Anonymous wrote:I agree with people here that it's about honesty. People need to admit that either 1) they think it's more important for their kids to do to high-performing schools than diverse schools, and they need to own that decision; or 2) they think it's more important for their kids to go to school with all kinds of people than go to a high-performing school, and they need to own that decision. Nobody gets a free pass to say one thing and do another. These are real trade-offs, and people need to be honest enough to admit when they are making them.

Also, I agree that people need to stop bashing schools their children do not attend. Anonymous uninformed advice on this board (and the snowball effect it creates) does affect people's housing and schooling choices.

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I totally agree with this. One PP suggested that posts on this forum don't affect people's decisions. But that's wrong. It's posts on this forum and others from people who haven't even tried the schools in PG that shame people into avoiding PG. When I moved to PG, I got all kinds of snarky remarks from people. And when I asked if they ever spent time in PG, if they have any actual experience with the schools, they said no. It's all reputation. Where do you think that comes from? The people telling me to avoid PG didn't know much about scores, so I don't buy that BS. And I've actually heard people say that they were considering PG because of the affordability and commute advantages but "heard" so many bad things that they avoided the area. People from other states who are moving to the region often come to boards like this to figure out where to look for housing. And immediately, they cross PG off of their list because of all of the generalizations.

But frankly, I think that people spread that misinformation and say those things about PG in order to justify the unbelievable amount of money they spent on a house and/or to justify their own choices. My feeling is I don't care what decisions people make. If a person chooses to live in MOCO "for the schools," so be it. By why do they have to then go on forums and try to convince people to avoid PG County? How does that affect them or their decision? I think they don't want PG County to improve. They don't want people to realize that there are nice areas in PG. They don't want middle and upper middle class families to move to PG and stay involved in the schools. And frankly, I don't think they really want the PG schools to improve. Why? Because they want their houses to constantly increase ridiculously in value. They want to continue to be in the "in-demand" place. They don't want a level playing field where all counties in Maryland have good schools. They want to be the elite and they want to hold on to that. If more people move to PG and the SES of the school population there increases, then it gives them less of an edge, less reason to be considered elite and better, less justification for spending a million dollars for a townhouse.

And I'm sure a bunch of people will come on here and accuse me of all kinds of things and say I'm exaggerating, et cetera. But go to some of the forums and look out how aggressively people deter others from PG. Why would people do that? What's it to them? Half of the time they actually haven't even had any interaction/experience with any PG school! Or neighborhood, for that matter. Why would people so intensely further PG's reputation when they don't even have any experience with PG?

I agree with people here that it's about honesty. People need to admit that either 1) they think it's more important for their kids to do to high-performing schools than diverse schools, and they need to own that decision; or 2) they think it's more important for their kids to go to school with all kinds of people than go to a high-performing school, and they need to own that decision. Nobody gets a free pass to say one thing and do another. These are real trade-offs, and people need to be honest enough to admit when they are making them.

Also, I agree that people need to stop bashing schools their children do not attend. Anonymous uninformed advice on this board (and the snowball effect it creates) does affect people's housing and schooling choices.

Potomac Elementary is very diverse........ethnically, but not economically.

Segregated? But in college it is so so diverse, statistically! In fact the great diversity factor becomes dispersity in one week flat.

So where does that leave you? Singing kumbaya.

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Aside from that, I'm not ready to throw my hands up and say nothing can be done.

Just curious - what's your action plan?

A start could be if people practiced what they preached.

Can you be more specific?

It would be too much to ask that people not buy in to fear mongering and avoid schools on reputation alone. But at the least, how about not steering other middle class families from areas and/or schools that you know little about and have no direct experience with.

You really think that anonymous opinion on some board is that powerful and can affect people's housing decision?
It's all blah-blah-blah...
I was hoping for real actions

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Aside from that, I'm not ready to throw my hands up and say nothing can be done.

Just curious - what's your action plan?

A start could be if people practiced what they preached.

I do practice what I preach. I don't think putting magnet schools in a failing school and having those kids scores help with the ranking is ethical. It is iike lying. I will not advise somebody to move to that school district based on the schools rating. I will tell the truth and the truth is Blair is not that good of a school and it is in a high crime area.

I practice what I preach because I live in a diverse neighborhood. My friends are diverse. My kids friends are diverse. Our weekend activities are diverse.

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Anonymous wrote:
Aside from that, I'm not ready to throw my hands up and say nothing can be done.

Just curious - what's your action plan?

A start could be if people practiced what they preached.

Can you be more specific?

