MCPS Consortium leads to sports dynasties

The Washington Post: Montgomery's setup leads to dynasties

When Enerio Jones was ready to enter high school in the fall of 2007, he wasn't convinced his local school in Burtonsville had what he was looking for. Specifically, he wanted to play basketball. And he wanted to win.

Fortunately for Jones, he lives in a section of Montgomery County that gives him options.

Even though Jones lives within the Paint Branch district, that school is part of Montgomery County Public Schools' Northeast Consortium, along with Springbrook and Blake. Students living in those schools' zones can apply to go to any one of the three. Created 12 years ago to allow students to take advantage of the unique academic offerings at each school, one unintended consequence of the consortium has been the birth of a basketball dynasty at Springbrook and two very strong programs at Blake and Paint Branch.

With a broad smile, Jones, who will be the Blue Devils' starting point guard, beamed, "Basketball was why I came here."

The down side, many coaches point out, is that consortium opens the door for recruiting, allowing the three schools to replenish their talent stock annually....

...Adding to coaches' frustration is that transfers are allowed within the county virtually without penalty. The Washington Catholic Athletic Conference, in an effort to generate roster stability from year to year and limit recruiting, mandates players who transfer after their freshman year from a county that either houses a WCAC school or is adjacent to one must sit out one athletic season.

Beattie, however, said he does not believe such a rule is necessary...

...Every coach interviewed for this story acknowledged the consortium has created a very uncomfortable dynamic within the county.

"Somebody should have said this is really going to create a position of recruitment for players," said Quince Orchard Coach Paul Foringer, who has been a head coach at three schools in the county since 1985, "but nobody ever did anything about it. It certainly does muddy the waters."

Studies Show School Choice Widens Inequality

School choice programs which allow parents to select the schools their children attend deepen educational inequality and fail to yield consistent learning gains, according to nine studies of choice initiatives coordinated by researchers at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

The two-year long research project examined choice programs in Detroit, Milwaukee, St. Louis, San Antonio, and Montgomery County, Maryland; African American and Hispanic families' views of choice plans; voucher initiatives in higher education and preschool settings; and the public and private school markets overseas.

From the summary of the report:

Choice Can Increase Racial Segregation

School choice also has the potential to further the re-segregation of public schools. For example, Montgomery County, Maryland, a suburb of Washington, D.C., created magnet schools as part of its school desegregation efforts in the late 1970s. Researchers found that many parents choose magnet schools on the basis of racial composition and cultural similarity. White parents tend to choose schools with higher white enrollment, while black parents select schools with higher black enrollment. Only by using their authority to deny transfer requests have school officials kept the choice process from increasing segregation.