Initial boundary options for Woodward study area are up

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’ve read all 43 pages of this thread and am pretty disheartened. I have not seen one comment in favor of the more disruptive (to the current status quo) options say a single thing about the prospective quality of education improvement that the potential new Whitman and BCC students would receive. Instead, it’s all about sending Whitman and BCC bus loads of poor kids to somehow stick it to them? If those poor kids have to spend 45 minutes on a bus to (somehow?) upset the rich kids, great!

The kids being bussed from poor communities? Those are kids, not props in your vendetta fantasies. The rich kids you’re sticking it to? Also, just kids. The “foolish” communities that want to stay together? Communities of people (that just want to stay together).

Let’s make every school better and every kid’s life better. Let’s not use them as props against each other.

As a poor family. I sorry you don’t want our kids. Actually some of us aren’t that poor, we make different life choices. The best solution would be to open up another hs lower dcc.

Want to give you a big hug. Your kids are wanted. All kids are wanted. To be fair, from what I have read, I think everyone here welcomes diversity of income, culture and race. The problem is that no one of any income level wants to be bused away from their neighborhoods and rightfully so. Every school needs to be stronger and some underperforming schools need more money, support and staff. Whatever it takes, they should get it.

We are wanted as long as we are not in your schools or competition for your kids. No one wants their kids bussed but maybe this will give those kids opportunities they don’t have to get ahead. Our kids don’t have the same opportunities.

Unfortunately it’s a zero sum game and we don’t get do overs with our kids’ education. I’d support funding more opportunities for your kids through modestly higher property taxes but not at the expense of my own kids’ opportunities or busing them across town. Everyone wants the best opportunities for their children (which is why most of us moved to the best place we could afford) and are looking to preserve that as much as possible in an increasingly uncertain world.

Wow we are all on the same team PP. it’s not a zero sum game.

Are we? There's only one (or few) valedictorians and there's an implicit quota in how many kids from each school matriculate to a particular university. We're not in this together and that's been apparent since I set foot in this county or on DCUM and seen others asking questions about the "preferred preschool to get into the Ivy League" or "my DD has the following stats but they don't have a hook and therefore, didn't get into [insert highly selective university]", especially as our kids get closer and closer to high school. We're more like participants running the gauntlet in The Hunger Games where "may the odds ever be in your favor". This is the meritocracy that we find ourselves in and the system that each of us has to face (or ignore). So forgive me if I don't want my kids being bussed across town to a different school and not the neighborhood school I've already paid a high cost entry fee to get into.

You did not pay a "fee" to "get into" your neighborhood. You purchased an asset, which you can sell or rent out if you want.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’ve read all 43 pages of this thread and am pretty disheartened. I have not seen one comment in favor of the more disruptive (to the current status quo) options say a single thing about the prospective quality of education improvement that the potential new Whitman and BCC students would receive. Instead, it’s all about sending Whitman and BCC bus loads of poor kids to somehow stick it to them? If those poor kids have to spend 45 minutes on a bus to (somehow?) upset the rich kids, great!

The kids being bussed from poor communities? Those are kids, not props in your vendetta fantasies. The rich kids you’re sticking it to? Also, just kids. The “foolish” communities that want to stay together? Communities of people (that just want to stay together).

Let’s make every school better and every kid’s life better. Let’s not use them as props against each other.

As a poor family. I sorry you don’t want our kids. Actually some of us aren’t that poor, we make different life choices. The best solution would be to open up another hs lower dcc.

Want to give you a big hug. Your kids are wanted. All kids are wanted. To be fair, from what I have read, I think everyone here welcomes diversity of income, culture and race. The problem is that no one of any income level wants to be bused away from their neighborhoods and rightfully so. Every school needs to be stronger and some underperforming schools need more money, support and staff. Whatever it takes, they should get it.

We are wanted as long as we are not in your schools or competition for your kids. No one wants their kids bussed but maybe this will give those kids opportunities they don’t have to get ahead. Our kids don’t have the same opportunities.

Unfortunately it’s a zero sum game and we don’t get do overs with our kids’ education. I’d support funding more opportunities for your kids through modestly higher property taxes but not at the expense of my own kids’ opportunities or busing them across town. Everyone wants the best opportunities for their children (which is why most of us moved to the best place we could afford) and are looking to preserve that as much as possible in an increasingly uncertain world.

Wow we are all on the same team PP. it’s not a zero sum game.

