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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]If you want facts, you can look up FARMS rates at MoCo high schools here:  http://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/regulatoryaccountability/glance/currentyear/schools/04406.pdf.  Here are stats for some of the &quot;richest&quot; MoCo high schools mentioned earlier:

BCC 11% FARMS, 9.3% special ed,
Walter Johnson 7.8% FARMS, 11.7% special ed
Churchill &lt;5% FARMs, 11.2% special ed
Whitman &lt;5% FARMs, 11.9% special ed
Richard Montgomery   20.6% FARMS, 7.7% special ed
Wootton 5.5% FARMs, 7.5 special ed
(You don't want to even ask about the downcounty schools, trust me)

Another important fact to keep in mind: the FARMS income cutoff is LOW. This source (http://febp.newamerica.net/background-analysis/federal-school-nutrition-programs) says the federal subsidized lunch program cutoff is 130% of the poverty line, or [b]$21,000 for a family of four. [/b]

So between FARMS and special ed programs, maybe 13-20% of kids at the &quot;richest&quot; public high schools we've been discussing are either (a) very poor or (b) on special ed. And certainly many more kids in these 6 &quot;richest&quot; public high schools have family incomes just above $21,000 but below $50,000.

It's truly difficult to understand how you could expect identical percents of a Sidwell graduating class, and a graduating class at one of these &quot;richest&quot; MoCo high schools, to be applying to the same Ivy League Colleges. Given that 10-30% kids in even the &quot;richest&quot; MoCo high schools live in families with less than $21,000 income, or are in special ed, and many more will have incomes not much above $21,000.
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Your analysis is fair enough for some of these schools, but take a look at Whitman and Churchill with &lt;5% FARMS.  Yes, special ed is 11-12%, but how is that defined?  Does it include all kids with IEPs?  If yes, how many of those are kids diagnosed with ADHD or executive disfunction?  You'd see that at independent schools as well.    [/quote]

I'm sorry to say this, but I'll go ahead since you were so rude to me before, in insisting on "facts" instead of what you called my "wrong assumptions."  So here goes. You asked for "facts," and I gave you certifiable stats. If you want to cast doubt on what's above, you need to provide your own facts/stats about the questions you raise, like relative ADHD rates at public vs. private schools. (Although my guess is the elite privates take fewer LD kids than you see in the general population.) You can't poke holes in these publicly available stats by airing your own assumptions and raising open-ended questions.

Also, many other differences have been pointed out between even these elite publics and the elite privates, beyond FARMS/special ed rates. Principally, that 5% FARMS means only that 5% of kids have incomes less than $21,000 -- which is very, very low. Many other kids will come from families with incomes of $21,000 to $50,000, and while the very top colleges may have endowments that can fund lots of merit aid, most aid actually comes in the form of subsidized loans, which isn't attractive to many kids.

Another key difference is that schools like Sidwell select for high SSATs. Whitman and Churchill take the kids who are going to get 1900 on the SATs.[/quote]

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