Is it time to break into smaller school districts in MoCo

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Nothing happened in MKE.

Someone is conflating the City of Milwaukee public schools district with the town districts throughout Milwaukee county. Property tax rates per $100 of home value are indeed high in Milwaukee and Chicago.

Many many states do not do the asinine huge 500k-5 million+ population county thing for the school district level. That doesn’t serve anyone well and results in $$$$ billion mismanaged budgets and one size fits all curriculum fails. Too many students, too many admins, too many teachers, too many zip codes, too many cities/villages, too many square miles, to many dollars flying around.

OK, but Maryland does, and MCPS is in Maryland.

That’s OPs point: huge county level public school districts are highly ineffective and worse. Township model is better.

500 sq miles
220 schools
160,000 students
600-800 students per MS and HS grade
Biggest employer in the county
5 weather zones
Takes 90 minutes to drive across in rush hour

DCPS is the real turnaround story since 2004. charter school success, NW DC schools kicking @$$ academically and athletically, free PK for all for decades, everyone walks to school, strong Pk-8 curriculum, great ECs in ES. Only downside is the $2k per kid pta fees for non title 1 schools since DC doesn’t give those schools much of the kitty.

Lol. I guess we’ll just ignore the total gentrification over the last decade, the charter school jockeying parents are doing, the number of kids in private, and the complaints of DC parents(not that there won’t always be complaints). Oh and we’ll forgive you for only mention NW DC.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

That’s OPs point: huge county level public school districts are highly ineffective and worse. Township model is better.

500 sq miles
220 schools
160,000 students
600-800 students per MS and HS grade
Biggest employer in the county
5 weather zones
Takes 90 minutes to drive across in rush hour

DCPS is the real turnaround story since 2004. charter school success, NW DC schools kicking @$$ academically and athletically, free PK for all for decades, everyone walks to school, strong Pk-8 curriculum, great ECs in ES. Only downside is the $2k per kid pta fees for non title 1 schools since DC doesn’t give those schools much of the kitty.

"Everyone walks to school."

https://ggwash.org/view/67015/school-choice-means-some-students-wale-early-for-a-trek-across-the-city

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Nothing happened in MKE.

Someone is conflating the City of Milwaukee public schools district with the town districts throughout Milwaukee county. Property tax rates per $100 of home value are indeed high in Milwaukee and Chicago.

Many many states do not do the asinine huge 500k-5 million+ population county thing for the school district level. That doesn’t serve anyone well and results in $$$$ billion mismanaged budgets and one size fits all curriculum fails. Too many students, too many admins, too many teachers, too many zip codes, too many cities/villages, too many square miles, to many dollars flying around.

OK, but Maryland does, and MCPS is in Maryland.

That’s OPs point: huge county level public school districts are highly ineffective and worse. Township model is better.

500 sq miles
220 schools
160,000 students
600-800 students per MS and HS grade
Biggest employer in the county
5 weather zones
Takes 90 minutes to drive across in rush hour

DCPS is the real turnaround story since 2004. charter school success, NW DC schools kicking @$$ academically and athletically, free PK for all for decades, everyone walks to school, strong Pk-8 curriculum, great ECs in ES. Only downside is the $2k per kid pta fees for non title 1 schools since DC doesn’t give those schools much of the kitty.

LOL
What DCPS turnaround you're talking about?

DCPS is a turnaround story. Michelle Rhee successfully broke the Teacher’s union, awarded more pay for better teacher performance, fired poor performing principals, lotteried off the extra seats in schools that we’re not at full capacity in places like Cleveland Park (because those kids attend privates). After she left, her lieutenant, Kaya Henderson continued with these reforms for many, many years. DC also allowed charter schools which gave parents a choice.

[Anonymous]

I fully support this provided 90% of the FARMS recipients end up being bussed to Potomac.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Nothing happened in MKE.

Someone is conflating the City of Milwaukee public schools district with the town districts throughout Milwaukee county. Property tax rates per $100 of home value are indeed high in Milwaukee and Chicago.

Many many states do not do the asinine huge 500k-5 million+ population county thing for the school district level. That doesn’t serve anyone well and results in $$$$ billion mismanaged budgets and one size fits all curriculum fails. Too many students, too many admins, too many teachers, too many zip codes, too many cities/villages, too many square miles, to many dollars flying around.

OK, but Maryland does, and MCPS is in Maryland.

That’s OPs point: huge county level public school districts are highly ineffective and worse. Township model is better.

500 sq miles
220 schools
160,000 students
600-800 students per MS and HS grade
Biggest employer in the county
5 weather zones
Takes 90 minutes to drive across in rush hour

DCPS is the real turnaround story since 2004. charter school success, NW DC schools kicking @$$ academically and athletically, free PK for all for decades, everyone walks to school, strong Pk-8 curriculum, great ECs in ES. Only downside is the $2k per kid pta fees for non title 1 schools since DC doesn’t give those schools much of the kitty.

LOL
What DCPS turnaround you're talking about?

