What does the term “good schools” mean to you?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

The school system matters, too. I have heard wonderful things about Howard County. It's budget is a more manageable $700-800 million. MCPS's operating budget is over $2 billion, I think. It's not hard to understand how it's become a more bloated, more inefficient bureaucracy.

This is really important. School systems that are smaller are so much better! Large school systems take on a monopolistic culture. They exist to serve themselves not the students. A lot of the shady crap that MCPS pulls both educationally and financially just isn't possible in a smaller system.

In MCPS lower scores usually correlate with crime being in the schools. I would never trust a Silver Spring poster on this board recommending one of the schools where the police are there several times every month! In Howard if the scores aren't the top ones but there isn't the same crime going on then I would ask more parents about it and consider the school.

Howard cannot compete with MoCo.
Blair alone will knock every Howard school out of the ballpark

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m still trying to figure this out. For me it goes beyond the test score listed on great schools. What else makes up a good school? We are house shopping and see some with lower scores but the community loves the school, while others say they don’t want anything to do with the school because of the score. I live in Howard County.

We struggle with this too. We have also looked at a possible move to Howard County and have heard people describe the various HC districts in similar language. We currently live in Baltimore City and are sending a first child to private school, but we have considered the public schools. In other words, we've thought seriously about schools that fall across a full range of profiles.

At the same time, my husband is seriously considering leaving a higher-paid career for teaching. It will require a total reboot of his career to teach English / writing. He is trying to figure out if it is possible to transition into teaching a private school from a non-teaching career (with some supplemental, part-time experience with teaching); he is also looking at programs that allow mid-career professionals to transition into public schools. In our area, this usually means teaching in a high-poverty school.

So from various angles, we keep dancing around this question! What really bugs me about it are the contradictions in what we value and consider "good," based partly on our life experiences in very different communities. On one hand, it is easier to learn and achieve when most the children in a class arrive ready to learn and have immediate, predictable access to support from someone who understands how the game of school works. Our current institutions are amazingly consistent at recognizing and replicating existing systems of power, at working with what they are given. As a result, in many respects "a good school" really is a place where the socio-economic profile of the student body is high. To find that, you just look up the test scores. They automatically follow one another with only small variation. On the other hand, we also value community-oriented institutions that are meeting places between different groups of people. Being seen and valued -- having a community that strives for that end, and being in a community that small enough to make it possible -- and learning how to see and value are important to us. I'll walk a long mile to find it. Test scores be damned.

On a semi-related note, there's an undercurrent in the discussion where families who lack wealth are being painted with a broad brush. It is true that poverty often means families who don't understand or value the importance of education, because it just does.not.mean.anything to them economically or personally. You really can't see this unless you have previous experience with it being a real "meal ticket." That said, please be careful not to generalize too much. If you live close to these communities and interact with them, you will also find that there are also a lot of parents who really, desperately to want school to be safe and positive. They don't have the ability to launch their kids and supplement a lot, which is also why the need and want schools to work. I've sat next to people in charter school lotteries who aren't going to be tutoring algebra, but who are white-knuckled in the hopes of having their number pulled and in the idea the charter might change things for their kid. I know people who have been destroyed but who also have succeeded come out of the backgrounds we look past. They've done a lot on their own steam, and with what resources they did have. I really worry about a picture of community that cuts these people out or never lets them get in the door.

This all has driven us practically crazy when we try to decide whether to place ourselves in private schools (high-functioning, small communities); in distressed public schools (lots of need, but lots people needed in the trenches too); in higher performing public schools (large schools, with a lot of wealth), or under-rated more diverse publics like the "5" or "6" schools in HC (which some describe to us as a "community-oriented" and some say they won't touch with a 10-foot pole). I would love to understand Howard County better, as well. I have no experience, but have a suspicion, that the more middling HC schools might have an interesting mixture of students. They seem demographically balanced, without one group totally overwhelming another, which is very different from what we see down in Baltimore, where pockets of extreme poverty and relative wealth seem to pool in locations.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
A neighborhood where parents care about their children's education and have the money to invest in it.

There's no secret. It's not the school itself, they all follow the same program and have the same teachers. It's the community that changes the nature of the school.

The end.

I have met very few parents who don't care about their children's education.

Right, but I think the second part of PP's answer is critical. Everyone wants what's best for their kids, but unfortunately if they don't have the money to invest in their kid's educations, the outcomes won't necessarily be all that great. You need both.

