Reply to MCPs county wide boundary study

Forum Index » Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS)

Reply to "MCPs county wide boundary study"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous]There is a valid argument that URM students do perform better when they attend a higher SES/higher performing school BUT those gains disappear after the ratio crosses a very small amount 10-20%. URM students do do better in schools like Churchill etc but they do not better in schools with 30% FARMS. There also is research that when the lower performance goes above 30% the average to above average performing students do worse.

There really is zero benefit to URM kids in redistributing/bussing to make all schools have 30% or higher lower performing students. Their performance doesn't increase and the average student declines. This diverts dollars away from things that do work such as more teachers and wrap and around services to pay for bus transportation. It also explodes the wrap around services budget because instead of being located in several schools you now need them in every school.

The ONLY people this benefits over time are the school administrators. It creates the perception that all schools are equal and performing the same. It doesn't solve the achievement gap but it makes MCPS look better on another data view. The only people that it benefits in the short term are the people who live in poorly performing schools who hope that seeing other schools drop will make their area more attractive or people who hope to be rezoned into a better school.

The uncertainty of boundary changes does suppress real estate prices in a county like MOCO which is just a residential community. Very few potential buyers are willing to take a risk or gamble to be on the better side of the change and most will reconsider their options for safer bets like Howard, Frederick or VA. With all the other financial problems in Montgomery County, announcing a two year county wide boundary survey with DCC parents foaming on about breaking down the W schools and busing kids all over is economic suicide across the county. Ironically, the wealthier sections of the W districts where private school is an easy option would be less impacted by something like this. You would see stagnation/decline in areas like Rockville, Silver Spring, North Potomac, Gaithersburg, North Bethesda- the economic middle that makes up a good chunk of property tax.

[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics