Anonymous
01/29/2026 13:58
Subject: MCPS Graduation Rate Drops to 88.7% for 2024-2025 School Year; Down from 91.85% Previous Year
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:And here are the grad rates by school:
LEA Name##School Name##Grad Rate
Montgomery##Poolesville High##>= 95.00
Montgomery##Thomas S. Wootton High##>= 95.00
Montgomery##Northwest High##>= 95.00
Montgomery##Winston Churchill High##>= 95.00
Montgomery##Walt Whitman High##94.94
Montgomery##Bethesda-Chevy Chase High##94.09
Montgomery##Sherwood High##93.75
Montgomery##Clarksburg High##93.57
Montgomery##Walter Johnson High##93.57
Montgomery##Damascus High##93.1
Montgomery##Richard Montgomery High##90.61
Montgomery##Col. Zadok Magruder High##90.33
Montgomery##Quince Orchard High##90.31
Montgomery##James Hubert Blake High##88.69
Montgomery##Rockville High##88.36
Montgomery##Seneca Valley High##86.84
Montgomery##Springbrook High##86.18
Montgomery##Paint Branch High##85.8
Montgomery##Montgomery Blair High##85.45
Montgomery##Albert Einstein High##85.25
Montgomery##Northwood High##85.11
Montgomery##Wheaton High##83.22
Montgomery##Watkins Mill High##82.53
Montgomery##Gaithersburg High##78.64
Montgomery##John F. Kennedy High##72.96
Montgomery##John L Gildner Regional Inst for Children & Adol##58.33
Montgomery##Stephen Knolls School##*
Montgomery##Rock Terrace School##*
Montgomery##Longview School##*
All MCPS:
Schools##88.77
The last several are special schools. So if those are excluded and assuming the schools with >=95 grad rates have close to 100 percent, the grad rate would be about 89.5
But other school systems have special schools too and I assume these special schools have always been included in the grad rate calculations?
Now do a side by side comparison of FARMS rates.
FARMS rate, Attendance Percent and Multi Lingual percentages are added and the columns are delimited by -- (double dashes):
School Name--Grad Rate--Attendance Pct--FARMS Pct--Multilingual Learner Pct
Poolesville High-->= 95.00--93--12.8--<= 5.0
Thomas S. Wootton High-->= 95.00--92.8--15.4--<= 5.0
Northwest High-->= 95.00--90.9--37.9--10.3
Winston Churchill High-->= 95.00--94.3--11.9--<= 5.0
Walt Whitman High--94.94--93.2--7.8--<= 5.0
Bethesda-Chevy Chase High--94.09--91.7--26--11.2
Sherwood High--93.75--92.1--23.8--<= 5.0
Clarksburg High--93.57--91.1--38.6--10.4
Walter Johnson High--93.57--92.3--21.1--8
Damascus High--93.1--89.8--32.9--7.5
Richard Montgomery High--90.61--91.9--31.3--13.5
Col. Zadok Magruder High--90.33--89--51--20
Quince Orchard High--90.31--89.2--40.5--17.2
James Hubert Blake High--88.69--88.6--57--19.7
Rockville High--88.36--89.5--50.5--19.4
Seneca Valley High--86.84--90.7--54.1--15.3
Springbrook High--86.18--89.4--64.9--27.6
Paint Branch High--85.8--92.1--54.7--12.9
Montgomery Blair High--85.45--90--47.6--20.4
Albert Einstein High--85.25--87.8--47--21.8
Northwood High--85.11--86.4--64.1--29.4
Wheaton High--83.22--88.9--60.7--26.2
Watkins Mill High--82.53--87.6--54.3--32.8
Gaithersburg High--78.64--84.9--62.1--32.4
John F. Kennedy High--72.96--85.8--60.5--37.2
John L Gildner Regional Inst for Children & Adol--58.33--86.5--58.8--*
Stephen Knolls School--*--70.7--32.3--*
Rock Terrace School--*--87.2--65.2--*
Longview School--*--76--*--50
All Montgomery Schools--88.77--93.8--44--25.9
At what point do we consider MCPS guilty of malfeasance and mismanagement when it comes to John F. Kennedy High School? When graduation rates fall under 50%? What's the threshold for a school to be put into receivership by the state?
Are the low graduation rates due to students going to school every day but just can't pass the coursework or is it that kids aren't attending and/or dropping out?
If it's something like the latter there can only be so much that Kennedy can do.
The student and family engagement needs to start early at the elementary school level.
Then the articles and postings from MCPS about the 2025 grad rates cited Multilingual Learners having the largest decline in grad rates and it looks like Kennedy has the highest percentage of them with 37.2 percent. They don't have the highest FARMS percentage at 60.5 percent. But it looks like they're not that far off from the highest, which looks like it's Springbrook at 64.9 percent.
It doesn't look like mdreportcard has a way to filter for non Multilingual Learners.