This is crap. We have these things called free public schools and libraries. I grew up poor, with teen parents and lots of other kids did too. No music lessons or outside sports, but I was rode my bike to the library every Saturday and checked out a pile of books. Ended up at Stanford and then two grad degrees. Don't demean poor people by placing no expectations on them. Kids need to do their homework and ask teachers for help and they will do fine, regardless of their parents. And yes, there are lots of parents who didn't take school seriously themselves and see no reason for their child to do so.

+ 1

This was me, too (but in a different region), which is one reason I worry so much about writing off kids (or their parents) before you provide them with the resources do well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

The school system matters, too. I have heard wonderful things about Howard County. It's budget is a more manageable $700-800 million. MCPS's operating budget is over $2 billion, I think. It's not hard to understand how it's become a more bloated, more inefficient bureaucracy.

This is really important. School systems that are smaller are so much better! Large school systems take on a monopolistic culture. They exist to serve themselves not the students. A lot of the shady crap that MCPS pulls both educationally and financially just isn't possible in a smaller system.

In MCPS lower scores usually correlate with crime being in the schools. I would never trust a Silver Spring poster on this board recommending one of the schools where the police are there several times every month! In Howard if the scores aren't the top ones but there isn't the same crime going on then I would ask more parents about it and consider the school.

Howard cannot compete with MoCo.
Blair alone will knock every Howard school out of the ballpark

Blair is a shit hole in the edge of PG, it will take more than importing a few hundred kids from the Bethesda/Potomac area to fix that sinking ship

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

The school system matters, too. I have heard wonderful things about Howard County. It's budget is a more manageable $700-800 million. MCPS's operating budget is over $2 billion, I think. It's not hard to understand how it's become a more bloated, more inefficient bureaucracy.

This is really important. School systems that are smaller are so much better! Large school systems take on a monopolistic culture. They exist to serve themselves not the students. A lot of the shady crap that MCPS pulls both educationally and financially just isn't possible in a smaller system.

In MCPS lower scores usually correlate with crime being in the schools. I would never trust a Silver Spring poster on this board recommending one of the schools where the police are there several times every month! In Howard if the scores aren't the top ones but there isn't the same crime going on then I would ask more parents about it and consider the school.

HoCo is not very diverse in terms of SES. It's much easier to deal with smaller and less diverse SES student body. I suppose if that's your goal (no SES diversity), then HoCo is probably your type of school district.

For us, we left a school district that was mostly upper SES (different state) because 1. there are issues in high SES schools that are unique to such schools 2. even with all that wealth, the test scores weren't all that high.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

The school system matters, too. I have heard wonderful things about Howard County. It's budget is a more manageable $700-800 million. MCPS's operating budget is over $2 billion, I think. It's not hard to understand how it's become a more bloated, more inefficient bureaucracy.

This is really important. School systems that are smaller are so much better! Large school systems take on a monopolistic culture. They exist to serve themselves not the students. A lot of the shady crap that MCPS pulls both educationally and financially just isn't possible in a smaller system.

In MCPS lower scores usually correlate with crime being in the schools. I would never trust a Silver Spring poster on this board recommending one of the schools where the police are there several times every month! In Howard if the scores aren't the top ones but there isn't the same crime going on then I would ask more parents about it and consider the school.

Howard cannot compete with MoCo.
Blair alone will knock every Howard school out of the ballpark

Blair is a shit hole in the edge of PG, it will take more than importing a few hundred kids from the Bethesda/Potomac area to fix that sinking ship

Ha, ha, ha, what sinking ship?
Every year Blair is getting more NMSFs, more presidential scholars, more Intel scholars, more academic awards and putting HoCo schools to shame.
But keep yapping about shit-hole and PG. You sound just like your president.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
HoCo is not very diverse in terms of SES. It's much easier to deal with smaller and less diverse SES student body. I suppose if that's your goal (no SES diversity), then HoCo is probably your type of school district.

For us, we left a school district that was mostly upper SES (different state) because 1. there are issues in high SES schools that are unique to such schools 2. even with all that wealth, the test scores weren't all that high.

