What makes Prince Georges County School District bad??

[paulmartinelli]

Originally Posted by Mista Jones

60 percent of the county budget goes to schools. Revenue to the county is heavily reliant on personal property due to lack of a corporate tax base. The funding to the schools is not enough as we have some of the oldest schools in the state. Furthermore we bear the brunt of this regions farms students. The parents even in wealthy areas don’t send their kids to public schools. So even in a good area, only low income kids are attending the schools. I think people forget how large the county is and how we are treated as a dumping ground for the regions underserved residents. And the concentration of wealth pales in comparison to the other counties. Context matters and we are not dealing with apples to apples comparison. Yes, the schools should and need to be better. But it requires involved parents and better resources.

Of course, as you say, the higher financial burden of low-income students may make apples-to-apples comparison between entire districts difficult, but it can be done on a school to school basis.
https://oese.ed.gov/ppe/maryland/
Here is a great resource to compare per-pupil spending between schools. It indicates to me that high-performing schools in the other districts which I listed have similar per-pupil spending as PG County schools.

You're definitely right that wealthy people are more likely to send their kids to private schools, but I find it hard to believe that these outside-the-Beltway areas have such a large portion of the population that is low-income. Poverty rates outside the Beltway in PG County are very low (1% of those under 18 in Bowie are living in poverty according to the 2010 census, not sure whether it has changed much since then), and incomes are high, yet the schools still have low performance (Bowie as my aforementioned example and others that fit the same pattern).

I suppose my question should not be why PG County schools are so bad, but rather why PG County schools in wealthy areas with low poverty rates are bad. I can understand why a place like Bladensburg or Seat Pleasant would be struggling due to economic woes, but not outer PG.

What resources does Bowie High lack in comparison to higher-performing schools in other districts that would improve its performance?