kids do better at B-CC than at Blair. That's true. But, as a population, Black kids at B-CC are wealthier than Black kids at Blair. We actually don't know that Black kids who live in Summit Hills and attend B-CC do better than kids who live in Summit Hills and attend Einstein, or in another complex and attend Blair.

We CAN look at data on Maryland School Report Card, though. If you take literally the first test that comes up (English 10), and control for Black kids who receive FARMS, the scores are identical.

B-CC has a 40% proficiency rate, as does Blair. Technically, B-CC has a 40.4% rate and Blair has a 40.5% rate.

If you run the exact same test for Algebra I, and only look at Black kids receiving FARMS, B-CC does a tiny bit better (19%) than Blair (15%) but that's not a big spread.

So, if you look at poor/working class Black kids, the scores are roughly the same at the two schools. But B-CC's *overall* scores for Black kids are higher because their student body is wealther, including their Black kids. That tells you about demographics, not about quality of education.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

BCC is 15% Black and Blair is 24% Black. Nearly all of the Black students at BCC live in Silver Spring and would be assigned to Blair if they lived literally in the next apartment building over. So why is it that those Black kids at BCC are doing significantly better than kids one block away?

Even this is not true. There are no buildings zoned to BCC which are next to buildings zoned to Blair. You are probably referring to the Summit Hills apartments at the eastern end of the BCC zone. Some of their buildings are zoned for BCC, and others are zoned for Einstein. None are zoned for Blair.

Okay, so why are the Black kids in those buildings doing substantially better than Black kids at Blair?

We don't know that they are?

As a population, Black kids do better at B-CC than at Blair. That's true. But, as a population, Black kids at B-CC are wealthier than Black kids at Blair. We actually don't know that Black kids who live in Summit Hills and attend B-CC do better than kids who live in Summit Hills and attend Einstein, or in another complex and attend Blair.

We CAN look at data on Maryland School Report Card, though. If you take literally the first test that comes up (English 10), and control for Black kids who receive FARMS, the scores are identical.

B-CC has a 40% proficiency rate, as does Blair. Technically, B-CC has a 40.4% rate and Blair has a 40.5% rate.

If you run the exact same test for Algebra I, and only look at Black kids receiving FARMS, B-CC does a tiny bit better (19%) than Blair (15%) but that's not a big spread.

So, if you look at poor/working class Black kids, the scores are roughly the same at the two schools. But B-CC's *overall* scores for Black kids are higher because their student body is wealther, including their Black kids. That tells you about demographics, not about quality of education.

Not really there are very few minorities at BCC which is a GS6 for academics. Further, it's more about SES and those minorities who live in Bethesda are wealthy. BCC does remarkably poor for a school with low FARMS.

[Anonymous]

People can argue all they want about which schools are better, etc, but it doesn’t address the basic reality that MCPS is a school system in decline.

[Anonymous]

Just to go back to the data for a hot second, and focusing just on Black kids who are eligible for FARMS, the graduation rate for that cohort is 89% at B-CC and 95% at Blair.

I'm raising this because PP really wanted to drill down on this perception that Black kids who live in apartments do better at B-CC than Blair, and I'm just not sure that's true.

Standard caveat that not all folks who live in apartments are eligible for FARMS, but it does seem to go to PP's (apparently false) assertion.

[Anonymous]

What a disheartening thread

My parents grew up poor Poor POOR in the 1950s in segregated rural schools. They "made it" as have dozens of their peers now living in million dollar homes in MoCo. The poverty did not do them in. Neither did the poor schools.

Why does anyone here in DCUM think that being in a modern classroom with "poor" students is a problem? Your children will do as well and go as far as their effort takes them.

Just please, if you would, try not to make some of their lives more difficult by assuming things based on their address, or high school rank, FARMs status, or some other bullcr*p proxy to mark them down.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What a disheartening thread

My parents grew up poor Poor POOR in the 1950s in segregated rural schools. They "made it" as have dozens of their peers now living in million dollar homes in MoCo. The poverty did not do them in. Neither did the poor schools.

Why does anyone here in DCUM think that being in a modern classroom with "poor" students is a problem? Your children will do as well and go as far as their effort takes them.

Just please, if you would, try not to make some of their lives more difficult by assuming things based on their address, or high school rank, FARMs status, or some other bullcr*p proxy to mark them down.

In all reality none of the MCPS schools are that great. They are all overcrowded, too large, and kids can very easily get lost. Smart kids will do well at any school especially if they have involved parents who support them and have high expectations.

[Anonymous]

People can argue all they want about which schools are better, etc, but it doesn’t address the basic reality that MCPS is a school system in decline.

