The REAL issue with the proposals to shift boundaries & how MCPS can fix it

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

I am going to point out, here, that lots and lots and lots of parents send their children to schools you think of as failing schools.

It is a free country. They chose those schools. We chose other schools.

No one is buying the myth that mixing up schools will improve the low SES achievement in any measurable way. It is simply a class war, run by people who lost their voice in the national policy decisions with the change of administration. That is why this social equity rezoning is only happening in MCPS. It is not a national trend. We just have this subpopulation of people who lost the ability to have a national voice, and have moved their efforts locally. I fully anticipate that they are coaching their kids to ride this wave into the Ivies, too. Hereditary politicians.

You mean the FACT that it will improve schools as indicated by numerous articles.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

All craziness aside, there are beautiful homes with wealthy or UMC families living in them throughout the DCC. Those families often send their kids to private schools. I’d hope the consultant will review that and gain an understanding of why the won’t send their kids to the public schools in their communities. Why can’t MCPS attract them back to their neighborhood schools? What changes/improvements could they make to get those families —and there are a lot of them — to go public?

That said, I think there will still need to be some boundary adjustments - but why would wealthy/UMC need to be bussed in to achieve equity when many in that income category already live there?

This already exists. Why do you think TPMS has 25 seats set aside for easier admission? Its to try to keep some of the families from fleeing to private schools. Why do you think MCPS has been opening all the special magnets in the DCC? The seats are not being filled by low income kids. Its all there to try to get the wealthier kids back into the schools. It works for the limited number of seats but doesn't do anything beyond this.

UMC is a relative term too. The UMC families in the DCC are really not that wealthy. Private school is a stretch for many of them yet as long as they can afford it they will go. What could drive more UMC families back into the DCC schools though will be their inability to afford privates. Younger families are carrying more student debt and inflation to wage growth has reduced people's accessible income. When MoCo taxes go up again, this will take out another chunk of their ability to pay for private. If MCPS messes with other boundaries, you'll see more people apply to private schools which will edge up the tuition.

This is the most ignorant and patronizing gibberish I've read in years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

All craziness aside, there are beautiful homes with wealthy or UMC families living in them throughout the DCC. Those families often send their kids to private schools. I’d hope the consultant will review that and gain an understanding of why the won’t send their kids to the public schools in their communities. Why can’t MCPS attract them back to their neighborhood schools? What changes/improvements could they make to get those families —and there are a lot of them — to go public?

That said, I think there will still need to be some boundary adjustments - but why would wealthy/UMC need to be bussed in to achieve equity when many in that income category already live there?

This already exists. Why do you think TPMS has 25 seats set aside for easier admission? Its to try to keep some of the families from fleeing to private schools. Why do you think MCPS has been opening all the special magnets in the DCC? The seats are not being filled by low income kids. Its all there to try to get the wealthier kids back into the schools. It works for the limited number of seats but doesn't do anything beyond this.

UMC is a relative term too. The UMC families in the DCC are really not that wealthy. Private school is a stretch for many of them yet as long as they can afford it they will go. What could drive more UMC families back into the DCC schools though will be their inability to afford privates. Younger families are carrying more student debt and inflation to wage growth has reduced people's accessible income. When MoCo taxes go up again, this will take out another chunk of their ability to pay for private. If MCPS messes with other boundaries, you'll see more people apply to private schools which will edge up the tuition.

This is the most ignorant and patronizing gibberish I've read in years.

We moved to the DCC from Potomac specifically because it was clear the educational outcomes for high-achieving children were vastly better than elsewhere.

[Anonymous]

We moved to the DCC from Potomac specifically because it was clear the educational outcomes for high-achieving children were vastly better than elsewhere.

LOL just spit out my coffee. No one has ever moved from Potomac to Silver Spring for the schools. Please just go back to your fantasy world.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

All craziness aside, there are beautiful homes with wealthy or UMC families living in them throughout the DCC. Those families often send their kids to private schools. I’d hope the consultant will review that and gain an understanding of why the won’t send their kids to the public schools in their communities. Why can’t MCPS attract them back to their neighborhood schools? What changes/improvements could they make to get those families —and there are a lot of them — to go public?

That said, I think there will still need to be some boundary adjustments - but why would wealthy/UMC need to be bussed in to achieve equity when many in that income category already live there?

This already exists. Why do you think TPMS has 25 seats set aside for easier admission? Its to try to keep some of the families from fleeing to private schools. Why do you think MCPS has been opening all the special magnets in the DCC? The seats are not being filled by low income kids. Its all there to try to get the wealthier kids back into the schools. It works for the limited number of seats but doesn't do anything beyond this.

UMC is a relative term too. The UMC families in the DCC are really not that wealthy. Private school is a stretch for many of them yet as long as they can afford it they will go. What could drive more UMC families back into the DCC schools though will be their inability to afford privates. Younger families are carrying more student debt and inflation to wage growth has reduced people's accessible income. When MoCo taxes go up again, this will take out another chunk of their ability to pay for private. If MCPS messes with other boundaries, you'll see more people apply to private schools which will edge up the tuition.

