Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:This thread has gotten strange. I want my kid to be well educated and kind. Could care less if they go to Harvard. I assume some kids from each of these HS will get into Ivys and most won’t. That’s not my measuring stick.
+1
Are there great schools in DCPS? Sure. Is DCPS, as a system, far less resourced and far more dysfunctional than MCPS? Also yes. If you can afford in-bounds for JKLM, great. If you can’t, the “lower tiers” of MCPS are generally far better than various DCPS options. That’s part of it, too: MCPS has more options, for all kinds of things.
OK, but things aren't this simple. Great DCPS schools don't come with the built-in administrative support that MCPS schools provide, whatever tier they're on. For example, most DCPS principals are hired on one-year contracts, three years tops. In MCPS, most principals are on five-year contracts.
No MCPS high school is at something like 175% capacity JR, not even close. That's because many by-right/neighborhood high schools in MoCo appeal to most-inboundary residents, not just one high school (JR) like in DC. Also, MCPS doesn't face competition from charters. When we had issues with bungled class assignments, mishandled AP testing, a teacher leaving mid-year and not being replaced at JR, there was essentially no recourse.
In MCPS, where my nieces and nephews attend upper-tier schools, parents can go up the chain to complain with a much higher chance of success than in DCPS. MCPS has never experienced the dysfunction of DCPS because they're in a state as much as anything else. DC is a merely a city with a high poverty rate.