Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Oh yeah, here's the exact quote:

“It’s fascinating to me that some of the pushback is coming from, sort of, white suburban moms who — all of a sudden — their child isn’t as brilliant as they thought they were and their school isn’t quite as good as they thought they were, and that’s pretty scary,” Duncan said. “You’ve bet your house and where you live and everything on, ‘My child’s going to be prepared.’ That can be a punch in the gut.”

People took a dim view of that statement, but to me, it rung true. The sooner people wake up to the fact that basing your home choice primarily on the school cluster is a risky strategy, the sooner they will be able to make better choices. The fact is that, at any time, the maps can be redrawn, or an act of God or politics can force you into a different school, or-- in the case of Whitman-- there can be a steady decline until one day, the place has gone to crap. It's much better to have multiple plans for education in case one fails. If you stretch to get into a cluster and then need to go private, you may not be able to.

I loved living in a different state where the school district rebalanced and redrew districts, if necessary, every couple of years. There were fewer lower performing scjools, compared to others in the area, and the real estate values were also more stable countywide.

How big was this district in terms of population and land area?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Oh yeah, here's the exact quote:

“It’s fascinating to me that some of the pushback is coming from, sort of, white suburban moms who — all of a sudden — their child isn’t as brilliant as they thought they were and their school isn’t quite as good as they thought they were, and that’s pretty scary,” Duncan said. “You’ve bet your house and where you live and everything on, ‘My child’s going to be prepared.’ That can be a punch in the gut.”

People took a dim view of that statement, but to me, it rung true. The sooner people wake up to the fact that basing your home choice primarily on the school cluster is a risky strategy, the sooner they will be able to make better choices. The fact is that, at any time, the maps can be redrawn, or an act of God or politics can force you into a different school, or-- in the case of Whitman-- there can be a steady decline until one day, the place has gone to crap. It's much better to have multiple plans for education in case one fails. If you stretch to get into a cluster and then need to go private, you may not be able to.

I loved living in a different state where the school district rebalanced and redrew districts, if necessary, every couple of years. There were fewer lower performing scjools, compared to others in the area, and the real estate values were also more stable countywide.

Someone had mentioned earlier in the thread that they had heard that Harvard had rescinded admissions for some of this years incoming students, then another poster had asked if it was true.

Here's the actual story.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/06/05/harvard-withdraws-10-acceptances-for-offensive-memes-in-private-chat/

Anonymous wrote:Oh yeah, here's the exact quote:

“It’s fascinating to me that some of the pushback is coming from, sort of, white suburban moms who — all of a sudden — their child isn’t as brilliant as they thought they were and their school isn’t quite as good as they thought they were, and that’s pretty scary,” Duncan said. “You’ve bet your house and where you live and everything on, ‘My child’s going to be prepared.’ That can be a punch in the gut.”

People took a dim view of that statement, but to me, it rung true. The sooner people wake up to the fact that basing your home choice primarily on the school cluster is a risky strategy, the sooner they will be able to make better choices. The fact is that, at any time, the maps can be redrawn, or an act of God or politics can force you into a different school, or-- in the case of Whitman-- there can be a steady decline until one day, the place has gone to crap. It's much better to have multiple plans for education in case one fails. If you stretch to get into a cluster and then need to go private, you may not be able to.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2013/11/16/arne-duncan-white-surburban-moms-upset-that-common-core-shows-their-kids-arent-brilliant/?utm_term=.e711bb53f819

Oh yeah, here's the exact quote:

“It’s fascinating to me that some of the pushback is coming from, sort of, white suburban moms who — all of a sudden — their child isn’t as brilliant as they thought they were and their school isn’t quite as good as they thought they were, and that’s pretty scary,” Duncan said. “You’ve bet your house and where you live and everything on, ‘My child’s going to be prepared.’ That can be a punch in the gut.”

While confounding factors may be at play here, this kind of reminds me of when everyone was super offended when Arnie Duncan said that it was fascinating that some of the fiercest opponents to common core standards were from "white suburban moms who — all of a sudden — their child isn’t as brilliant as they thought they were, and their school isn’t quite as good as they thought they were."

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Where are you getting your numbers? If you look at page 19 of this MCPS report
http://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/info/pdf/160929%20SAT%20Exam%20Participation%20Perform.pdf
it shows that white students had the following scores:
Einstein 1804, Whitman 1917, BCC 1841, Blair 1960, Churchill 1880, Richard Montgomery 1873, Poolesville 1772, Sherwood 1669, Walter Johnson 1815, Wootton 1809

Anyone else notice that the number of white students taking the SAT dropped from 80% in 2012 to 70% in 2016? Is this an indicator that higher performing white students/families leaving MCPS or that lower performing white students are just not motivated to take it anymore? White student scores basically haven't changed at all during that period, so I have no idea what this means. A combination of both?

