Anonymous wrote:One of the really weird things about his decision is that, to support it, he expresses concern that all of the students who currently COSA-out of the schools might decide to actually come back and attend if they had a neighborhood school, creating a capacity problem that MCPS would be forced to address. So basically the real utility of the pairing to MCPS isn't that it fosters diversity, but rather that it is so reliably and consistently unattractive to so many families that Starr can count on them not to attend. And voila! Capacity problem in densely populated corner of Silver Spring is kept at bay indefinitely. The whole point of the pairing was to blend poor and middle class students to give all kids access to a diverse learning environment, and now they're declaring it a success because it so effectively prevents middle class students from enrolling in these otherwise perfectly fine schools. If a public school system is deliberately implementing policies whose purpose is to repel middle class families from schools in poor neighborhoods as a capacity-control tool, and the school system invokes diversity purely as a pretext to support the practice, is that even legal?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What were the motives/interests of the cluster coordinators? It seems like their opposition may have hurt the case of the local communities.

It does seem that way, doesn't it? Money spent at OV and NHE can't be spent elsewhere, and a change to the status quo will require money. In my opinion, it's all very political and has a lot more to do with vying for limited resources than what's actually best for the children and communities. By pointing to the cluster coordinators' views, the Superintendent's recommendation creates the false impression that there isn't a consensus. But there is a consensus. Just look at the PTA vote. Only 7 members voted to maintain the pairing. 7. More than 70 members voted to unpair the schools. There is probably never unanimity when it comes to tricky issues, but here there is at least a basic consensus.

Hopefully the BOE will take a critical look at Dr. Starr's recommendation and vote in favor of unpairing the schools.

I really hope so. Is there precedent for the BOE voting against the superintendent's recommendations?

Interesting question. I can't imagine it's never happened. And I don't think Dr. Starr made adoption of his recommendation particularly easy. It's almost like it was written before the numbers were in, and under an assumption that the communities and PTA would be divided on the issue, which they're not.

For starters, it's kind of painful to read through the analysis of why he thinks the pairing is supportable on the basis of diversity, especially if you've followed how he treats this issue when he's dealing with schools in the green zone! The numbers are facts and no amount of twisting those facts can change the reality that pairing two high-poverty high-minority school zones does not result in diversity for anyone. Why on earth would you pair the two poorest elementary schools in the Blair cluster to achieve diversity? The answer is that you wouldn't, and I suspect the BOE is smart enough to understand that.

Another problem with Dr. Starr's report is that he finally gave up the ghost about why MCPS wishes to maintain this pairing. The truth is that MCPS relies on this pairing to funnel most of the Oak View kids into just about any school other than the schools they're assigned to. Currently almost 100 students from Oak View are attending schools other than NHE or OV through a COSA. Dr. Starr's recommendation recognizes that having a neighborhood school is something that would likely bring the COSA students back to their local school, and this would create capacity problems that he does not wish to address. In just a few sentences, Dr. Starr's recommendation writes off the kids from Oak View as a capacity nuisance. Honestly, this is one of the things that makes me think Dr. Starr didn't contribute much to the report and perhaps over-delegated and simply signed off on something prematurely. Because if that's what's really going on here, it's probably not the kind of thing he should admit. Hopefully the BOE will agree that this is a pretty outrageous and offensive way to defend the status quo.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What were the motives/interests of the cluster coordinators? It seems like their opposition may have hurt the case of the local communities.

It does seem that way, doesn't it? Money spent at OV and NHE can't be spent elsewhere, and a change to the status quo will require money. In my opinion, it's all very political and has a lot more to do with vying for limited resources than what's actually best for the children and communities. By pointing to the cluster coordinators' views, the Superintendent's recommendation creates the false impression that there isn't a consensus. But there is a consensus. Just look at the PTA vote. Only 7 members voted to maintain the pairing. 7. More than 70 members voted to unpair the schools. There is probably never unanimity when it comes to tricky issues, but here there is at least a basic consensus.

Hopefully the BOE will take a critical look at Dr. Starr's recommendation and vote in favor of unpairing the schools.

I really hope so. Is there precedent for the BOE voting against the superintendent's recommendations?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What were the motives/interests of the cluster coordinators? It seems like their opposition may have hurt the case of the local communities.

It does seem that way, doesn't it? Money spent at OV and NHE can't be spent elsewhere, and a change to the status quo will require money. In my opinion, it's all very political and has a lot more to do with vying for limited resources than what's actually best for the children and communities. By pointing to the cluster coordinators' views, the Superintendent's recommendation creates the false impression that there isn't a consensus. But there is a consensus. Just look at the PTA vote. Only 7 members voted to maintain the pairing. 7. More than 70 members voted to unpair the schools. There is probably never unanimity when it comes to tricky issues, but here there is at least a basic consensus.

Hopefully the BOE will take a critical look at Dr. Starr's recommendation and vote in favor of unpairing the schools.

Anonymous wrote:What were the motives/interests of the cluster coordinators? It seems like their opposition may have hurt the case of the local communities.

