Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How did they keep Blair safe back on the day? They had magnet school geeks going to school with gang members

I went to a school out in LA back in the 80s with real gangs. I survived, as did the entire student body. Some of us even took AP classes, and some ended up at pretty prestigious colleges. In HS, if your kid is "smart", they will be in AP/honors classes along with other high achieving peers and away from the "riff raff". They will be fine.

you still have to walk the hallways

And we all still survived. Do you think the riff raff pick fights with kids in AP classes? No.. they don't. They largely ignore those kids.

My guess is that is that McLean, Great Falls and Arlington will keep drawing people away from Potomac/North Potomac/Rockville/North Bethesda while Howard County and Frederick will draw people away from Clarksburg, Olney, and the nicer parts of Gaithersburg. Frankly, this has already been happening. Better schools, better jobs, better commute and lower taxes.

I don't really see the Bethesda and Silver Spring areas changing that much because of the schools. I do think that there will be people who lose 50K-100K in equity if their neighborhood gets chosen to be one of the islands of wealthy kids to get bussed over to a lower performing school which is unfair to them.

I don't really see how anyone in a low performing school is going to get a windfall though by being rezoned into a higher performing school. I would assume that the lower income kids would come from low income housing or garden type apartments that wouldn't just flip over to expensive SFHs. It would make no sense for the diversity initiative to take the white MC neighborhoods that already perform fine out of the low performing schools and into the high performing schools. There seems to be a contingent from the more expensive areas at Einstein hoping they will get swapped with BCC kids. I don't know how swapping out normal performing white kids from one area to another accomplishes anything other than messing around with property values.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

There’s gotta be another solution that doesn’t involve hurting one group over the other no matter how minimal it may be.

Any creative suggestions DCUM folks?

There is no solution (even hurting one group is not going to solve that). And we don't really need a solution.

The society functions fine with people performing differently. Now we have already tried to provide reasonable education to all. If some kids (and/or their parents) simply don't want to take the opportunity, that is their choices. In my kid' MS (one of the W feeders) there are students known to everyone (teachers, students), who simply do not study and only create problems during class. I don't care if they are rich or poor but they are bad apples and we don't want more of those.

You mean society functions fine as long as you get yours.

You mean society functions fine only when everyone get theirs? Then it never functions fine.

Or you don't care about whether you get yours, you don't care about whether I get mine, you only care about whether your choice of people get theirs (and they may not even care about that either).
That is your way of designing the society?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How did they keep Blair safe back on the day? They had magnet school geeks going to school with gang members

I went to a school out in LA back in the 80s with real gangs. I survived, as did the entire student body. Some of us even took AP classes, and some ended up at pretty prestigious colleges. In HS, if your kid is "smart", they will be in AP/honors classes along with other high achieving peers and away from the "riff raff". They will be fine.

you still have to walk the hallways

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
So actually, when you say "school performance", you don't mean "student performance from that school", you mean "average school test scores,"

Test scores are an objective way of telling student performance. They are not exact the same but in this case I don't see why you have to distinguish them

Anonymous wrote:
Will your kid get lower test scores if your kid goes to a school with lower average school test scores? And, if so, then why wouldn't it work the other way - a kid will get higher test scores if the kid goes to a school with higher average school test scores?

(1). Whether a kid will perform worse by going to a school with lower average performance? I don't know. But as I said, many parents do care if their kids are among good performers, for various reasons.
(2). "why wouldn't it work the other way - a kid will get higher test scores if the kid goes to a school with higher average school test scores?"
why ask me? did I say it would not work the other way? I think I was suggesting this would be "sacrifice one group for the good of another". It may work the other way, but that is not the point. The point is that people are ignoring (1).

If your kid were getting transferred from Whitman (for example) to James Garfield HS in East LA in 1980, then yes, that would be a concern.

But your kid isn't.

As I said, you may not be concerned if the average student performance drops in your kids' school. That is perfectly fine. Different people can have different perspectives. But if some parents are concerned, I think that would be valid too.

When you consider what is for a "public good", you don't exclude these parents.

And in fact, the interest of parents directly involved should count more than those who are not directly involved but just trying to achieve a "social justice" for others (who may not even want it!)

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What is the timing on the Clarksburg/NW/Seneca Valley boundary study? I think this noise is going to keep up until that decision is made.

The potential work that will be done by the consultant is very different but likely will create issues/upset people as well. But I really think people need to consider those issues separately.

The BOE will vote in November 2019; reassignments will take effect with the 2020-2021 school year.

curious how can people are for bussing which now given the climate changing? This means more committing

Anonymous wrote:How did they keep Blair safe back on the day? They had magnet school geeks going to school with gang members

I went to a school out in LA back in the 80s with real gangs. I survived, as did the entire student body. Some of us even took AP classes, and some ended up at pretty prestigious colleges. In HS, if your kid is "smart", they will be in AP/honors classes along with other high achieving peers and away from the "riff raff". They will be fine.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

There’s gotta be another solution that doesn’t involve hurting one group over the other no matter how minimal it may be.

