Anonymous
Post 01/22/2026 12:30     Subject: Median Family Household Incomes by School
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Has anyone changed their mind about anything based on this data? Did it inform you in any way of something you didn’t know?

For me, it was that the “rich schools” don’t have really ridiculous HHI.


I mean, I guess "ridiculous" is subjective, but you don't think it's wild that there are school districts where roughly half or more families make over $200K?


I think given the area that a HHI of $200K can be achieved by two very middle class people. Like two teachers or government workers. So I don’t think of a HHI of $200k as super rich or even rich.

I would have thought given the home prices in the Whitman catchment that it would be impossible to live there on less than $500k HHI, but maybe not? Or tho under $200K people are all retirees that have been there for decades.


I think this data is reminding us how bad people can be at estimating their own wealth as well as that of others. There are a lot of blue collar workers out there as well as people working in non profits, etc. who aren’t making the “professional” level income that so many people think is standard.

500k HHI is very unusual.[/]

I would imagine that there are many many people on DCUM who believe that most families at Whitman have HHI beyond $400k.
Anonymous
Post 01/22/2026 11:19     Subject: Median Family Household Incomes by School
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Has anyone changed their mind about anything based on this data? Did it inform you in any way of something you didn’t know?

For me, it was that the “rich schools” don’t have really ridiculous HHI.


I mean, I guess "ridiculous" is subjective, but you don't think it's wild that there are school districts where roughly half or more families make over $200K?


I think given the area that a HHI of $200K can be achieved by two very middle class people. Like two teachers or government workers. So I don’t think of a HHI of $200k as super rich or even rich.

I would have thought given the home prices in the Whitman catchment that it would be impossible to live there on less than $500k HHI, but maybe not? Or tho under $200K people are all retirees that have been there for decades.


I think this data is reminding us how bad people can be at estimating their own wealth as well as that of others. There are a lot of blue collar workers out there as well as people working in non profits, etc. who aren’t making the “professional” level income that so many people think is standard.

500k HHI is very unusual.
Anonymous
Post 01/22/2026 07:29     Subject: Median Family Household Incomes by School
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Has anyone changed their mind about anything based on this data? Did it inform you in any way of something you didn’t know?

For me, it was that the “rich schools” don’t have really ridiculous HHI.


I mean, I guess "ridiculous" is subjective, but you don't think it's wild that there are school districts where roughly half or more families make over $200K?


I think given the area that a HHI of $200K can be achieved by two very middle class people. Like two teachers or government workers. So I don’t think of a HHI of $200k as super rich or even rich.

I would have thought given the home prices in the Whitman catchment that it would be impossible to live there on less than $500k HHI, but maybe not? Or tho under $200K people are all retirees that have been there for decades.
Anonymous
Post 01/21/2026 22:50     Subject: Median Family Household Incomes by School
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Has anyone changed their mind about anything based on this data? Did it inform you in any way of something you didn’t know?

For me, it was that the “rich schools” don’t have really ridiculous HHI.


I mean, I guess "ridiculous" is subjective, but you don't think it's wild that there are school districts where roughly half or more families make over $200K?


With two working professionals in this area, with 10-15 years of experience, I think it's pretty typical income/HHI, if not more. What I don't understand except if they have family money, flipped a house, inherited a house, etc., how one can buy a 1-2 million dollar house on that income as you also have property taxes, repairs, upkeep, utilities, etc.


I mean, it may be "typical" in your circles but it's still quite high-income. We make $150K and feel pretty comfortable with our $2K mortgage and , including being able to put money away for college and retirement.... I would think a $5K mortgage for a $1M+ house on a $200K+ income should be easy.



What does comfortable mean?
Anonymous
Post 01/21/2026 20:01     Subject: Median Family Household Incomes by School
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Has anyone changed their mind about anything based on this data? Did it inform you in any way of something you didn’t know?

For me, it was that the “rich schools” don’t have really ridiculous HHI.


I mean, I guess "ridiculous" is subjective, but you don't think it's wild that there are school districts where roughly half or more families make over $200K?


With two working professionals in this area, with 10-15 years of experience, I think it's pretty typical income/HHI, if not more. What I don't understand except if they have family money, flipped a house, inherited a house, etc., how one can buy a 1-2 million dollar house on that income as you also have property taxes, repairs, upkeep, utilities, etc.


I mean, it may be "typical" in your circles but it's still quite high-income. We make $150K and feel pretty comfortable with our $2K mortgage and , including being able to put money away for college and retirement.... I would think a $5K mortgage for a $1M+ house on a $200K+ income should be easy.


You need to factor in property taxes, utilities, upkeep, not including any other expenses. If your kids are into activities, private lessons, need tutoring, those things can really add up. $150 on a 2K mortgage is appropiate, 5K on only $50K more would be very tight.
Anonymous
Post 01/21/2026 19:32     Subject: Median Family Household Incomes by School
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Has anyone changed their mind about anything based on this data? Did it inform you in any way of something you didn’t know?

For me, it was that the “rich schools” don’t have really ridiculous HHI.


I mean, I guess "ridiculous" is subjective, but you don't think it's wild that there are school districts where roughly half or more families make over $200K?


With two working professionals in this area, with 10-15 years of experience, I think it's pretty typical income/HHI, if not more. What I don't understand except if they have family money, flipped a house, inherited a house, etc., how one can buy a 1-2 million dollar house on that income as you also have property taxes, repairs, upkeep, utilities, etc.


