Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When I went to the Seneca Valley, Clarksburg, Northwest boundary study meeting, the MCPS Planning director said that Crown will impact Northwest, QO, Richard Montgomery, and Wootton.

Gaithersburg High School won't be affected?

The CIP mentions Crown HS for Gaithersburg HS, Wootton HS, Quince Orchard HS, Richard Montgomery HS, and Northwest HS.

King Farm will all be at Gaithersburg. Guaranteed. It combines the HOA and neighborhood, brings in higher SES to Gaithersburg, decreases overcrowded RM, plus it is closer to Gaithersburg. No brainer.

Sell now before your real estate plummets.

Think all you want and say all you want, but the bottom line is, no one knows what will happen .You certainly don't. MCPS doesn't care about consolidating HOAs by the way. Don't be surprised if what you think is a no brainer doesn't happen at all.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When I went to the Seneca Valley, Clarksburg, Northwest boundary study meeting, the MCPS Planning director said that Crown will impact Northwest, QO, Richard Montgomery, and Wootton.

Gaithersburg High School won't be affected?

The CIP mentions Crown HS for Gaithersburg HS, Wootton HS, Quince Orchard HS, Richard Montgomery HS, and Northwest HS.

King Farm will all be at Gaithersburg. Guaranteed. It combines the HOA and neighborhood, brings in higher SES to Gaithersburg, decreases overcrowded RM, plus it is closer to Gaithersburg. No brainer.

Sell now before your real estate plummets.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When I went to the Seneca Valley, Clarksburg, Northwest boundary study meeting, the MCPS Planning director said that Crown will impact Northwest, QO, Richard Montgomery, and Wootton.

Gaithersburg High School won't be affected?

The CIP mentions Crown HS for Gaithersburg HS, Wootton HS, Quince Orchard HS, Richard Montgomery HS, and Northwest HS.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

No- when people talk about bussing they are talking about selecting kids based on their demographics and bussing them past a closer to school to a different one. This is bussing. Plain and simple, don't pretend it is anything different.

No one likes it. For lower income families -believe it or not- they may like their neighborhood and neighborhood school. Not everyone is thrilled at the idea of being blessed by being in the presence of more white kids as a reason to bus your kids away. For parents that do not have their own cars and rely on public transportation, having your kids bussed further away means those kids will miss more school because if they miss the bus there is no other way to get them there or home. These parents don't have carpools set up or money for Ubers. These kids can't go to after school or evening activities unless there is school bus service. Low income families also depend heavily on the wrap around services available at low income schools. Getting bussed to a school and losing access to their services can be a hard hit for many families. They don't have the money to move so they are stuck in a bad situation.

For higher income families. they will not sit happily by and watch their kids get bussed off to a lower performing school to make MCPS happy. They'll just move or go private. In the DMV there are plenty of other options that are now more appealing than MoCo. They have the money to move. You need to look into the history of bussing. It destroyed many public school systems. It has been universally viewed as one of the biggest failures in public education. It was also a contributor to more segregation and completely failed to ever achieve the goals that were intended.

Its a bad policy that will do more damage to the system than 2.0, not holding employees that prey upon kids accountable, bad capacity planning, getting rid of final exams, poor teacher morale or any of the other ill conceived fiascos that MCPS has done despite all warnings and data showing that they were in the wrong.

I think this is a good point.

+ 100 MCPS is only gung ho on this because they think its a way to avoid getting to the point of having lots of failing, 80% FARMS schools. For MCPS, its about being able to say look all of our schools are 6s. Trust me, they know from their own data that reducing the FARMS number in schools does nothing to increase the performance of lower income kids. The studies that show any of those changes were across multiple schools systems with a correlating gap in resources not one system that is able to increased resources to schools with more FARMS kids. Even the changes across disparate school systems evaporate once you cross the 20% level. This isn't about lowering the achievement gap. It is about optics of overall school performance.

Its a shame because this will initiative will lower the services available for low income kids and drive higher income kids out of the system. MCPS will simply end up accelerating what they were hoping to avoid.

Don't forget that the purpose of 2.0 was to slow down the pace of the curriculum to reduce the achievement gap. Despite all the data and teacher input that the new curriculum was making the achievement gap worse not better, MCPS didn't listen. If there hadn't been the John Hopkins audit we would still have 2.0.