Howard County is not Montgomery County, it's true. But it's not all one undifferentiated mass of upper-middle-class affluence, either. For example, Atholton HS is affluent: http://www.hcpss.org/f/schools/profiles/prof_hs_atholton.pdf (typically described as a "good school" on DCUM) Oakland Mills HS is not: http://www.hcpss.org/f/schools/profiles/prof_hs_oaklandmills.pdf

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How about this for the truth, I want a school filled with kids that will be successful. Not just some who want or wish to be successful.

Show me a school filled with rich white kids and I’ll show you a school filled with way above average success rates. Show me a school not that and I’ll show you average to below average success rates almost without exception. Life is a numbers game and one would be wise to play the odds.

Spare me your anecdotal examples to the contrary. Most elite levels of society are filled by very few archetypes from pretty predictable pedigrees. It is true success doesn’t always bring happiness but failure almost always brings misery.

A good school, for me, is a school without parents like this.

There is nothing more toxic to learning than the attitude that it's all a race, and you cannot win unless others lose.

Practically, I like a school with a strong and caring principal.

But really, I ignore the term "good schools" because it's primarily used either by real estate agents or naive parents to mean "white and/or Asian schools where I can feel safe my child will be guaranteed to do well, away from the negative influences of people who make less than $100k."

There is a lot of data out there that shows more diverse companies and companies with more diverse boards do better: take on less risk, have higher profits, etc. I work for one of the top four consulting firms and they are hell bent on diversity, and it's not just a brand thing. They want more women and people of color taking on leadership roles, they think it is vital to the future. So it's interesting that some people think the key to successful schools are to have only rich white kids.

And you know that the diversity we are looking for are the upper middle class tokens who still attend the mostly rich white schools and over time have the exact same elitist attitude and work ethic. Model still applies. It's why affirmative action is a sham too. The Obama kids aren't adding diversity.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

The school system matters, too. I have heard wonderful things about Howard County. It's budget is a more manageable $700-800 million. MCPS's operating budget is over $2 billion, I think. It's not hard to understand how it's become a more bloated, more inefficient bureaucracy.

This is really important. School systems that are smaller are so much better! Large school systems take on a monopolistic culture. They exist to serve themselves not the students. A lot of the shady crap that MCPS pulls both educationally and financially just isn't possible in a smaller system.

In MCPS lower scores usually correlate with crime being in the schools. I would never trust a Silver Spring poster on this board recommending one of the schools where the police are there several times every month! In Howard if the scores aren't the top ones but there isn't the same crime going on then I would ask more parents about it and consider the school.

Howard cannot compete with MoCo.
Blair alone will knock every Howard school out of the ballpark

Blair is a shit hole in the edge of PG, it will take more than importing a few hundred kids from the Bethesda/Potomac area to fix that sinking ship

Ha, ha, ha, what sinking ship?
Every year Blair is getting more NMSFs, more presidential scholars, more Intel scholars, more academic awards and putting HoCo schools to shame.
But keep yapping about shit-hole and PG. You sound just like your president.

he is your president too and lets see how good Blair's magnet does as the neighborhood continues to slip and Bethesda/Potomac Parents give up trying to follow all the new rules as the DCC tries to steer the seats to others with a lesser peer group! (Even the county calls DCC kids an unsatisfactory peer group if you read between the lines). Notices how the last 13 NMSF came form West county as did the major other Scholarship winner last year. It isn't the local Blair kids propping up that program sweety.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

The school system matters, too. I have heard wonderful things about Howard County. It's budget is a more manageable $700-800 million. MCPS's operating budget is over $2 billion, I think. It's not hard to understand how it's become a more bloated, more inefficient bureaucracy.

This is really important. School systems that are smaller are so much better! Large school systems take on a monopolistic culture. They exist to serve themselves not the students. A lot of the shady crap that MCPS pulls both educationally and financially just isn't possible in a smaller system.

In MCPS lower scores usually correlate with crime being in the schools. I would never trust a Silver Spring poster on this board recommending one of the schools where the police are there several times every month! In Howard if the scores aren't the top ones but there isn't the same crime going on then I would ask more parents about it and consider the school.

