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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]OK, 17:52 from page 3, this is for you:

Like you, I'm not sure where to start.

You accuse me of having a &quot;wishful and naive view&quot; of the ability of public school students in Besthesda/CC/Potomac to afford college.  I think your view is off-base.  Here are some examples.  I'm using Whitman as a proxy because it's often tagged as the highest-performing MoCo public school, and in 2013, it had the highest average SAT score of any public school in MoCo.
1. You say, &quot;At all of these schools, you will find FARMS rates of 5-15%.&quot;  At Whitman, the FARMS rate is &quot;&lt;5%.&quot;  Note that &quot;&lt;5%&quot; is the reporting limit, so the actual FARMS rate may well be far less than 5%.
2. You suggest the &quot;non-English-speaking&quot; percentage is also high.  In reality, Whitman's ESOL rate is also &quot;&lt;5%.&quot;
3. You say &quot; many public school kids don't even take the PSATs or SATs.&quot;  In fact, 393 of Whitman's 462 grads in 2013 (over 85%) took the SAT.  That's down from 86% in 2012, and 87% in 2011.
4. You say &quot;many public school kids ... aren't planning to go to college.&quot;  In reality, 97% of Whitman's seniors go on to college.  89% of them attend 4-year colleges.  
5. You argue that public school students are limited to only low-cost colleges.  In reality, 76% of Whitman's graduates attend out-of-state colleges.  In other words, 85% of those attending 4-year colleges are going out-of-state, and only 15% are attending UMD or equivalent.  If finances are such a huge strain, why such a small % attending UMD?

So let's compare ...

[u]% of NMSFs (last 5 years)[/u]
STA 11%
Holton 7%
Sidwell 11%
NCS 8%
GDS 8%
Whitman (out of whole class) 4.5%
Whitman (out of 97% attending college) 5%
Whitman (out of 89% attending 4-year colleges) 5%
Whitman (out of 76% attending out-of-state colleges) 6%

[u]% attending Ivy colleges (2013)[/u]
STA 25%
Holton 14%
Landon 12%
Whitman (out of whole class) 4%
Whitman (out of 97% attending college) 4%
Whitman (out of 89% attending 4-year colleges) 5%
Whitman (out of 76% attending out-of-state colleges) 6%

[u]Looking at just top 25% of the class[/u]
% NMSF from just top 25% of STA: 57%
% NMSF from just top 25% of NCS: 42%
% NMSF from just top 25% of Holton: 40%
% NMSF from just top 25% of Landon: 15%
% NMSF from just top 25% of Sidwell: 57%
% NMSF from just top 25% of GDS: 31%
% NMSF from just top 25% of Whitman: 16%

% attending Ivy from top 25% of STA: 100%
% attending Ivy from top 25% of Holton: 55%
% attending Ivy from top 25% of Landon: 48%
% attending Ivy from top 25% of Whitman: 17%

You quibble about my statement that top students &quot;flock&quot; to private schools, and you instead want to say private schools &quot;skim the cream&quot; by selecting the top students.  I stand by my phrasing, because it's the students/families who voluntarily choose to apply to the private schools.  Most strong private schools are receiving 5-7 times more applications than they have slots.  To the extent private schools are &quot;skimming the cream,&quot; it's only skimmed from those students who choose to apply and attend the private schools.

But nevertheless, we seem to agree that private schools derive at least part of their advantage in student success from the quality of students that choose to attend private schools.  We probably could discuss at length how much &quot;value add&quot; those top students get from choosing private school over public; we might even agree on several points.  But surely we can also agree (whatever the root causes) that students from strong private schools are more likely to demonstrate objective academic success than students from public schools, can't we?

(Also, to repeat my comment from page 3, I'm not knocking public schools.  I proudly attended public schools, and I turned out OK.  And the public schools around here are far better than the ones I attended!  We are blessed in this area with many strong schools, so I find it unfortunate that people insist on trashing any of them.)[/quote]

Oh, hush, hush, hush! Nobody wants to hear the truth on this forum. [/quote]

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