Those ‘great’ Montgomery County schools? They were once. Maybe they can be again. (Silver Spring: houses, neighborhood)

[Moth]

Originally Posted by Zimar

Your post does not make a lot of sense to me, for several reasons.

1. When was this invitation to come to moco sent? How come I didn't get one? Everyone thinks I'm hispanic anyway. And it's true, a lot of people cater to me in Spanish (even though I do not speak Spanish), but they are other Hispanic people. Then they see the confused/aggravated look on my face, then I say "NO HABLA ESPANOL!" and then they probably learn something about generalizing based on appearance and automatically talking to everyone with black hair in Spanish. Look I am helping to fix this for you!

2. Children enrolled in public school must be educated, regardless of legal status. People who end up in an emergency room must be treated, regardless of status. This is not a Montgomery county thing, this is the law of the United States. Did you catch that? If an illegal immigrant wants his kids to go to public school in Idaho or Nebraska, the school must take them. So those are nation-wide freebies. And as another poster pointed out, once your kids are born in the U.S., they are citizens and have the rights of citizens. Could you be more specific about other freebies?

3. Blaming illegal immigrants for the illegal immigration problem is sort of weird. Obviously there is work available to them, and it's enough to survive on. I suspect that despite your contention, their lives here are not all sunshine and puppy dogs and free stuff. As someone whose parents immigrated legally, I can't really blame someone for taking that risk/opportunity when I know how desperately bad their life in other countries may be. Blaming Montgomery County also seems silly. These people came here because there are work opportunities. Period. Illegal immigrants have started appearing in the very immigrant-unfriendly part of WV where my parents live because gas exploration has provided a boom in the economy, and work for them. The common thread here seems to be that someone is employing them, and those people are not being punished either. We SHOULD be blaming our politicians on the national level for this totally nonsensical policy. If the economy really needs these people, they should get a legal status. If not, they should be deported. But there are clearly other interests involved who like the status quo just the way it is.

1. Montgomery County is a sanctuary county. They refuse to cooperate on anything that identifies or deports Illegals. Don't you know that?

2. Yes I know that and I am not advocating refusing such services. I am merely commenting on the fiscal strain and the societal costs. MoCo has ever higher taxes and the schools are now overcrowded and full of chronic underachievers. Well done Moco!!!!

3. No, it is sort of honest.

I doubt they survive on mowing lawns and busing tables. MoCo spends a great deal on subsidizing them. Yes, there is work, but they none the less broke the law. You are not going to get around that. And yes, companies employing them should be fined and shut down if necessary.

[EdwardA]

Originally Posted by Zimar

Guess what guess what!! Some of us, including myself, happened to go to schools with lots of poor kids (except in my case it was poor rural magical white people, so they must not count). I'm not sure what the "FARMS" rate was since that lovely term was not really used when I was in school, but I'd say 50% was a fair estimate, at least in middle school. And then what happened... oh yes, I got huge scholarships to whatever colleges I wanted to go to because I worked my butt off because my mother didn't care about FARMS or test scores or other kids or what have you, she was focused on my discipline and performance as an individual. She did not have excuses for mediocrity like blaming the school or poor people. Yes, going to school with poor people is indeed catastrophic.

Sorry folks, that "10" ranking on Greatschools is not going to determine your children's futures. You are. You can blame the schools or PG county or black people or immigrants or poor people for your problems, but that won't do you or your families any good.

Nice story mirrors mine as well but I noticed you didn't answer the question.

[justtitans]

Originally Posted by EdwardA

Nice story mirrors mine as well but I noticed you didn't answer the question.

Hmmm...you don't say. Hmm...where have I heard someone say that before about her....

[justtitans]

Originally Posted by bowian

Unless where they are from is 10 times worse. I don't know how far you go, because right or wrong, they are here now. The issue is "so high you can't get over it, so low you can't get under it."

Yes, but you make it easier to stay when you give them more things. The question I have is, who is going to pay for all this? Unless the country comes up with a creative way to generate revenue for the extra amount of people, it is going to be continue to be a problem. It is just unrealistic to just let them live in this nation without addressing this problem. And again if you give them the ability to stay, then the flood gates will open and people from all over the world will come here. What's stopping them?

[justtitans]

Originally Posted by EducatedBro82

WELL SAID..... Greatschools is biased... If someone is mad or angry, they rant about it on a site and give it a poor rating.

I know a lot of people that attended PG Schools and MoCo schools and are very well in their careers and lives. They even attended known universities in the nation and graduated with honors from there.

First, you should take Greatschools for what it is. It's a parent review. These aren't experts, these are people with varied experience and varied ideas of what is good education. You will not see a clear cut answer from a site that reviews anything in that manner, which is why schooldigger.com is a much more accurate and reliable site.