Are we? There's only one (or few) valedictorians and there's an implicit quota in how many kids from each school matriculate to a particular university. We're not in this together and that's been apparent since I set foot in this county or on DCUM and seen others asking questions about the "preferred preschool to get into the Ivy League" or "my DD has the following stats but they don't have a hook and therefore, didn't get into [insert highly selective university]", especially as our kids get closer and closer to high school. We're more like participants running the gauntlet in The Hunger Games where "may the odds ever be in your favor". This is the meritocracy that we find ourselves in and the system that each of us has to face (or ignore). So forgive me if I don't want my kids being bussed across town to a different school and not the neighborhood school I've already paid a high cost entry fee to get into.

You did not pay a "fee" to "get into" your neighborhood. You purchased an asset, which you can sell or rent out if you want.

DP but same difference.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’ve read all 43 pages of this thread and am pretty disheartened. I have not seen one comment in favor of the more disruptive (to the current status quo) options say a single thing about the prospective quality of education improvement that the potential new Whitman and BCC students would receive. Instead, it’s all about sending Whitman and BCC bus loads of poor kids to somehow stick it to them? If those poor kids have to spend 45 minutes on a bus to (somehow?) upset the rich kids, great!

The kids being bussed from poor communities? Those are kids, not props in your vendetta fantasies. The rich kids you’re sticking it to? Also, just kids. The “foolish” communities that want to stay together? Communities of people (that just want to stay together).

Let’s make every school better and every kid’s life better. Let’s not use them as props against each other.

As a poor family. I sorry you don’t want our kids. Actually some of us aren’t that poor, we make different life choices. The best solution would be to open up another hs lower dcc.

Want to give you a big hug. Your kids are wanted. All kids are wanted. To be fair, from what I have read, I think everyone here welcomes diversity of income, culture and race. The problem is that no one of any income level wants to be bused away from their neighborhoods and rightfully so. Every school needs to be stronger and some underperforming schools need more money, support and staff. Whatever it takes, they should get it.

We are wanted as long as we are not in your schools or competition for your kids. No one wants their kids bussed but maybe this will give those kids opportunities they don’t have to get ahead. Our kids don’t have the same opportunities.

Unfortunately it’s a zero sum game and we don’t get do overs with our kids’ education. I’d support funding more opportunities for your kids through modestly higher property taxes but not at the expense of my own kids’ opportunities or busing them across town. Everyone wants the best opportunities for their children (which is why most of us moved to the best place we could afford) and are looking to preserve that as much as possible in an increasingly uncertain world.

Wow we are all on the same team PP. it’s not a zero sum game.

Are we? There's only one (or few) valedictorians and there's an implicit quota in how many kids from each school matriculate to a particular university. We're not in this together and that's been apparent since I set foot in this county or on DCUM and seen others asking questions about the "preferred preschool to get into the Ivy League" or "my DD has the following stats but they don't have a hook and therefore, didn't get into [insert highly selective university]", especially as our kids get closer and closer to high school. We're more like participants running the gauntlet in The Hunger Games where "may the odds ever be in your favor". This is the meritocracy that we find ourselves in and the system that each of us has to face (or ignore). So forgive me if I don't want my kids being bussed across town to a different school and not the neighborhood school I've already paid a high cost entry fee to get into.

You did not pay a "fee" to "get into" your neighborhood. You purchased an asset, which you can sell or rent out if you want.

I purchased an asset at a several hundred thousand dollar premium to comparable assets because of its access to a desirable public school cluster.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Maybe what makes the most sense is to create more low income housing in the west part of the county then the farms rates at those schools will increase and it will be balanced.

I live in west county and agree. Diversify neighborhoods through housing policy and send kids to schools that minimize commuting

Agreed. But so far there is a ton of pushback on this. So it's left to MCPS to do the work the county can't manage.

What? No. That’s not the role of the schools.

Well these choices impact the schools and the quality of education that students receive.

The most offensive thing about this thread is how people talk about low income kids (which we all know in this county are mainly Black and Latino but of course some are White and Asian), as though they are all the same. They are all disruptive, none of them want to learn, their families are all bad. The rich White and Asian (and some Latino) kids are well-behaved and come from good families. GMAFB.

Most low-income kids come from families that care about their kids' education. Most low-income kids want to learn. But they are disproportionately placed in schools with much higher percentages of kids that are disruptive, whose home circumstances prevent them from learning. And in these schools there are numerous kids that want and can do advanced classes, but the numbers aren't quite enough to have the variety of classes that are available in the wealthier schools. These are tangible ways that MCPS education is directly impacted by housing segregation. Not to mention, having less diversity at the wealthy schools is not great for those kids either. I attended one of those school many years ago. I very much wish it had been more diverse.

I don't know what the answer is. I very much sympathize with families (of all backgrounds) that do not want their kids to have a long bus ride to school. I would not want that for my kid. But let's stop pretending that segregation doesn't impact education or that low-income kids don't want to learn. That's a pretty offensive and blatantly incorrect assumption.

Fwiw I’ve read all pages of this thread and no one has stated anything like what you said.

I have definitely seen these attitudes in this thread and commonly expressed on DCUM

I’m sure you have seen them on DCUM but not on this thread. You’ve made up a straw man in order to make a moral judgement.

[Anonymous]

I think that people greatly underestimate what a "long bus ride" means. It's not just 30 minutes (or 20 or 45) in the morning and 30 minutes after school. That might be a reasonable tradeoff if the educational environment were wildly improved. But that bus ride also means not going to school when you miss the bus or it doesn't show up. It means a lot of constraints around after school sports/extra curriculars. There is no late bus. How is your 9th grader getting home after practice at 5pm? Or getting back to school for rehearsal at 6pm? Or home again at 9pm? Because on public transportation, that's not a 30 minute ride - it's maybe an hour?

As a parent with kids in a neighborhood school and one in a school we need to commute to - the difference is not trivial. If families don't have a parent sitting around waiting for the next dropoff/pickup, the logistics are crazy making and sometimes just not workable.

This isn't about rich/poor. This is about really understanding the tradeoffs. Long commutes make it really difficult for students to engage in anything other than classtime. That's a huge negative.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’ve read all 43 pages of this thread and am pretty disheartened. I have not seen one comment in favor of the more disruptive (to the current status quo) options say a single thing about the prospective quality of education improvement that the potential new Whitman and BCC students would receive. Instead, it’s all about sending Whitman and BCC bus loads of poor kids to somehow stick it to them? If those poor kids have to spend 45 minutes on a bus to (somehow?) upset the rich kids, great!

The kids being bussed from poor communities? Those are kids, not props in your vendetta fantasies. The rich kids you’re sticking it to? Also, just kids. The “foolish” communities that want to stay together? Communities of people (that just want to stay together).

Let’s make every school better and every kid’s life better. Let’s not use them as props against each other.

As a poor family. I sorry you don’t want our kids. Actually some of us aren’t that poor, we make different life choices. The best solution would be to open up another hs lower dcc.

Want to give you a big hug. Your kids are wanted. All kids are wanted. To be fair, from what I have read, I think everyone here welcomes diversity of income, culture and race. The problem is that no one of any income level wants to be bused away from their neighborhoods and rightfully so. Every school needs to be stronger and some underperforming schools need more money, support and staff. Whatever it takes, they should get it.

We are wanted as long as we are not in your schools or competition for your kids. No one wants their kids bussed but maybe this will give those kids opportunities they don’t have to get ahead. Our kids don’t have the same opportunities.

Unfortunately it’s a zero sum game and we don’t get do overs with our kids’ education. I’d support funding more opportunities for your kids through modestly higher property taxes but not at the expense of my own kids’ opportunities or busing them across town. Everyone wants the best opportunities for their children (which is why most of us moved to the best place we could afford) and are looking to preserve that as much as possible in an increasingly uncertain world.

Wow we are all on the same team PP. it’s not a zero sum game.

Are we? There's only one (or few) valedictorians and there's an implicit quota in how many kids from each school matriculate to a particular university. We're not in this together and that's been apparent since I set foot in this county or on DCUM and seen others asking questions about the "preferred preschool to get into the Ivy League" or "my DD has the following stats but they don't have a hook and therefore, didn't get into [insert highly selective university]", especially as our kids get closer and closer to high school. We're more like participants running the gauntlet in The Hunger Games where "may the odds ever be in your favor". This is the meritocracy that we find ourselves in and the system that each of us has to face (or ignore). So forgive me if I don't want my kids being bussed across town to a different school and not the neighborhood school I've already paid a high cost entry fee to get into.

The reality is that your kid would be more likely to get into an Ivy from one of the lower performing schools. You compete against the kids at your own high school. (I have kids in college and MCPS so I’ve seen this first hand.)

If your kid is not legacy, recruited athlete or head of very important organization at the HS, or you don’t have a building named after you at the Ivy, you’re kid isn’t getting in. Hello WashU and Northeastern!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Maybe what makes the most sense is to create more low income housing in the west part of the county then the farms rates at those schools will increase and it will be balanced.

