Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

It's not "SES peer cohort".. it's "academic peer cohort" which doesn't mean that they are all not low income. Calm down. You're making a big stink out of nothing.

Yeah no, it has zero to do with academic cohort. Its about SES, making sure that their kids are around kids with educated parents, not food insecure, no drop out siblings, parents are employed/not in jail etc There was a thread a while back with someone asking about New Hampshire Estates and all the posters nearby made a huge deal that the school is too poor so the OP's kids would have a hard time finding friends.

I don't know about that thread, or what a New Hampshire Estate is. But, there is a tipping point in schools wrt low income kids, and there are empirical studies that show that if the low SES percentage stays below it, the high SES kids will generally perform well, no matter what. But if a school gets past that tipping point, the performance of *all* students seems to suffer. For most people, it's about outcomes, not finding rich friends.

And no, I don't have a link to the studies. Sorry.

Up to 20% doesn't matter 20-40% starts taking a hit over 40% the school has to focus on dealing with kids who need help so much the rest of the school population takes a dramatic hit and it actaully does harm to the kids who don't need extra support due to the lack of attention and focus by the school

WHy can't the county give school vouchers to poor families and let them choose a school to attend as long as the school isn't overcrowded or that it hasn't reached the max limit (whatever that % is, let's say 20%) for FARMS?

Think about other parts of our country where the schools are not managed by counties, but as individual school districts. Should a school district just send kids to other districts just because the FARM rate is too high?

If one thinks (or a study shows) high FARM rate for a school is a problem, that is a problem that needs to be dealt with by people managing that school and people living in that community. Shifting the burden to others is not the right way to do it.

But we're not like other parts of the country. We are one county and we have poor schools, rich schools, and those in between in this one county. We've already established that schools with a high number of poor kids are not good for all students at the school; regardless of what the school does or what programs are established at that school. WHy would school vouchers be a burden to other schools as long as they don't significantly drive up the FARM rates and cause overcrowding?

Put it this way: if you can just "voucher" students to other schools without burdening those schools taking these students, why not just re-zone the clusters to reflect that? Also does county funding go with these students to the schools accepting them? If not, that is unfair.

I would feel even giving more funding to high FARM rate schools (so that they can get more manpower etc.) would be better justified.

Title I schools already get additional funds.

I agree with redefining clusters so you get a better cross section of students at schools.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

It's not "SES peer cohort".. it's "academic peer cohort" which doesn't mean that they are all not low income. Calm down. You're making a big stink out of nothing.

Yeah no, it has zero to do with academic cohort. Its about SES, making sure that their kids are around kids with educated parents, not food insecure, no drop out siblings, parents are employed/not in jail etc There was a thread a while back with someone asking about New Hampshire Estates and all the posters nearby made a huge deal that the school is too poor so the OP's kids would have a hard time finding friends.

I don't know about that thread, or what a New Hampshire Estate is. But, there is a tipping point in schools wrt low income kids, and there are empirical studies that show that if the low SES percentage stays below it, the high SES kids will generally perform well, no matter what. But if a school gets past that tipping point, the performance of *all* students seems to suffer. For most people, it's about outcomes, not finding rich friends.

And no, I don't have a link to the studies. Sorry.

Up to 20% doesn't matter 20-40% starts taking a hit over 40% the school has to focus on dealing with kids who need help so much the rest of the school population takes a dramatic hit and it actaully does harm to the kids who don't need extra support due to the lack of attention and focus by the school

WHy can't the county give school vouchers to poor families and let them choose a school to attend as long as the school isn't overcrowded or that it hasn't reached the max limit (whatever that % is, let's say 20%) for FARMS?

Think about other parts of our country where the schools are not managed by counties, but as individual school districts. Should a school district just send kids to other districts just because the FARM rate is too high?

If one thinks (or a study shows) high FARM rate for a school is a problem, that is a problem that needs to be dealt with by people managing that school and people living in that community. Shifting the burden to others is not the right way to do it.

But we're not like other parts of the country. We are one county and we have poor schools, rich schools, and those in between in this one county. We've already established that schools with a high number of poor kids are not good for all students at the school; regardless of what the school does or what programs are established at that school. WHy would school vouchers be a burden to other schools as long as they don't significantly drive up the FARM rates and cause overcrowding?

