That's just idiotic PP - the County is huge. How do you propose organizing transportation if students can go anywhere, and presumably can change that choice every year?

Anonymous wrote:

Socioeconomic disparity means that there are financial issues driving the gap. Extra funding for support programs (ie. free tutoring service for homework and SAT prep, more money for music, art, and sports programs, parent support classes and training, etc.) would be a step in the right direction in attacking socioeconomic problems.

If that doesn't work, I say open up the boundaries. Let all kids choose where they want to go to school. Why a parent would want to send their kid from a school with 15 kids per class to a school with 32 kids per class just because the later school has the preppy zip code is beyond me.

That's just idiotic PP - the County is huge. How do you propose organizing transportation if students can go anywhere, and presumably can change that choice every year? (And if all schools are open to all, presumably the class size differential would be even as well - no point in having smaller classes in lower performing schools if kids can go anywhere. And how do you ration seats at better performing schools, which presumably would command higher numbers of prospective students? And so on - it's just not a viable possibility.

Achievement gaps within MCPS correlate to socioeconomic differences in the county - big surprise! This is true everywhere, although less evident in areas where school systems are operated by town rather than county. It's true of all major metropolitan areas. The school system cannot change the socioeconomic disparities in the county; you cannot, via schools, ensure that the kid in the $5m Potomac house, complete with Kumon since age 3 and a SAHM former lawyer whose goal in life is to get her kid into Harvard, has the exact same experience as the kid whose parents are immigrants with limited job prospects, language challenges and uncertainty in the basics (food, shelter.) As I posted before, the Post oped by this blogger indicated that MCPS has more kids who qualify for FARMS than DC -- and yet few would argue that DCPS has better educational achievements. So while I fully appreciate that lots of people have lots to criticize about MCPS, it isn't immediately obvious to me that the County is failing anyone, particularly not disadvantaged kids, who apparently do better in MCPS than they would be in DCPS. Maybe that's a low bar, but it's a relevant one.

If you have good ideas about how to enhance socioeconomic diversity in MoCo, I'm all ears. I just don't think it's practical to put that burden on the school system.

Anonymous wrote:The other thing that struck me about this article was the contention that there are more FARMS kids in MCPS than in DCPS... which actually contravenes the author's argument. MCPS produces better overall results with a diverse and less wealthy population than DC does -- which seems like a sign that MCPS is doing something right... No?

Socioeconomic disparity means that there are financial issues driving the gap. Extra funding for support programs (ie. free tutoring service for homework and SAT prep, more money for music, art, and sports programs, parent support classes and training, etc.) would be a step in the right direction in attacking socioeconomic problems.

If that doesn't work, I say open up the boundaries. Let all kids choose where they want to go to school. Why a parent would want to send their kid from a school with 15 kids per class to a school with 32 kids per class just because the later school has the preppy zip code is beyond me.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To the PP, it's not quite fair to say the only thing you could do to help kids in poverty is give them new parents. I thought the research was pretty clear on the benefits of putting disadvantaged kids in smaller classes, and in schools not completely full of other disadvantaged kids.

By all means - put the disadvantaged kids in smaller classes - I am all for it.

But putting your disadvantaged kid in the same class as my high achiever kid, may help your kid, but is actually hampering my child in reaching his full potential.

Good for your kid. Got that. Bad for my kid. Where is the logic of that?

So, by your reasoning, all disadvantaged kids are not smart.

great logic

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To the PP, it's not quite fair to say the only thing you could do to help kids in poverty is give them new parents. I thought the research was pretty clear on the benefits of putting disadvantaged kids in smaller classes, and in schools not completely full of other disadvantaged kids.

The only thing that research consistently shows is that smaller class sizes benefit ALL children. I think all parents would agree class sizes are way too big across the entire county.

As far as schools that are full of other disadvantaged kids, which schools are you referring to? The county spends large sums of money to encourage and then bus high academically performing kids all over the county so these schools no longer exist.

Anonymous wrote:"BTW - not all of these kids are African American or Hispanic. To say so is racist."

Not PP but it is not racist to state the fact that most of the kids in MoCo that are FARMS are AA or Hispanic. I don't think anyone is saying all FARMS kids are those races nor that all AA or Hispanic kids are FARMS. But many of the county's AA/Hispanic kids are also FARMS and a high rate of the county's FARM population is in turn AA/Hispanic.

Anonymous wrote:To the PP, it's not quite fair to say the only thing you could do to help kids in poverty is give them new parents. I thought the research was pretty clear on the benefits of putting disadvantaged kids in smaller classes, and in schools not completely full of other disadvantaged kids.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To the PP, it's not quite fair to say the only thing you could do to help kids in poverty is give them new parents. I thought the research was pretty clear on the benefits of putting disadvantaged kids in smaller classes, and in schools not completely full of other disadvantaged kids.

By all means - put the disadvantaged kids in smaller classes - I am all for it.

But putting your disadvantaged kid in the same class as my high achiever kid, may help your kid, but is actually hampering my child in reaching his full potential.

Good for your kid. Got that. Bad for my kid. Where is the logic of that?

Anonymous wrote:People are conflating two issues here. One issue is economic segregation, i.e. some schools having 2% poor kids and some schools having 90%. Another issue is whether to have ability tracking and in what grades. I think it's fair to say some people support trying to even out the economic segregation in the schools in the county, but also believe in ability tracking. Those are separate issues.

Anonymous wrote:
The FARMS kids have access to the same teachers, the same classes, and the same at school resources at Churchill. How many of these kids make it into the competitive track at the school including AP and Honors classes? BTW - not all of these kids are African American or Hispanic. To say so is racist. I also never said I had an issue with anyone attending Churchill. I think the school has an overinflated reputation. Moving kids in or out will not solve the problems in MCPS. Just more gas and pollution.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Where's the data to support your theory? There are Section 8 kids that go to Winston Churchill High School. Does the data show that they do better than Section 8 students elsewhere in the county? Nope.

And you know this how, exactly? You've looked at their test scores? You've done a study?

Not to mention the numbers of those "Section 8" kidsl. 2012-2013 enrollment at Churchill was 2,092. The FARMS rate was less than or equal to 5%. Let's be generous and set it at 5%. That means that there were, at most, 104 kids on FARMS in the whole school. Now let's further assume that it was 5% for each grade. So that's maybe 29 9th graders, 24 10th graders, 27 11th graders, and 26 12th graders. But sure, let's generalize from what you think you know about those 24-29 kids per grade.

And -- since the Washington Post opinion piece is also about housing segregation -- I assume that the "Section 8" kids at Churchill you're talking about are from Scotland, which is a black community that has been there since the Civil War. Their grandparents received a segregated education right here in Montgomery County. And apparently the parents of Churchill HS students just purely cannot stand it that their kids are zoned to the same high school as 100 or so poor black kids whose families have lived in the area for 150 years longer than they have.