But if you look at the dropout rate:
Multilingual Learners: 34.50 percent 59/171
FARMS: 13.41 percent 37/276
Hispanic: 24.36 86/353
Black: 10.09 11/109
And there is probably a student that can probably be counted in multiple groups above. ie a student can be Hispanic, FARMS and a Multi Lingual learner.
So this does support the notion that the issue is with Multilingual Learners.
But I don't think it's entirely on MCPS. Where the question is why is there such a high concentration of Multilingual Learners and relatively high FARMS there? It's partly due to the economic segregation in Montgomery County and how they choose to (or maybe used to) cluster affordable housing.
Then people see how Kennedy is ranked at the bottom of lists, it won't attract some people who look at that kind of thing to move to that area or send their kids to that school for it's IB program.
But I blame it on the county as much as MCPS.
I love how people think that having the detriments of poverty would be solved if they just stored poor people differently then in say their community. As if forcing them into other people communities will eliminate their struggles opposed to simply hiding their individual failures in a large sample size of success. The real problem here is thinking you can make the same quality car out of different grades of steel. Instead of offering different tracts that focus on realities you shame the system to putting all kids on upper middleclass college track regardless of their aptitude to keep up. But yah lets slide 100 poor kids out of silver spring and put them in a Bethesda school as their metrics can take the hit. The extra dollar a gallon their parents will pay at the pump will be off set by not paying for the pool clubs they can't afford.
I am not oblivious to looking at what will often be a poor child of color and telling them the best they can hope for is mechanic but if they become a great mechanic their kid's potential to succeed at college tack would be vastly improved. The arch of justice is often too slow for the pain of today but dropping out because you couldn't afford college anyway isn't working great either. Not to mention shuffeling them to the edge of a rich area won't really fix whats holding them back
Anonymous
01/29/2026 10:40
Subject: MCPS Graduation Rate Drops to 88.7% for 2024-2025 School Year; Down from 91.85% Previous Year
Anonymous wrote:MCPS is freaking out about the EML graduation rate. But it is a difficult situation because the kids tend to speak Spanish exclusively when they are not in school. And many of their parents have not had much education themselves so the kids are not in academically stimulating environments outside of school. And in typical MCPS fashion, they are trying to dump everything on teachers. At our school, administrators are pressuring teachers to scaffold every single assignment for EML students. And to teach in an EML friendly way - aka slow down and make things easier
I mean it's fine if they try to do that and it's the MCPS way.
But the results will come out when the ACCESS proficiency levels come out and if the EML students at the school are meeting their ACCESS proficiency level progress benchmarks. (not just meeting the exit criteria but meeting progress expected based on the student's initial proficiency level in ACCESS)
I'm saying this is an issue with policies on MCPS and it's administrators, not the teachers.
Anonymous
01/29/2026 09:37
Subject: MCPS Graduation Rate Drops to 88.7% for 2024-2025 School Year; Down from 91.85% Previous Year
MCPS is freaking out about the EML graduation rate. But it is a difficult situation because the kids tend to speak Spanish exclusively when they are not in school. And many of their parents have not had much education themselves so the kids are not in academically stimulating environments outside of school. And in typical MCPS fashion, they are trying to dump everything on teachers. At our school, administrators are pressuring teachers to scaffold every single assignment for EML students. And to teach in an EML friendly way - aka slow down and make things easier
Anonymous
01/29/2026 09:37
Subject: MCPS Graduation Rate Drops to 88.7% for 2024-2025 School Year; Down from 91.85% Previous Year
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:I see this as a very positive step towards ending the lies about how many students actually earned the knowledge required to graduate
I'm not sure about that. This number is still inflated and still has lots of kids who are graduating that don't meet what most people would expect in terms of what a high school graduate should be knowledgable.
You should fail, too. "A positive step towards" means the beginning of a journey. Not an ened result.
Anonymous
01/29/2026 09:21
Subject: MCPS Graduation Rate Drops to 88.7% for 2024-2025 School Year; Down from 91.85% Previous Year
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:And here are the grad rates by school:
LEA Name##School Name##Grad Rate
Montgomery##Poolesville High##>= 95.00
Montgomery##Thomas S. Wootton High##>= 95.00
Montgomery##Northwest High##>= 95.00
Montgomery##Winston Churchill High##>= 95.00
Montgomery##Walt Whitman High##94.94
Montgomery##Bethesda-Chevy Chase High##94.09
Montgomery##Sherwood High##93.75
Montgomery##Clarksburg High##93.57
Montgomery##Walter Johnson High##93.57
Montgomery##Damascus High##93.1
Montgomery##Richard Montgomery High##90.61
Montgomery##Col. Zadok Magruder High##90.33
Montgomery##Quince Orchard High##90.31
Montgomery##James Hubert Blake High##88.69
Montgomery##Rockville High##88.36
Montgomery##Seneca Valley High##86.84
Montgomery##Springbrook High##86.18
Montgomery##Paint Branch High##85.8
Montgomery##Montgomery Blair High##85.45
Montgomery##Albert Einstein High##85.25
Montgomery##Northwood High##85.11
Montgomery##Wheaton High##83.22
Montgomery##Watkins Mill High##82.53
Montgomery##Gaithersburg High##78.64
Montgomery##John F. Kennedy High##72.96
Montgomery##John L Gildner Regional Inst for Children & Adol##58.33
Montgomery##Stephen Knolls School##*
Montgomery##Rock Terrace School##*
Montgomery##Longview School##*
All MCPS:
Schools##88.77
The last several are special schools. So if those are excluded and assuming the schools with >=95 grad rates have close to 100 percent, the grad rate would be about 89.5
But other school systems have special schools too and I assume these special schools have always been included in the grad rate calculations?