It would be too much to ask that people not buy in to fear mongering and avoid schools on reputation alone. But at the least, how about not steering other middle class families from areas and/or schools that you know little about and have no direct experience with.

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Anonymous wrote:
Aside from that, I'm not ready to throw my hands up and say nothing can be done.

Just curious - what's your action plan?

A start could be if people practiced what they preached.

Can you be more specific?

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Well, it's white flight and in places like MoCo the white liberals talk a good game and want their kids at Whitman or Churchill. What do you expect?

Exactly. I find it ironic how everyone on this board is against segregated schools, yet pays an arm and a leg to live in an all-white neighborhood.

not all-white neighborhood (it's hard to call WJ or TW areas all-white), more likely schools with college-oriented/academically challenged environment.
That's what I want for my kids. No surprise that schools like that happened to be in wealthy neighborhoods. It's economic, not racial segregation.

But looking at statistics, it's pretty hard to deny that whether the intent is economic, it does also fall along racial lines.

So what? Kill the messenger and blame those who choose somewhat segregated schools that best for their children rather than diverse one just to prove they're true bleeding hearts?

It's unfortunate, but there is nothing school can do, honestly...
Just wait couple more decades until races mixed better to erase the effect of several decades of true racial segregation and discrimination.

I don't think you understand the term "kill the messenger." The messenger in this case is the article, not you or the people who self-segregated.

No one is suggesting parents do something that is not good for their children in order to prove themselves. I think perhaps people are pointing out the hypocrisy. For example, perhaps a person should not represent herself as being progressive and for inclusion and against segregation and for diversity when all of the choices she actually makes (when it comes to putting her money where her mouth/ideology is) contradict everything she espouses being for.

Aside from that, I'm not ready to throw my hands up and say nothing can be done.

I don't think you understand what I meant.
Kill the messenger - blame parents who choose places to live and best schools for their kids based on ratings and other factors.
Too bad good schools are less diverse, but it's not those people fault. It's simply the fact of life - wealthier (to some degree) neighborhood - better schools - less crime.
Skin color of the neighbors or kid's friends - not a factor at all. So, I won't call it hypocrisy.

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Aside from that, I'm not ready to throw my hands up and say nothing can be done.

Just curious - what's your action plan?

A start could be if people practiced what they preached.

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Anonymous wrote:MCPS does set school boundaries based on demographics.

And the parents work very hard to minimize the impact of such policies on their kids.

Well, some parents do. Let's call them Parents Group A. Whereas other parents (let's call them Parents Group B) get angry when Parents Group A explain that it's really in the best interests of the children of Parents Group B -- did Parents Group B only realize it! -- to attend a school that is not the school the children of Parents Group A attend.

Speaking of hypocrisy.

Ap and honors classes have become the new form of segregation within diverse schools.

Anonymous wrote:MCPS does set school boundaries based on demographics.

And the parents work very hard to minimize the impact of such policies on their kids.

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Well, it's white flight and in places like MoCo the white liberals talk a good game and want their kids at Whitman or Churchill. What do you expect?

Exactly. I find it ironic how everyone on this board is against segregated schools, yet pays an arm and a leg to live in an all-white neighborhood.

Well, except that there is a lot more to Montgomery County than Bethesda and Potomac. And even Whitman and Churchill are only 70% white and 58% white, respectively. And, PP, why are you assuming that everyone on this board is white?

Well, but at least for Whitman, 12 percent is Asian, so that you have 82 percent of the school either white or Asian.

And I believe the article is pretty clear that even within Montgomery County, there's segregation (i.e. the lower-income and either black or Hispanic students are generally concentrated in a few schools).

Reading through the MOCO schools threads, I've seen lots of posters steer others away from some Silver Spring schools, and guess what, they tend to be the schools that are *not* predominantly white.

I would steer somebody away from Silver Spring schools like Northwood and Blair but I would also point out there are diverse schools without the crime rates of Silver Spring like RM, QO, Northwest and Watkins Mill. I would also point out that Blake is better when it comes to crime. I would also steer them away from Seneca Valley and Gaithersburg right now.

Sorry if that hurts the housing market in those areas but let's do something with the schools besides adding magnet kids to them to make it seem like they are better schools.

You say "let's do something with the schools," but how is steering middle class families away from them doing something for them? How is fear-mongering helping?

They did do something up county. It is mentioned in the article. It is called putting MPDUs in neighborhoods like mine. It is working midcounty.

It's not fear mongering. There are diverse schools that are in good neighborhoods. It's just more "hip" to life in Takoma Park.

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Aside from that, I'm not ready to throw my hands up and say nothing can be done.

Just curious - what's your action plan?