Did you check to see if more kids are taking the ACT now? I have heard that growing numbers of students are opting to take the ACT instead of the SAT

Possible. But it is also notable that the number of white student graduates has also declined from 3,962 to 3,613. In the same period, the number of hispanic graduates increased 2,199 to 2,447. I suspect it is a combination of white flight in the eastern part of the county, where probably you see more white families moving to Howard county and then more affluent students are probably moving to private, but the numbers there are not as large. But the likely outcome is that the net impact on SAT scores is balanced out.

Actually, demographic data shows the exact opposite. Howard County is getting more diverse as more people are priced out of closer in spots from Baltimore and DC. Data shows people are increasingly valuing closer commutes and less time in the car hence the exurbs are declining in value. A large affordable housing project just approved in the county for this reason.

NP. The English score at Whitman is 21%, far below the state average of 44%, and the Algebra I test score is 37%, barely better than the state average of 36%.

All in all, the students at Whitman just did badly at the tests and the results reflect the teaching quality there.

As a teacher myself (not high school level), I would say that most teachers would tell their students to try their best at any kind of tests.
Why in the world would they want their students to do badly? May be there is one grumpy teacher that is unhappy with the system, but most people are not, and they probably all know that the scores would be used for (official) rankings of their school too. If this came from the principal to boycott the system, then the students/teachers at Whitman just didn't stand up for the right thing and this is much worse - the principal should be fired - I find this scenario highly unlikely.

The overall school score for Whitman also goes down consistently: 2013 (10) -> 2014(9) -> 2015(8)->2016(4). It is possible that they just have a bad crop of students last year, but the school should take this more seriously. One more bad year and there will simply be no excuse, and people will move to different school clusters and only the worse students will stay and the down trend will be very hard to reverse.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Where are you getting your numbers? If you look at page 19 of this MCPS report
http://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/info/pdf/160929%20SAT%20Exam%20Participation%20Perform.pdf
it shows that white students had the following scores:
Einstein 1804, Whitman 1917, BCC 1841, Blair 1960, Churchill 1880, Richard Montgomery 1873, Poolesville 1772, Sherwood 1669, Walter Johnson 1815, Wootton 1809

Anyone else notice that the number of white students taking the SAT dropped from 80% in 2012 to 70% in 2016? Is this an indicator that higher performing white students/families leaving MCPS or that lower performing white students are just not motivated to take it anymore? White student scores basically haven't changed at all during that period, so I have no idea what this means. A combination of both?

At Whitman I suspect it's kids taking the ACT. The vast majority of kids are taking a college entrance test. Many kids do practice tests to determine if ACT or SAT is better and only take the official test for the one they do better in. I had one kid only take the ACT officially and one only the SAT.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Where are you getting your numbers? If you look at page 19 of this MCPS report
http://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/info/pdf/160929%20SAT%20Exam%20Participation%20Perform.pdf
it shows that white students had the following scores:
Einstein 1804, Whitman 1917, BCC 1841, Blair 1960, Churchill 1880, Richard Montgomery 1873, Poolesville 1772, Sherwood 1669, Walter Johnson 1815, Wootton 1809

Anyone else notice that the number of white students taking the SAT dropped from 80% in 2012 to 70% in 2016? Is this an indicator that higher performing white students/families leaving MCPS or that lower performing white students are just not motivated to take it anymore? White student scores basically haven't changed at all during that period, so I have no idea what this means. A combination of both?

Did you check to see if more kids are taking the ACT now? I have heard that growing numbers of students are opting to take the ACT instead of the SAT

Possible. But it is also notable that the number of white student graduates has also declined from 3,962 to 3,613. In the same period, the number of hispanic graduates increased 2,199 to 2,447. I suspect it is a combination of white flight in the eastern part of the county, where probably you see more white families moving to Howard county and then more affluent students are probably moving to private, but the numbers there are not as large. But the likely outcome is that the net impact on SAT scores is balanced out.

