If I was designing the new regional model

[Anonymous]

This topic has been beaten to death lately and yet, the more we talk about it, CO seems to move even further in the wrong direction. Since it is clear that some of them are lurking here and post from time to time to defend their ill-conceived plan, here is another attempt to save them (and MoCo families) from the disaster they are creating.

The current plan will backfire for many reasons:

- there is way too many new magnets; some of them are highly specialized programs completely inappropriate and/or unnecessary at high school level
- when almost every program is called magnet, nothing is – the plan defeats the whole idea of magnets being designed to challenge academically advanced kids
- placing magnets at top schools defeats the idea of strengthening less fortunate schools through adding new classes and attracting quality students
- placing magnets at very bottom performing schools gives little chance such magnets to succeed as very few will send kids there
- new magnets have clearly watered-down curriculums compared to today’s top magnets which can hardly be in anyone’s interest

As a result, this 30-new-magnets plan will create magnets in name only and ruin MoCo reputation among college admission professionals, while not helping anybody.

But let’s assume that status quo is unacceptable for reasons stated many times – lack of access and equity. Instead of introducing never heard of magnets, why not keep it simple and expand the programs that are well established and successful. For example:

- four regions, each with seven or eight schools, reasonably diverse
- two magnets in each region – one that mimic Blair STEM magnet and one that mimic RBIM – one for STEM driven students and one for humanities driven students; everything else at this point in life for students is a distraction and waste of limited resources
- don’t place magnets in the top two schools academically in any given region as they probably already have rich advanced class offerings
- don’t place magnets in the bottom two schools academically in any given region as they will attract very few students

Benefits:

- you only need to install five new magnets (Blair, Poolesville and RBIM already exist)
- there is a much less of a risk that new magnets will fail – they will follow successful examples, have highly relevant curriculums and draw students from 7-8 schools instead of just 4-5 as currently proposed
- the number of spots for academically advanced students will approximately triple compared to what we have today
- bus rides for most magnet kids will be shorter compared to what we have today

As for equity, equity cannot be fixed with new magnets. That is not what magnets are for. So you offer an art magnet and somehow it is helping with equity. It does not. It just creates false sense that you are doing something. Equity should be fixed with new class offerings (AP type classes that actually prepare you for most majors in college) in all high schools. So instead of wasting resources on magnets such as arts and bio-engineering, spend money and energy on hiring teachers and introducing advanced classes in all schools that currently don’t have them. It doesn’t matter that there may not be enough interest today in some schools. Offer challenging classes and smart kids will come.

[Anonymous]

I agree that pretty much everything here would be an improvement over what's proposed.

I think with programs at just 8 schools, it would be more cost effective to run a system like the current magnet bus system, with stops if not in every neighborhood, at least in more locations than just the local high school.

I also think it would be important to not give any selection advantage to students who happen to be zoned for the schools where the programs are located, as the current proposal does.

[Anonymous]

It’s too late for any change to a correct direction. Every student and teacher gets punishment because of a few bad behavior leaders. Same scenario with the other post on “middle school punishment” and same scenario with our country.

[Anonymous]

We need more specialized magnets and programs but not this way as there is no funding. Only offering them to a few hundred kids per grade given Mcps numbers is not fair.

If I were designing it I would group schools differently keeping the DCC and increase higher level classes at the schools that don’t, put way more money into the elementary schools to make sure all kids are reading, writing and math on grade level and make more of an effort to meet all students needs, not just a select few at the richer schools. I’d stop the wasteful funding, fix the schools and bring back the virtual school offering a hybrid by aligning all the school schedules to allow students to take classes not available at their home school virtually.

[Anonymous]

But you’re not the one designing it. You are not an educator or an administrator and your perspective is limited to your own experience. An arts magnet changed my kid’s life, and a bioengineering magnet set my friend’s kid on the road to pre-med.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:But you’re not the one designing it. You are not an educator or an administrator and your perspective is limited to your own experience. An arts magnet changed my kid’s life, and a bioengineering magnet set my friend’s kid on the road to pre-med.

There are no serous educators that advocate for mass scale arts and bioengineering magnets at the high school level. It is you who is using anecdotal evidence to justify wasteful magnets. There are no kids in 9th grade that has informed opinion on bioengineering. Some do develop passion for it through stem classes and then they take appropriate classes. Blair STEM program has plenty of classes to meet interest in bioengineering. But to designate whole magnets for bioengineering is asinine.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:But you’re not the one designing it. You are not an educator or an administrator and your perspective is limited to your own experience. An arts magnet changed my kid’s life, and a bioengineering magnet set my friend’s kid on the road to pre-med.

It’s public school so it should focus on providing equal educational opportunities within the district, not private school-type or niche educational experiences for a few and mediocre experiences for most others.