Also it doesn't matter if you know a lot of people that graduated from those schools. That means literally nothing. Statistics hold more value, then who you know. If the graduation rates are lower or declining than there is likely a reason. Also let's consider that no school system is perfect and no school system has a 100% fail rate. You will find successful graduates in just about any school system, that doesn't mean the schools are good. Having 'some' successful graduates is not a measure of how good or bad a school system is. People are going to use qualitative data because they know that education is simply not made equal in this nation and data is usually the greatest indicator, not anecdotal evidence.

[Zimar]

Originally Posted by EdwardA

Nice story mirrors mine as well but I noticed you didn't answer the question.

As you know, I put my money where my mouth is and live in PG county. No, I won't be sending my kids to a school with a 50+ FARMS rate. Our local school is only 40%! They're babies still though.

[Zimar]

Originally Posted by Moth

1. Montgomery County is a sanctuary county. They refuse to cooperate on anything that identifies or deports Illegals. Don't you know that?

2. Yes I know that and I am not advocating refusing such services. I am merely commenting on the fiscal strain and the societal costs. MoCo has ever higher taxes and the schools are now overcrowded and full of chronic underachievers. Well done Moco!!!!

3. No, it is sort of honest.

I doubt they survive on mowing lawns and busing tables. MoCo spends a great deal on subsidizing them. Yes, there is work, but they none the less broke the law. You are not going to get around that. And yes, companies employing them should be fined and shut down if necessary.

No, you're not being honest, you're deluding yourself. You can sit and stew and hate illegal immigrants all you want, but they're not the party with the power here. They've taken the common-sense course of action, which is improving their lives and taking advantage of any opportunity available. The people who make your laws know that if a law is not enforced, it might as well not exist. This is why illegal immigrants come, and it's why hedge fund managers take advantage of 60,000 loopholes and engage in insider trading and all kinds of nonsense. It's the same thing. As long as you do not pressure your lawmakers, the status quo will remain. You're being fed some baloney about illegals and you're happily gobbling it up. Resenting people who can't even vote is stupid.

[justtitans]

Originally Posted by Zimar

As you know, I put my money where my mouth is and live in PG county. No, I won't be sending my kids to a school with a 50+ FARMS rate. Our local school is only 40%! They're babies still though.

Why won't you send your kids to a 50% rate farm school? You would likely save more money. 40% isn't really that high for PG considering there are schools with a 80% rate.

[bowian]

Originally Posted by pgtvatitans

Yes, but you make it easier to stay when you give them more things. The question I have is, who is going to pay for all this? Unless the country comes up with a creative way to generate revenue for the extra amount of people, it is going to be continue to be a problem. It is just unrealistic to just let them live in this nation without addressing this problem. And again if you give them the ability to stay, then the flood gates will open and people from all over the world will come here. What's stopping them?

It's supposed to stop at the border/points of entry. Apparently, that's not working out very well. I assume that more are stopped than allowed to come in.

I don't blame people for trying and getting in this country illegally. And many of them appear to be hard workers, from what I see. I know your questions are rhetorical. But I don't have an ideal answer for the resulting impact on resources -- the solutions are either to apply more resources or apply disincentives.

[EducatedBro82]

Originally Posted by pgtvatitans

First, you should take Greatschools for what it is. It's a parent review. These aren't experts, these are people with varied experience and varied ideas of what is good education. You will not see a clear cut answer from a site that reviews anything in that manner, which is why schooldigger.com is a much more accurate and reliable site.

Also it doesn't matter if you know a lot of people that graduated from those schools. That means literally nothing. Statistics hold more value, then who you know. If the graduation rates are lower or declining than there is likely a reason. Also let's consider that no school system is perfect and no school system has a 100% fail rate. You will find successful graduates in just about any school system, that doesn't mean the schools are good. Having 'some' successful graduates is not a measure of how good or bad a school system is. People are going to use qualitative data because they know that education is simply not made equal in this nation and data is usually the greatest indicator, not anecdotal evidence.

People will bash a school system and say that most the schools are terrible, you dont learn, etc etc. MoCo schools are better than PG. Just like Charles County schools are better than PG, Anne Arundel, etc.

My point in saying that is... this article is BS... Silver Spring schools are more diverse than Gaithersburg, vs. Rockville, etc. BUT ARE ALL GOOD SCHOOLS. The article states that the schools are not up to par except for the "elite" (which i use loosely) schools in Potamac, Bethesda, etc. That is not true which is why I dont believe this article one bit. MoCo is a majority WHITE county with its towns and areas majority WHITE.

So MoCo schools are not the same in 1980s and 1990s when the school system was almost all white. Big Deal, the quality of education is still better. Thing is MoCo COL is higher than PG even with that MPDU initiative that the county has...

as i said numerous times... PARENTS need to PARENT the kids and take initiative that education is a plus. Once that starts the "bad" (and I say that real loosely) schools will improve.