There's research that indicates low income kids do better in schools with about 25% or less FARMs population. For MCPS, it's about trying to close the achievement gap. Is that a bad thing?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
If you want to reduce the achievement gap the only way to do it is with more resources. More teachers, more after school programs, more wrap around services, more intervention services. There is no magic cheap way to solve the achievement gap but just moving kids around. Just like moving the deck chairs around on a sinking ship isn't going to keep the ship from sinking.

I agree extra resourses may lift the bottom but MCPS already offers smaller classes, free tutoring, free meals, free summer schools, free childcare, and free service for parents in schools with high FARM students. I think adding accountability, center offices, school admin, teachers, students and parents, will produce better results.
Each student’s progress should be measured, not the gap. If a child entering 5th grade but only reads and does math at 2nd grade level, it is not to ask the teacher to bring the kid up to grade level within one year.

The only true things on that list are smaller class sizes and free breakfast/lunch.

I've had kids in both Focus and Title I schools and there was no free tutoring, no free summer school for all kids, definitely no free childcare, and parenting classes only in the Title I school and only in Spanish.

Now, there were summer classes for kids who were either struggling or identified as gifted, but those were not available to the entire student body.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
If you want to reduce the achievement gap the only way to do it is with more resources. More teachers, more after school programs, more wrap around services, more intervention services. There is no magic cheap way to solve the achievement gap but just moving kids around. Just like moving the deck chairs around on a sinking ship isn't going to keep the ship from sinking.

I agree extra resourses may lift the bottom but MCPS already offers smaller classes, free tutoring, free meals, free summer schools, free childcare, and free service for parents in schools with high FARM students. I think adding accountability, center offices, school admin, teachers, students and parents, will produce better results.
Each student’s progress should be measured, not the gap. If a child entering 5th grade but only reads and does math at 2nd grade level, it is not to ask the teacher to bring the kid up to grade level within one year.

Anonymous wrote:
If you want to reduce the achievement gap the only way to do it is with more resources. More teachers, more after school programs, more wrap around services, more intervention services. There is no magic cheap way to solve the achievement gap but just moving kids around. Just like moving the deck chairs around on a sinking ship isn't going to keep the ship from sinking.

+ 100 MCPS is only gung ho on this because they think its a way to avoid getting to the point of having lots of failing, 80% FARMS schools. For MCPS, its about being able to say look all of our schools are 6s. Trust me, they know from their own data that reducing the FARMS number in schools does nothing to increase the performance of lower income kids. The studies that show any of those changes were across multiple schools systems with a correlating gap in resources not one system that is able to increased resources to schools with more FARMS kids. Even the changes across disparate school systems evaporate once you cross the 20% level. This isn't about lowering the achievement gap. It is about optics of overall school performance.

Its a shame because this will initiative will lower the services available for low income kids and drive higher income kids out of the system. MCPS will simply end up accelerating what they were hoping to avoid.

Don't forget that the purpose of 2.0 was to slow down the pace of the curriculum to reduce the achievement gap. Despite all the data and teacher input that the new curriculum was making the achievement gap worse not better, MCPS didn't listen. If there hadn't been the John Hopkins audit we would still have 2.0.

There's research that indicates low income kids do better in schools with about 25% or less FARMs population. For MCPS, it's about trying to close the achievement gap. Is that a bad thing?

Anonymous wrote:

No- when people talk about bussing they are talking about selecting kids based on their demographics and bussing them past a closer to school to a different one. This is bussing. Plain and simple, don't pretend it is anything different.

No one likes it. For lower income families -believe it or not- they may like their neighborhood and neighborhood school. Not everyone is thrilled at the idea of being blessed by being in the presence of more white kids as a reason to bus your kids away. For parents that do not have their own cars and rely on public transportation, having your kids bussed further away means those kids will miss more school because if they miss the bus there is no other way to get them there or home. These parents don't have carpools set up or money for Ubers. These kids can't go to after school or evening activities unless there is school bus service. Low income families also depend heavily on the wrap around services available at low income schools. Getting bussed to a school and losing access to their services can be a hard hit for many families. They don't have the money to move so they are stuck in a bad situation.

For higher income families. they will not sit happily by and watch their kids get bussed off to a lower performing school to make MCPS happy. They'll just move or go private. In the DMV there are plenty of other options that are now more appealing than MoCo. They have the money to move. You need to look into the history of bussing. It destroyed many public school systems. It has been universally viewed as one of the biggest failures in public education. It was also a contributor to more segregation and completely failed to ever achieve the goals that were intended.

