Reply to Cliff Notes summary of MCPS boundary study fight?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]

So really what proponents are talking about is redisributing students to flatten out FARMS levels -- or at least make the differences in FARMS not so stark. Because race and class are correlated in this country, of course that may mean changes in the racial mix of the student bodies at various schools. But make no mistake, [b]every school in MCPS --- EVERY school -- is already racially integrated. [/b]

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This is true only insofar as there is no school in MCPS that is 100% one particular race/ethnicity.

If you think New Hampshire Estates PS or Westbrook ES are racially integrated, then your definition of integration must be different from mine.[/quote]

Westbrook is 25% nonwhite. It's racially integrated, though I'll grant you it's safe to say that it is predominantly white.

You make a stronger case with New Hampshire Estates, which is 72 percent Hispanic, 21 percent black and less than 5 percent white. Maybe adjusting boundaries will improve the socioeconomic mix in a school like that.

[b]Westbrook Elementary is in the southwest corner of the county, in Bethesda. You'd have to bus kids pretty far in or out of there to appreciably change the racial mix, given the racial and econonic mix of that area of the county.[/b][/quote]

So, this example gets at a fundamental misunderstanding of what's being discussed here. No one, not the BoE, or randoms on DCUM, is proposing busing kids into Westbrook just to make it more integrated. However, there is a lot of development going on near Westbrook, AND the apartment/condos that feed into Somerset are drawing more young families. It is possible that some boundaries might shift between Somerset, Westbrook, Wood Acres, and Banockburn, for example. Not by much, just by a few streets here or there to deal with over- and under-utilization of the schools, as well as the new development and demographic shift. [/quote]

The Westbard redevelopment is the biggest thing going on in that area, with new townhouses, apartments and commercial space. It'll happen over the course of 10 years or so, and while it will certainly draw more families to the area, it's doubtful that many of them will be low income. (Developers can command high prices and rents in that area.)  It'll bring a few more middle class folks in for sure, though. It remains to be seen whether the new arrivals will be assigned to Wood Acres or Westbrook.

Let's look at the current picture at the four schools you mentioned:

Somerset - 36 percent nonwhite - 7.1 percent FARMS
Bannockburn - 32 percent nonwhite - less than 5 percent FARMS
Wood Acres - 32 percent nonwhite - less than 5 percent FARMS
Westbrook - 26 percent nonwhite - less than 5 percent FARMS

Shift the boundaries of these schools around all you want, but you're not going to appreciably change the racial and economic mix of the student bodies, because all of the schools are more or less predominantly white and have only a tiny share of poor students. And even if I'm wrong about Westbard not drawing lower income families, you think that new development is enough to further diversify FOUR elementary schools racially and economically? Move kids around among these schools and you can address capacity issues, but not much else. (And some people would say that's OK, capacity issues should be the number 1 factor in redistricting.)

The people who live in these areas know the numbers. That's why talk of redistricting for diversity makes some of them concerned about kids being put on buses for long commutes to school -- because reshuffling kids among these adjacent elementary school districts isn't going to achieve results that match the rhetoric.

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