I live in west county and agree. Diversify neighborhoods through housing policy and send kids to schools that minimize commuting

Agreed. But so far there is a ton of pushback on this. So it's left to MCPS to do the work the county can't manage.

What? No. That’s not the role of the schools.

Well these choices impact the schools and the quality of education that students receive.

The most offensive thing about this thread is how people talk about low income kids (which we all know in this county are mainly Black and Latino but of course some are White and Asian), as though they are all the same. They are all disruptive, none of them want to learn, their families are all bad. The rich White and Asian (and some Latino) kids are well-behaved and come from good families. GMAFB.

Most low-income kids come from families that care about their kids' education. Most low-income kids want to learn. But they are disproportionately placed in schools with much higher percentages of kids that are disruptive, whose home circumstances prevent them from learning. And in these schools there are numerous kids that want and can do advanced classes, but the numbers aren't quite enough to have the variety of classes that are available in the wealthier schools. These are tangible ways that MCPS education is directly impacted by housing segregation. Not to mention, having less diversity at the wealthy schools is not great for those kids either. I attended one of those school many years ago. I very much wish it had been more diverse.

I don't know what the answer is. I very much sympathize with families (of all backgrounds) that do not want their kids to have a long bus ride to school. I would not want that for my kid. But let's stop pretending that segregation doesn't impact education or that low-income kids don't want to learn. That's a pretty offensive and blatantly incorrect assumption.

Fwiw I’ve read all pages of this thread and no one has stated anything like what you said.

I have definitely seen these attitudes in this thread and commonly expressed on DCUM

I’m sure you have seen them on DCUM but not on this thread. You’ve made up a straw man in order to make a moral judgement.

Also, we're now talking about economic segregation, not racial or ethnic (although admittedly there's a lot of history that driving correlations between the two). I'm all for diversity at our schools as long as they can afford the UMC incomes and housing costs that go with it. However, I don't want poor, disruptive kids with all kinds of behavioral challenges at my schools. I don't think any of us do. And if there are smart, driven less affluent kids who want to attend, then give them the opportunity to attend. Oh wait, the county already does that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’ve read all 43 pages of this thread and am pretty disheartened. I have not seen one comment in favor of the more disruptive (to the current status quo) options say a single thing about the prospective quality of education improvement that the potential new Whitman and BCC students would receive. Instead, it’s all about sending Whitman and BCC bus loads of poor kids to somehow stick it to them? If those poor kids have to spend 45 minutes on a bus to (somehow?) upset the rich kids, great!

The kids being bussed from poor communities? Those are kids, not props in your vendetta fantasies. The rich kids you’re sticking it to? Also, just kids. The “foolish” communities that want to stay together? Communities of people (that just want to stay together).

Let’s make every school better and every kid’s life better. Let’s not use them as props against each other.

As a poor family. I sorry you don’t want our kids. Actually some of us aren’t that poor, we make different life choices. The best solution would be to open up another hs lower dcc.

Want to give you a big hug. Your kids are wanted. All kids are wanted. To be fair, from what I have read, I think everyone here welcomes diversity of income, culture and race. The problem is that no one of any income level wants to be bused away from their neighborhoods and rightfully so. Every school needs to be stronger and some underperforming schools need more money, support and staff. Whatever it takes, they should get it.

We are wanted as long as we are not in your schools or competition for your kids. No one wants their kids bussed but maybe this will give those kids opportunities they don’t have to get ahead. Our kids don’t have the same opportunities.

Unfortunately it’s a zero sum game and we don’t get do overs with our kids’ education. I’d support funding more opportunities for your kids through modestly higher property taxes but not at the expense of my own kids’ opportunities or busing them across town. Everyone wants the best opportunities for their children (which is why most of us moved to the best place we could afford) and are looking to preserve that as much as possible in an increasingly uncertain world.

Wow we are all on the same team PP. it’s not a zero sum game.

Are we? There's only one (or few) valedictorians and there's an implicit quota in how many kids from each school matriculate to a particular university. We're not in this together and that's been apparent since I set foot in this county or on DCUM and seen others asking questions about the "preferred preschool to get into the Ivy League" or "my DD has the following stats but they don't have a hook and therefore, didn't get into [insert highly selective university]", especially as our kids get closer and closer to high school. We're more like participants running the gauntlet in The Hunger Games where "may the odds ever be in your favor". This is the meritocracy that we find ourselves in and the system that each of us has to face (or ignore). So forgive me if I don't want my kids being bussed across town to a different school and not the neighborhood school I've already paid a high cost entry fee to get into.

