Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It seems the disparity within a school is as large. Why would someone think busing will solve the achievement gap issue? And I don't think MCPS has enough White/Asian mass to create a diversity environment for Black/Latnio without being impacted. Black families with means will flea not just the white families at some point. It's not racism. Selfishness maybe.

....because there is a large body of research on this subject showing that desegregation is the only thing that solves the achievement gap issue.

Citation?

It is the SES levels, not race.

NP, and for the most part SES is tied to race. And I think that PP was suggesting busing for SES, and not necessarily for racial diversity only. It just so happens, that around here and elsewhere, SES is tied to race.

That is racist to say. Honestly, it is SES and nothing more.

But our major issue right now is illegal immigrants. Take them out of the equation and there are billions more that can go back to legal citizens.

citation please.

Wow, you really like saying citation

Anonymous wrote:I think MCPS would benefit if:

They broke up into two school districts. Gaithersburg and north in one and Rockville south in another. The county is just too big.

They need to get rid of every program that busses a child away from their home school. All kids go to the school closest to them.

Anyone within 1 mile of school does not get a bus, even if there is a busy road. Set up crossing guards just like cities do. The amount of money spent on busses in MCPS is obscene.

Get back to tracking kids in school instead of this reading and math group nonsense. So much time is wasted on this concept, so much time. Give the lower tracked kids, smaller ratios AND a full time aide in the class, for every grade K-5th. Pull those kids out of the bottom IMMEDIATELY. Stop leaving them in the dust during "busy" work times. It is too hard to bridge the gap in later grades. Bridge the f'ing gap in K. Nip it in the bud. Do you know what a class with 15 kids and 2 teachers could do? It would be amazing to see.

And on the flip side, tracking brings the gifted kids together and even with higher ratios, the teacher can accelerate and challenge these kids. They tend to have parents who can come in and volunteer if needed to. No need for HGC and bussing kids around.

The kids working at grade level would have current ratios, can take home additional acceleration sheets for optional homework and can benefit by direct teaching without the struggling kids receiving more help and the know-it alls with their hands raised 24/7, which leaves the on-grade level students currently ignored. That needs to change.

I know first hand what a class like this can do....it's amazing. My kid was in PEP and was told that he no longer qualified for an IEP going into K. The accommodation he needed was a space with less human beings in it. It was just the sheer number of bodies that overwhelmed him and would cause him to hide under a table or run into the halls for quiet space. A class of 1:28 would still be 29 people in the class room. 15:2 is only 17 people.

To get that ratio though, I had to go private. I can say for him, it's been worth it. In addition to the smaller number of people, the teachers know my child. They can see the melt down coming and head it off before it even hits. He gets differentiated instruction in math, reading, and writing which sounds a lot like the tracking you described above. There is no busy work. There is no homework because questions are answered in class and then the teachers can walk around and assist as necessary. Especially for K, with 2 teachers, there is always someone to teach and someone to assist. Assist may mean helping to open the juice box, decoding a word, tying a shoe, teaching multiple groups simultaneously, or the ability to walk a child out of the class that is being disruptive.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It seems the disparity within a school is as large. Why would someone think busing will solve the achievement gap issue? And I don't think MCPS has enough White/Asian mass to create a diversity environment for Black/Latnio without being impacted. Black families with means will flea not just the white families at some point. It's not racism. Selfishness maybe.

....because there is a large body of research on this subject showing that desegregation is the only thing that solves the achievement gap issue.

Citation?

It is the SES levels, not race.

NP, and for the most part SES is tied to race. And I think that PP was suggesting busing for SES, and not necessarily for racial diversity only. It just so happens, that around here and elsewhere, SES is tied to race.

That is racist to say. Honestly, it is SES and nothing more.

But our major issue right now is illegal immigrants. Take them out of the equation and there are billions more that can go back to legal citizens.

citation please.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It seems the disparity within a school is as large. Why would someone think busing will solve the achievement gap issue? And I don't think MCPS has enough White/Asian mass to create a diversity environment for Black/Latnio without being impacted. Black families with means will flea not just the white families at some point. It's not racism. Selfishness maybe.

....because there is a large body of research on this subject showing that desegregation is the only thing that solves the achievement gap issue.

Citation?

It is the SES levels, not race.

NP, and for the most part SES is tied to race. And I think that PP was suggesting busing for SES, and not necessarily for racial diversity only. It just so happens, that around here and elsewhere, SES is tied to race.

That is racist to say. Honestly, it is SES and nothing more.

But our major issue right now is illegal immigrants. Take them out of the equation and there are billions more that can go back to legal citizens.

I think MCPS would benefit if:

They broke up into two school districts. Gaithersburg and north in one and Rockville south in another. The county is just too big.

They need to get rid of every program that busses a child away from their home school. All kids go to the school closest to them.

Anyone within 1 mile of school does not get a bus, even if there is a busy road. Set up crossing guards just like cities do. The amount of money spent on busses in MCPS is obscene.

