I don't believe it's the SES or the race that causes some students to fail.
It's the weak school system that let stupid parents run over that ruins the opportunities of the students. Parents who don't have the resource or the ability should urge the schools to increase the homework, not decrease, extend the school hours or days, not shorten. Stop saying "let kids be kids" and ask your kids to work harder because life is not easy nor fair.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Blaming SES seems like a polite way of being racist. High SES likely has a correlation to academic success, but don't believe it's the cause.

Like the PP, I'm more inclined to believe what parents do at home has the greatest impact. As another person wrote earlier, an example of asian immigrants with few resources manage to do well by their kids.

Pouring resources into title 1 schools is going to have the greatest impact. Perhaps, the county would be better off incenting parents in low SES areas to take classes on how help them help their children succeed at home. The current approach although admirable hasn't worked and seems to be a bottomless money pit.

What do you mean by, "Blaming SES seems like a polite way of being racist." How is that racist?

You don't see the correlation between race and SES?

Anonymous wrote:What we should do is strengthen the education given through MCPS so that they provide a solid education without requiring outside tutoring.

I am wondering who feels that outside tutoring is required (outside of special needs situations). I know plenty of kids in AP classes headed to or attending good colleges that never did any tutoring aside from maybe some SAT prep.

Anonymous wrote:Blaming SES seems like a polite way of being racist. High SES likely has a correlation to academic success, but don't believe it's the cause.

Like the PP, I'm more inclined to believe what parents do at home has the greatest impact. As another person wrote earlier, an example of asian immigrants with few resources manage to do well by their kids.

Pouring resources into title 1 schools is going to have the greatest impact. Perhaps, the county would be better off incenting parents in low SES areas to take classes on how help them help their children succeed at home. The current approach although admirable hasn't worked and seems to be a bottomless money pit.

What do you mean by, "Blaming SES seems like a polite way of being racist." How is that racist?

What we should do is strengthen the education given through MCPS so that they provide a solid education without requiring outside tutoring.

Blaming SES seems like a polite way of being racist. High SES likely has a correlation to academic success, but don't believe it's the cause.

Like the PP, I'm more inclined to believe what parents do at home has the greatest impact. As another person wrote earlier, an example of asian immigrants with few resources manage to do well by their kids.

Pouring resources into title 1 schools is going to have the greatest impact. Perhaps, the county would be better off incenting parents in low SES areas to take classes on how help them help their children succeed at home. The current approach although admirable hasn't worked and seems to be a bottomless money pit.

Achievement gap is never going away. Just google the studies showing noone has closed it

But Blue areas like MCPS will continue to take funds away from certain schools and give it to other schools

In summary if you believe as I do hat the number one indicator of student success is what you do at home (highly correlated to SES)

Then we should all be cramming into a Title I school bonus is you get to be a big fish in a small pond for college admissions and your kid has a normal childhood unlike those stressful W places

Anonymous wrote:It's not SES. It's the race, family support, and simple hard work. Just look at the Asians just arrived here with nothing (i.e., the bottom of SES chart). In 10 years, they are firmly on their way - building wealth, kids performing at high levels, and achieving American dream...etc.

I agree that SES plays a huge factor along with the culture one grew up in. If a parent is an ignoramus, the kid is not off to a good start and proabably will walk in the parent's footsteps. If the school system could come up with a way of getting the kids of these ignoramuses to reject the ignorant ways of their parents, then some progress might be made. Another problem is stupid people, and I am not trying to be mean or make light of this. There are also some very stupid people in this world who have kids with other idiots and their progeny is stupid as well. I don't see much hope for these people. Stupidity has absolutely nothing to do with race, by the way. Stupider people tend to be poorer than smart people. This is a cycle in some poor communities that I know of-- stupid parents have stupid kids, the kids get pregnant at 13 and have more stupid kids, etc., etc.

It's not SES. It's the race, family support, and simple hard work. Just look at the Asians just arrived here with nothing (i.e., the bottom of SES chart). In 10 years, they are firmly on their way - building wealth, kids performing at high levels, and achieving American dream...etc.

How does saying race doesn't matter sustain segregation? It seems to me it does the opposite. Yes, there is an achievement gap and a correlation between race and achievement. Correlation, however, is not the same as causation. I don't believe that race makes one any more or less capable of achieving academically, they just need to be given the chance.

Saying it's race maintains segregation because people obviously can't (and shouldn't need to) change their race to succeed. It also dismisses the abilities and accomplishments of the brilliant people of all races.

While we obviously can't change the SES of everybody and make them instant millionaires, we can address the specific problems and make progress. For example, poor kids may be hungry, hungry kids can't learn, therefore, provide free meals at school. This addresses the actual problem.

Similarly, I think we need to say that poor families can't afford tutors and may not have the capabilities to do it at home, or even recognize the need, and they shouldn't have to. That's the point of public education, to make sure that all kids have a chance to obtain an education. Yes, the racial distribution in this predicament may be uneven, but their kids all deserve to receive a solid education.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The influx of Central Americans has taken its toll on mcps. MCPS wants to close the learning gap between the immigrants and the kids in the Churchill school district. That means slowing down the progress of the "white privileged " kids so that the lower achieving kids can appear to be learning more. Multiculturalism is really dragging us down.