I mean, it may be "typical" in your circles but it's still quite high-income. We make $150K and feel pretty comfortable with our $2K mortgage and , including being able to put money away for college and retirement.... I would think a $5K mortgage for a $1M+ house on a $200K+ income should be easy.


+1
Anonymous
Post 01/21/2026 19:21     Subject: Median Family Household Incomes by School
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Has anyone changed their mind about anything based on this data? Did it inform you in any way of something you didn’t know?

For me, it was that the “rich schools” don’t have really ridiculous HHI.


I mean, I guess "ridiculous" is subjective, but you don't think it's wild that there are school districts where roughly half or more families make over $200K?


With two working professionals in this area, with 10-15 years of experience, I think it's pretty typical income/HHI, if not more. What I don't understand except if they have family money, flipped a house, inherited a house, etc., how one can buy a 1-2 million dollar house on that income as you also have property taxes, repairs, upkeep, utilities, etc.


I mean, it may be "typical" in your circles but it's still quite high-income. We make $150K and feel pretty comfortable with our $2K mortgage and , including being able to put money away for college and retirement.... I would think a $5K mortgage for a $1M+ house on a $200K+ income should be easy.
Anonymous
Post 01/21/2026 18:58     Subject: Median Family Household Incomes by School
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Seriously, how long did this take you? Were you able to use AI to put this together?

Also, why are you putting this together?


It just took a couple hours. And yes, a coding agent helped, particularly with the code handling the GIS data.


Interesting. Thanks for sharing.
Anonymous
Post 01/21/2026 18:55     Subject: Re:Median Family Household Incomes by School
On Poolesville HS, keep in mind that a lot of the student population actually come from out-of-boundary. So that's a wrinkle for that data point.
Anonymous
Post 01/21/2026 18:49     Subject: Median Family Household Incomes by School
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Has anyone changed their mind about anything based on this data? Did it inform you in any way of something you didn’t know?

For me, it was that the “rich schools” don’t have really ridiculous HHI.


I mean, I guess "ridiculous" is subjective, but you don't think it's wild that there are school districts where roughly half or more families make over $200K?


With two working professionals in this area, with 10-15 years of experience, I think it's pretty typical income/HHI, if not more. What I don't understand except if they have family money, flipped a house, inherited a house, etc., how one can buy a 1-2 million dollar house on that income as you also have property taxes, repairs, upkeep, utilities, etc.


These medians are probably better used as comparators than direct indicators of income. I think retirees are pulling the numbers down a lot. And single-income families probably are, too.

I'm going to try to redo this using family income with kids under 18. That's not available at the block group level, but census tracts are probably small enough to map into high school boundaries reasonably well.
Anonymous
Post 01/21/2026 17:44     Subject: Median Family Household Incomes by School
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Since we are geeking on data, any idea where to get average grades or standardized test scores per school? Same cohorts from ES to MS and HS.


Best bet on this is probably MCAP scores. You can see them going back a few years via the Maryland State Report Card.


They also break down MCAP scores at each school by race and other demographics. If you dig into it you will find that the scores within each demographic group at different schools are generally pretty similar, and the differences in overall scores/proficiency between schools are largely explained by the share of each demographic group at that school.


Do you know if there's any way to get that in a machine-readable format? While you can download csv files, they seem to be generated on demand and only include the limited data that's on a single page. There doesn't seem to be a way to export all the data for a school.
Anonymous
Post 01/21/2026 16:16     Subject: Median Family Household Incomes by School
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Has anyone changed their mind about anything based on this data? Did it inform you in any way of something you didn’t know?

For me, it was that the “rich schools” don’t have really ridiculous HHI.


I mean, I guess "ridiculous" is subjective, but you don't think it's wild that there are school districts where roughly half or more families make over $200K?


With two working professionals in this area, with 10-15 years of experience, I think it's pretty typical income/HHI, if not more. What I don't understand except if they have family money, flipped a house, inherited a house, etc., how one can buy a 1-2 million dollar house on that income as you also have property taxes, repairs, upkeep, utilities, etc.
Anonymous
Post 01/21/2026 16:00     Subject: Median Family Household Incomes by School
Anonymous wrote:Has anyone changed their mind about anything based on this data? Did it inform you in any way of something you didn’t know?

For me, it was that the “rich schools” don’t have really ridiculous HHI.


I mean, I guess "ridiculous" is subjective, but you don't think it's wild that there are school districts where roughly half or more families make over $200K?
Anonymous
Post 01/21/2026 15:55     Subject: Median Family Household Incomes by School
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Since we are geeking on data, any idea where to get average grades or standardized test scores per school? Same cohorts from ES to MS and HS.


Best bet on this is probably MCAP scores. You can see them going back a few years via the Maryland State Report Card.


They also break down MCAP scores at each school by race and other demographics. If you dig into it you will find that the scores within each demographic group at different schools are generally pretty similar, and the differences in overall scores/proficiency between schools are largely explained by the share of each demographic group at that school.
Anonymous
Post 01/21/2026 15:51     Subject: Median Family Household Incomes by School
Anonymous wrote:Since we are geeking on data, any idea where to get average grades or standardized test scores per school? Same cohorts from ES to MS and HS.


Best bet on this is probably MCAP scores. You can see them going back a few years via the Maryland State Report Card.