This is the most ignorant and patronizing gibberish I've read in years.

You’re just sensitive, it reads true to these eyes

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

No the argument is that homeowners have a reasonable expectation of stability when a school is a major, if not the greatest determinate factor when choosing a house. Anything else destabilizes the market, causes real financial pain and robs people of their choices. All for some pie-in-the-sky theory that sending my kid to your school will make that school better. I mean I'm flattered that you think my kid will help (she must have some innate quality that the students there don't have), but I doubt that she will solve systematic poverty and lack of parental education. However, what is not in question is that property values will drop in the affected area. The market may be irrational, but it does what it does and real people will lose real money here. Then in 10 years when all the high SES people migrate to the still (or newly) high performing school clusters and the SJW's begin screaming again, we'll have to do it all over... Wouldn't it be just easier to fix the actual problems rather than acquiesce to the unreasonable demands of some teenagers?

And they've got it! You live in Montgomery County, the expectation is an MCPS school.

Otherwise the argument is that we must maintain a harmful distortion in the housing market because some people might lose money if we don't.

There's no "harmful" distortion. People with means will always filter to the best schools - just the way it is. The only distortion is trying to carve some of them off against their will.

If people really stand to lose hundreds of thousands of dollars from getting rezoned from this school to that school, then yes, it absolutely is a harmful distortion. Because rezonings are a thing that happens.

Not at all. You presuppose that the boundaries themselves are a distorting factor, when the actual distorting factor is income inequality. So long as high performing schools are seen as a valuable amenity, the money will filer in and push lower SES individuals out no matter where the boundaries are. Tinkering around the edges only transfers equity from the families who are taken out of the district to those who are moved in. However, during the next sales cycle the newly "promoted" house commands the same price premium that the desirable district brings and lower SES brackets are priced out in the same way as before. Thus, what you do is get a temporary gain in SES diversity (to the extent that wealthier families don't immediately bolt), financially punish some families, give some families a windfall, and then have to do it all over again in ten years once you realize that fighting the natural progression of the market just doesn't work. The only way to break this cycle is to make all the schools high performing; but, given that the fact that the best and only statistically valid predictor of a child's educational outcome is their parents' educational attainment, you cannot "fix" the schools by moving boundaries, but rather you have to lift up the community as a whole, increase income across the board, and assist lower income families with childcare and other programs of the like. This is, of course, hard, so it won't be done. What will be done is that some feckless politicians will tinker around the edges, pat themselves on the back for increasing a useless metric like diversity (while ignoring the only metric the matters - performance), and ignore the income disparities that are the actual root of the problem.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I am going to point out, here, that lots and lots and lots of parents send their children to schools you think of as failing schools.

It is a free country. They chose those schools. We chose other schools.

No one is buying the myth that mixing up schools will improve the low SES achievement in any measurable way. It is simply a class war, run by people who lost their voice in the national policy decisions with the change of administration. That is why this social equity rezoning is only happening in MCPS. It is not a national trend. We just have this subpopulation of people who lost the ability to have a national voice, and have moved their efforts locally. I fully anticipate that they are coaching their kids to ride this wave into the Ivies, too. Hereditary politicians.

You mean the FACT that it will improve schools as indicated by numerous articles.

A myth. The achievement gap won't budge in a measurable way, and neither will outcomes

It is not because parents are bad or kids are stupid. It is because the only students who seem to do well in USA elem schools are the ones who come in knowing much of the material. Teachers are excellent. Curriculum is weak.

UMC parents educate their kids on evenings and weekends to compensate. That is the entire trick to it, I think - at least where basic standartized testing is concerned.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

We moved to the DCC from Potomac specifically because it was clear the educational outcomes for high-achieving children were vastly better than elsewhere.

LOL just spit out my coffee. No one has ever moved from Potomac to Silver Spring for the schools. Please just go back to your fantasy world.

This even if you bought that the ces and magnet programs were better you can get to all of them form Potomac. The W’s get everything the DCC gets but the DCC can’t get into the W’s save for the silly language immersion continuation policy for the 50 or so kids

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I am going to point out, here, that lots and lots and lots of parents send their children to schools you think of as failing schools.

It is a free country. They chose those schools. We chose other schools.

No one is buying the myth that mixing up schools will improve the low SES achievement in any measurable way. It is simply a class war, run by people who lost their voice in the national policy decisions with the change of administration. That is why this social equity rezoning is only happening in MCPS. It is not a national trend. We just have this subpopulation of people who lost the ability to have a national voice, and have moved their efforts locally. I fully anticipate that they are coaching their kids to ride this wave into the Ivies, too. Hereditary politicians.