Put it this way: if you can just "voucher" students to other schools without burdening those schools taking these students, why not just re-zone the clusters to reflect that? Also does county funding go with these students to the schools accepting them? If not, that is unfair.

I would feel even giving more funding to high FARM rate schools (so that they can get more manpower etc.) would be better justified.

MCPS could start by giving vouchers to FARMS kids that score above 96% -the new definition of highly able.

Anonymous wrote:MCPS makes the hypocrisy worse by actively trying to entice wealthier white people into schools through magnet and other programs AND not providing appropriate special education for kids with learning disabilities.

The magnet, honors and AP courses are all filled with UMC kids and a small handful of lower income kids. The UMC parents in these schools push hard to make sure that their kids get into these classes. Many are far from geniuses or even smart. They have the advantage of parents with resources and the ability to push.

Many UMC and URM kids have learning disabilities but UMC parents will force MCPS to do something. If you have insurance to pay for outside testing, enough education to understand your child's rights, and the inclination to fight you can make sure that your ADHD, dyslexic, language or math challenged child gets the intervention he or she needs in the early years. The low income kids don't have anyone fighting for them and MCPS ignores them.

I'm sure that there are many more low income kids who COULD have been qualified for those classes if their parents had advocated and pushed for them to be in the classes and had the resources to push MCPS to accommodate learning disabilities.

Uh.. no.. MCPS just changed admittance to CES and MS mangets to look at "peer cohort" such that many high achievers from the wealthier schools didn't get in.

How should MCPS determine if a low income child has a LD? How can MCPS force the parents of low income kids to get their kids tested even if the testing is free?

Anonymous wrote:

But we're not like other parts of the country. We are one county and we have poor schools, rich schools, and those in between in this one county. We've already established that schools with a high number of poor kids are not good for all students at the school; regardless of what the school does or what programs are established at that school. WHy would school vouchers be a burden to other schools as long as they don't significantly drive up the FARM rates and cause overcrowding?

School vouchers would not be a burden to other schools. They would be a burden to PEOPLE. You know how affluent people on DCUM don't want their kids going halfway across the county with school-provided transportation? Now imagine how poor people would get their kids halfway across the county without school-provided transportation.

And they don't even work in terms of the math. There are 57,000 very poor kids in MCPS. Is there room for 57,000 additional kids in the schools in Bethesda and Potomac?

MCPS makes the hypocrisy worse by actively trying to entice wealthier white people into schools through magnet and other programs AND not providing appropriate special education for kids with learning disabilities.

The magnet, honors and AP courses are all filled with UMC kids and a small handful of lower income kids. The UMC parents in these schools push hard to make sure that their kids get into these classes. Many are far from geniuses or even smart. They have the advantage of parents with resources and the ability to push.

Many UMC and URM kids have learning disabilities but UMC parents will force MCPS to do something. If you have insurance to pay for outside testing, enough education to understand your child's rights, and the inclination to fight you can make sure that your ADHD, dyslexic, language or math challenged child gets the intervention he or she needs in the early years. The low income kids don't have anyone fighting for them and MCPS ignores them.

I'm sure that there are many more low income kids who COULD have been qualified for those classes if their parents had advocated and pushed for them to be in the classes and had the resources to push MCPS to accommodate learning disabilities.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

WHy can't the county give school vouchers to poor families and let them choose a school to attend as long as the school isn't overcrowded or that it hasn't reached the max limit (whatever that % is, let's say 20%) for FARMS?

Because it's rarely effective to fix systemic problems with individual efforts.

By the way, 35% of students in MCPS participate in the Free and Reduced Meals System.

DP.. they could give COSA to low income students to go to underenrolled schools, like those in Churchill or Wootton clusters.

Unfortunately, most of the low income students are concentrated in certain areas, so even if MCPS as a whole has 35% of students who are low income, most of them are concentrated in a handful of HSs. In a perfect world the 35% would be spread out evenly such that every HS had about 30 to 35% low income students, but obviously that won't be possible. However, MCPS can draw boundaries that spread out the low income students as much as it can.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

It's not "SES peer cohort".. it's "academic peer cohort" which doesn't mean that they are all not low income. Calm down. You're making a big stink out of nothing.

