Top Maryland High School-College

Once a shining star of public schools in the country, Montgomery County Public Schools suffered quite a fall from grace. Parents, teachers, and students all felt the fallout as MCPS endured scandal after scandal. A new Superintendent took over a year ago and everyone is curious what his report card looks like. Today you’re going to find out the latest. Is MCPS finally turning a corner? And, bonus news today – I’ve got updated college stats for the county for you!

I attended a roundtable with various community members and reporters to discuss the state of MCPS and the effect of the new Superintendent. There are a few current hot button issues facing the schools. If you did not see my video from early 2025 about MCPS basically being a dumpster fire, you may want to watch that so you can see where this train has rolled in from. The too long / didn’t read rundown is this: A sexual harassment and bullying scandal that went unaddressed by the former Superintendent, the departure and outrageous payout to the disgraced former Superintendent and a reduced budget which almost felt like a punishment for the MCPS mismanagement of… so so much.

Superintendent Report Card

Let’s start with the new Superintendent. We are embarking on his second school year. Thomas Taylor is proud of his accomplishments to increase transparency and improve school outcomes per Bethesda Magazine but concedes there is more to do. 

At the end of his first year, the budget passed was $3.6 billion for 2026, which is the largest budget they have had ever. They plan to use these funds to increase staff salaries, add to special education and security departments and create additional materials for students who need more support. There have been a lot of “wins” and a lot of positive change. Taylor also gets along well with the school board, which is critical for positive change too.

An area of change that some argue wasn’t very transparent was to the discipline policy.  Punishments for things like fighting were increased. Some activists argued that these changes could have negative effects on some students and said that MCPS should have engaged the community with more involvement here. The Superintendent though responded that some decisions have to be made, and they can’t share every detail with everyone. 

MCPS has not yet been able to address large class sizes and ratios of students to staff. Other items to be addressed are the ever-present boundary changes, and changes to programs within schools. And the Central Office, or what I always refer to as the Administration, didn’t have enough reorganization and new blood added to it for some other meaningful changes to occur. 

So the summary so far is that the new Superintendent is performing about as great as he can with just a year under his belt. He has a 10 year plan for getting the schools back to 4 or 5 stars on the Maryland Schools Report Card. Right now, only half of MCPS earn a 4 or 5 star rating.

The Current Hot Issue in MCPS

Possibly in response to the more conservative efforts of our Presidential Administration, we have the new “Refrigerator Curriculum.”  Why is it called this? Is it because you can pick and choose items like you would in a Refrigerator? No. It’s because you’re supposed to hang it on the refrigerator. 

Once a quarter you will receive a memo that outlines what your child will learn in each subject. Inherent in this new endeavor from the schools is the message of transparency – including families in their child’s education. The other goals noted are to celebrate diversity and also allow parents to opt out of anything that conflicts with their religious views. There are progressive advocates who feel that this will morph into a book-ban, or that any LGBTQ literature will be removed from the class libraries if a parent sends an opt-out. 

The general consensus among the teachers and families seems to be that the new Superintendent, Mr. Taylor is heads and tails ahead of the past leadership. Everyone is looking forward to a positive future. Finally!

College Results

It’s my favorite time of year! Well, one of them. This is when Bethesda Magazine publishes the results of eight MCPS High Schools and the outcomes for applications. There is a long-standing belief that Whitman High School is the best of the best and that you would be silly to send your child to any other public high school. Time to check the results.

American University:

• Walter Johnson High School – 76 applicants, 47 accepted or 61%
• Walt Whitman High School – 47 applicants, 24 accepted or 51%
• Winston Churchill High School – 63 applicants, 40 accepted or 63%

GW University:

• Walter Johnson – 63 applied, 25 accepted, 40%
• Walt Whitman – 49 applied, 14 accepted, 29%
• Winston Churchill – 77 applied, 29 accepted, 38%

I was fascinated by the numbers for American and GW. It’s interesting that the local schools are accepting 10% less from Whitman than the other high schools. Is it because their experience with Whitman is that these kids strive for something more elite than American or GW?

Brown University:

• Walter Johnson – 16 applied, 3 accepted or 19%
• Walt Whitman – 44 applied, 3 accepted or 6.8%
• Winston Churchill – 41 applied, 2 accepted or 4.8%

These are interesting numbers. You would have a better chance from a percentage basis to not be one of a larger pool of Whitman students vying for a seat at Brown, than if you were in Walter Johnson. Brown was only accepting 2 or 3 from each high school, with no obvious preference for one school over another.

Duke University:

• Walter Johnson – 28 applied, 3 accepted
• Walt Whitman – 55 applied, 4 accepted
• Winston Churchill – 48 applied, 1 accepted

The Whitman students fared no better. Duke is only accepting 3 or 4 students from the area high schools, if you’re at Whitman it’s just a bigger pool of applicants.

Harvard:

• Walter Johnson – 18 applied, 1 accepted
• Walt Whitman – 26 applied, 1 accepted
• Winston Churchill – 41 applied, 4 accepted

Harvard is very picky, but they did take 3 students from Montgomery Blair in Silver Spring

The numbers are always very interesting. Do college admissions committees know that they may be a “safety” school for kids at Whitman but not so at another area high school? So then they are more inclined to offer admission to students from high schools where they have a higher student enrollment rate? 

University of Virginia took 20 students of the 123 who applied from Whitman, which is 16%. They only took 14 students of the 100 from Walter Johnson and 9 of the 108 who applied from Winston Churchill, which is 8.3%. 

Columbia took 4 kids from Whitman but hardly any from the other area high schools. These stats are a wild ride. Before you buy a house solely because of the high school, make sure you get your hands on the September/October issue of Bethesda Magazine. I promise it is worth researching before you make an extra expensive decision on a home just for the perception of the high school quality.