Get back to tracking kids in school instead of this reading and math group nonsense. So much time is wasted on this concept, so much time. Give the lower tracked kids, smaller ratios AND a full time aide in the class, for every grade K-5th. Pull those kids out of the bottom IMMEDIATELY. Stop leaving them in the dust during "busy" work times. It is too hard to bridge the gap in later grades. Bridge the f'ing gap in K. Nip it in the bud. Do you know what a class with 15 kids and 2 teachers could do? It would be amazing to see.

And on the flip side, tracking brings the gifted kids together and even with higher ratios, the teacher can accelerate and challenge these kids. They tend to have parents who can come in and volunteer if needed to. No need for HGC and bussing kids around.

The kids working at grade level would have current ratios, can take home additional acceleration sheets for optional homework and can benefit by direct teaching without the struggling kids receiving more help and the know-it alls with their hands raised 24/7, which leaves the on-grade level students currently ignored. That needs to change.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What happens to the allure of the W schools if the current students are no longer there? Are they still perceived as better if the majority are bussed in from other areas and the IB residents choose private instead? What happens when parent involvement declines because the IB parents are no longer involved and the current student body parents can't be involved because of things like work, lack of transportation, or any of the other current reasons that they are are currently not involved in their local school?

Have you listened to the TAL podcast on school segregation? It's called "The Problem We All Live With" and is about how desegregation is the ONLY thing that has ever worked for bridging the achievement gap. The interesting thing is that it works without bringing down the scores or educational experiences of schools that were formerly overwhelmingly white.

Basically, there's scads of evidence that desegregation doesn't hurt white and Asian students, but does help Black and Latinx students, so the only reason that "W parents" would pull their kids would be racism.

Not only racism. I would pull my kid if she was required to spend an hour or more on a bus each day rather than going to our neighborhood school.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It seems the disparity within a school is as large. Why would someone think busing will solve the achievement gap issue? And I don't think MCPS has enough White/Asian mass to create a diversity environment for Black/Latnio without being impacted. Black families with means will flea not just the white families at some point. It's not racism. Selfishness maybe.

....because there is a large body of research on this subject showing that desegregation is the only thing that solves the achievement gap issue.

Citation?

It is the SES levels, not race.

NP, and for the most part SES is tied to race. And I think that PP was suggesting busing for SES, and not necessarily for racial diversity only. It just so happens, that around here and elsewhere, SES is tied to race.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It seems the disparity within a school is as large. Why would someone think busing will solve the achievement gap issue? And I don't think MCPS has enough White/Asian mass to create a diversity environment for Black/Latnio without being impacted. Black families with means will flea not just the white families at some point. It's not racism. Selfishness maybe.

....because there is a large body of research on this subject showing that desegregation is the only thing that solves the achievement gap issue.

Citation?

It is the SES levels, not race.

I would pull my kids from Westland/B-CC if bussing happened. Not because of racism (we're a multi-racial family) but because I don't want my kids on the bus for hrs a day and I don't want to have to worry about spending hrs in a car taking them to meet up with friends, or driving themselvesOr, we would move. We bought close enough to B-CC so that our kids could walk to school (a 1500 sq foot house b/c this is what we prioritized), if they got bussed we would move to DC and send the kids to Wilson or private. Do you know what the expense would be, especially taking into account after school activities?

I think what BCC has done is at the right choice. Bus some kids in, but don't bus others out. If BCC removed all the kids that aren't close-in, over-crowding wouldn't be an issue. But no one is arguing for this, because what they did works.

Anonymous wrote:A massive redistricting is definitely needed. My kid drives by a middle school on the way to his middle school. And the kids at that middle school drive by his middle school. Makes no sense.

This is what people here are asking for. You actually want it to be districted back to your closest school.

When the same cohort group at school A does within a few percents of that same group at school B, it's pretty safe to assume things are working well, and no amount of busing will solve the underlying problem. It will however divert funds away from education and will likely end up hurting some while helping nobody.

I lived in a city that had random lottery bussing to foster a fair and diverse school system, but best I can tell the schools were a disaster. The city also had the highest private school enrollment in the US. It did not appear to be working as intended.

Anonymous wrote:It seems the disparity within a school is as large. Why would someone think busing will solve the achievement gap issue? And I don't think MCPS has enough White/Asian mass to create a diversity environment for Black/Latnio without being impacted. Black families with means will flea not just the white families at some point. It's not racism. Selfishness maybe.

....because there is a large body of research on this subject showing that desegregation is the only thing that solves the achievement gap issue.

Frankly I'd be for it if it takes into consideration overcrowding and what they anticipate to be future enrollment from new building. Why not even out the numbers?

It seems the disparity within a school is as large. Why would someone think busing will solve the achievement gap issue? And I don't think MCPS has enough White/Asian mass to create a diversity environment for Black/Latnio without being impacted. Black families with means will flea not just the white families at some point. It's not racism. Selfishness maybe.