I would scrap the whole thing and focus on making sure each high school has an equal slate of classes from remedial to advanced so that it doesn’t matter where you live in the county, you know your child has access to the same course offerings. Not this squeaky wheel nonsense and people wanting some select few to have magical experiences while everyone else can eat cake.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:But you’re not the one designing it. You are not an educator or an administrator and your perspective is limited to your own experience. An arts magnet changed my kid’s life, and a bioengineering magnet set my friend’s kid on the road to pre-med.

There are no serous educators that advocate for mass scale arts and bioengineering magnets at the high school level. It is you who is using anecdotal evidence to justify wasteful magnets. There are no kids in 9th grade that has informed opinion on bioengineering. Some do develop passion for it through stem classes and then they take appropriate classes. Blair STEM program has plenty of classes to meet interest in bioengineering. But to designate whole magnets for bioengineering is asinine.

Only a select few have access to Blair so I'm assumings for the kids not selected.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:But you’re not the one designing it. You are not an educator or an administrator and your perspective is limited to your own experience. An arts magnet changed my kid’s life, and a bioengineering magnet set my friend’s kid on the road to pre-med.

It’s public school so it should focus on providing equal educational opportunities within the district, not private school-type or niche educational experiences for a few and mediocre experiences for most others.

I would scrap the whole thing and focus on making sure each high school has an equal slate of classes from remedial to advanced so that it doesn’t matter where you live in the county, you know your child has access to the same course offerings. Not this squeaky wheel nonsense and people wanting some select few to have magical experiences while everyone else can eat cake.

Not going to happen as the people in charge what to keep their schools special for their property taxes and don't want competition.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:But you’re not the one designing it. You are not an educator or an administrator and your perspective is limited to your own experience. An arts magnet changed my kid’s life, and a bioengineering magnet set my friend’s kid on the road to pre-med.

The arts at our school is a waste of time. Teacher barely puts in the effort.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This topic has been beaten to death lately and yet, the more we talk about it, CO seems to move even further in the wrong direction. Since it is clear that some of them are lurking here and post from time to time to defend their ill-conceived plan, here is another attempt to save them (and MoCo families) from the disaster they are creating.

The current plan will backfire for many reasons:

- there is way too many new magnets; some of them are highly specialized programs completely inappropriate and/or unnecessary at high school level
- when almost every program is called magnet, nothing is – the plan defeats the whole idea of magnets being designed to challenge academically advanced kids
- placing magnets at top schools defeats the idea of strengthening less fortunate schools through adding new classes and attracting quality students
- placing magnets at very bottom performing schools gives little chance such magnets to succeed as very few will send kids there
- new magnets have clearly watered-down curriculums compared to today’s top magnets which can hardly be in anyone’s interest

As a result, this 30-new-magnets plan will create magnets in name only and ruin MoCo reputation among college admission professionals, while not helping anybody.

But let’s assume that status quo is unacceptable for reasons stated many times – lack of access and equity. Instead of introducing never heard of magnets, why not keep it simple and expand the programs that are well established and successful. For example:

- four regions, each with seven or eight schools, reasonably diverse
- two magnets in each region – one that mimic Blair STEM magnet and one that mimic RBIM – one for STEM driven students and one for humanities driven students; everything else at this point in life for students is a distraction and waste of limited resources
- don’t place magnets in the top two schools academically in any given region as they probably already have rich advanced class offerings
- don’t place magnets in the bottom two schools academically in any given region as they will attract very few students

Benefits:

- you only need to install five new magnets (Blair, Poolesville and RBIM already exist)
- there is a much less of a risk that new magnets will fail – they will follow successful examples, have highly relevant curriculums and draw students from 7-8 schools instead of just 4-5 as currently proposed
- the number of spots for academically advanced students will approximately triple compared to what we have today
- bus rides for most magnet kids will be shorter compared to what we have today

As for equity, equity cannot be fixed with new magnets. That is not what magnets are for. So you offer an art magnet and somehow it is helping with equity. It does not. It just creates false sense that you are doing something. Equity should be fixed with new class offerings (AP type classes that actually prepare you for most majors in college) in all high schools. So instead of wasting resources on magnets such as arts and bio-engineering, spend money and energy on hiring teachers and introducing advanced classes in all schools that currently don’t have them. It doesn’t matter that there may not be enough interest today in some schools. Offer challenging classes and smart kids will come.

The critical point you are forgetting is that Blair, Poolesville and RBIM are not the only programs in the county right now. There is a Visual Arts magnet already. BioEngineering exist at Wheaton currently. In fact its lead teacher just won the PLTW Teacher of the Year award. There are also many programs in individual schools that have come about in order to give students things because access was limited.

A better recommendation might be to review the individual programs to determine which ones could be consolidated into a main program based on the program coordinators/teacher collaborating.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:But you’re not the one designing it. You are not an educator or an administrator and your perspective is limited to your own experience. An arts magnet changed my kid’s life, and a bioengineering magnet set my friend’s kid on the road to pre-med.