Then take the hint and realize that MCPS doesn't really want your white kid anymore. Time to move or private.

I'm not pp you are responding to but what do you mean? Why would it not want white kids?

They care only about closing the achievement gap. White (and Asian) kids bring up the average, meaning the other kids have to work harder about closing the gap.

Here's what an outgoing MCPS board member said this week:

"Outgoing school board member Christopher Barclay Thursday night urged the board to address “the vestiges of white supremacy and colonialism” that create disparities in the education system."

http://www.bethesdamagazine.com/Bethesda-Beat/Web-2016/Outgoing-School-Board-Member-Urges-Attack-on-Systemic-Racism/

Now, how do you think they feel about white kids?

Overall, we're still satisfied with MCPS. Remember it's all relative -- if MCPS is lower quality due to Common Core, then other school systems are also if they need to do it also.

Ultimately, the biggest determinant of educational success is support at home. Sit down nightly with your kids to go over their homework and so on, and get tutors as needed, and they'll excel.

The problem is that this works best for families who have money. Kids who are lower SES often have parents who work multiple jobs and can't help as much as they might like to. If they're not learning what they need to in school, they will just end up left behind, while the parents who have the resources will hire tutors/get enrichment, etc.

This. It's not about race. (Yes, we need a good ESOL program for non-English speaking students wherever they come from - they don't all speak Spanish.) It's about SES. Provide a content rich curriculum. Kids should be able to get an education without hiring private tutors or having their parents turn into tutors. A really good place to start would be textbooks.

Saying this about SES and not race is exactly why segregation still exists.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The influx of Central Americans has taken its toll on mcps. MCPS wants to close the learning gap between the immigrants and the kids in the Churchill school district. That means slowing down the progress of the "white privileged " kids so that the lower achieving kids can appear to be learning more. Multiculturalism is really dragging us down.

Then take the hint and realize that MCPS doesn't really want your white kid anymore. Time to move or private.

I'm not pp you are responding to but what do you mean? Why would it not want white kids?

They care only about closing the achievement gap. White (and Asian) kids bring up the average, meaning the other kids have to work harder about closing the gap.

Here's what an outgoing MCPS board member said this week:

"Outgoing school board member Christopher Barclay Thursday night urged the board to address “the vestiges of white supremacy and colonialism” that create disparities in the education system."

http://www.bethesdamagazine.com/Bethesda-Beat/Web-2016/Outgoing-School-Board-Member-Urges-Attack-on-Systemic-Racism/

Now, how do you think they feel about white kids?

Overall, we're still satisfied with MCPS. Remember it's all relative -- if MCPS is lower quality due to Common Core, then other school systems are also if they need to do it also.

Ultimately, the biggest determinant of educational success is support at home. Sit down nightly with your kids to go over their homework and so on, and get tutors as needed, and they'll excel.

The problem is that this works best for families who have money. Kids who are lower SES often have parents who work multiple jobs and can't help as much as they might like to. If they're not learning what they need to in school, they will just end up left behind, while the parents who have the resources will hire tutors/get enrichment, etc.

This. It's not about race. (Yes, we need a good ESOL program for non-English speaking students wherever they come from - they don't all speak Spanish.) It's about SES. Provide a content rich curriculum. Kids should be able to get an education without hiring private tutors or having their parents turn into tutors. A really good place to start would be textbooks.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I see a big difference even between my 9th grader and 7th grader. When 9th grader was in ES, she had lots of homework, projects, speeches, Math unit tests that she studied for a full week. 7th grader never had to memorize multiplication fact, state capitals--no science projects, math became only 30 minute assessments that never required studying. I am open to the fact I am wrong but it seems like MCPS dumbed everything down in order to prevent statistics showing no improvement in achievement gap. It pisses me off because my younger kid is really smart (older one average) but he does not get pushed at all. He gets no lower than 98% on anything in Algebra and never has big tests or big projects that he has to do outside of school. Without the challenge of a foreign language he would have nothing but 30 minutes a week of work. Getting rid of finals, which absolutely helps my older with her GPA, but I still feel is the worst decision the system could make. Thank goodness AP exams are national or they would get rid of those too. They provide too much data to evaluate results. I hope I am wrong but my opinion is that the system gets worse every year.

If you don't mind my asking, where did/do your children attend ES and MS? I have a 4th grader and he was drilled on the multiplication table last year, state geography is a big deal, there seems to be a lot of differentiation and the emphasis on writing is far superior to what I expected. I keep hearing these horror stories on DCUM and I'm not seeing it play out that way for my children (I also have a 1st grader) so I'm trying to figure out if my expectations are not high enough or the W pyramid we are in expects more from students.

Another factor - W pyramid is last bastion of segregation in MCPS. You have fewer distractions in the classes there than in other parts of the county.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The influx of Central Americans has taken its toll on mcps. MCPS wants to close the learning gap between the immigrants and the kids in the Churchill school district. That means slowing down the progress of the "white privileged " kids so that the lower achieving kids can appear to be learning more. Multiculturalism is really dragging us down.

Then take the hint and realize that MCPS doesn't really want your white kid anymore. Time to move or private.

I'm not pp you are responding to but what do you mean? Why would it not want white kids?

Too much work, parents too demanding, and the kids will be "fine."

Also the high influx of low SES families contribute less in property taxes which is what pays for schools.