Reply to Option B Alternate - Adding extra ES to WJ?

Forum Index » Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS)

Reply to "Option B Alternate - Adding extra ES to WJ? "

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Seems a proposal to shift back to the original option B may go further. That option was prepared and presented in detail and got positive feedback from the community. [/quote]

Going back to option B means sending WW back to overcrowded Wheaton, right?  And reversing a bunch of un-related changes in Silver Spring?  That doesn't make any sense.  Why would they propose that rather than just switching the boundaries between WJ and Woodward?[/quote]

Easiest is to simply swap ES area in WJ and Woodward. [/quote]

Farmland into Wheaton or Kennedy would have a greater balancing effect on FARMs. And they can show just how genuine their sentiments are. [/quote]

Say it louder for the people in the back! Let’s bus the wealthy white families to Wheaton to satisfy their complaints.

[/quote]

Yes! Bus the whites to Kennedy and Wheaton...oh wait, isn't that what the regional program is? Put the IB and Math/Science/Engineering program in the ghetto....aka bus the high performing whites (and asian americans) to MS13 territory[/quote]

Wheaton will continue to have their STEM magnet which is certainly not in the ghetto as you describe. It’s a popular program and part of why Wheaton is currently so overcrowded.[/quote]

Wheaton gets the Edison seats/capacity too!

Enter: Dude who says the seats are phantom at Edison and not real for Wheaton. ::insert his/her typical rant::[/quote]

You found me. Can you explain in clear terms how those 500 seats materialized? I've asked MCPS and here on DCUM and nobody can answer how they will continue to offer parttime Edison programs to students countywide and add 500 full time seats for resident Wheaton students to Edison which does not currently confer high school diplomas.[/quote]

Sounds like you support the Superintendent's recommendation?  Is that the sentiment in the broader Wheaton cluster?[/quote]

No, I am not in the Wheaton or proposed WJ/Woodward clusters. I think it would be better to balance FARMS between Woodward and WJ because that is what would be best for the kids. But I don't expect Taylor or the BOE to do this, and I kind of get it, it's certainly not a magic bullet. I am frustrated that I don't see any urgency on their part in terms of improving outcomes for low income kids and this feels like low hanging fruit.

Wrt Wheaton capacity I am concerned as a taxpayer that they are promising capacity that doesn't exist and requires more spending to create. Spending that there is no money for. There is plenty of capacity in the existing buildings, and the entire purpose of the boundary study is to use that capacity, so they should do it. Even the Superintendent's recommendation leaves Wheaton somewhat over capacity. At the proposed utilization level I can kind of buy that some of that will be relieved by students attending Edison part time, but it's still insane to me they aren't doing more to relieve Wheaton. People will be angry in the short term and then they will get used to the new boundaries and be fine.[/quote]

Two things:
1. you ignore the regional model will balance kids out between the 4 schools in the region.
2. you expect utopia or perfection. that won't happen and can't happen due to logistical challenges and increased expense.

[/quote]

1. Do they plan to use the regional model to balance utilization by luring relatively rich and well resourced kids from Wheaton to WJ? That is terrible idea. It is also not something they have been transparent about.
2. I don't expect utopia. Notice I am not expecting them to bus Farmland kids to Kennedy. I think it is extremely ridiculous that was in an option in the first place. Expecting them to use their existing facilities efficiently so as not to need to spend more money constructing more seats they don't need is not only not asking for perfection, it is simply asking for basic common sense.[/quote]

Yes, that's what magnets do. They send white kids into the bad neighborhoods...or at least less desirable neighborhoods with more minorities. It's been that way since the 80s[/quote]

The theory of magnets has always been to put magnets at lower-SES schools to attract more high-achieving students there and provide stronger options at the lower-SES school than it would otherwise have.

MCPS's bold new vision is to put magnets at high-SES schools to pull high-achieving students out of the poorer schools and give the already well-resourced schools even more and better classes while the poorer schools get worse.[/quote]

Wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong on your second point. Wheaton has the Math/Science magnet and Kennedy as the IB magnet!!! Woodwards arts magnet is NOT desirable.[/quote]

All the regions have humanities magnets at well-off schools, and many of them have IB and/or SMCS at richer schools as well.  There are several poorer schools with no desirable academic magnets at all who will almost certainly see a significant "brain drain" as well as decrease in enrollment of higher-SES students.  Region Three is honestly probably the best of the set-- it's not great either, but the rest of the county is much worse.  MCPS doesn't care about equity at all, basically.[/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