Magnets, Regions, and the Future of MCPS Gifted Kids

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They need a program if only to say that they aren’t excluding kids from other schools. If they don’t have one it looks exclusionary.

That is because they are telling everyone how unfair it is that the DCC schools "get to" share a bunch of programs that rich schools have at their home schools

Well the DCC have program that other poor schools don’t which is the issue.

Whitman can have their special programs that only Whitman students can partake in, but the poors in DCC absolutely cannot have special programs.

+1

"It's so unfair that some kids, like those at wealthy school and the DCC have access to special programs and others do not!"
"Okay, let's reduce access for DCC kids. For equity."

Well, they are trying to offer the special programs to all and not just the DCC kids. How is that reducing access for DCC kids?

Again, it is incorrect and offensive to imply that wealthy non DCC schools do not have special programs. They have special programs that are available for their own students. And Whitman currently has the social justice program.

To clarify: the complaint about DCC having access is (in my reading) not coming from wealthy schools. It is from the other non-wealthy schools in the county. I doubt Whitman (for example) gives a sh*t about having a magnet.

Right, and I have no problem giving non wealthy schools more programs and I have not seen any comments in this thread implying that. But I'd honestly rather they eliminate all countywide and regional programs including DCC programs than create this absurd inequitable system that sends kids from low income schools to wealthy schools for "equity".

I agree. End them all. Put money into improving each school.

[Anonymous]

And honestly I have to question the intent of people who fixate on how unfair it is that DCC students share some special programs while having absolutely no problem with wealthy schools having their own special programs for their own students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:And honestly I have to question the intent of people who fixate on how unfair it is that DCC students share some special programs while having absolutely no problem with wealthy schools having their own special programs for their own students.

Some of them don’t live in the dcc but send their kids taking away spaces.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Op, I agree with you but this is a losing battle. This is how you destroy good school systems. I am just glad we are done with MCPS. I feel sorry for magnet kids but moco is full of idiots right now

There are so few magnet kids that is it really a good use of money.

if that's your view, why should MCPS spend hundreds of millions of dollars every year trying to educate low performing kids who have no interest in learning? isn't that bigger waste of funds? there are well over 1000 kids in county's magnet program, that's not big enough to support in your mind?

1000 out of 150,000 is not many. They should put the money into the schools as they failed these kids. And, many of our kids should get more and aren’t.

[Anonymous]

None of these new programs mean anything as there will be less teachers at the schools and classes will be reduced.

[Anonymous]

Time to dismantle these bastions of privilege.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Time to dismantle these bastions of privilege.

Have you had a kid in these magnet programs? I have and the population was not privileged at all. Before MCPS has been systematically dismantling them over the last 10 years they were full of hard working high IQ kids from very diverse backgrounds.

Unfortunately parents of younger gifted kids will have no idea what they are missing.

[Anonymous]

An equitable approach to criteria based academic programs would be to:

1. Analyze which schools need a larger cohort of academically advanced kids to staff advanced academic classes

2. Place the criteria based academic programs in those schools

Don't place criteria based academic programs in schools that ALREADY have large enough cohorts to staff advanced classes. That is inequity disguised as equality which is then confused with equity.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They need a program if only to say that they aren’t excluding kids from other schools. If they don’t have one it looks exclusionary.

This statement implies an equality mindset, not an equity mindset. If they were taking an equity approach, their goal would not be to create a system that looks uniform, because they would be acknowledging that different school communities need different things. Having low income kids travel the Bethesda for criteria based programs is not equity, it's inequity.

Well I for one am sick of equity mindset because it means different things to different people and it’s weaponized to pit kids against each other and manipulate decisions. I’m cool with the “give kids what they each need” definition. I’m really not cool with the constant redistribution of opportunities ignoring the needs of actual kids in favor of optics and quotas and treating seeing kids only as members of racial or socioeconomic monoliths.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Time to dismantle these bastions of privilege.

Have you had a kid in these magnet programs? I have and the population was not privileged at all. Before MCPS has been systematically dismantling them over the last 10 years they were full of hard working high IQ kids from very diverse backgrounds.

Unfortunately parents of younger gifted kids will have no idea what they are missing.

