Is MCPS positioning to shut down the GT/magnet programs?

[Anonymous]

This thread is laughable. The county is expanding these programs.

[Anonymous]

"This thread is laughable. The county is expanding these programs."

No. The county is changing these programs. Expanding would be something like giving the magnets back the money so the teachers have planning periods once again.

Even if you have the numbers to prove that there will be more $ under a program with the same name if it is going to more students, it is changing not expanding.

Despite having a student in a magnet, my guess is some of the change will be bad and some of the change will be good.

[Anonymous]

My middle school expanded the "advanced" curriculum to include everybody. That was not an improvement for anyone.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:"This thread is laughable. The county is expanding these programs."

No. The county is changing these programs. Expanding would be something like giving the magnets back the money so the teachers have planning periods once again.

Even if you have the numbers to prove that there will be more $ under a program with the same name if it is going to more students, it is changing not expanding.

Despite having a student in a magnet, my guess is some of the change will be bad and some of the change will be good.

Expanding the program would be something like INCREASING THE NUMBER OF SCHOOLS THAT HAVE PROGRAMS. Which, hey, MCPS has been doing!

Only DCUM would look at the expansion of a program and conclude that this proves that MCPS is planning to shut down the program.

[Anonymous]

They are definitely not getting rid of these programs - but yes there have been and likely will continue to be changes to these programs. Its kind of life.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This thread is laughable. The county is expanding these programs.

Expansion is what they did when they opened Poolesville That is a coherent Magnet program (multiple STEM classes for a cohort pulled from many high school clusters). What they are doing now is offering one enriched humanities and one enriched math class for some middle schools

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:"This thread is laughable. The county is expanding these programs."

No. The county is changing these programs. Expanding would be something like giving the magnets back the money so the teachers have planning periods once again.

Even if you have the numbers to prove that there will be more $ under a program with the same name if it is going to more students, it is changing not expanding.

Despite having a student in a magnet, my guess is some of the change will be bad and some of the change will be good.

What are you talking about? I teach a magnet MS course. I have a planning period. Two if you count dept planning.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This thread is laughable. The county is expanding these programs.

Expansion is what they did when they opened Poolesville That is a coherent Magnet program (multiple STEM classes for a cohort pulled from many high school clusters). What they are doing now is offering one enriched humanities and one enriched math class for some middle schools

So what would call it? They have expanded access to the enriched curriculum at the magnet level and didn't close the magnet programs. MCPS also added CES centers at the ES level. That is expansion to me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This thread is laughable. The county is expanding these programs.

Expansion is what they did when they opened Poolesville That is a coherent Magnet program (multiple STEM classes for a cohort pulled from many high school clusters). What they are doing now is offering one enriched humanities and one enriched math class for some middle schools

So what would call it? They have expanded access to the enriched curriculum at the magnet level and didn't close the magnet programs. MCPS also added CES centers at the ES level. That is expansion to me.

+1 I don't get why people are fighting tooth and nail for their kids to be bused to a magnet. If there's a critical mass in the home school-educate them there. (And spare me the, it will be bad for the truly gifted--this is public school, the truly truly gifted who are rare can find a private option.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yeah, since these programs are put in the schools with poor people and in ghetto area or inaccessible areas (Poolesville) they should shut it down. Let W schools rule!!

When magnet students go to their home schools they are top performing students. They have higher chances of getting into Ivy schools. Affluent people and Asians will always supplement their students so that's great.

Asians will move to NoVa, because they are not wedded to any specific place in DMV, so so-called better schools like QO, NW and Damascus will become what they really are - low performing schools with all races except Asians.

Do it. I dare you, MCPS. Because Asians are already going to HoCo and schools like Centennial HS.

PP, you're a joke. I love how you claim to be so knowledgeable about what all MOCO Asians want/don't want. Love, Asian-American who would absolutely prefer MOCO than other school districts in the area and who would love to see the top performing students back at the home school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This thread is laughable. The county is expanding these programs.

