MCPS to end areawide Blair Magnet and countywide Richard Montgomery's IB program

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Those of you with young smart kids, you are screwed. You don’t know it now but by the time your kids’ are ready for HS, you will see.

People with young smart kids have had virtually no magnet access for them based on the current flawed MCPS approach of only providing magnet spots to a tiny number of kids countywide. If others are anything like me, we are freaking thrilled at the idea that MCPS might be changing this approach to provide more slots for more kids, and hoping it will lead to the same at the middle and elementary school level as well. More than 1-2% of the kids in this county deserve advanced programming.

The top 1-2% deserve their own program. The rest of the smart kids have access to AP or IB already.

As someone who was a top 1% kid in a small school system whose classes were with kids from various parts of the top 25%, with none of the fantastic classes or teachers MCPS's magnet programs have... these kids will do just fine being forced to take classes with top 5% kids rather than top 2% kids and no longer being able to take marine biology or plate tectonics.

Sorry if I think our public system should aspire to more than “just fine.” We are falling apart.

Do you realize how you sound? You really think that keeping your kids away from the 95th percentile riff-raff and making sure they have 15 super-specialized science classes to choose from (rather than 6 or 8 or however many the regional ones would have) is an intolerable tragedy worth denying access to the magnet experience to hundreds more kids a year?

Actually my kid is not cut out for the magnets. But as a society we need to give the most able kids the best education so they can be our scientists and engineers and doctors. It is amazing to me that people don’t get this.

For this to be a justification for opposing these changes:

1) it has to be true that these scientists and engineers and doctors are only in the top 1-2%, and that leaving out kids in the few percent below that is fine because they don't have the capability to contribute to society in those ways;
2) it has to be true that an MCPS admission process can accurately identify those top 1-2% of kids (including those who don't have the highest test scores because they haven't been able to access magnet classes in elementary or middle school and haven't gotten parental supplementation, and/or are from lower-income backgrounds and schools)
3) it has to be true that being in class with 95th-98th percentile kids will hurt the chances of those top percentile kids to succeed.

Are you confident enough about those things that you're willing to sell out the other kids to keep Blair a walled garden for a tiny number of kids?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Those of you with young smart kids, you are screwed. You don’t know it now but by the time your kids’ are ready for HS, you will see.

People with young smart kids have had virtually no magnet access for them based on the current flawed MCPS approach of only providing magnet spots to a tiny number of kids countywide. If others are anything like me, we are freaking thrilled at the idea that MCPS might be changing this approach to provide more slots for more kids, and hoping it will lead to the same at the middle and elementary school level as well. More than 1-2% of the kids in this county deserve advanced programming.

The top 1-2% deserve their own program. The rest of the smart kids have access to AP or IB already.

As someone who was a top 1% kid in a small school system whose classes were with kids from various parts of the top 25%, with none of the fantastic classes or teachers MCPS's magnet programs have... these kids will do just fine being forced to take classes with top 5% kids rather than top 2% kids and no longer being able to take marine biology or plate tectonics.

Sorry if I think our public system should aspire to more than “just fine.” We are falling apart.

Do you realize how you sound? You really think that keeping your kids away from the 95th percentile riff-raff and making sure they have 15 super-specialized science classes to choose from (rather than 6 or 8 or however many the regional ones would have) is an intolerable tragedy worth denying access to the magnet experience to hundreds more kids a year?

Actually my kid is not cut out for the magnets. But as a society we need to give the most able kids the best education so they can be our scientists and engineers and doctors. It is amazing to me that people don’t get this.

For this to be a justification for opposing these changes:

1) it has to be true that these scientists and engineers and doctors are only in the top 1-2%, and that leaving out kids in the few percent below that is fine because they don't have the capability to contribute to society in those ways;
2) it has to be true that an MCPS admission process can accurately identify those top 1-2% of kids (including those who don't have the highest test scores because they haven't been able to access magnet classes in elementary or middle school and haven't gotten parental supplementation, and/or are from lower-income backgrounds and schools)
3) it has to be true that being in class with 95th-98th percentile kids will hurt the chances of those top percentile kids to succeed.

Are you confident enough about those things that you're willing to sell out the other kids to keep Blair a walled garden for a tiny number of kids?

Go to bed.

DP

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Those of you with young smart kids, you are screwed. You don’t know it now but by the time your kids’ are ready for HS, you will see.

People with young smart kids have had virtually no magnet access for them based on the current flawed MCPS approach of only providing magnet spots to a tiny number of kids countywide. If others are anything like me, we are freaking thrilled at the idea that MCPS might be changing this approach to provide more slots for more kids, and hoping it will lead to the same at the middle and elementary school level as well. More than 1-2% of the kids in this county deserve advanced programming.

The top 1-2% deserve their own program. The rest of the smart kids have access to AP or IB already.

As someone who was a top 1% kid in a small school system whose classes were with kids from various parts of the top 25%, with none of the fantastic classes or teachers MCPS's magnet programs have... these kids will do just fine being forced to take classes with top 5% kids rather than top 2% kids and no longer being able to take marine biology or plate tectonics.

Sorry if I think our public system should aspire to more than “just fine.” We are falling apart.

Do you realize how you sound? You really think that keeping your kids away from the 95th percentile riff-raff and making sure they have 15 super-specialized science classes to choose from (rather than 6 or 8 or however many the regional ones would have) is an intolerable tragedy worth denying access to the magnet experience to hundreds more kids a year?

