Richard Montgomery's non-IB program - high performing?
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Anonymous
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Hello, I was wondering about Richard Montgomery's non-IB program, and the extent to which it is high performing. I wanted to get past demographic / wealth / income issues, and found these set of data: https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/data/LAR-charts/SAT-Performance.html
RM's AP data for non-FARMS student is quite on par and for some of the data point beats the various "W" schools. I was wondering, to what extent the AP data reflects the rest of the RM student population. Or are the IB students ALSO taking the AP tests, and thus the AP performance data reflects more of that small subset of students. -- Thank you. |
Anonymous
| This question has been asked time to time over the years but it gets off the track pretty fast. The problem with RM/IB and Blair (same issue) is that small portion of magnet kids outperform so significantly it really is very difficult to understand how well non magnet kids perform. I strongly believe, if you take out magnet portion, no better than typical MCPS non W schools. Why would you think differently? |
Anonymous
Non magnet moms with JW MS kids will disagree with this. |
Anonymous
| OP here. What does "JW MS" stand for? |
Anonymous
Julius West Middle School |
Anonymous
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To this question: "This question has been asked time to time over the years but it gets off the track pretty fast. The problem with RM/IB and Blair (same issue) is that small portion of magnet kids outperform so significantly it really is very difficult to understand how well non magnet kids perform. I strongly believe, if you take out magnet portion, no better than typical MCPS non W schools. Why would you think differently?"
That's what I'm trying to figure out. If IB kids take just the IB tests, and so the AP data can be / is a reflection of the rest of the school. Or are the IB students taking a significant number of the AP tests, and so the AP data is not helpful. -- Thank you. |
Anonymous
| Thank you. Could the JWMS parent speak to a bit about the non-IB at RM? Is it a "thing" that IB kids are taking the AP tests anyway, perhaps for the sake of attracting colleges? Or not, and they stick to the IB tests, bc they are enough anyway. I believe IB scores come in too late after college decisions, so I am under the understanding that IB students in general (not just at RM) take APs anyway. |
Anonymous
| Also, if it has been asked many times over the past, I'd be happy to search for it or be given a link to it. I suspect it does get off track fast, but can go through them and glean what I can. |
Anonymous
IB kids take AP exams and IB exams. My youngest took 16 AP exams and 6 IB, older one took 14-15 APs and 6 IBs. |
Anonymous
| IB students take AP tests so any school wide data about AP scores will includes tests taken by IB students. |
Anonymous
The thing is that aprox 20-25% of the magnet kids are local RM kids (JW kids seems to have a preference for the magnet and then it is open to every RM student in grade 11). If you take about the whole magnet, you are taking out most of the neighborhood high performers. |
Anonymous
| I would guess that the Ib students are more likely to take some of the AP exams. All the ib students take apush and AP gov so most take those tests. But AP euro does not track well with the ib class so I think not many take that. I think that may also be true of some of the AP lit classes. Some of the Ib science classes (like enviro) track well to the AP class, so many kids will take both tests. |
Anonymous
+1 I don't know about other grades, but the senior IB class is like 80+% Asian. So, if you look at non Asian student scores, it will give you somewhat of a picture of non IB students stats. A lot of non IB kids take AP classes starting in 9th grade with AP Gov and AP CS. As a PP stated, they can also join the Diploma program in 11th grade. I know several smart, high achieving kids who opted to not stay/join IB magnet due to outside activities (mostly sports related). These are smart kids from JWMS. |
Anonymous
| Thank you all so much. These are all such interesting and good points. That’s an interesting point ab looking at non Asian AP data, to the extent that the Asian is a proxy for IB, if I want to disentangle IB kids from the AP data. My son understands school is important and cares, and so does his best (most/sometimes) but is not an academic kid. I don’t know if he’d get into IB and if he did whether it’d be the right thing for him. But he does need to be surrounded by peers that help pull him up. He loves soccer and is on a travel team that takes up a lot of his time. So, that’s why I’m checking about the “performance culture” of the non AP kids. Thank all for your thoughts and any other thoughts would be appreciated. |
Anonymous
I'm the PP who made the comment. Asian isn't necessarily a proxy for IB, however, it's the only way I can think of to get non IB student scores. JWMS has about a 16% or so population of Asian kids, and the majority do not get into the IB magnet program. So, you'd be discounting their stats in your calculation. But again, I really don't know how else to get non IB student scores. My kids are at RM, and nonIB there is fine. There are tons of AP classes they can take, and they can also take IB classes if they want to without joining the program. They have a good mix of academic and athletic interests, lots of different clubs, and a lot of diversity. It's a huge school, and you can find almost any club. They also have open lunch. I think RM is one of the great gems of MCPS -- diverse both SES and racial, solid academics, decent school spirit and activities. It's made of UMC, MC and LC neighborhoods. Be aware that Crown HS will open in 2027 (I think), and it will impact RMHS, as well as the surrounding clusters (Wootton, QO, GHS, NW). |