Now do a side by side comparison of FARMS rates.
FARMS rate, Attendance Percent and Multi Lingual percentages are added and the columns are delimited by -- (double dashes):
School Name--Grad Rate--Attendance Pct--FARMS Pct--Multilingual Learner Pct
Poolesville High-->= 95.00--93--12.8--<= 5.0
Thomas S. Wootton High-->= 95.00--92.8--15.4--<= 5.0
Northwest High-->= 95.00--90.9--37.9--10.3
Winston Churchill High-->= 95.00--94.3--11.9--<= 5.0
Walt Whitman High--94.94--93.2--7.8--<= 5.0
Bethesda-Chevy Chase High--94.09--91.7--26--11.2
Sherwood High--93.75--92.1--23.8--<= 5.0
Clarksburg High--93.57--91.1--38.6--10.4
Walter Johnson High--93.57--92.3--21.1--8
Damascus High--93.1--89.8--32.9--7.5
Richard Montgomery High--90.61--91.9--31.3--13.5
Col. Zadok Magruder High--90.33--89--51--20
Quince Orchard High--90.31--89.2--40.5--17.2
James Hubert Blake High--88.69--88.6--57--19.7
Rockville High--88.36--89.5--50.5--19.4
Seneca Valley High--86.84--90.7--54.1--15.3
Springbrook High--86.18--89.4--64.9--27.6
Paint Branch High--85.8--92.1--54.7--12.9
Montgomery Blair High--85.45--90--47.6--20.4
Albert Einstein High--85.25--87.8--47--21.8
Northwood High--85.11--86.4--64.1--29.4
Wheaton High--83.22--88.9--60.7--26.2
Watkins Mill High--82.53--87.6--54.3--32.8
Gaithersburg High--78.64--84.9--62.1--32.4
John F. Kennedy High--72.96--85.8--60.5--37.2
John L Gildner Regional Inst for Children & Adol--58.33--86.5--58.8--*
Stephen Knolls School--*--70.7--32.3--*
Rock Terrace School--*--87.2--65.2--*
Longview School--*--76--*--50
All Montgomery Schools--88.77--93.8--44--25.9
At what point do we consider MCPS guilty of malfeasance and mismanagement when it comes to John F. Kennedy High School? When graduation rates fall under 50%? What's the threshold for a school to be put into receivership by the state?
Are the low graduation rates due to students going to school every day but just can't pass the coursework or is it that kids aren't attending and/or dropping out?
If it's something like the latter there can only be so much that Kennedy can do.
The student and family engagement needs to start early at the elementary school level.
Then the articles and postings from MCPS about the 2025 grad rates cited Multilingual Learners having the largest decline in grad rates and it looks like Kennedy has the highest percentage of them with 37.2 percent. They don't have the highest FARMS percentage at 60.5 percent. But it looks like they're not that far off from the highest, which looks like it's Springbrook at 64.9 percent.
It doesn't look like mdreportcard has a way to filter for non Multilingual Learners.
But if you look at the dropout rate:
Multilingual Learners: 34.50 percent 59/171
FARMS: 13.41 percent 37/276
Hispanic: 24.36 86/353
Black: 10.09 11/109
And there is probably a student that can probably be counted in multiple groups above. ie a student can be Hispanic, FARMS and a Multi Lingual learner.
So this does support the notion that the issue is with Multilingual Learners.
But I don't think it's entirely on MCPS. Where the question is why is there such a high concentration of Multilingual Learners and relatively high FARMS there? It's partly due to the economic segregation in Montgomery County and how they choose to (or maybe used to) cluster affordable housing.
Then people see how Kennedy is ranked at the bottom of lists, it won't attract some people who look at that kind of thing to move to that area or send their kids to that school for it's IB program.
But I blame it on the county as much as MCPS.
Anonymous
01/29/2026 09:14
Subject: MCPS Graduation Rate Drops to 88.7% for 2024-2025 School Year; Down from 91.85% Previous Year
Anonymous wrote:The graduation rate was inflated by the loose grading policy. And by pressuring teachers to pass students. The rate should be 5% lower
+1. The ship is being righted. It makes sense that graduation rates would drop since kids are suddenly having to do work to pass classes.
So glad the 50% for doing nothing rule is gone. Thank you, Thomas!