Anonymous wrote:Why did the Blair cluster coordinators come out against unpairing?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:One of the really weird things about his decision is that, to support it, he expresses concern that all of the students who currently COSA-out of the schools might decide to actually come back and attend if they had a neighborhood school, creating a capacity problem that MCPS would be forced to address. So basically the real utility of the pairing to MCPS isn't that it fosters diversity, but rather that it is so reliably and consistently unattractive to so many families that Starr can count on them not to attend. And voila! Capacity problem in densely populated corner of Silver Spring is kept at bay indefinitely. The whole point of the pairing was to blend poor and middle class students to give all kids access to a diverse learning environment, and now they're declaring it a success because it so effectively prevents middle class students from enrolling in these otherwise perfectly fine schools. If a public school system is deliberately implementing policies whose purpose is to repel middle class families from schools in poor neighborhoods as a capacity-control tool, and the school system invokes diversity purely as a pretext to support the practice, is that even legal?

I was also bothered by this language. I think that this decision came down the cost of an addition at Oak View. There are so many capacity issues at MCPS schools right now that they just weren't willing to take on another building
addition. Its also interesting that Starr recently wrote an editorial in the Washington Post basically saying that balancing out the demographics of schools is not a priority.

which page did he say that?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:One of the really weird things about his decision is that, to support it, he expresses concern that all of the students who currently COSA-out of the schools might decide to actually come back and attend if they had a neighborhood school, creating a capacity problem that MCPS would be forced to address. So basically the real utility of the pairing to MCPS isn't that it fosters diversity, but rather that it is so reliably and consistently unattractive to so many families that Starr can count on them not to attend. And voila! Capacity problem in densely populated corner of Silver Spring is kept at bay indefinitely. The whole point of the pairing was to blend poor and middle class students to give all kids access to a diverse learning environment, and now they're declaring it a success because it so effectively prevents middle class students from enrolling in these otherwise perfectly fine schools. If a public school system is deliberately implementing policies whose purpose is to repel middle class families from schools in poor neighborhoods as a capacity-control tool, and the school system invokes diversity purely as a pretext to support the practice, is that even legal?

I was also bothered by this language. I think that this decision came down the cost of an addition at Oak View. There are so many capacity issues at MCPS schools right now that they just weren't willing to take on another building
addition. Its also interesting that Starr recently wrote an editorial in the Washington Post basically saying that balancing out the demographics of schools is not a priority.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:One of the really weird things about his decision is that, to support it, he expresses concern that all of the students who currently COSA-out of the schools might decide to actually come back and attend if they had a neighborhood school, creating a capacity problem that MCPS would be forced to address. So basically the real utility of the pairing to MCPS isn't that it fosters diversity, but rather that it is so reliably and consistently unattractive to so many families that Starr can count on them not to attend. And voila! Capacity problem in densely populated corner of Silver Spring is kept at bay indefinitely. The whole point of the pairing was to blend poor and middle class students to give all kids access to a diverse learning environment, and now they're declaring it a success because it so effectively prevents middle class students from enrolling in these otherwise perfectly fine schools. If a public school system is deliberately implementing policies whose purpose is to repel middle class families from schools in poor neighborhoods as a capacity-control tool, and the school system invokes diversity purely as a pretext to support the practice, is that even legal?

I was also bothered by this language. I think that this decision came down the cost of an addition at Oak View. There are so many capacity issues at MCPS schools right now that they just weren't willing to take on another building addition. Its also interesting that Starr recently wrote an editorial in the Washington Post basically saying that balancing out the demographics of schools is not a priority.

Anonymous wrote:One of the really weird things about his decision is that, to support it, he expresses concern that all of the students who currently COSA-out of the schools might decide to actually come back and attend if they had a neighborhood school, creating a capacity problem that MCPS would be forced to address. So basically the real utility of the pairing to MCPS isn't that it fosters diversity, but rather that it is so reliably and consistently unattractive to so many families that Starr can count on them not to attend. And voila! Capacity problem in densely populated corner of Silver Spring is kept at bay indefinitely. The whole point of the pairing was to blend poor and middle class students to give all kids access to a diverse learning environment, and now they're declaring it a success because it so effectively prevents middle class students from enrolling in these otherwise perfectly fine schools. If a public school system is deliberately implementing policies whose purpose is to repel middle class families from schools in poor neighborhoods as a capacity-control tool, and the school system invokes diversity purely as a pretext to support the practice, is that even legal?

Anonymous wrote:I don't think the gap can be explained by the HGC. The HGC is very small- only 50 kids or so total and probably 7 or 8 would have gone to Oak View anyway.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Of course we taxpayers (or rather, we citizens) have influence. We elect the county school board. We elect the county council. We elect the county executive.

It may not be as local as you want it to be, but it's still local.

If you think you have any influence at all on how our school system is run, you are delusional.

I don't have much influence at all on how our school system is run, because I haven't tried to influence it (beyond voting for school board candidates).

How have you tried to influence how our school system is run? Have you been a regular at meetings, put together plans with realistic and feasible suggestions for change, acknowledged that you won't get everything you want, led your local PTA, worked with the MCCPTA, gotten the press involved, organized other parents to write letters, talked to school board members, talked to county council members, run for the school board yourself?