The Montgomery County Public Schools system has another feather to stick in their cap: Forbes magazine says it is the fifth-best school district in the country in terms of bang for buck.
The July 23 edition of the magazine includes an analysis that examines per-pupil spending costs adjusted for the cost of living and compares it with national student performance indicators such as SAT scores and graduation rates. The study focused on counties with more than 65,000 residents where more than 50 percent of education spending comes from property taxes.
“This independent verification and evaluation of the school system is helpful,” MCPS spokesman Brian Edwards said. “It shows for the dollars we spend on education in this community, we deliver outstanding results.”
Montgomery County wasn’t the only Washington-area school system to make the Forbes’ list: Howard County schools came in seventh, Loudoun County ranked 11th, Albemarle County was 24th, Fairfax was 28th, and other Virginia and Maryland school systems appear further down the rankings.
But a George Mason University education professor questioned the study’s methodology, arguing it relied on reporting he said does not allow an “apples-to-apples” comparison between counties.
“I wouldn’t place a lot of faith in this,” GMU professor Gary Galluzzo said.
Galluzzo questioned why the report didn’t mention the percentage of minority and English-language-learning students who take the exams and said every school district reports dropout rates differently.
Forbes reporter Christina Settimi said in an e-mailed comment that “the professor’s concern is a legitimate one” and pointed out that in her article she acknowledges “the amount of effort and the number of creative ways that schools take to report the best possible results.”
In the article, Settimi said “the caveats to our methodology notwithstanding, our study shows that there are big differences in the quality of education relative to spending among counties and is further proof that money is not the only — or perhaps even the most important — factor when it comes to the quality of education.”
