Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Part of king farm is Already districted to Gaithersburg HS. Yes, houses are a bit cheaper there, but they hold their value since it is still a very nice community and many owners are past child rearing age

i dont know if i would call king farm a "very nice community"

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Part of king farm is Already districted to Gaithersburg HS. Yes, houses are a bit cheaper there, but they hold their value since it is still a very nice community and many owners are past child rearing age

i dont know if i would call king farm a "very nice community"

Not sure what you are looking for in a community but many people spend a lot of $$ to live there!

lot of section 8/mpdu housing and a much more crime than you would expect from such a "nice" neighborhood.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Part of king farm is Already districted to Gaithersburg HS. Yes, houses are a bit cheaper there, but they hold their value since it is still a very nice community and many owners are past child rearing age

i dont know if i would call king farm a "very nice community"

Not sure what you are looking for in a community but many people spend a lot of $$ to live there!

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Actually, the PP is correct as far as my kids' school.

They do offer free tutoring at the low income apartments for the kids who need it. There is a free summer school program. And, yes, there are free parenting classes. Plus, of course, the free backpacks/free breakfast/free lunch.

How long ago were your kids in MCPS, PP?

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:Part of king farm is Already districted to Gaithersburg HS. Yes, houses are a bit cheaper there, but they hold their value since it is still a very nice community and many owners are past child rearing age

i dont know if i would call king farm a "very nice community"

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Part of king farm is Already districted to Gaithersburg HS. Yes, houses are a bit cheaper there, but they hold their value since it is still a very nice community and many owners are past child rearing age

i dont know if i would call king farm a "very nice community"

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Part of king farm is Already districted to Gaithersburg HS. Yes, houses are a bit cheaper there, but they hold their value since it is still a very nice community and many owners are past child rearing age

i dont know if i would call king farm a "very nice community"

Anonymous wrote:Part of king farm is Already districted to Gaithersburg HS. Yes, houses are a bit cheaper there, but they hold their value since it is still a very nice community and many owners are past child rearing age

Anonymous wrote:Part of king farm is Already districted to Gaithersburg HS. Yes, houses are a bit cheaper there, but they hold their value since it is still a very nice community and many owners are past child rearing age

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.

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?

Well MoCo has more than 25% and there is also research that shows kids do much better when under 5%. The dwindling supply of white kids won’t save you from parenting

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.

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?

Those studies only hold true when comparing across different school systems. The low income schools were in low funded schools and the high income schools were much better funded. If you look across MCPS schools, you do not see any consistent performance change in low income schools based on how many kids are low income. It is all over the map. At some schools that have 20-30% where you would expect to see a bump its lower than schools with 40%-50%. There are some low FARMS schools where FARMS kids do better but then many others where they do worse than other schools with more FARMS.

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.

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.