But, this is true of the local private schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:People can argue all they want about which schools are better, etc, but it doesn’t address the basic reality that MCPS is a school system in decline.

But, this is true of the local private schools.

Schools were better when I was a kid. Way better.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I remember reading the post a while back that showed Blair's SAT average was 50 points higher for the largest common cohort to it and any W in order to isolate for demographic differences and gauge the school's actual value. Some people argued but the magnet responsible which was ridiculous because it's a small program in a large school that's also mostly Asian. These silly posts that are based on outdated notions from 30 years ago are mostly laughable.
I believe these were the SAT scores for the largest cohort common to each of these high-schools

Blair 1326
Walter Johnson 1275
Wootton 1262
Churchill 1257

The data was published by the county here.
https://ww2.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/sharedaccountability/reports/2017/1771102HS%20Princ_SAT%20Partic_Perf%20Class%20of%202017.pdf

This makes a lot more sense than just dumping raw data.

The smartest white kids means it’s the best school? I cannot imagine anything more racist and classist than that, considering 90% of Blair kids are from rich liberal families in Takoma Park. I know a few of them myself.

Yup. To me, the best schools are the schools where Black and Hispanic students perform the best. So the top 4 are Poolesville, Whitman, Churchill and BCC. Black and Hispanic students at Blair perform worse than Northwest, Sherwood and Watkins Mill which says a lot about Blair. That’s a lot of inequality in one school and it’s hard to understand how white kids are getting taught so well while Black and Brown kids are not.

Yeah but they have to be a significant number/percentage to mean anything. The percentage of Black and Hispanic students at Whitman and Poolesville is less than 5%. Comparing the scores of 5 ~10 to 200 kids is comparing apples to oranges. That is why the comparison should be with the group that has a significant number/percentage of students on each school.
I mean when you have 5 African diplomatic kids at Whitman, do you think they live in poverty, don't get the support they need?

So please explain the difference between the performance of Black students at BCC vs Blair.

BCC is 15% Black and Blair is 24% Black. Nearly all of the Black students at BCC live in Silver Spring and would be assigned to Blair if they lived literally in the next apartment building over. So why is it that those Black kids at BCC are doing significantly better than kids one block away?

You want to trumpet Blair as a success because the White kids perform better on average than the White kids at Whitman, but why can’t they reach the Black kids? Why does a Black kid who lives across the street and goes to a different school that still has a good number of Black kids from the same neighborhood have substantially better educational outcomes?

I doubt that you can answer that, but the answer is obviously racism and that’s something that these Liberal white Takoma Park folks in their million dollar houses that think they’re so open minded sending their kids to public school need to come to terms with. Their school is privileging their kids and not teaching Black and Brown kids who are unlucky to live in the wrong block. That’s it.

To borrow a phrase, “The greatness of a [school] shall be judged by how it treats its weakest member” and by that metric Blair fails and fails quite horribly.

So let me get this right, according to you, the black kids at BCC are all poor and live in apartment buildings? They aren't the kids of lawyers, business people, and feds - many of the people who are relatively affluent who live in Silver Spring but still go to BCC (that really gets stuck in your craw, doesn't it?). The black kids at BCC - you're trying to tell me - are the same socio-economic background as the black kids who live on Maple Avenue and on the eastern side of University Blvd and in the apartment buildings on Piney Branch and Flower Avenue? Get the hell out with your nonsense racism. News Flash: Black kids can be the kids of the same types of successful professionals who are white and go to Rosemary Hills - BCC.

Imagine that just because the black kids at BCC are black, doesn't mean they are poor. And so, their parents have the time, resources, and perhaps education, to fully support their children's academics.

Not all of the kids at Blair who are black are poor - to the contrary. But the streets I flagged below include some economically disadvantaged neighborhoods where kids may not have the resources to do well academically - or may be working after school to help pay for family expenses. It's not an apple to apple comparison any more than comparing a wealthy white kid from Potomac is to comparing a white child who lives in a poorer neighborhood in the county.

Lastly, why are you so invested in tearing down Blair? It's crazy how many posters resent Blair's success. Get a grip.

As the proud Black parent of a BCC graduate, I regret to inform you that you have no clue what you are talking about and you seem to harbor a significant amount of racial resentment that you need to work out. Something is seriously wrong with you.

They are suffering from what is often called Blair envy. It's well documented psychosis on these boards.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People can argue all they want about which schools are better, etc, but it doesn’t address the basic reality that MCPS is a school system in decline.

But, this is true of the local private schools.

Schools were better when I was a kid. Way better.

Well, they seem much better now based on my children's experiences than when I went to BCC in the 80s.