Montgomer County Ranks 5th in US (how much, school districts, property taxes)

[oldskool25]

A new study by Forbes magazine ranks Montgomery County public schools fifth in the nation "for the buck," with nods to Howard and Loudoun schools for delivering return on educational investment. It ranks D.C. and Alexandria schools among the worst.

The analysis, "Best and Worst School Districts for the Buck," ranks 97 jurisdictions for performance -- as measured by SAT data and graduation rates -- relative to per-pupil spending. It focuses on locales with populations greater than 65,000 where more than half of school funds come from property taxes.

washingtonpost.com

[saganista]

Well, I guess you'd have to ask how much faith to put in Forbes magazine. It seems that all they did was put SAT scores and graduation rates over per-pupil gross expenditures for 97 areas where property taxes were the main source of public school funding. Interesting that the expert quoted called the Forbes study "just plain dumb". I think I could go along with that...

[5stones]

well it has some merit in the fact that it's saying that you can have "sucessful students" ie...graduating and not have the highsest cost per pupil. So money isn't always a measure of preformance. Just throwing more money at the school doesn't mean it's going to be a sucess. Mont and Loudoun co both spend less than 9,000 per pupil and Alex spends over 11,000. It's smarter spending. Of course you have Alex saying alot of the poor grad numbers are due to ESL students... but Loudoun has a fair number of ESL as well as many rural areas...

so while I'd take it with a grain of salt, it's still interesting.

[lscalder]

Montgomery county send more the 9k per student. I think Montgomery spend close to 13k per student

[5stones]

5 Montgomery MD $8,824 (spending per pupil) 1,101 (SAT score) 76.50% (SAT particpation rate) 91.40% (graduation rate)

Less than 9,000.

Alexandria city fell lower than DC because they spend more per student ($11,404 vs $10,473 for DC) and have the same graduation rate 73%

[The Dissenter]

this forbes survey is garbage. if you ask ANY parent in the DC area which system they would attend Alexandria City vs. DC. i will bet my car and one of my kidneys that at least 9 out of 10 would say Alexandria. Plus not every school in Mont Co is good. on a post on montgomery village (mont co) they said gaithersburg high isn't really good. so there are defintely cracks in Montgomery County schools.

[lscalder]

Olney Elementary school is horrible. I compared Olney Elementary to one of Pg county Elementary and Mattaponi Elementary in Upper Marlboro it pass Olney Elementary by far. If you go on Maryland school website you can compare schools to each other.