Howard cannot compete with MoCo.
Blair alone will knock every Howard school out of the ballpark

Blair is a shit hole in the edge of PG, it will take more than importing a few hundred kids from the Bethesda/Potomac area to fix that sinking ship

Ha, ha, ha, what sinking ship?
Every year Blair is getting more NMSFs, more presidential scholars, more Intel scholars, more academic awards and putting HoCo schools to shame.
But keep yapping about shit-hole and PG. You sound just like your president.

he is your president too and lets see how good Blair's magnet does as the neighborhood continues to slip and Bethesda/Potomac Parents give up trying to follow all the new rules as the DCC tries to steer the seats to others with a lesser peer group! (Even the county calls DCC kids an unsatisfactory peer group if you read between the lines). Notices how the last 13 NMSF came form West county as did the major other Scholarship winner last year. It isn't the local Blair kids propping up that program sweety.

But Blair had 41 NMSF. You do the math.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Decisive and strong principal,
Excellent teachers,
Good curriculum,
Motivated students,
Involved parents.

We have all these things in our Gaithersburg ES. It has a GS rating of a 5.

Gaithersburg ES parents seem really happy with the school. Goes to show that things like GS ratings and FARMs rates don’t capture the full picture.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Decisive and strong principal,
Excellent teachers,
Good curriculum,
Motivated students,
Involved parents.

We have all these things in our Gaithersburg ES. It has a GS rating of a 5.

Gaithersburg ES parents seem really happy with the school. Goes to show that things like GS ratings and FARMs rates don’t capture the full picture.

Absolutely. I can see how being in a school with a lower GS rating can actually be a good thing for an individual kids, assuming he/she has a high quality teacher. Smaller class sizes, for one. I know of some parents who could afford to live in more expensive areas with schools that perform better on paper, but who choose to send their kids to a Focus school for that very reason. You get class sizes comparable to a private school, and you can use the money you saved by not buying a more expensive house to funnel resources into the school.

It's not the worst idea in the world ... almost wish my husband and I had been creative enough to think of it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

The school system matters, too. I have heard wonderful things about Howard County. It's budget is a more manageable $700-800 million. MCPS's operating budget is over $2 billion, I think. It's not hard to understand how it's become a more bloated, more inefficient bureaucracy.

This is really important. School systems that are smaller are so much better! Large school systems take on a monopolistic culture. They exist to serve themselves not the students. A lot of the shady crap that MCPS pulls both educationally and financially just isn't possible in a smaller system.

In MCPS lower scores usually correlate with crime being in the schools. I would never trust a Silver Spring poster on this board recommending one of the schools where the police are there several times every month! In Howard if the scores aren't the top ones but there isn't the same crime going on then I would ask more parents about it and consider the school.

Howard cannot compete with MoCo.
Blair alone will knock every Howard school out of the ballpark

Blair is a shit hole in the edge of PG, it will take more than importing a few hundred kids from the Bethesda/Potomac area to fix that sinking ship

Ha, ha, ha, what sinking ship?
Every year Blair is getting more NMSFs, more presidential scholars, more Intel scholars, more academic awards and putting HoCo schools to shame.
But keep yapping about shit-hole and PG. You sound just like your president.

he is your president too and lets see how good Blair's magnet does as the neighborhood continues to slip and Bethesda/Potomac Parents give up trying to follow all the new rules as the DCC tries to steer the seats to others with a lesser peer group! (Even the county calls DCC kids an unsatisfactory peer group if you read between the lines). Notices how the last 13 NMSF came form West county as did the major other Scholarship winner last year. It isn't the local Blair kids propping up that program sweety.

But Blair had 41 NMSF. You do the math.

Not a Blair parent OR a W parent and I have no dog in the fight, but it is truly astounding that anyone would consider the Blair neighborhood to be in decline or consider it to be a bad school. By any objective measure, it’s one of the top schools in the area.

[Anonymous]

Not a Blair parent OR a W parent and I have no dog in the fight, but it is truly astounding that anyone would consider the Blair neighborhood to be in decline or consider it to be a bad school. By any objective measure, it’s one of the top schools in the area.

What objective measures show that Blair is a top school without the magnet program? I just pulled up the MCPS school safety report for Blair. Police were called to the school 54 times in the last reporting year. This is more than Einstein. The school only pulls a 6 with the magnet factored in for great schools. What would it be without those kids?

Its hard to nail down the drop rates since MD decided to not count anyone who drops out prior to starting senior year as a drop out. These students are now just considered transferred to somewhere unknown. Blair used to be very high up there with early drop outs.

[Anonymous]

Riddle me this: Why does Blair lose almost 100 students, or 11% almost each year as a class goes from 9th to 10th to 11th grade?

Is that magnet students quitting?
Kids dropping out?
Kids aging out?