Anonymous
02/19/2015 11:59
Subject: Montgomery County shut out of top 10 elementary schools
How sad. Even a few years back, it was nothing but MoCo schools. Now, not even 1.
Anonymous
02/19/2015 11:50
Subject: Re:Montgomery County shut out of top 10 elementary schools
This organization has put out a variety of weird looking rankings -- take a look at their private school rankings for example. Montgomery schools may be slipping (don't live in that county) but this particular measure seems completely untrustworthy.
Anonymous
02/19/2015 11:50
Subject: Montgomery County shut out of top 10 elementary schools
Anonymous wrote:I just looked at the methodology, and it looks both extremely vague and extremely weird. It mentions surveys, but I have no idea who they surveyed or how. It's "proprietary." Looking into the "detail" for my MCPS school shows that it received a B+ (its lowest grade) for 'student culture and diversity", but there's no meaningful explanation of how this was calculated (again, there's a vague reference to surveys). It does get an "A+" for "Teachers Grade" FWIW. I noticed an odd clustering of schools that are near each other geographically (like the Potomac schools all together, and Wyngate/Ashburton/KP all being ranked together) which suggests to me that the rankings are weirdly dependent on certain geographical features like student demographics and the school district as a whole. You can't really tell from the explanation. At least "great schools" is more transparent about how it does its rankings.
^This. The "Niche" rankings are meaningless. The survey results are completely random and easily manipulated.
Anonymous
02/19/2015 11:48
Subject: Re:Montgomery County shut out of top 10 elementary schools
Complete and utter BS! What does that prove anyways? Nothing.
If you are a student from a family that has - high SES, highly educated parents, intact homes, value education, supplement/enrich outside of school - you will do great anywhere.
A lot of Jewish, East Europeans, Asians, Nigerians, Iranians (yeah - they are Asians too) students fall in this category. I pity people who end up with huge mortgages because they move to a "good" school district for their kids education and are so busy trying to keep their heads above the financial waters that they cannot devote time and effort towards their kids education.
Choose a average performing school in MCPS, a mortgage that is not killing you, and start spending your energy towards educating your kid.
If you are a student from a family that has - high SES, highly educated parents, intact homes, value education, supplement/enrich outside of school - you will do great anywhere.
A lot of Jewish, East Europeans, Asians, Nigerians, Iranians (yeah - they are Asians too) students fall in this category. I pity people who end up with huge mortgages because they move to a "good" school district for their kids education and are so busy trying to keep their heads above the financial waters that they cannot devote time and effort towards their kids education.
Choose a average performing school in MCPS, a mortgage that is not killing you, and start spending your energy towards educating your kid.
Anonymous
02/19/2015 11:37
Subject: Montgomery County shut out of top 10 elementary schools
Anonymous wrote:So you'll be moving out to Ellicott City, then?
She doesn't have to move to Ellicott City she just needs to move to Germantown to attend the highest ranked MoCo elementary school according to that list - Ronald McNair. It's ranked 11 so just outside the top 10
Anonymous
02/19/2015 11:35
Subject: Montgomery County shut out of top 10 elementary schools
Our Bethesda MCPS school is wonderful, and never receives top ranking because they cater to children with special needs and have a very diverse ESOL population. This drives down the test scores, but the education level in the classroom is extremely high.
Anonymous
02/19/2015 11:34
Subject: Montgomery County shut out of top 10 elementary schools
I just looked at the methodology, and it looks both extremely vague and extremely weird. It mentions surveys, but I have no idea who they surveyed or how. It's "proprietary." Looking into the "detail" for my MCPS school shows that it received a B+ (its lowest grade) for 'student culture and diversity", but there's no meaningful explanation of how this was calculated (again, there's a vague reference to surveys). It does get an "A+" for "Teachers Grade" FWIW. I noticed an odd clustering of schools that are near each other geographically (like the Potomac schools all together, and Wyngate/Ashburton/KP all being ranked together) which suggests to me that the rankings are weirdly dependent on certain geographical features like student demographics and the school district as a whole. You can't really tell from the explanation. At least "great schools" is more transparent about how it does its rankings.
Anonymous
02/19/2015 11:32
Subject: Montgomery County shut out of top 10 elementary schools
Anonymous wrote:I always take these rankings with a grain of salt. Some of the Great Schools rankings are higher for some schools further down on the list. And honestly, being the second best school system in the state is still pretty darn good.
+1
Howard County took all the trophies, though.
Anonymous
02/19/2015 11:32
Subject: Montgomery County shut out of top 10 elementary schools
I think Howard County took every place in the top ten.
Anonymous
02/19/2015 11:30
Subject: Montgomery County shut out of top 10 elementary schools
I always take these rankings with a grain of salt. Some of the Great Schools rankings are higher for some schools further down on the list. And honestly, being the second best school system in the state is still pretty darn good.
Anonymous
02/19/2015 11:25
Subject: Montgomery County shut out of top 10 elementary schools
How do they do this? It bears no resemblance to what the reputation of each school seems to enjoy.
Anonymous
02/19/2015 11:23
Subject: Montgomery County shut out of top 10 elementary schools
Anonymous wrote:So you'll be moving out to Ellicott City, then?
My kids are older so we are almost done with MCPS but if we had younger kids, yeah, no doubt.
Anonymous
02/19/2015 11:18
Subject: Montgomery County shut out of top 10 elementary schools
So you'll be moving out to Ellicott City, then?
Anonymous
02/19/2015 11:11
Subject: Montgomery County shut out of top 10 elementary schools
Not surprising. It just proves MCPS's continuing decline.
Anonymous
02/19/2015 11:06
Subject: Montgomery County shut out of top 10 elementary schools