Achievement gap continues to grow between high- and low-income schools

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What do upper income parents do if they are unhappy with the curriculum or see areas that their child struggles with? Hire a tutor to focus on skills that will make their child ready for college.

What do lower income families do? They have to rely exclusively on the public school system to teach their children.

Let's face it. MCPS is doing a bad job.

Doing a bad job for good students, for poorly performing students, and for average students.
However, give the big push and focus in troubled students, ESOL students, and those falling behind, they are the only ones remotely being taught to their full potential. Others must teach themselves or move to another school, district, private or tutoring.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:One key to a student's overall educational success is how involved are the parents in the educational process.

How easy is it for parents to know how their child is doing and if there is a problem, how easy is it for them to talk with staff to find out how they can help their child at home? What are the only times available for meetings at school?

In my opinion, MCPS fails at encourage parent participation. Many school assessments are labeled "secured" documents so parents have to make appointments during the work day if they want to see their child's tests and exams. Hard for families of single parents or families where both parents are working outside the home. Especially hard to do if you have a long commute to get to your job and/or if you have to rely on public transportation.

Each county test cost thousands to develop. If students are allowed to take them home, new tests must be developed each school year (in some cases, each semester). That's a hefty price tag all because kids can post them on FB, Instagram, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, I feel your pain. We are in an area of Silver Spring with a crappy elementary school (it wasn't too bad when we bought our home 10 years ago but since then the number of FARMS has skyrocketed and, unfortunately, it's seems to have had an inverse relationship to school performance).

Anyway, my husband and I really struggle with what to do. We cannot afford a home in a nicer area of Silver Spring, we certainly cannot afford a private school or to move to Bethesda, Chevy Chase, etc. We're stuck. It certainly feels like MoCo is not only the county of haves and have nots (which I think it's always been, to some extent) but that the school system for those of us in my neck of the woods is broken.

I also agree with the PP that if there was some degree of tracking, I wouldn't worry. But a neighbor tells me that his 3rd grader is in a class with students who don't speak any English and spends his days doing busy work because the teacher is consumed with teaching to the 65% of her class that is still learning the language.

I love Silver Spring and I love this area of Maryland, but I'm looking for a job that will allow me to primarily telework so DH and I can move out of MoCo. We can't afford the nicer neighborhoods that feed into the decent schools. So depressing.

And I feel your pain.... Silver Spring is such a cool place and realizing that the schools just weren't an option - even when I was being as open-minded as possible - was depressing. We moved out of MoCo and it was the right choice for us. I think the whole discussion about the achievement gap sort of misses the point sometimes. Our schools needed more resources, they needed more parent involvement, they needed more programs tailored to address the language barriers, they needed more infrastructure to make the schools more attractive to everyone in the community. Who cares if the test scores are high enough? A look at what's happening "on the ground" shows that more basic issues need to be addressed before we even start talking about test performance.

The more illegal immigrants that come to MOCO, the worse it will get. More resources go to ESOL and FARMS than ever. This is money in the school budget set aside JUST to get them to speak English and get fed. That is a lot of money taking away from the classrooms. Has your school been losing paraeducators in the class? Ours has and it is because we now have 3 ESOL teachers to the 1 we had when my 14yr old was there. Parent involvement? Are you kidding. They don't even speak English, would never show up for a PTA meeting and don't volunteer their time at anything. The schools are plummeting and the state/county welcomes them but can not afford them. It is a huge problem that people seem to not want to speak of because it is not politically correct. Our county is #2 in the COUNTRY for increased illegal immigration. It will only get worse. In 2009 it was estimated that $966 million was spent on educating illegal aliens in the state of MD. An additional $250 million for ESL. Since MOCO has 70% of the state's illegal immigrants you can see how this eats up the budget a little. And that was 5yrs ago. And you do realize they actually don't pay taxes so they don't contribute to the American education system in anyway. But..... it is not nice to say anything like this so let's keep trying to figure out a plan that works while they keep coming.

Wow and wow. Anyone with preK kids thinking about moving to montgomery county should read the above and do their own research into this very significant problem, which is only growing, not slowing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Get liberals out and have conservatives run the schools with the right to kick out kids who don't want or try to learn.

Put those kids in vocational school or boarding school.

Watch the results increase . The problem is liberalism ... Expensive and lousy results every time.

Who pays for these boarding schools you want to send problem students to? What are the costs of staffing, training, maintaining the physical plant, providing 3 squares & basic furniture? My cousin went to boarding school for a year when both his parents were deployed. $49k and that was during Gulf War I so imagine the cost now.

Do you know how many kids I have when they county pays for half our housing, all their meals, half their clothes, my cable bill, my metro pass, their English lessons, their before and after school playtime and I get to hang out with all my countrymen in a houseshare? LOTS, lots of kids.

[Anonymous]

A sock-puppeting troll has found this thread.

