Hire Education
When some of the country's best schools don't get the job done.
Cover Story
My eighth-grade student looked blankly at his Spanish vocabulary list.
“Come on,” I said, determined to have him leave this tutoring session with renewed motivation. “I’m sure you can think of one way that Spanish will be useful in your lifetime.” He could work as a translator, host a foreign-exchange student, read a Spanish newspaper—even have a basic conversation with any of the hundreds of thousands of Spanish speakers in Maryland, including the more than 2,000 who live in our current location, Potomac.
He shook his head, still at a loss.
“Keep thinking about it,” I told him.
I moved from Baltimore in fall 2005 to accept a job as a tutor and office manager of an educational company in Potomac, one of the wealthiest communities in the country. The position promised the usual rewards of working intensively with children, and it delivered. But I still found myself caught off-guard by the advantages that students here had and the nonchalance with which they expressed them. Today was no exception.
The eighth-grader’s face lit up; he’d figured something out. “Oh, I forgot,” he said. “My family has two houses in Costa Rica.”
The Posh Community
Driving north on River Road feels like gliding into a fairy tale. Curbside, relatively modest homes grow castle-sized, adding extra wings, third floors, and even turrets. The median Potomac resident lives in an eight-and-a-half-room house that, at $450,800, is triple the value of the typical Maryland house. Nearly 45 percent of those over age 25 have a graduate or professional degree; the median household income is $128,936.... Continued 
Issue of Mar. 14 - 20, 2008
News and Features
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Cover Story - The Man Who Cried Rats
The City - Buyer's Market
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Distractions - Page Three Photo
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Young & Hungry
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- Gutenberg! The Musical!
Arts & Events - The Flying Dutchman
Arts & Events - Katrina Katrina: Love Letters to New Orleans
Arts & Events - Jennifer 8. Lee
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