Second community meeting on Choice Study?
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Anonymous
Well, in that case, let there be a magnet program for performing arts. Students should be able to audition for it. Actually, make an entire magnet school for creative arts and performance arts. Why not? |
Anonymous
I suppose they took some of my advice .... http://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/62/547032.page |
Anonymous
Because that costs money and I rather have smaller class sizes across the board than 50-100 enthralled and enguged drama kids who will make well rounded waiters and waitress at the next stage of their life. As soon as parents realize that all the special choice programs are not about enrichment but back doors out of lesser schools and enticement into worse parts of town with a few exceptions throw at powerful principles and or super intendants they can start to realize that they are part of the problem. People should have local school development and not schools inside of a school which by design on benifit a few. |
Anonymous
I think all MCPS schools should also reflect the demographics of the county (and not of a zipcode or zone). There should be the same %age of races in each school as the county. Also, ESOL and FARMS should also reflect the demographics of the county. Whites and Asians are woefully underrepresented. All AP and IB courses should be cancelled, because they do not reflect the demographics of the county. All Special Ed programs should be cancelled, because we are spending a lot of money on very small population of students. Many Asians High Achievers are not able to get into magnet programs because of paucity of seats. They have as much right to get their needs met as the High achieving URM student. Students are individuals, not statistics based on their skin color. |
Anonymous
OK, so performing talent should not be the criteria of getting AA students in the magnet programs, because they are only capable of becoming well rounded waiters and waitresses at the next stage of their life. Got it. |
Anonymous
So, let me see...should we not have these programs at all? Maybe have segregated schools? Because, I really do not have the desire for my highly gifted child to be a part of social engineering and improve scores of a poor school and not have his own academic needs met. |
Anonymous
And I would expect the magnet classes, overall, to reflect the demographics of the kids who would perform well in accelerated classes. Neither one is likely to reflect the demographics of the county. |
Anonymous
Your highly gifted child already is a part of "social engineering". And so are you, and so am I, and so is everybody. The world didn't just naturally become the way it is. People made it that way, on purpose. |
Anonymous
Why not? Why wouldn't (for example) poor kids benefit from accelerated classes? |
Anonymous
| If every child would benefit from more acceleration than we should provide a faster standard curriculum but in fact some kids would be more successful with a slower curriculum...not so simple unfortunately. More acceleration is not better for all. |
Anonymous
| NP here. One child in magnet, one in local "W" feeder school. If the magnet were watered down, as it inevitably will have to be if decision-makers put demographics ahead of ability, then we would decide that the magnet is no longer worth the commute. Our child would return to our home school. I have no doubt that many if not most people from high-performing clusters will make similar decisions. Then you are left with more segregation than you had before. Remember that magnets were originally designed to voluntarily integrate schools. At TPMS, for example, magnet kids are integrated into the school for all classes except the three magnets. Take away a true magnet, and you take away the voluntary desegregation and are right back where MCPS started. |
Anonymous
There is a major difference between "some children who are not currently getting the acceleration that they would benefit from could get that acceleration from existing programs" and "every child would benefit from more acceleration". |
Anonymous
Now I have a sincere question for people who work for MCPS: do you, in real life, get told face-to-face by affluent parents that you should be grateful that they deign to send their children to your schools? Or is this something that (I hope) only happens anonymously on DCUM? |
Anonymous
Of cause they will benefit, other wise there is no group would advocate for it. They can benefit from it if the programs slow down to suit their pace. They can also benefit from the better peer group given that the better peer group will be there no matter their own needs are met or not. |
Anonymous
I have seen many poor Asian kids benefit from accelerated classes. However, to be in the accelerated classes, these poor Asian kids first proved that they were high achievers. How did they do that? By their academic performance. Any kid belonging to any gender, race, SES, who has demonstrated through academic performance in an admission test that they are capable of handling the rigor of a magnet program, will benefit from an accelerated class. The magnet program also benefits from getting the best students. So, the program should take the best students based on their academic performance. Why choose academic performance and not some other random criteria? Mainly because it is for an academic program. No one asks candidates to write Haiku for a basketball team tryout now, do they? |