Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Public school BUDGETS are most definitely a zero sum game, even after the partial federal FARM and ESOL subsidies.

Educational OPPORTUNITIES are (a) what you make of them, and (b) what you seek out (museums, sports, trips, conversations, books, clubs)

Public schools goal is for students to pass proficiency in reading and math. The rest is gravy. Unf the rest is now increasingly provided by the parents, tutors, camps, other schools.

It seems to be received wisdom on DCUM that most kids in MCPS get most of their education outside of school. Really weird. Plus, if it's true, why does anybody care how "good" the school is? Why not go ahead and send your kid to school in Ganglandia? Why is everybody paying all of this extra money to live in Bethesda or Potomac for the "good" schools?

Less white collar jobs in Ganglandia.

FDA is in SS and will transform the area if MC let developers to develop new residential community, like Crown Farm.

Anonymous wrote:I'm sure I'll get majorly flamed for this, but the kids with severe behavior problems are the primary issue in the high FARMS school where I teach. I understand the least restrictive environment, but the rights of one student to learn shouldn't trump the rights of the other 20 something students in the classroom. Not to mention the abuse the staff have to endure on a daily basis. We're only told to "try more strategies" by admin and the "experts", and the parents tell us it's our problem to deal with during school hours.

These kids pretty much rob the other kids of their opportunities to learn. I don't blame them for being unable to tune out a kid laying on his back and kicking a metal desk during the whole group lesson, or be able to concentrate in class near a student who threatened to beat you up yesterday.

The admin in schools and central offices are deaf because they dont want to dispropotionally displine students from certain groups. I don't want to use the wotd “minority” because every race group is minority in MCPS. What if MC residents ask BOE members, centeral office and school admins to spend at least one day in a classroom, starting from poorest school. They should know what teachers face every day. The classroom visit is not for school evaluation so the principals dont hsve to bput a polished face to show the central office.

"So once again the mostly white mostly higher income mostly liberal folks are creating a solution in search of a problem that doesn't actually exist"

Um, no. MCCPTA President and CIP chair are gunning for this (both DCC). And, new student Board of Education member (from upcountry).

I'm sure I'll get majorly flamed for this, but the kids with severe behavior problems are the primary issue in the high FARMS school where I teach. I understand the least restrictive environment, but the rights of one student to learn shouldn't trump the rights of the other 20 something students in the classroom. Not to mention the abuse the staff have to endure on a daily basis. We're only told to "try more strategies" by admin and the "experts", and the parents tell us it's our problem to deal with during school hours.

These kids pretty much rob the other kids of their opportunities to learn. I don't blame them for being unable to tune out a kid laying on his back and kicking a metal desk during the whole group lesson, or be able to concentrate in class near a student who threatened to beat you up yesterday.

Anonymous wrote:How about holding kids back? After intervention if they do not show improvement, start taking fees from their parents. Bingo, parental involvement will automatically improve.

Charge struggling families fees??? Think about that some more!

How about holding kids back? After intervention if they do not show improvement, start taking fees from their parents. Bingo, parental involvement will automatically improve.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Where's MoCo's ganglandia? Judging from the crime rates, poverty rates, HS graduation rates, gang activity, and hit & run driver culture it is north of silver spring, Maryland.

Two geographic observations:

1. "Silver Spring" covers most of eastern Montgomery County
2. Montgomery County consists of three parts (at least on the DCUM mental map): Wealthy/Whiteville, Ganglandia, and the Siberian Hinterlands.

??

sounds like you're in agreement: gangland is silver spring & northward.

Wuh? Wait! What about my beloved Gaithersburg and Germantown? I thought that they were Ganglandia? Or are they Bumfu$ckistan?

There are no easy solutions. That is why they have not been implemented. Bussing accomplished a lot of these goals in the 1980s but it does depend on spreading out disadvantaged students which is harder to do the larger of a percentage of a whole that they are and which can leave them socially isolated and/or feeling like outsiders in the schools they attend.

Lower class sizes at Title I and Focus schools make sense, and MCPS has put a lot of resources into making that happen. That should mean that teachers have more time with high-needs students who haven't had all of the enrichment and cultural knowledge/preparation of wealthier peers and that bright students with less family support don't get lost in the shuffle of a huge classroom. But it seems like it's not enough to fully off-set the challenges of poverty.