Its a bad policy that will do more damage to the system than 2.0, not holding employees that prey upon kids accountable, bad capacity planning, getting rid of final exams, poor teacher morale or any of the other ill conceived fiascos that MCPS has done despite all warnings and data showing that they were in the wrong.

I think this is a good point.

+ 100 MCPS is only gung ho on this because they think its a way to avoid getting to the point of having lots of failing, 80% FARMS schools. For MCPS, its about being able to say look all of our schools are 6s. Trust me, they know from their own data that reducing the FARMS number in schools does nothing to increase the performance of lower income kids. The studies that show any of those changes were across multiple schools systems with a correlating gap in resources not one system that is able to increased resources to schools with more FARMS kids. Even the changes across disparate school systems evaporate once you cross the 20% level. This isn't about lowering the achievement gap. It is about optics of overall school performance.

Its a shame because this will initiative will lower the services available for low income kids and drive higher income kids out of the system. MCPS will simply end up accelerating what they were hoping to avoid.

Don't forget that the purpose of 2.0 was to slow down the pace of the curriculum to reduce the achievement gap. Despite all the data and teacher input that the new curriculum was making the achievement gap worse not better, MCPS didn't listen. If there hadn't been the John Hopkins audit we would still have 2.0.

Anonymous wrote:


+ 100 MCPS is only gung ho on this because they think its a way to avoid getting to the point of having lots of failing, 80% FARMS schools. For MCPS, its about being able to say look all of our schools are 6s. Trust me, they know from their own data that reducing the FARMS number in schools does nothing to increase the performance of lower income kids. The studies that show any of those changes were across multiple schools systems with a correlating gap in resources not one system that is able to increased resources to schools with more FARMS kids. Even the changes across disparate school systems evaporate once you cross the 20% level. This isn't about lowering the achievement gap. It is about optics of overall school performance.

Its a shame because this will initiative will lower the services available for low income kids and drive higher income kids out of the system. MCPS will simply end up accelerating what they were hoping to avoid.

Don't forget that the purpose of 2.0 was to slow down the pace of the curriculum to reduce the achievement gap. Despite all the data and teacher input that the new curriculum was making the achievement gap worse not better, MCPS didn't listen. If there hadn't been the John Hopkins audit we would still have 2.0.


How about we rephrase that?

If MCPS hadn't chosen to pay people at Johns Hopkins for an evaluation of Curriculum 2.0, and then heeded the findings of the people they paid, we would still have Curriculum 2.0.

There are plenty of posts on DCUM from posters who imply (or explicitly state) that MCPS is actively seeking to sabotage their children's education. If you really believe that, you have a moral imperative to withdraw your children from MCPS.

Anonymous wrote:

+ 100 MCPS is only gung ho on this because they think its a way to avoid getting to the point of having lots of failing, 80% FARMS schools. For MCPS, its about being able to say look all of our schools are 6s. Trust me, they know from their own data that reducing the FARMS number in schools does nothing to increase the performance of lower income kids. The studies that show any of those changes were across multiple schools systems with a correlating gap in resources not one system that is able to increased resources to schools with more FARMS kids. Even the changes across disparate school systems evaporate once you cross the 20% level. This isn't about lowering the achievement gap. It is about optics of overall school performance.

Its a shame because this will initiative will lower the services available for low income kids and drive higher income kids out of the system. MCPS will simply end up accelerating what they were hoping to avoid.

Don't forget that the purpose of 2.0 was to slow down the pace of the curriculum to reduce the achievement gap. Despite all the data and teacher input that the new curriculum was making the achievement gap worse not better, MCPS didn't listen. If there hadn't been the John Hopkins audit we would still have 2.0.

No- when people talk about bussing they are talking about selecting kids based on their demographics and bussing them past a closer to school to a different one. This is bussing. Plain and simple, don't pretend it is anything different.

No one likes it. For lower income families -believe it or not- they may like their neighborhood and neighborhood school. Not everyone is thrilled at the idea of being blessed by being in the presence of more white kids as a reason to bus your kids away. For parents that do not have their own cars and rely on public transportation, having your kids bussed further away means those kids will miss more school because if they miss the bus there is no other way to get them there or home. These parents don't have carpools set up or money for Ubers. These kids can't go to after school or evening activities unless there is school bus service. Low income families also depend heavily on the wrap around services available at low income schools. Getting bussed to a school and losing access to their services can be a hard hit for many families. They don't have the money to move so they are stuck in a bad situation.