Expansion is what they did when they opened Poolesville That is a coherent Magnet program (multiple STEM classes for a cohort pulled from many high school clusters). What they are doing now is offering one enriched humanities and one enriched math class for some middle schools

So what would call it? They have expanded access to the enriched curriculum at the magnet level and didn't close the magnet programs. MCPS also added CES centers at the ES level. That is expansion to me.

+1 I don't get why people are fighting tooth and nail for their kids to be bused to a magnet. If there's a critical mass in the home school-educate them there. (And spare me the, it will be bad for the truly gifted--this is public school, the truly truly gifted who are rare can find a private option.)

Exactly.

When I was a kid, I was tested and found to have an IQ in the high 140s. I mention this only to say the following: I did not attend any magnet programs in my K-8 years. I did participate in advanced classes in MS, but they were for approximately the top 20% of the class. For high school I went to Andover because my public HS would not have been challenging enough.

From what I can tell, an IQ in the high 140s appears in about one out of every 1157 people. Even assuming the DC area has a higher concentration of high IQ kids than most places, I just don't think there are more than a very small handful of kids whose needs can't be served with enriched classes that scoop up about the top 15-20%, at least as far as K-8 is concerned.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This thread is laughable. The county is expanding these programs.

Expansion is what they did when they opened Poolesville That is a coherent Magnet program (multiple STEM classes for a cohort pulled from many high school clusters). What they are doing now is offering one enriched humanities and one enriched math class for some middle schools

So what would call it? They have expanded access to the enriched curriculum at the magnet level and didn't close the magnet programs. MCPS also added CES centers at the ES level. That is expansion to me.

+1 I don't get why people are fighting tooth and nail for their kids to be bused to a magnet. If there's a critical mass in the home school-educate them there. (And spare me the, it will be bad for the truly gifted--this is public school, the truly truly gifted who are rare can find a private option.)

I am going to guess that the people who are responding that manget programs are not as necessarily have not had their kids in a magnet program. I like the idea of universal testing. I like the idea that the few kids who are outliers to their lower performing home schools are now given greater opportunities to access the magnet program. I even like the cohort idea and keeping the higher achieving kids local to their home middle schools. What I don't like is the lack of a truer "magnet" program that connects the courses together. One of the nice things at the HGC is how the curriculum was linked which allow the kids to be creative with the production of their work. Also, some of the kids we met at the CES/HGC are incredibly intelligent, something that I feel cannot be trained through any type of prepping.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This thread is laughable. The county is expanding these programs.

Expansion is what they did when they opened Poolesville That is a coherent Magnet program (multiple STEM classes for a cohort pulled from many high school clusters). What they are doing now is offering one enriched humanities and one enriched math class for some middle schools

So what would call it? They have expanded access to the enriched curriculum at the magnet level and didn't close the magnet programs. MCPS also added CES centers at the ES level. That is expansion to me.

+1 I don't get why people are fighting tooth and nail for their kids to be bused to a magnet. If there's a critical mass in the home school-educate them there. (And spare me the, it will be bad for the truly gifted--this is public school, the truly truly gifted who are rare can find a private option.)

I think the concern is that the program will eventually/quickly be expanded to include everyone and we will be back to where we started. My elementary school has every one in compact math now. When it started it was just a few kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

I think the concern is that the program will eventually/quickly be expanded to include everyone and we will be back to where we started. My elementary school has every one in compact math now. When it started it was just a few kids.

We have to expand the program! But not too much! Just enough so that my kid is in it! Not more, not less!

-DCUM

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I think the concern is that the program will eventually/quickly be expanded to include everyone and we will be back to where we started. My elementary school has every one in compact math now. When it started it was just a few kids.

We have to expand the program! But not too much! Just enough so that my kid is in it! Not more, not less!

-DCUM

Sigh. Do you really not understand the need for differentiation? That's what people are asking for. You can mock it by stating the ridiculous logical extreme, but that doesn't obviate the fact that differentiation is critical.