You mean the FACT that it will improve schools as indicated by numerous articles.

A myth. The achievement gap won't budge in a measurable way, and neither will outcomes

It is not because parents are bad or kids are stupid. It is because the only students who seem to do well in USA elem schools are the ones who come in knowing much of the material. Teachers are excellent. Curriculum is weak.

UMC parents educate their kids on evenings and weekends to compensate. That is the entire trick to it, I think - at least where basic standartized testing is concerned.

None of the UMC parents I know with really smart kids do this. My child who has consistently scored at the 99th percentile on standardized tests since early childhood certainly doesn't get educated on evenings and weekends to compensate. I think this aspect is overblown.

[Anonymous]

I think the DCC is largely upper middle class. Why don’t those kids go to public schools? Why can’t MCPS fix that without bussing in other kids from same demographic? Makes no sense. There is a lack of confidence in the schools.

[Anonymous]

"An Asian parent said if racial equity is a consideration for where students attend classes, it also should be a factor in who makes sports teams or other extracurricular programs.
“Why can’t they have a different standard for Asian kids making it onto the basketball team,” she asked. “We’re not making the basketball team because we can’t reach the rebound, so we better let the ball bounce one time first. No, they don’t change that standard.” "

https://bethesdamagazine.com/bethesda-beat/schools/racial-equity-concerns-surface-at-boundary-meeting/

Asian mom has a point

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

We moved to the DCC from Potomac specifically because it was clear the educational outcomes for high-achieving children were vastly better than elsewhere.

LOL just spit out my coffee. No one has ever moved from Potomac to Silver Spring for the schools. Please just go back to your fantasy world.

I moved from bethesda to northern silver spring for the schools. it is amazing to see the difference between my kids and their former classmates when we get together. I have to say I was worried but thrilled with the results. my kids are doing phenomenal and are given so many unique opportunities that would not be available in bethesda. my friends are shocked at the leadership roles my kids have walked.into. Leading class discussions, mentoring fellow students, etc. not to mention that they have a sense of toughness and confidence that you can only get going to a.super diverse school. the looks on their friends faces when their bday parties are colorful are priceless. one of them even told their mom that my daughters straight A, but dark skin friends scares her!! why? because she is loud and outgoing! the world is only getting more colorful and torn apart. you can either hide at your country club or navigate it and its weaknesses and come out on top.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Not at all. You presuppose that the boundaries themselves are a distorting factor, when the actual distorting factor is income inequality. So long as high performing schools are seen as a valuable amenity, the money will filer in and push lower SES individuals out no matter where the boundaries are. Tinkering around the edges only transfers equity from the families who are taken out of the district to those who are moved in. However, during the next sales cycle the newly "promoted" house commands the same price premium that the desirable district brings and lower SES brackets are priced out in the same way as before. Thus, what you do is get a temporary gain in SES diversity (to the extent that wealthier families don't immediately bolt), financially punish some families, give some families a windfall, and then have to do it all over again in ten years once you realize that fighting the natural progression of the market just doesn't work. The only way to break this cycle is to make all the schools high performing; but, given that the fact that the best and only statistically valid predictor of a child's educational outcome is their parents' educational attainment, you cannot "fix" the schools by moving boundaries, but rather you have to lift up the community as a whole, increase income across the board, and assist lower income families with childcare and other programs of the like. This is, of course, hard, so it won't be done. What will be done is that some feckless politicians will tinker around the edges, pat themselves on the back for increasing a useless metric like diversity (while ignoring the only metric the matters - performance), and ignore the income disparities that are the actual root of the problem.

It is a fact that the boundaries are a distorting factor. Otherwise you wouldn't have people supposedly paying hundreds of thousands more for a house zoned for a "good" school vs another house in the next block zoned for a "bad" school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
I never thought it was about race, as much as some posters on DCUM vociferously claim it is.

I think it's about families' educational expectations, and their fear that lower-income families will not encourage their children as much and that therefore the school cohort will not be as academically motivated as before.

You know what? Fk you.

My grandparents were all lower-income immigrants from Eastern Europe and Japan. They worked their butts off to achieve a better life than their parents had.

You have some nerve saying lower-income families don't value education as much as richer families do. If anything they value it MORE because they understand it's the only way for their kids to have a better life than they have.

there's your answer. If we had 120 million japanese here and the bottom third of americans were deported to make way for this hypothetical influx of japanese, we would be having very different experiences and challenges as a country.

Human capital matters.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is a pure power struggle.

Since no normal parent will ever send their child to a failing school, it is all about money. No one will ever compromise their child's education. If we are rezoned, we are moving. If the house drops too much value, we will declare bankruptsy and move.

You can change boundaries, maybe, but you will never get our kids.

The crazy lady who thinks someone is trying to take her kids shows up in all these repetitive boundaries threads.
Lady, nobody is coming for your kids.

It is my signature. It resonates, and it is true.

It sure does.