Yeah no, it has zero to do with academic cohort. Its about SES, making sure that their kids are around kids with educated parents, not food insecure, no drop out siblings, parents are employed/not in jail etc There was a thread a while back with someone asking about New Hampshire Estates and all the posters nearby made a huge deal that the school is too poor so the OP's kids would have a hard time finding friends.

I don't know about that thread, or what a New Hampshire Estate is. But, there is a tipping point in schools wrt low income kids, and there are empirical studies that show that if the low SES percentage stays below it, the high SES kids will generally perform well, no matter what. But if a school gets past that tipping point, the performance of *all* students seems to suffer. For most people, it's about outcomes, not finding rich friends.

And no, I don't have a link to the studies. Sorry.

Up to 20% doesn't matter 20-40% starts taking a hit over 40% the school has to focus on dealing with kids who need help so much the rest of the school population takes a dramatic hit and it actaully does harm to the kids who don't need extra support due to the lack of attention and focus by the school

WHy can't the county give school vouchers to poor families and let them choose a school to attend as long as the school isn't overcrowded or that it hasn't reached the max limit (whatever that % is, let's say 20%) for FARMS?

Think about other parts of our country where the schools are not managed by counties, but as individual school districts. Should a school district just send kids to other districts just because the FARM rate is too high?

If one thinks (or a study shows) high FARM rate for a school is a problem, that is a problem that needs to be dealt with by people managing that school and people living in that community. Shifting the burden to others is not the right way to do it.

But we're not like other parts of the country. We are one county and we have poor schools, rich schools, and those in between in this one county. We've already established that schools with a high number of poor kids are not good for all students at the school; regardless of what the school does or what programs are established at that school. WHy would school vouchers be a burden to other schools as long as they don't significantly drive up the FARM rates and cause overcrowding?

Anonymous wrote:

WHy can't the county give school vouchers to poor families and let them choose a school to attend as long as the school isn't overcrowded or that it hasn't reached the max limit (whatever that % is, let's say 20%) for FARMS?

Because it's rarely effective to fix systemic problems with individual efforts.

By the way, 35% of students in MCPS participate in the Free and Reduced Meals System.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

It's not "SES peer cohort".. it's "academic peer cohort" which doesn't mean that they are all not low income. Calm down. You're making a big stink out of nothing.

Yeah no, it has zero to do with academic cohort. Its about SES, making sure that their kids are around kids with educated parents, not food insecure, no drop out siblings, parents are employed/not in jail etc There was a thread a while back with someone asking about New Hampshire Estates and all the posters nearby made a huge deal that the school is too poor so the OP's kids would have a hard time finding friends.

I don't know about that thread, or what a New Hampshire Estate is. But, there is a tipping point in schools wrt low income kids, and there are empirical studies that show that if the low SES percentage stays below it, the high SES kids will generally perform well, no matter what. But if a school gets past that tipping point, the performance of *all* students seems to suffer. For most people, it's about outcomes, not finding rich friends.

And no, I don't have a link to the studies. Sorry.

Up to 20% doesn't matter 20-40% starts taking a hit over 40% the school has to focus on dealing with kids who need help so much the rest of the school population takes a dramatic hit and it actaully does harm to the kids who don't need extra support due to the lack of attention and focus by the school

WHy can't the county give school vouchers to poor families and let them choose a school to attend as long as the school isn't overcrowded or that it hasn't reached the max limit (whatever that % is, let's say 20%) for FARMS?

Think about other parts of our country where the schools are not managed by counties, but as individual school districts. Should a school district just send kids to other districts just because the FARM rate is too high?

If one thinks (or a study shows) high FARM rate for a school is a problem, that is a problem that needs to be dealt with by people managing that school and people living in that community. Shifting the burden to others is not the right way to do it.

Anonymous wrote:
Nope it's human nature to strive for the best neighborhood you can afford. There will be always good ok and bad areas period as people are constantly sorting

I think that you're mixing up "human nature" and "post-WWII housing policy in the US". They're not synonymous.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

It's not "SES peer cohort".. it's "academic peer cohort" which doesn't mean that they are all not low income. Calm down. You're making a big stink out of nothing.

