NYC Desegregation Plan

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:nil

and no, you can't apply to the IB program, you have to live in its catchment area. no busses, no driving a distant kid to BCC. BCC is 9-12, nothing in K-5.

Which school in the Bethesda area has space for a special program for students zoned for other schools?

So you agree nothing is in or around that area?

You also seem to be suggesting that the district only puts its special programs in far away places with less population density and open capacity (never might what the underlying drivers of this lack of demand is).

What does either of those have to do with serving the top third of students where they actually live?

Programs have to be somewhere. Where would you put one, in Bethesda?

I would put them by critical masses of qualified students. Just like a real-world business would. Serve the customers not something else like gentrifying XYZ area miles away or bolstering test scores of poorly performing areas.

You do realize that you can relocate to the DCC so that your kids could take advantage of our special programs (assuming they qualify for admittance), right? Or you could have your kids enter the lottery for the MSMC schools, where they will have what some in the DCC consider an unfair advantage because of the lottery's preference for kids assigned to schools with higher SES profiles. Once in a DCC MS, your kids would have access to the Wheaton magnets and Blair CAP.

[Anonymous]

Right, you could quit your job and move to DCC.

Or move to DCC and have a super $hitty commute.

Those are the options MCPS forces upon 10000s of people while underserving and under teaching its top students. Nice.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:nil

and no, you can't apply to the IB program, you have to live in its catchment area. no busses, no driving a distant kid to BCC. BCC is 9-12, nothing in K-5.

Which school in the Bethesda area has space for a special program for students zoned for other schools?

So you agree nothing is in or around that area?[u]

You also seem to be suggesting that the district only puts its special programs in far away places with less population density and open capacity (never might what the underlying drivers of this lack of demand is).

What does either of those have to do with serving the top third of students where they actually live?

Programs have to be somewhere. Where would you put one, in Bethesda?

I would put them by critical masses of qualified students. Just like a real-world business would. Serve the customers not something else like gentrifying XYZ area miles away or bolstering test scores of poorly performing areas.

You do realize that you can relocate to the DCC so that your kids could take advantage of our special programs (assuming they qualify for admittance), right? Or you could have your kids enter the lottery for the MSMC schools, where they will have what some in the DCC consider an unfair advantage because of the lottery's preference for kids assigned to schools with higher SES profiles. Once in a DCC MS, your kids would have access to the Wheaton magnets and Blair CAP.

So you agree nothing is in or around that area?

Sounds like a resounding YES if PP is telling you to relocate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:nil

and no, you can't apply to the IB program, you have to live in its catchment area. no busses, no driving a distant kid to BCC. BCC is 9-12, nothing in K-5.

Which school in the Bethesda area has space for a special program for students zoned for other schools?

So you agree nothing is in or around that area?[u]

You also seem to be suggesting that the district only puts its special programs in far away places with less population density and open capacity (never might what the underlying drivers of this lack of demand is).

What does either of those have to do with serving the top third of students where they actually live?

Programs have to be somewhere. Where would you put one, in Bethesda?

I would put them by critical masses of qualified students. Just like a real-world business would. Serve the customers not something else like gentrifying XYZ area miles away or bolstering test scores of poorly performing areas.

You do realize that you can relocate to the DCC so that your kids could take advantage of our special programs (assuming they qualify for admittance), right? Or you could have your kids enter the lottery for the MSMC schools, where they will have what some in the DCC consider an unfair advantage because of the lottery's preference for kids assigned to schools with higher SES profiles. Once in a DCC MS, your kids would have access to the Wheaton magnets and Blair CAP.

So you agree nothing is in or around that area?

Sounds like a resounding YES if PP is telling you to relocate.

No, you've been informed of the different programs available in your part of the county. My kid wants to take German, but it's only available in one of the west county schools. Should I run around screaming about the injustice?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Right, you could quit your job and move to DCC.

Or move to DCC and have a super $hitty commute.

Those are the options MCPS forces upon 10000s of people while underserving and under teaching its top students. Nice.

I guess if you valued gift education, you'd make the sacrifice...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't mind the intent or spirit, which to me seems to be looking for a different/better way to deal with an intractable problem - achievement gap - that has many causes. (I don't believe that public schools can overcome those causes, at least not without a massive infusion of resources, but because kids are supposed to go to school, schools are forced to at least try.) But the article notes that a mixed-level class works for all students with well-trained teachers who use a "targeted approach to each child's level of achievement." The likelihood of that will be the case of high-performing students is, in my view, very low.

So you think the teachers of high achieving students aren't very good at differentiation?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't mind the intent or spirit, which to me seems to be looking for a different/better way to deal with an intractable problem - achievement gap - that has many causes. (I don't believe that public schools can overcome those causes, at least not without a massive infusion of resources, but because kids are supposed to go to school, schools are forced to at least try.) But the article notes that a mixed-level class works for all students with well-trained teachers who use a "targeted approach to each child's level of achievement." The likelihood of that will be the case of high-performing students is, in my view, very low.

Unless home life and parenting changes, the achievement gap will not be closed.

What if one of the best ways to change a child's educational trajectory was to not attend school with such concentrated poverty?

[Anonymous]

To paraphrase: if those parents in Western Moco valued their child's education they'd move to the DCC to have access to the special programs.

I think this made my day.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't mind the intent or spirit, which to me seems to be looking for a different/better way to deal with an intractable problem - achievement gap - that has many causes. (I don't believe that public schools can overcome those causes, at least not without a massive infusion of resources, but because kids are supposed to go to school, schools are forced to at least try.) But the article notes that a mixed-level class works for all students with well-trained teachers who use a "targeted approach to each child's level of achievement." The likelihood of that will be the case of high-performing students is, in my view, very low.

So you think the teachers of high achieving students aren't very good at differentiation?

NP. I think it's difficult for any teacher to teach effectively when there are students with completely different levels of knowledge. The older the students are, the more complex the subject- the more difficult it becomes. Differentiation is simply not practical. It will come at the expense of the high performing students because the teacher will naturally focus the curriculum/spend more time on the lower performing students that need help.