The reality is that your kid would be more likely to get into an Ivy from one of the lower performing schools. You compete against the kids at your own high school. (I have kids in college and MCPS so I’ve seen this first hand.)

If your kid is not legacy, recruited athlete or head of very important organization at the HS, or you don’t have a building named after you at the Ivy, you’re kid isn’t getting in. Hello WashU and Northeastern!

*this assumes your kid has 4.0 plus close to 5.0 weighted gpa plus 1550 plus on SAT. That’s what it takes TO HAVE A SHOT at an Ivy from a W.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Maybe what makes the most sense is to create more low income housing in the west part of the county then the farms rates at those schools will increase and it will be balanced.

I live in west county and agree. Diversify neighborhoods through housing policy and send kids to schools that minimize commuting

Agreed. But so far there is a ton of pushback on this. So it's left to MCPS to do the work the county can't manage.

What? No. That’s not the role of the schools.

Well these choices impact the schools and the quality of education that students receive.

The most offensive thing about this thread is how people talk about low income kids (which we all know in this county are mainly Black and Latino but of course some are White and Asian), as though they are all the same. They are all disruptive, none of them want to learn, their families are all bad. The rich White and Asian (and some Latino) kids are well-behaved and come from good families. GMAFB.

Most low-income kids come from families that care about their kids' education. Most low-income kids want to learn. But they are disproportionately placed in schools with much higher percentages of kids that are disruptive, whose home circumstances prevent them from learning. And in these schools there are numerous kids that want and can do advanced classes, but the numbers aren't quite enough to have the variety of classes that are available in the wealthier schools. These are tangible ways that MCPS education is directly impacted by housing segregation. Not to mention, having less diversity at the wealthy schools is not great for those kids either. I attended one of those school many years ago. I very much wish it had been more diverse.

I don't know what the answer is. I very much sympathize with families (of all backgrounds) that do not want their kids to have a long bus ride to school. I would not want that for my kid. But let's stop pretending that segregation doesn't impact education or that low-income kids don't want to learn. That's a pretty offensive and blatantly incorrect assumption.

Fwiw I’ve read all pages of this thread and no one has stated anything like what you said.

I have definitely seen these attitudes in this thread and commonly expressed on DCUM

I’m sure you have seen them on DCUM but not on this thread. You’ve made up a straw man in order to make a moral judgement.

Also, we're now talking about economic segregation, not racial or ethnic (although admittedly there's a lot of history that driving correlations between the two). I'm all for diversity at our schools as long as they can afford the UMC incomes and housing costs that go with it. However, I don't want poor, disruptive kids with all kinds of behavioral challenges at my schools. I don't think any of us do. And if there are smart, driven less affluent kids who want to attend, then give them the opportunity to attend. Oh wait, the county already does that.

Thanks for sharing an example of exactly the attitude I was referring to.

[Anonymous]

"And some, I assume, are good people"

smh

[Anonymous]

MCPS and Flo Analytics should be ashamed of themselves for releasing Option 3 if there is actually no intention of using that map.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Maybe what makes the most sense is to create more low income housing in the west part of the county then the farms rates at those schools will increase and it will be balanced.

I live in west county and agree. Diversify neighborhoods through housing policy and send kids to schools that minimize commuting

Agreed. But so far there is a ton of pushback on this. So it's left to MCPS to do the work the county can't manage.

What? No. That’s not the role of the schools.

Well these choices impact the schools and the quality of education that students receive.

The most offensive thing about this thread is how people talk about low income kids (which we all know in this county are mainly Black and Latino but of course some are White and Asian), as though they are all the same. They are all disruptive, none of them want to learn, their families are all bad. The rich White and Asian (and some Latino) kids are well-behaved and come from good families. GMAFB.

Most low-income kids come from families that care about their kids' education. Most low-income kids want to learn. But they are disproportionately placed in schools with much higher percentages of kids that are disruptive, whose home circumstances prevent them from learning. And in these schools there are numerous kids that want and can do advanced classes, but the numbers aren't quite enough to have the variety of classes that are available in the wealthier schools. These are tangible ways that MCPS education is directly impacted by housing segregation. Not to mention, having less diversity at the wealthy schools is not great for those kids either. I attended one of those school many years ago. I very much wish it had been more diverse.