Yeah no, it has zero to do with academic cohort. Its about SES, making sure that their kids are around kids with educated parents, not food insecure, no drop out siblings, parents are employed/not in jail etc There was a thread a while back with someone asking about New Hampshire Estates and all the posters nearby made a huge deal that the school is too poor so the OP's kids would have a hard time finding friends.

I don't know about that thread, or what a New Hampshire Estate is. But, there is a tipping point in schools wrt low income kids, and there are empirical studies that show that if the low SES percentage stays below it, the high SES kids will generally perform well, no matter what. But if a school gets past that tipping point, the performance of *all* students seems to suffer. For most people, it's about outcomes, not finding rich friends.

And no, I don't have a link to the studies. Sorry.

Up to 20% doesn't matter 20-40% starts taking a hit over 40% the school has to focus on dealing with kids who need help so much the rest of the school population takes a dramatic hit and it actaully does harm to the kids who don't need extra support due to the lack of attention and focus by the school

WHy can't the county give school vouchers to poor families and let them choose a school to attend as long as the school isn't overcrowded or that it hasn't reached the max limit (whatever that % is, let's say 20%) for FARMS?

I think this is a good idea, but probably not a practical one. It could be a management nightmare and that is without considering how you would transport students to their respective schools.

I think that the school system should continue to evaluate schools, clusters, and boundaries on a regular basis, making adjustments where needed to maximize the benefit to the greatest number of students.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

It's not "SES peer cohort".. it's "academic peer cohort" which doesn't mean that they are all not low income. Calm down. You're making a big stink out of nothing.

Yeah no, it has zero to do with academic cohort. Its about SES, making sure that their kids are around kids with educated parents, not food insecure, no drop out siblings, parents are employed/not in jail etc There was a thread a while back with someone asking about New Hampshire Estates and all the posters nearby made a huge deal that the school is too poor so the OP's kids would have a hard time finding friends.

I don't know about that thread, or what a New Hampshire Estate is. But, there is a tipping point in schools wrt low income kids, and there are empirical studies that show that if the low SES percentage stays below it, the high SES kids will generally perform well, no matter what. But if a school gets past that tipping point, the performance of *all* students seems to suffer. For most people, it's about outcomes, not finding rich friends.

And no, I don't have a link to the studies. Sorry.

Up to 20% doesn't matter 20-40% starts taking a hit over 40% the school has to focus on dealing with kids who need help so much the rest of the school population takes a dramatic hit and it actaully does harm to the kids who don't need extra support due to the lack of attention and focus by the school

WHy can't the county give school vouchers to poor families and let them choose a school to attend as long as the school isn't overcrowded or that it hasn't reached the max limit (whatever that % is, let's say 20%) for FARMS?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

It's not "SES peer cohort".. it's "academic peer cohort" which doesn't mean that they are all not low income. Calm down. You're making a big stink out of nothing.

Yeah no, it has zero to do with academic cohort. Its about SES, making sure that their kids are around kids with educated parents, not food insecure, no drop out siblings, parents are employed/not in jail etc There was a thread a while back with someone asking about New Hampshire Estates and all the posters nearby made a huge deal that the school is too poor so the OP's kids would have a hard time finding friends.

I don't know about that thread, or what a New Hampshire Estate is. But, there is a tipping point in schools wrt low income kids, and there are empirical studies that show that if the low SES percentage stays below it, the high SES kids will generally perform well, no matter what. But if a school gets past that tipping point, the performance of *all* students seems to suffer. For most people, it's about outcomes, not finding rich friends.

And no, I don't have a link to the studies. Sorry.

Up to 20% doesn't matter 20-40% starts taking a hit over 40% the school has to focus on dealing with kids who need help so much the rest of the school population takes a dramatic hit and it actaully does harm to the kids who don't need extra support due to the lack of attention and focus by the school

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Both of these are very true which is the rub

If you start moving kids from high poverty schools to other schools. People in the other schools are more likely to move or go private. I honestly don't know what the solution out of this one is.

There will always be poor people and they will always be clustered in certain school areas because again most people who can move to another school pyramid or go private.

Our land use and transportation patterns are the result of deliberate policy choices. They didn't just happen, like the weather.

The detrimental effects of poverty on children's health and children's learning are also the result of deliberate policy choices.

Nope it's human nature to strive for the best neighborhood you can afford. There will be always good ok and bad areas period as people are constantly sorting