For higher income families. they will not sit happily by and watch their kids get bussed off to a lower performing school to make MCPS happy. They'll just move or go private. In the DMV there are plenty of other options that are now more appealing than MoCo. They have the money to move. You need to look into the history of bussing. It destroyed many public school systems. It has been universally viewed as one of the biggest failures in public education. It was also a contributor to more segregation and completely failed to ever achieve the goals that were intended.

Its a bad policy that will do more damage to the system than 2.0, not holding employees that prey upon kids accountable, bad capacity planning, getting rid of final exams, poor teacher morale or any of the other ill conceived fiascos that MCPS has done despite all warnings and data showing that they were in the wrong.

I think this is a good point.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

No- when people talk about bussing they are talking about selecting kids based on their demographics and bussing them past a closer to school to a different one. This is bussing. Plain and simple, don't pretend it is anything different.

When people talk about "busing", they mean "that thing that if I say it, everyone will say they're against it.'

The reality is

1. MCPS has used demographics to establish boundaries for decades
2. lots of places in Montgomery County are zoned for the geographically-nearest school, for various reasons (including but not limited to #1).

In some cases, people who say they want to keep the status quo and oppose busing are actually being bused in the status quo.

How do you move students around to reach diversity and equity? Ask the students to walk or take metro? Sending students to different schools requires school BUS to take them to a school everyday.
DP.. yes, this is what I keep saying.. this is happening right now. But I guess some people are upset because they think now it will happen to them.

When MCPS redraws the boundaries they won't be sending buses of kids from one side of the county to the other. It will be a few minutes. So, saying it's too long for kids to be on the bus for 5min extra is ridiculous. It's not going to be 90min. Gimme a break. They will try to even out FARMS rate as much as they can between *NEIGHBORING* clusters so that it's not so lopsided. Why is that such a horrible thing?

Are people thinking that your kids might have to go from a school with <5% FARMs to a school with a 70% FARMS rate or something? You realize that if they redraw the boundaries those schools will have a very different looking demographic, right?

How do you know what BOE and MCPS will do? I dont think even they know what will happen. If you listen to MoCo for Change and attended the boundary onformation inn SS kast werk, you could find what those people want. It is very different from your wishful thinking.

Because BOE has repeatedly said they aren't interested in busing kids from one side of the county to the other. And the MCPS policy has four factors, one of which is geography.

+1 exactly.. But who wants to listen to facts. It's much more exciting to add some drama to your life by being a drama queen.

What "those people" want is to have equitable quality of education, and yes, that means not have low income students all concentrated in specific schools. Again, school boundaries will change, and thus the demographics of those schools will also change.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

No- when people talk about bussing they are talking about selecting kids based on their demographics and bussing them past a closer to school to a different one. This is bussing. Plain and simple, don't pretend it is anything different.

When people talk about "busing", they mean "that thing that if I say it, everyone will say they're against it.'

The reality is

1. MCPS has used demographics to establish boundaries for decades
2. lots of places in Montgomery County are zoned for the geographically-nearest school, for various reasons (including but not limited to #1).

In some cases, people who say they want to keep the status quo and oppose busing are actually being bused in the status quo.

DP.. yes, this is what I keep saying.. this is happening right now. But I guess some people are upset because they think now it will happen to them.

When MCPS redraws the boundaries they won't be sending buses of kids from one side of the county to the other. It will be a few minutes. So, saying it's too long for kids to be on the bus for 5min extra is ridiculous. It's not going to be 90min. Gimme a break. They will try to even out FARMS rate as much as they can between *NEIGHBORING* clusters so that it's not so lopsided. Why is that such a horrible thing?

Are people thinking that your kids might have to go from a school with <5% FARMs to a school with a 70% FARMS rate or something? You realize that if they redraw the boundaries those schools will have a very different looking demographic, right?

How do you know what BOE and MCPS will do? I dont think even they know what will happen. If you listen to MoCo for Change and attended the boundary onformation inn SS kast werk, you could find what those people want. It is very different from your wishful thinking.

Because BOE has repeatedly said they aren't interested in busing kids from one side of the county to the other. And the MCPS policy has four factors, one of which is geography.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Very true. If you are in Potomac -- Cold Spring, Wayside, Potomac Elementary area, you are pretty much protected from ending up somewhere bad. That is why we pay so much for our houses people!!

You're tempting fate.

LOL...I am not worried in the least.

If they can bus Kensington kids all the way from Einstein to WJ, they can bus anyone anywhere.