Any creative suggestions DCUM folks?

There is no solution (even hurting one group is not going to solve that). And we don't really need a solution.

The society functions fine with people performing differently. Now we have already tried to provide reasonable education to all. If some kids (and/or their parents) simply don't want to take the opportunity, that is their choices. In my kid' MS (one of the W feeders) there are students known to everyone (teachers, students), who simply do not study and only create problems during class. I don't care if they are rich or poor but they are bad apples and we don't want more of those.

You mean society functions fine as long as you get yours.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

There’s gotta be another solution that doesn’t involve hurting one group over the other no matter how minimal it may be.

Any creative suggestions DCUM folks?

There is no solution (even hurting one group is not going to solve that). And we don't really need a solution.

The society functions fine with people performing differently. Now we have already tried to provide reasonable education to all. If some kids (and/or their parents) simply don't want to take the opportunity, that is their choices. In my kid' MS (one of the W feeders) there are students known to everyone (teachers, students), who simply do not study and only create problems during class. I don't care if they are rich or poor but they are bad apples and we don't want more of those.

you don’t get it. They want equality of outcome. It makes them feel smug

Anonymous wrote:What is the timing on the Clarksburg/NW/Seneca Valley boundary study? I think this noise is going to keep up until that decision is made.

The potential work that will be done by the consultant is very different but likely will create issues/upset people as well. But I really think people need to consider those issues separately.

The BOE will vote in November 2019; reassignments will take effect with the 2020-2021 school year.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Let's back up - what is everyone's fear? What does everyone consider to be a path of destruction in regards to boundary changes? What do you think is going to happen?

Does everyone think your school that has FARMS < 10% will suddenly become a school with FARMS > 50%?

Or are you scared that your school's FARM rates will be about 25%

Give us numbers - tell us exactly what you fear.

-Signed, a white, high-income parent in the RM cluster who has no plans to move and just doesn't understand all this fear.

Everyone's fear is that there's only so much good stuff to go around, so they need to make sure that their kids get it. Opportunity hoarding.

I'm an Asian American high income parent in the RM cluster, and I don't get the "the sky is falling" fear on this forum, either. But maybe that's because we -- the ^PP and I -- already live in a cluster that has a 20%ish FARMs rate, and we have no plans to move out of the cluster because of the consultants that the BOE is hiring to look at a better way to draw boundaries. Maybe the W parents think RM cluster already has a too high FARMs rate so that's why we don't care about the study?

Is it only the W parents that seem to have this "the sky is falling" irrational fear?

I don’t think it’s the W parents. I think it’s the Clarksburg/NW parents who may get rezoned to Seneca Valley. But maybe I’m wrong ... could be W parents too. They’re a popular target here.

It may be the Clarksburg/NW parents, but you'd better believe it's some of the W parents, too. Look at how WJ parents are *flipping out* around Woodward/DCC reassignment. If they're a target, it's because they make themselves that. I know plenty of people IRL who fit that exact profile.

We're a white, high-income family in the DCC who also aren't freaking out, because we're confident our kids will do well regardless of where they'll go, for various reasons.

Anonymous wrote:

There’s gotta be another solution that doesn’t involve hurting one group over the other no matter how minimal it may be.

Any creative suggestions DCUM folks?

There is no solution (even hurting one group is not going to solve that). And we don't really need a solution.

The society functions fine with people performing differently. Now we have already tried to provide reasonable education to all. If some kids (and/or their parents) simply don't want to take the opportunity, that is their choices. In my kid' MS (one of the W feeders) there are students known to everyone (teachers, students), who simply do not study and only create problems during class. I don't care if they are rich or poor but they are bad apples and we don't want more of those.

What is the timing on the Clarksburg/NW/Seneca Valley boundary study? I think this noise is going to keep up until that decision is made.

The potential work that will be done by the consultant is very different but likely will create issues/upset people as well. But I really think people need to consider those issues separately.

How did they keep Blair safe back on the day? They had magnet school geeks going to school with gang members

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
So actually, when you say "school performance", you don't mean "student performance from that school", you mean "average school test scores,"

Test scores are an objective way of telling student performance. They are not exact the same but in this case I don't see why you have to distinguish them

Anonymous wrote:
Will your kid get lower test scores if your kid goes to a school with lower average school test scores? And, if so, then why wouldn't it work the other way - a kid will get higher test scores if the kid goes to a school with higher average school test scores?

(1). Whether a kid will perform worse by going to a school with lower average performance? I don't know. But as I said, many parents do care if their kids are among good performers, for various reasons.
(2). "why wouldn't it work the other way - a kid will get higher test scores if the kid goes to a school with higher average school test scores?"
why ask me? did I say it would not work the other way? I think I was suggesting this would be "sacrifice one group for the good of another". It may work the other way, but that is not the point. The point is that people are ignoring (1).

If your kid were getting transferred from Whitman (for example) to James Garfield HS in East LA in 1980, then yes, that would be a concern.

But your kid isn't.