DCPS is a turnaround story. Michelle Rhee successfully broke the Teacher’s union, awarded more pay for better teacher performance, fired poor performing principals, lotteried off the extra seats in schools that we’re not at full capacity in places like Cleveland Park (because those kids attend privates). After she left, her lieutenant, Kaya Henderson continued with these reforms for many, many years. DC also allowed charter schools which gave parents a choice.

LOL that's a riot. She was a disaster. People hated her.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I fully support this provided 90% of the FARMS recipients end up being bussed to Potomac.

What makes you think the FARMs recipients parents want their kids to be bused across the county? Or you just want to force lower income parents to do this so that it makes you feel better thinking that you are sticking it to the rich?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I fully support this provided 90% of the FARMS recipients end up being bussed to Potomac.

That's a cruel thing to wish on children who receive free/reduced meals.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Gotta get the poors their own district.

It's not about that. It's about how local needs are different. Poolesville has different weather patterns than Silver Spring. They probably need way more school closures than we do in the southern part of the county.

Most of the covid cases are also in the east side of the county. North county is green. They should be able to open at least hybrid, but they can't because we are one school district.

you can dress the argument up any way you like but it's still going to be about kicking all the poor kids out of Montgomery county public schools and making their own district.

Besides I thought that we weren't going to have snow days anymore

If we split it up district and lower district, the "poors" will still be part of the "richer" district that includes Potomac and Bethesda.

Weather related closures was just one reason. It's pretty clear now that MCPS has gotten too big to be efficient. I am not advocating for Potomac and Bethesda so create its own district as some people want to do, but I do think the size of MCPS is just too big. I think it should be split upper and lower, which would still mean both districts would have a mix of SES families.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I fully support this provided 90% of the FARMS recipients end up being bussed to Potomac.

What makes you think the FARMs recipients parents want their kids to be bused across the county? Or you just want to force lower income parents to do this so that it makes you feel better thinking that you are sticking it to the rich?

Typical liberal BS. Not actually considering that FARMS recipients are, you know, people.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I fully support this provided 90% of the FARMS recipients end up being bussed to Potomac.

Reverse the direction of the bussing and I'd agree with you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Biggest employer in the county.

That’s the only line that matters. Full stop. MCPS ceased to be an educational system long ago. (That sounds crazy I know) It’s a daycare for jobs program as the pandemic has made clear. As an MCPS employee said a few boards ago (paraphrasing) ‘parents aren’t stakeholders.’ No truer words have been spoken.

We simply moved to a Catholic school and found the scale I think the original poster is looking for. This debate falls under you can’t fight city hall.

And yet here you are, posting on the MCPS forum.

NP here. We pulled our kids this year so they can be in in-person private, after seeing how much MCPS is messing up. As a taxpayer, I still think I have a right to complain about how my money is being used in MCPS.

[Anonymous]

My longtime neighbors tell me that MoCo used to be split in N and S districts for at least some purposes. Why can't we do that again? (Or was that just an urban legend?)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My longtime neighbors tell me that MoCo used to be split in N and S districts for at least some purposes. Why can't we do that again? (Or was that just an urban legend?)

We could have a north-central office and a south-central office. With 2X the administrative overhead it would be awesome!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Gotta get the poors their own district.

It's not about that. It's about how local needs are different. Poolesville has different weather patterns than Silver Spring. They probably need way more school closures than we do in the southern part of the county.

Most of the covid cases are also in the east side of the county. North county is green. They should be able to open at least hybrid, but they can't because we are one school district.

you can dress the argument up any way you like but it's still going to be about kicking all the poor kids out of Montgomery county public schools and making their own district.

Besides I thought that we weren't going to have snow days anymore

If we split it up district and lower district, the "poors" will still be part of the "richer" district that includes Potomac and Bethesda.

Weather related closures was just one reason. It's pretty clear now that MCPS has gotten too big to be efficient. I am not advocating for Potomac and Bethesda so create its own district as some people want to do, but I do think the size of MCPS is just too big. I think it should be split upper and lower, which would still mean both districts would have a mix of SES families.

I'm really struggling to see how splitting into two districts would really help, particularly when the county would still be responsible for allocating money for schools and making related housing development decisions.

I'm highly skeptical of reasoning over weather closures. Urban school districts in this region don't make particularly different decisions from their surrounding districts. I really don't think a hypothetical downcounty MCPS district would make different decisions than upcounty.

We'd still have the same controversial issues over boundaries, minorities, and IEP students because the two districts would still be quite large, and there are many UMC parents who are politically well-connected in both the north and the south.

I guess this brings me back to an earlier post that I saw in this thread. If you all would really like to spend your political energy pushing for a district split, go at it. It's obviously not going to happen, so you'll probably do less damage to the public school system fighting for this rather than something that you actually might be able to influence.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My longtime neighbors tell me that MoCo used to be split in N and S districts for at least some purposes. Why can't we do that again? (Or was that just an urban legend?)

I've certainly never heard that, and it seems inconsistent with state law. Perhaps they're mistaken after hearing people talk about the upcounty and downcounty consortia.