Reaction to "Study of Choice and Special Academic Programs: Report of Findings and Recommendations"

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Using the non-cognitive skills for admission to HGC is such a bad idea. One reason behind HGC is highly gifted kids are often asynchronous in their development. They are highly capable of doing academic work but not socially mature enough to skip whole grades. Therefore, the typical school environment is difficult for them to navigate. I don't understand why the socially mature but cognitively in range kids need a different school environment.

I have never heard anybody give that as a reason for the existence of the HGCs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Using the non-cognitive skills for admission to HGC is such a bad idea. One reason behind HGC is highly gifted kids are often asynchronous in their development. They are highly capable of doing academic work but not socially mature enough to skip whole grades. Therefore, the typical school environment is difficult for them to navigate. I don't understand why the socially mature but cognitively in range kids need a different school environment.

I have never heard anybody give that as a reason for the existence of the HGCs.

Then you really need to learn more about gifted education. Unless you think the existence of magnet is purely to attract white kids to the more diverse areas of the county.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Using the non-cognitive skills for admission to HGC is such a bad idea. One reason behind HGC is highly gifted kids are often asynchronous in their development. They are highly capable of doing academic work but not socially mature enough to skip whole grades. Therefore, the typical school environment is difficult for them to navigate. I don't understand why the socially mature but cognitively in range kids need a different school environment.

I have never heard anybody give that as a reason for the existence of the HGCs.

Then you really need to learn more about gifted education. Unless you think the existence of magnet is purely to attract white kids to the more diverse areas of the county.

We are not talking about the asynchronous development of highly-gifted kids. We are talking about the reasons for the existence of the HGCs.

http://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/uploadedFiles/info/choice/UpdatedHistory-Context.pdf

[Anonymous]

Everyone - the District has opened an online comment portal:
http://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/info/choice/report.aspx

[Anonymous]

Perhaps I don't understand the county's reasoning for the magnet programs and their current locations. Wasn't the point of locating the magnet programs at schools who have higher percentages of minorities to attract more asian and white kids to leave their school boundaries? Wasn't these programs originally viewed as a busing by choice option? What would be the point of having a magnet program that favors busing in more minorities? How does that make the schools more diverse?

How is the county proposing to improve the balance of all MCPS schools if they are abandoning the magnet concept?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Perhaps I don't understand the county's reasoning for the magnet programs and their current locations. Wasn't the point of locating the magnet programs at schools who have higher percentages of minorities to attract more asian and white kids to leave their school boundaries? Wasn't these programs originally viewed as a busing by choice option? What would be the point of having a magnet program that favors busing in more minorities? How does that make the schools more diverse?

How is the county proposing to improve the balance of all MCPS schools if they are abandoning the magnet concept?

The goal now is not about balancing the schools that the HGCs are located in, but rather, balancing the program, or, including more URM.

Cold Spring ES already has a high asian/white population. It would be reverse at this HGC; they need to bring more URM.

[Anonymous]

I wonder when any changes will occur. For next year's application process?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Using the non-cognitive skills for admission to HGC is such a bad idea. One reason behind HGC is highly gifted kids are often asynchronous in their development. They are highly capable of doing academic work but not socially mature enough to skip whole grades. Therefore, the typical school environment is difficult for them to navigate. I don't understand why the socially mature but cognitively in range kids need a different school environment.

I have never heard anybody give that as a reason for the existence of the HGCs.

The 2 kids I know of go exactly for this reason.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Perhaps I don't understand the county's reasoning for the magnet programs and their current locations. Wasn't the point of locating the magnet programs at schools who have higher percentages of minorities to attract more asian and white kids to leave their school boundaries? Wasn't these programs originally viewed as a busing by choice option? What would be the point of having a magnet program that favors busing in more minorities? How does that make the schools more diverse?

How is the county proposing to improve the balance of all MCPS schools if they are abandoning the magnet concept?

The goal now is not about balancing the schools that the HGCs are located in, but rather, balancing the program, or, including more URM.

Cold Spring ES already has a high asian/white population. It would be reverse at this HGC; they need to bring more URM.

I don't think gifted and balanced are complimentary goals. I can believe that there are ways to make the application process broader (test every one or teacher nominations in additions to parent) but I don't think using different norms and only non-cognitive criteria gets you a gifted program.

[Anonymous]

If internalized bias is the problem (reflected in teacher/school rankings) then simply test everyone. Why not?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If internalized bias is the problem (reflected in teacher/school rankings) then simply test everyone. Why not?

Why not? Because there are costs and disadvantages to testing everyone. The benefits might outweigh the costs, but there's no way to know that without knowing what the costs are.

Also, that wouldn't solve the problem of unconscious bias. It would only solve the problem of kids who don't take the test because a teacher has in some way discouraged them from doing so due to unconscious bias.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: So leave the competitive programs as is and add non-competitive versions. RM has the competitive magnet and Rockville high, BCC and ?? are not competitive. There could be SMACS programs in other schools which are not test based.

+1 This is a good idea. They have something like it already at TP ES. Just create more programs like this in the DCC area. There are also Choice programs for MS that are lottery based. It's only the ES that don't have more options, other than immersion.

DCC has enough programs. It's time for programs to reach the northern part of the county.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: So leave the competitive programs as is and add non-competitive versions. RM has the competitive magnet and Rockville high, BCC and ?? are not competitive. There could be SMACS programs in other schools which are not test based.

+1 This is a good idea. They have something like it already at TP ES. Just create more programs like this in the DCC area. There are also Choice programs for MS that are lottery based. It's only the ES that don't have more options, other than immersion.

DCC has enough programs. It's time for programs to reach the northern part of the county.

+1000

[Anonymous]

The application process is flawed. Kids in the more affluent areas take test prep to get into the programs. In areas that are economically challenged, students don't have these types of resources.

Why not raise the bar in teaching across the county so there is more access to these types of programs? There needs to be more slots for all children. There also needs to be more diversity in the school populations throughout the county. The current magnet programs are not meeting any of these needs because it creates segregated programs within the schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous[b wrote:]The application process is flawed. Kids in the more affluent areas take test prep to get into the programs. [/b] In areas that are economically challenged, students don't have these types of resources.

Why not raise the bar in teaching across the county so there is more access to these types of programs? There needs to be more slots for all children. There also needs to be more diversity in the school populations throughout the county. The current magnet programs are not meeting any of these needs because it creates segregated programs within the schools.

Bad generalization. Some kids take prep all over the county. Many don't. The app process is as good as it gets when you select people based on review of papers/tests - not perfect but certainly not flawed.