I think it is also the case that the overall percentage of students taking the test has declined basically at every school. Therefore, what is happening is that SAT scores are staying the same, but the percent of students making up that distribution are decreasing. So the number of students totally unprepared to enter college out of MCPS, even from acclaimed W cluster schools, is increasing which is not a good sign.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Where are you getting your numbers? If you look at page 19 of this MCPS report
http://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/info/pdf/160929%20SAT%20Exam%20Participation%20Perform.pdf
it shows that white students had the following scores:
Einstein 1804, Whitman 1917, BCC 1841, Blair 1960, Churchill 1880, Richard Montgomery 1873, Poolesville 1772, Sherwood 1669, Walter Johnson 1815, Wootton 1809

Anyone else notice that the number of white students taking the SAT dropped from 80% in 2012 to 70% in 2016? Is this an indicator that higher performing white students/families leaving MCPS or that lower performing white students are just not motivated to take it anymore? White student scores basically haven't changed at all during that period, so I have no idea what this means. A combination of both?

Did you check to see if more kids are taking the ACT now? I have heard that growing numbers of students are opting to take the ACT instead of the SAT

Possible. But it is also notable that the number of white student graduates has also declined from 3,962 to 3,613. In the same period, the number of hispanic graduates increased 2,199 to 2,447. I suspect it is a combination of white flight in the eastern part of the county, where probably you see more white families moving to Howard county and then more affluent students are probably moving to private, but the numbers there are not as large. But the likely outcome is that the net impact on SAT scores is balanced out.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When you compare the white students of Einstein to Whitman the SAT scores are the same, FYI.

Wait, so it's NOT something magical about the teaching or curriculum at Whitman that makes its students do so well? It's just that middle and upper class white kids tend to do well anywhere, and Whitman has tons of them?

This is not a revelation to me (Einstein cluster) but it bears repeating.

Where are you getting your numbers? If you look at page 19 of this MCPS report
http://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/info/pdf/160929%20SAT%20Exam%20Participation%20Perform.pdf
it shows that white students had the following scores:
Einstein 1804, Whitman 1917, BCC 1841, Blair 1960, Churchill 1880, Richard Montgomery 1873, Poolesville 1772, Sherwood 1669, Walter Johnson 1815, Wootton 1809

Fascinating report. For the record Whitman had the highest SATs in the county for Hispanic students, and 2nd highest for black and FARMS students. So maybe it isn't doing so badly with the students it has.

I think the black and FARMS performance is actually a better measure. Because "Hispanic" in the Whitman context is not the same as in the RM or Blair context. I actually know through a friend three families who are "Hispanic" and their kids go to Whitman, but they are here because they work at the World Bank. All come from crazy wealthy families in Latin America. There are likely even more World Bank families and then after that a good number are likely IMF and embassy families.

After reading the report, I am not sure that you can cite performance of Black students at Whitman as representative of anything. There were fewer than 10 Black graduates reported and of that, 58% took the test, so it was likely 4 Black students out of 7. I am not sure one can draw any relevant conclusions from that sample size.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Where are you getting your numbers? If you look at page 19 of this MCPS report
http://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/info/pdf/160929%20SAT%20Exam%20Participation%20Perform.pdf
it shows that white students had the following scores:
Einstein 1804, Whitman 1917, BCC 1841, Blair 1960, Churchill 1880, Richard Montgomery 1873, Poolesville 1772, Sherwood 1669, Walter Johnson 1815, Wootton 1809

Anyone else notice that the number of white students taking the SAT dropped from 80% in 2012 to 70% in 2016? Is this an indicator that higher performing white students/families leaving MCPS or that lower performing white students are just not motivated to take it anymore? White student scores basically haven't changed at all during that period, so I have no idea what this means. A combination of both?

Did you check to see if more kids are taking the ACT now? I have heard that growing numbers of students are opting to take the ACT instead of the SAT

Anonymous wrote:I live in the BCC cluster and not really a big fan of either Whitman or BCC students that I encounter in downtown Bethesda, if I am honest. The BCC students are generally more outwardly poorly behaved/rowdy and I have seen a couple smoking cigarettes. The Whitman students truly act grossly snobbish and the clothes some of the girls wear is disturbing.

With that said, as a parent, the only score or rating that matters to me is SAT/ACT. As for the rest of it, I couldn't care less.

Obviously paying for test prep and the ability to pay for test prep helps. But that is not going to get you there on its own. The still need the school (and parents) get them 80% there so that the test prep can give them an edge.

Once the SAT/ACT scores begin to suffer, then I think I will agree that there is a problem.

Some high school kids were smoking, oh the horror! I am as anti-smoking as anyone, but to offer that (or some girls' fashion choices) as an indictment of entire schools is absurd.