If you could choose any MCPS cluster for DC, which would it be and why?

[Anonymous]

I think the PP just meant that people do not use the full name of the school (with the W) not that no one talks about it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:9:58, please take your extreme RM hate-mongering elsewhere.

First off lady, I was asked by a PP to state why I would pick QO over RM. Then I was asked about how you can compare without IB. I responded both times and stated valid reasons and never once bashed the school. It isn't like I came on here to post crap about a school my kids go to for no reason. There are families that are allowed to be unhappy with their choices and comment on that if asked.

But I guess I must have stuck an ultra-sensitive nerve in you. Sorry

[Anonymous]

struck a nerve

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How were you able to pull out the magnet scores at RM to know they are not as good as QO? I am an RM parent and have never seen a breakdown. It is so interesting to hear other prespectives. I like that there is just one MS (though it is crowded) so the kids get many years as a group. Your last comment is interesting...though I feel very differently. My kids have all kinds of friends..which is what I like about RM. What do you actaully mean by forced diversity?

The scores are the same for both schools and includes RM's IB kids which we all know are the smartest in the county. So obviously they are pulling up the rear. If you look at test score of both middle and elementary schools from each district, you will see a difference too. At QO, 93% of all students have taken AP/Honors/IB classes while at the actual IB school, only 81% have. The AA and Hispanic kids are giving more chances as more than 85% of them are taking and passing honors courses. In RM it is about 60%. So to me, I think QO works on the student class as a whole. I think RM segregates the kids and doesn't push them to their full potential.

Listen, I am glad you like the school. I just do not at all. I have no desire to want my kids in a lily white school but I do like a good positive community and I just feel like RM lacks that. I am not the only parent to feel that way. The kids are very much segregated by the extreme SES levels and the IB program. It is not cohesive in anyway and that projects onto the kids and their parents. But it is just opinion.

I don't know about SES, but it makes sense that kids are segregated by IB and non IB since IB kids are all in the same classes together, so they will socialize with each other.

I'm guessing that is the same for kids that are in AP programs in either schools - QO or RM. I went to a pretty rough HS, but I had mostly AP/Honor classes and had the same group of kids in pretty much all my classes, so we tended to hang out together. That can transcend SES.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I support the OP who posted about Whitman. She may sound defensive but she is totally right about Whitman. I went there. It is a good diverse.
And the people who act like they wouldn't want to live there are being silly.
Whitman was the diverse where people around you look different and have different backgrounds and yet most are upper middle class and achievers who are children of achievers. This may sound like a cocoon but what it did for me was instill in me the reality that everyone can achieve regardless of race or gender or country of origin or religion. My friends were a map of the world and I was not indoctrinated with a belief that people of certain races cannot do for themselves and need free this or that. I know that some people do need help but I know it is more complex than an issue of skin color.

Also, for health reasons I had to move to private school and the ONLY person I knew that was on financial aid was a white girl from ....Bethesda. Widowed mom was disabled. So stop the Bethesda envy/bashing.

Beautiful post. Thank you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Our kids are also at WJ. One thing to keep in mind about the WJ cluster is that it is somewhat unique among the Potomac and Bethesda clusters due to the fact that there are many, many apartments and townhomes in North Bethesda (most which feeds to WJ). This means there are more families at WJ with incomes across a wider spectrum than you'll find at Churchill, Whitman and Wooten.

Same goes for BCC. Look at the NMSF thread - BCC did the best when controlling for SES.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What is a W school?

MOST [delete - Some] people think it means "some of the schools in Bethesda and Potomac", but that's silly. A W school is a school in the MCPS high school clusters that start with W: Watkins Mill, Wheaton, Whitman, Wootton.

http://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/uploadedFiles/globalContent/documents/List-Of-Schools.pdf

fixed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:WJ trending towards becoming another Wheaton HS.

Not with the number of $1M+ homes going up in the middle school neighborhoods.
And K-P neighborhood.

[Anonymous]

This year neither Winston Churchill nor B-CC even ranked in the Top High Schools.
http://www.usnews.com/education/best-high-schools/maryland?int=9abb08

I don't know why this was the case with Churchill, but I'm sure there was a reason why it did not do well in the rankings (yet is widely considered to be an excellent school).

Re BCC, I understand it's because of the IB program coexisting alongside AP courses. US News rankings don't seem to know how to factor these things in.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

This year neither Winston Churchill nor B-CC even ranked in the Top High Schools.
http://www.usnews.com/education/best-high-schools/maryland?int=9abb08

I don't know why this was the case with Churchill, but I'm sure there was a reason why it did not do well in the rankings (yet is widely considered to be an excellent school).

Re BCC, I understand it's because of the IB program coexisting alongside AP courses. US News rankings don't seem to know how to factor these things in.

That can't be true. RM has an IB program and they are ranked, so are other HS that have IB programs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

This year neither Winston Churchill nor B-CC even ranked in the Top High Schools.
http://www.usnews.com/education/best-high-schools/maryland?int=9abb08

I don't know why this was the case with Churchill, but I'm sure there was a reason why it did not do well in the rankings (yet is widely considered to be an excellent school).

Re BCC, I understand it's because of the IB program coexisting alongside AP courses. US News rankings don't seem to know how to factor these things in.

Churchill was not ranked because US News has rules that disqualify schools with too large an achievement gap. Churchill's minority students were performing too poorly compared to everyone else to be ranked.

http://www.usnews.com/education/best-high-schools/articles/2014/04/21/how-us-news-calculated-the-2014-best-high-schools-rankings

[Anonymous]

Churchill has minority students??? How did they let that happen?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Churchill has minority students??? How did they let that happen?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/13/AR2007011301255.html

[Anonymous]

Why should any one care which school any student goes to. If you want to do apples to apples comparison then here's what you can do -

AP classes - how many, which ones, and AP scores

SAT/ACT scores.

That's all the comparison I need.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why should any one care which school any student goes to. If you want to do apples to apples comparison then here's what you can do -

AP classes - how many, which ones, and AP scores

SAT/ACT scores.

That's all the comparison I need.

This is why you should NEVER trust rankings. We all have different value systems when it comes to school. Unless you agree with the criteria (and relative wt) used for the rankings, it really doesn't mean anything.