I don't know what the answer is. I very much sympathize with families (of all backgrounds) that do not want their kids to have a long bus ride to school. I would not want that for my kid. But let's stop pretending that segregation doesn't impact education or that low-income kids don't want to learn. That's a pretty offensive and blatantly incorrect assumption.

Fwiw I’ve read all pages of this thread and no one has stated anything like what you said.

I have definitely seen these attitudes in this thread and commonly expressed on DCUM

I’m sure you have seen them on DCUM but not on this thread. You’ve made up a straw man in order to make a moral judgement.

Also, we're now talking about economic segregation, not racial or ethnic (although admittedly there's a lot of history that driving correlations between the two). I'm all for diversity at our schools as long as they can afford the UMC incomes and housing costs that go with it. However, I don't want poor, disruptive kids with all kinds of behavioral challenges at my schools. I don't think any of us do. And if there are smart, driven less affluent kids who want to attend, then give them the opportunity to attend. Oh wait, the county already does that.

Thanks for sharing an example of exactly the attitude I was referring to.

I wouldn’t be surprised if you actually wrote it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:MCPS and Flo Analytics should be ashamed of themselves for releasing Option 3 if there is actually no intention of using that map.

I do not think there is any intention of using any of these maps

I think these initial options are kind of a waste of time, but I don't think there was malicious intent. Just plain old incompetence.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think that people greatly underestimate what a "long bus ride" means. It's not just 30 minutes (or 20 or 45) in the morning and 30 minutes after school. That might be a reasonable tradeoff if the educational environment were wildly improved. But that bus ride also means not going to school when you miss the bus or it doesn't show up. It means a lot of constraints around after school sports/extra curriculars. There is no late bus. How is your 9th grader getting home after practice at 5pm? Or getting back to school for rehearsal at 6pm? Or home again at 9pm? Because on public transportation, that's not a 30 minute ride - it's maybe an hour?

As a parent with kids in a neighborhood school and one in a school we need to commute to - the difference is not trivial. If families don't have a parent sitting around waiting for the next dropoff/pickup, the logistics are crazy making and sometimes just not workable.

This isn't about rich/poor. This is about really understanding the tradeoffs. Long commutes make it really difficult for students to engage in anything other than classtime. That's a huge negative.

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Maybe what makes the most sense is to create more low income housing in the west part of the county then the farms rates at those schools will increase and it will be balanced.

I live in west county and agree. Diversify neighborhoods through housing policy and send kids to schools that minimize commuting

Agreed. But so far there is a ton of pushback on this. So it's left to MCPS to do the work the county can't manage.

What? No. That’s not the role of the schools.

Well these choices impact the schools and the quality of education that students receive.

The most offensive thing about this thread is how people talk about low income kids (which we all know in this county are mainly Black and Latino but of course some are White and Asian), as though they are all the same. They are all disruptive, none of them want to learn, their families are all bad. The rich White and Asian (and some Latino) kids are well-behaved and come from good families. GMAFB.

Most low-income kids come from families that care about their kids' education. Most low-income kids want to learn. But they are disproportionately placed in schools with much higher percentages of kids that are disruptive, whose home circumstances prevent them from learning. And in these schools there are numerous kids that want and can do advanced classes, but the numbers aren't quite enough to have the variety of classes that are available in the wealthier schools. These are tangible ways that MCPS education is directly impacted by housing segregation. Not to mention, having less diversity at the wealthy schools is not great for those kids either. I attended one of those school many years ago. I very much wish it had been more diverse.

I don't know what the answer is. I very much sympathize with families (of all backgrounds) that do not want their kids to have a long bus ride to school. I would not want that for my kid. But let's stop pretending that segregation doesn't impact education or that low-income kids don't want to learn. That's a pretty offensive and blatantly incorrect assumption.

Fwiw I’ve read all pages of this thread and no one has stated anything like what you said.

I have definitely seen these attitudes in this thread and commonly expressed on DCUM

I’m sure you have seen them on DCUM but not on this thread. You’ve made up a straw man in order to make a moral judgement.

Also, we're now talking about economic segregation, not racial or ethnic (although admittedly there's a lot of history that driving correlations between the two). I'm all for diversity at our schools as long as they can afford the UMC incomes and housing costs that go with it. However, I don't want poor, disruptive kids with all kinds of behavioral challenges at my schools. I don't think any of us do. And if there are smart, driven less affluent kids who want to attend, then give them the opportunity to attend. Oh wait, the county already does that.

Thanks for sharing an example of exactly the attitude I was referring to.

I wouldn’t be surprised if you actually wrote it.

lol nope