The arts at our school is a waste of time. Teacher barely puts in the effort.

That won’t be the person teaching at an art magnet.

DP. My DS had a really rough start in life. Seven or eight schools by 8th grade. Four different family foster placements in a six year period. We adopted him at 14. MCPS was a huge culture shock but he blossomed in HS because of a passionate arts teachers and is now studying art in college.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:But you’re not the one designing it. You are not an educator or an administrator and your perspective is limited to your own experience. An arts magnet changed my kid’s life, and a bioengineering magnet set my friend’s kid on the road to pre-med.

It’s public school so it should focus on providing equal educational opportunities within the district, not private school-type or niche educational experiences for a few and mediocre experiences for most others.

I would scrap the whole thing and focus on making sure each high school has an equal slate of classes from remedial to advanced so that it doesn’t matter where you live in the county, you know your child has access to the same course offerings. Not this squeaky wheel nonsense and people wanting some select few to have magical experiences while everyone else can eat cake.

Rant, rant, rant

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This topic has been beaten to death lately and yet, the more we talk about it, CO seems to move even further in the wrong direction. Since it is clear that some of them are lurking here and post from time to time to defend their ill-conceived plan, here is another attempt to save them (and MoCo families) from the disaster they are creating.

The current plan will backfire for many reasons:

- there is way too many new magnets; some of them are highly specialized programs completely inappropriate and/or unnecessary at high school level
- when almost every program is called magnet, nothing is – the plan defeats the whole idea of magnets being designed to challenge academically advanced kids
- placing magnets at top schools defeats the idea of strengthening less fortunate schools through adding new classes and attracting quality students
- placing magnets at very bottom performing schools gives little chance such magnets to succeed as very few will send kids there
- new magnets have clearly watered-down curriculums compared to today’s top magnets which can hardly be in anyone’s interest

As a result, this 30-new-magnets plan will create magnets in name only and ruin MoCo reputation among college admission professionals, while not helping anybody.

But let’s assume that status quo is unacceptable for reasons stated many times – lack of access and equity. Instead of introducing never heard of magnets, why not keep it simple and expand the programs that are well established and successful. For example:

- four regions, each with seven or eight schools, reasonably diverse
- two magnets in each region – one that mimic Blair STEM magnet and one that mimic RBIM – one for STEM driven students and one for humanities driven students; everything else at this point in life for students is a distraction and waste of limited resources
- don’t place magnets in the top two schools academically in any given region as they probably already have rich advanced class offerings
- don’t place magnets in the bottom two schools academically in any given region as they will attract very few students

Benefits:

- you only need to install five new magnets (Blair, Poolesville and RBIM already exist)
- there is a much less of a risk that new magnets will fail – they will follow successful examples, have highly relevant curriculums and draw students from 7-8 schools instead of just 4-5 as currently proposed
- the number of spots for academically advanced students will approximately triple compared to what we have today
- bus rides for most magnet kids will be shorter compared to what we have today

As for equity, equity cannot be fixed with new magnets. That is not what magnets are for. So you offer an art magnet and somehow it is helping with equity. It does not. It just creates false sense that you are doing something. Equity should be fixed with new class offerings (AP type classes that actually prepare you for most majors in college) in all high schools. So instead of wasting resources on magnets such as arts and bio-engineering, spend money and energy on hiring teachers and introducing advanced classes in all schools that currently don’t have them. It doesn’t matter that there may not be enough interest today in some schools. Offer challenging classes and smart kids will come.

The critical point you are forgetting is that Blair, Poolesville and RBIM are not the only programs in the county right now. There is a Visual Arts magnet already. BioEngineering exist at Wheaton currently. In fact its lead teacher just won the PLTW Teacher of the Year award. There are also many programs in individual schools that have come about in order to give students things because access was limited.

A better recommendation might be to review the individual programs to determine which ones could be consolidated into a main program based on the program coordinators/teacher collaborating.

You are missing there are a lot of qualified kids and few slots for those programs and at schools that have few offerings, its not equity for them to go without so your kids can have.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:But you’re not the one designing it. You are not an educator or an administrator and your perspective is limited to your own experience. An arts magnet changed my kid’s life, and a bioengineering magnet set my friend’s kid on the road to pre-med.

The arts at our school is a waste of time. Teacher barely puts in the effort.

That won’t be the person teaching at an art magnet.

DP. My DS had a really rough start in life. Seven or eight schools by 8th grade. Four different family foster placements in a six year period. We adopted him at 14. MCPS was a huge culture shock but he blossomed in HS because of a passionate arts teachers and is now studying art in college.

That's great you adopted him and you had a good experience but things change year to year. We have had to do everything privately to get that great experience.