[Anonymous]

What if MCPS didn't publish FARMS numbers? Do you think that would maybe help with the "white flight" problem? Or perhaps if we didn't publish the races of our kids? I'm thinking out loud here. And maybe it's a stupid suggestion, but I'm interested to know if anyone would think that might help a little.

Also, what about free tutoring? Maybe instead of running away from our poor performing schools, perhaps we can form some sort of free tutoring with community volunteers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
I agree with the need for mixed housing. Not everyone wants or needs to live in a huge house. I'd be happy with a small apartment that fed into Churchill. Instead I am down county and in a small apartment to close the gap between FA and tuition at DD's private. Still cheaper than our second choice public after finding out we'd pay as much for an apartment in WJ's catchment as we were paying for a SFH in the DCC.

But the people who live in Potomac do not want apartments in their neighborhoods.

Ah yes, let's add some super dense apartment projects and then build larger schools and programs for these subsidized people.

Are you dense? Many many educated, US citizens with two working parents are completely shut out of the SFH market areas like Potomac. Do you equate people with $150k HHI with those getting "subsidized?"

[Anonymous]

Sorry, "in" areas like Potomac.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What if MCPS didn't publish FARMS numbers? Do you think that would maybe help with the "white flight" problem? Or perhaps if we didn't publish the races of our kids? I'm thinking out loud here. And maybe it's a stupid suggestion, but I'm interested to know if anyone would think that might help a little.

Also, what about free tutoring? Maybe instead of running away from our poor performing schools, perhaps we can form some sort of free tutoring with community volunteers.

There is free 'tutoring' already.

MoCo offers Homework Help by phone. Our library offers tutoring for kids who need help (we're in a low income area). And there's Saturday School.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What if MCPS didn't publish FARMS numbers? Do you think that would maybe help with the "white flight" problem? Or perhaps if we didn't publish the races of our kids? I'm thinking out loud here. And maybe it's a stupid suggestion, but I'm interested to know if anyone would think that might help a little.

Also, what about free tutoring? Maybe instead of running away from our poor performing schools, perhaps we can form some sort of free tutoring with community volunteers.

Just sit in the classroom or drive by the school. If every sign is replicated in Spanich and it's not Oyster Elementary you know where the schools priorities, budget, and energies lie.

[Anonymous]

There is a crazy troll on this thread...if not I am almost ashamed that another human being would even voice some of the ignorance being posted on here. It makes my stomach hurt.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What if MCPS didn't publish FARMS numbers? Do you think that would maybe help with the "white flight" problem? Or perhaps if we didn't publish the races of our kids? I'm thinking out loud here. And maybe it's a stupid suggestion, but I'm interested to know if anyone would think that might help a little.

Also, what about free tutoring? Maybe instead of running away from our poor performing schools, perhaps we can form some sort of free tutoring with community volunteers.

Just sit in the classroom or drive by the school. If every sign is replicated in Spanich and it's not Oyster Elementary you know where the schools priorities, budget, and energies lie.

I've never seen a sign in Spanich. Are you sure you didn't mean Spinach?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
I agree with the need for mixed housing. Not everyone wants or needs to live in a huge house. I'd be happy with a small apartment that fed into Churchill. Instead I am down county and in a small apartment to close the gap between FA and tuition at DD's private. Still cheaper than our second choice public after finding out we'd pay as much for an apartment in WJ's catchment as we were paying for a SFH in the DCC.

But the people who live in Potomac do not want apartments in their neighborhoods.

Ah yes, let's add some super dense apartment projects and then build larger schools and programs for these subsidized people.

Are you dense? Many many educated, US citizens with two working parents are completely shut out of the SFH market areas like Potomac. Do you equate people with $150k HHI with those getting "subsidized?"

Aren't most higher-test-scoring Montgomery Schools at capacity? How do you parachute in a whole housing complex full of families?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There is a crazy troll on this thread...if not I am almost ashamed that another human being would even voice some of the ignorance being posted on here. It makes my stomach hurt.

No one really cares if you have a tummy ache. Do you actually have an argument or a point? What exactly is the "ignorance" and why?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Achievement Gap can not be closed. There are too many factors that do not have to do with education and school that come into play that create the Achievement Gap.

Schools in our area waste inordinate resources trying to achieve something that can no be achieved at any dollar amount.

Striving to narrow the gap a marginal amount each year is a much better use of money and time.

In our area one thing that social service organizations and schools could do that would directly impact the ESL students and most likely help narrow the gap for that segment is to regularly urge and stress to parents [b]the need to always speak in English to their children as much as they are capable and to learn English themselves as much as they are capable. Yes, I know about all the benefits of bilingualism and bilingual education but those benefits do not likely extend to those parents who did not attain a higher education in their native language or may not be literate in their native language.

It will help if parents who speak English badly (or not at all) speak in English to their children?

If you learned to speak [language that is not English] from parents who didn't go to college, it doesn't count?

Better poor English than not attempt at English. At least the kids are learning it a home and do not need to start school with remediation that will keep them years behind.