Bussing was not successful in the 80s. In fact, it was one of the most harmful experiments in public education. The families who could afford it moved out of the system and it left city / inner suburban schools in a state of deep poverty. In many areas of the country, school systems started splintering off. This resulted in a substantial resource loss for the poor areas as they no longer had wealthier areas as a source of funds.

There were virtually no advocates for bussing from the populations actually bussed. The wealthy and poor were in agreement not enjoying having their kids bussed out of their communities because some disconnected educational policy maker thought they knew better what their kids needed. Its failed in every state that has tried to do it and at every point in time.

Lower class sizes do make a difference but the low SES kids coming in are so far behind their peers that it doesn't help. MCPS needs ability tracking AND lower class sizes. It can be fluid with extra after school classes for kids that want to do the work to catch up and get on track but this pretending that one teacher can effectively teach the same material to kids who have a 3 year grade level range needs to end.

Here is a thought experiment DCUM

Take a poll of parents that aren't in W schools. You will find that almost all the parents are perfectly fine with the schools their kids attend even parents with kids in "undesirable" schools

So once again the mostly white mostly higher income mostly liberal folks are creating a solution in search of a problem that doesn't actually exist

There are no easy solutions. That is why they have not been implemented. Bussing accomplished a lot of these goals in the 1980s but it does depend on spreading out disadvantaged students which is harder to do the larger of a percentage of a whole that they are and which can leave them socially isolated and/or feeling like outsiders in the schools they attend.

Lower class sizes at Title I and Focus schools make sense, and MCPS has put a lot of resources into making that happen. That should mean that teachers have more time with high-needs students who haven't had all of the enrichment and cultural knowledge/preparation of wealthier peers and that bright students with less family support don't get lost in the shuffle of a huge classroom. But it seems like it's not enough to fully off-set the challenges of poverty.

So we already have most resources going to lower income schools (title 1 and focus) less resources to W schools which are way over capacity (as are some lower income schools), a county that already thinks the schools get too much money and don't want to pay more in taxes.

Let's stop stating and restating the problem: what is a solution? Or solutions? There must be some that don't involve doubling the transportation budget to bus kids away from their neighborhood schools, making already unbearable traffic situation worse!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

This is based on the assumption that educational opportunities are a zero-sum game. I.e., if it helps you, it hurts me. It doesn't have to be that way.

Part of the problem is that MCPS has made it a very zero sum game and has a track record of ignoring any need or issue coming from non-poverty areas. MCPS is famous for saying things that it recognizes that it is not serving the high achieving students but it doesn't matter because there are too many low performing students to care about the rest. MCPS looks for short cuts so doing things like placing magnets in bad schools to change the optics of the school performance, dumbing down the curriculum, removing exams, reducing math acceleration, and not allowing PTAs to find aides in schools with high ratios is more about trying to throttle higher achieving students to make up the gap than helping low achieving students perform better.

It's tough to put a robotics lab into a school where only 50% of 9th graders are passing federal standards in reading and math.

We know this, because Wheaton is our sister school, so whatever we donate to our HS's fund, 10% of it goes to Wheaton. We've even had theft issues at Wheaton for things the fund and PTAs jointly put in to the HS (i.e. stolen computers).

It's really a sad state of affairs. Academic basics aren't mastered, people whine for state-of-the-art everything, then they steal and physically wreak what is given.

I’m confused how there is one group called “they” in your post: “they” want 10% of your money, “they” whine for state of the art stuff, and “they” steal and “physically wreak,” whatever that means. You sure have concluded these are all the same awful people, and so very different from you. I actually know people who send their kids to Wheaton, which I expect you don’t. Some great magnet programs.

Take fees from illegal immigrant children who are not performing at a B level.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Where's MoCo's ganglandia? Judging from the crime rates, poverty rates, HS graduation rates, gang activity, and hit & run driver culture it is north of silver spring, Maryland.

Two geographic observations:

1. "Silver Spring" covers most of eastern Montgomery County
2. Montgomery County consists of three parts (at least on the DCUM mental map): Wealthy/Whiteville, Ganglandia, and the Siberian Hinterlands.

??

sounds like you're in agreement: gangland is silver spring & northward.

Anonymous wrote:

Where's MoCo's ganglandia? Judging from the crime rates, poverty rates, HS graduation rates, gang activity, and hit & run driver culture it is north of silver spring, Maryland.

Two geographic observations:

1. "Silver Spring" covers most of eastern Montgomery County
2. Montgomery County consists of three parts (at least on the DCUM mental map): Wealthy/Whiteville, Ganglandia, and the Siberian Hinterlands.