DP

Honestly, I’m not white and I don’t care what the demographic makeup of my kids’ school is. I do, however, look at the stats. When my kids’ HS is showing that less than 50% of the graduates are ready for college, it makes me stop and think.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The largest academic decline has been in the east and poorer areas of up county. For all the hyping that goes on, academically Einstein, Northwood, Blair, Kennedy, and Wheaton have plunged. Out of the good schools, Whitman has lost its top academic spot consistently to Churchill. Wootton and Poolesville for the several years. Whitman's desirability and reputation are still better but score wise it is lower. Seneca Valley, and Magruder have dropped. Northwest has not dropped, its scores are actually pretty good and equal to QO but it has a bad reputation in comparison to QO.

RM, Wootton and Poolesville are really the only example of schools that are better today than they were 20 years ago.

It's truly amazing how much overlap there is between DCUM's perception of school quality, on the one hand, and the demographic makeup of the school's student body, on the other. Astonishing. What could the explanation for that possibly be?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
The largest academic decline has been in the east and poorer areas of up county. For all the hyping that goes on, academically Einstein, Northwood, Blair, Kennedy, and Wheaton have plunged. Out of the good schools, Whitman has lost its top academic spot consistently to Churchill. Wootton and Poolesville for the several years. Whitman's desirability and reputation are still better but score wise it is lower. Seneca Valley, and Magruder have dropped. Northwest has not dropped, its scores are actually pretty good and equal to QO but it has a bad reputation in comparison to QO.

RM, Wootton and Poolesville are really the only example of schools that are better today than they were 20 years ago.


It's truly amazing how much overlap there is between DCUM's perception of school quality, on the one hand, and the demographic makeup of the school's student body, on the other. Astonishing. What could the explanation for that possibly be?

Scores are scores. Plus RM has a diverse demographic. It rose over the years. Whitman's demographic hasn't changed at all and its scores have dropped. It was white when it was on top and its white now and not on top. Wootton used to be all white and now has a large Asian populations. Wootton was the lowest ranking W school when it was all white and now is at the top with Churchill. Its a gain but not a huge one. The DCC schools were never really good when they were more white they are just worse now.

Anonymous wrote:
The largest academic decline has been in the east and poorer areas of up county. For all the hyping that goes on, academically Einstein, Northwood, Blair, Kennedy, and Wheaton have plunged. Out of the good schools, Whitman has lost its top academic spot consistently to Churchill. Wootton and Poolesville for the several years. Whitman's desirability and reputation are still better but score wise it is lower. Seneca Valley, and Magruder have dropped. Northwest has not dropped, its scores are actually pretty good and equal to QO but it has a bad reputation in comparison to QO.

RM, Wootton and Poolesville are really the only example of schools that are better today than they were 20 years ago.


It's truly amazing how much overlap there is between DCUM's perception of school quality, on the one hand, and the demographic makeup of the school's student body, on the other. Astonishing. What could the explanation for that possibly be?

Anonymous wrote:The largest academic decline has been in the east and poorer areas of up county. For all the hyping that goes on, academically Einstein, Northwood, Blair, Kennedy, and Wheaton have plunged. Out of the good schools, Whitman has lost its top academic spot consistently to Churchill. Wootton and Poolesville for the several years. Whitman's desirability and reputation are still better but score wise it is lower. Seneca Valley, and Magruder have dropped. Northwest has not dropped, its scores are actually pretty good and equal to QO but it has a bad reputation in comparison to QO.

RM, Wootton and Poolesville are really the only example of schools that are better today than they were 20 years ago.

Anonymous wrote:Definitely not BCC, it is just as good as it always was. I would definitely say Northwest, Rockville, and Magruder both recently became pretty bad. RM, Wootton is no longer the other Potomac school anymore, just way too much of a pressure cooker/terrible environment. Blair has (imo) improved from super ghetto to somewhat ghetto.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Was Watkins mill a decent school WHEN it opened back in the late 80s? It physically looked very nice back then

yes, when it first opened, it was a very nice school inside and out. aside from the brand new building, it was part of a very nice community with fantastic teachers, dedicated students and good administration. it had strong technology classes (for that time). i dont know where it ranked in the early 90s and where it ranks now, but they have an IB program and there have been several wmhs students with accolades such as bethesda magazine's extraordinary teens and some others. montgomery village has changed some, but most communities have in the last few decades.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Definitely not BCC, it is just as good as it always was. I would definitely say Northwest, Rockville, and Magruder both recently became pretty bad. RM, Wootton is no longer the other Potomac school anymore, just way too much of a pressure cooker/terrible environment. Blair has (imo) improved from super ghetto to somewhat ghetto.

Bless your heart.

I went to Blair when it was “super ghetto” so I guess I could use more choice words. “Ghetto” and “pressure cooker” are sure doing a lot of ~racially infused~ work here. Too Black and Latino and the schools are too ghetto, too Asian and they’re too high-pressure... they’ve got to be juuuuuust white.

Anonymous wrote:Definitely not BCC, it is just as good as it always was. I would definitely say Northwest, Rockville, and Magruder both recently became pretty bad. RM, Wootton is no longer the other Potomac school anymore, just way too much of a pressure cooker/terrible environment. Blair has (imo) improved from super ghetto to somewhat ghetto.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Define "decline" and the time period we are talking about.

I'm pretty sure that we know what the OP means by "decline".

Anonymous wrote:I was a student at JFK in the mid-80s and it was a solid, broadly diverse school with a rather sizable population of Jewish students. Most of the college-bound kids in our class went on to University of Maryland (which was crazy easy to get into in those days) or other similar public universities. But I also remember a handful of kids who went on to highly selective colleges.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Definitely not BCC, it is just as good as it always was. I would definitely say Northwest, Rockville, and Magruder both recently became pretty bad. RM, Wootton is no longer the other Potomac school anymore, just way too much of a pressure cooker/terrible environment. Blair has (imo) improved from super ghetto to somewhat ghetto.

magruder was never a great school and it’s still pretty high on the new list. When I went there from 89-93 it was probably 75% white now it is plurality Hispanic. I am Jewish and there were only a handful of us must be even fewer now