I have one too. For parents who have gifted kids or who have high-achieving kids that were lucky enough to experience the SMCS, we know it's a truly precious program, and MCPS' way of expanding the access is dismantling the program, period.

However, as we are the minority, there's no way we can win when resource is limited and when the entire societal mentality has changed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Op, I agree with you but this is a losing battle. This is how you destroy good school systems. I am just glad we are done with MCPS. I feel sorry for magnet kids but moco is full of idiots right now

There are so few magnet kids that is it really a good use of money.

if that's your view, why should MCPS spend hundreds of millions of dollars every year trying to educate low performing kids who have no interest in learning? isn't that bigger waste of funds? there are well over 1000 kids in county's magnet program, that's not big enough to support in your mind?

1000 out of 150,000 is not many. They should put the money into the schools as they failed these kids. And, many of our kids should get more and aren’t.

Exactly how much is MCPS spending on those 1000+ kids that makes you so upset? You believe your kid is under performing because those 1000+ magnet kids suck the money your kid needs?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They need a program if only to say that they aren’t excluding kids from other schools. If they don’t have one it looks exclusionary.

This statement implies an equality mindset, not an equity mindset. If they were taking an equity approach, their goal would not be to create a system that looks uniform, because they would be acknowledging that different school communities need different things. Having low income kids travel the Bethesda for criteria based programs is not equity, it's inequity.

Well I for one am sick of equity mindset because it means different things to different people and it’s weaponized to pit kids against each other and manipulate decisions. I’m cool with the “give kids what they each need” definition. I’m really not cool with the constant redistribution of opportunities ignoring the needs of actual kids in favor of optics and quotas and treating seeing kids only as members of racial or socioeconomic monoliths.

In terms of academic opportunities, which ones do wealthy schools not have that they need? For example Whitman and BCC send very very few kids to Blair or RMIB. Is it because these commutes are so bad or is it because both of these schools have a wealth of advanced math and science classes?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They need a program if only to say that they aren’t excluding kids from other schools. If they don’t have one it looks exclusionary.

That is because they are telling everyone how unfair it is that the DCC schools "get to" share a bunch of programs that rich schools have at their home schools

Well the DCC have program that other poor schools don’t which is the issue.

Whitman can have their special programs that only Whitman students can partake in, but the poors in DCC absolutely cannot have special programs.

+1

"It's so unfair that some kids, like those at wealthy school and the DCC have access to special programs and others do not!"
"Okay, let's reduce access for DCC kids. For equity."

lol, exactly. And that's the proposed regional model in a nutshell.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They need a program if only to say that they aren’t excluding kids from other schools. If they don’t have one it looks exclusionary.

That is because they are telling everyone how unfair it is that the DCC schools "get to" share a bunch of programs that rich schools have at their home schools

Well the DCC have program that other poor schools don’t which is the issue.

Whitman can have their special programs that only Whitman students can partake in, but the poors in DCC absolutely cannot have special programs.

+1

"It's so unfair that some kids, like those at wealthy school and the DCC have access to special programs and others do not!"
"Okay, let's reduce access for DCC kids. For equity."

lol, exactly. And that's the proposed regional model in a nutshell.

"Also for equity we need to give the wealthy schools more programs so they aren't left out from getting more programs. But the DCC has to have less, for equity"

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They need a program if only to say that they aren’t excluding kids from other schools. If they don’t have one it looks exclusionary.

That is because they are telling everyone how unfair it is that the DCC schools "get to" share a bunch of programs that rich schools have at their home schools

Well the DCC have program that other poor schools don’t which is the issue.

Whitman can have their special programs that only Whitman students can partake in, but the poors in DCC absolutely cannot have special programs.

+1

"It's so unfair that some kids, like those at wealthy school and the DCC have access to special programs and others do not!"
"Okay, let's reduce access for DCC kids. For equity."

lol, exactly. And that's the proposed regional model in a nutshell.

"Also for equity we need to give the wealthy schools more programs so they aren't left out from getting more programs. But the DCC has to have less, for equity"

Well, you also have to force the poors to stay within their region with other poors, and give them a fake SMCS (which is actually a regular science class with the same teacher. just reclassified) so they can have something to celebrate.