Actually my kid is not cut out for the magnets. But as a society we need to give the most able kids the best education so they can be our scientists and engineers and doctors. It is amazing to me that people don’t get this.

For this to be a justification for opposing these changes:

1) it has to be true that these scientists and engineers and doctors are only in the top 1-2%, and that leaving out kids in the few percent below that is fine because they don't have the capability to contribute to society in those ways;
2) it has to be true that an MCPS admission process can accurately identify those top 1-2% of kids (including those who don't have the highest test scores because they haven't been able to access magnet classes in elementary or middle school and haven't gotten parental supplementation, and/or are from lower-income backgrounds and schools)
3) it has to be true that being in class with 95th-98th percentile kids will hurt the chances of those top percentile kids to succeed.

Are you confident enough about those things that you're willing to sell out the other kids to keep Blair a walled garden for a tiny number of kids?

Well put.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Those of you with young smart kids, you are screwed. You don’t know it now but by the time your kids’ are ready for HS, you will see.

People with young smart kids have had virtually no magnet access for them based on the current flawed MCPS approach of only providing magnet spots to a tiny number of kids countywide. If others are anything like me, we are freaking thrilled at the idea that MCPS might be changing this approach to provide more slots for more kids, and hoping it will lead to the same at the middle and elementary school level as well. More than 1-2% of the kids in this county deserve advanced programming.

"More than 1-2% of the kids in this county deserve advanced programming"

Correct, more advanced programming is fine but magnet should remain selective.

At the high school level there are already programs available for about 10 percent of kids. Some of those have trouble filling spaces.

They should advertise it and allow kids to fill those spots.

They do. There just isn’t enough interest!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This exemplifies the naive approach of dismantling successful systems in an attempt to address equity concerns.

Rather than eliminating high-performing elite programs that demonstrate excellent outcomes, MCPS should have expanded access by creating additional regional programs while preserving the existing successful ones as elite programs sitting on top of the reginal ones.
The decision to completely eliminate effective programs instead of building upon them reflects poor strategic thinking or a push of known agenda. A more sensible approach would have been to grow and diversify the program offerings rather than destroy what was already working well.

Agreed. Why is MCPS making this a divisive situation? Keep our successes and build more.

It sounds like they already tried keeping a countywide program (RMIB) and adding regional IB programs and it didn't work at all because all the top students choose RMIB and so the regional programs are weaker and seen as undesirable. So they feel like "just add regional programs but keep the countywide program too" doesn't work. (Also apparently countywide costs a lot more/uses a lot more buses than regional.). That argument makes sense to me but maybe I'm missing something?

Would this work any better if you keep Blair countywide and add regional SMCSes?

The proposals made so far are to both drop Blair and drop any SMCS program and just create entirely new programs instead.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This exemplifies the naive approach of dismantling successful systems in an attempt to address equity concerns.

Rather than eliminating high-performing elite programs that demonstrate excellent outcomes, MCPS should have expanded access by creating additional regional programs while preserving the existing successful ones as elite programs sitting on top of the reginal ones.
The decision to completely eliminate effective programs instead of building upon them reflects poor strategic thinking or a push of known agenda. A more sensible approach would have been to grow and diversify the program offerings rather than destroy what was already working well.

Agreed. Why is MCPS making this a divisive situation? Keep our successes and build more.

It sounds like they already tried keeping a countywide program (RMIB) and adding regional IB programs and it didn't work at all because all the top students choose RMIB and so the regional programs are weaker and seen as undesirable. So they feel like "just add regional programs but keep the countywide program too" doesn't work. (Also apparently countywide costs a lot more/uses a lot more buses than regional.). That argument makes sense to me but maybe I'm missing something?

My kid went to RMiB and a friends kid went to the regional Ib program. They dropped out after a year or two because the regional program just was not good and the school had a lot of disciplinary problems. RMIB isn’t perfect and they have their own problems getting qualified teachers. The idea that they can provide something of similar quality in six schools around the county seems to me very unlikely unless they start putting a ton more resources into it, which they won’t.

I also really don’t understand the proposal about the themes. So if your region picks visual and performing arts, but you’re not interested in visual and performing arts, then there just isn’t a magnet option for you? The themes concept seems dumb to me, if they won’t have a county wide pull. I come from a school system that has a lot of these specialized schools and they mostly are just gimmicky. I don’t know why McPS is always chasing the latest gimmick. Just provide quality education in the basics.

My kids will be done with McPS by 2029 so all this stuff won’t affect us much. But it just seems like a tremendous waste of money that could be spent elsewhere to constantly reinvent curricula and programs. Just pay teachers more please and do whatever else to attract and retain the best teachers teachers, including decreasing class size and giving teachers more breaks to grade papers and develop lesson plans! That’s all any of us really want, not gimmicky themed programs.

What are you talking about? Every region would have a visual and performing arts magnet, a SmCS program, an IB program, etc.

DP, no they would not. The categories they identified are not the same as existing programs. Like someone else said they sound more like “academies” as at Blair for the non magnet population.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This exemplifies the naive approach of dismantling successful systems in an attempt to address equity concerns.

Rather than eliminating high-performing elite programs that demonstrate excellent outcomes, MCPS should have expanded access by creating additional regional programs while preserving the existing successful ones as elite programs sitting on top of the reginal ones.
The decision to completely eliminate effective programs instead of building upon them reflects poor strategic thinking or a push of known agenda. A more sensible approach would have been to grow and diversify the program offerings rather than destroy what was already working well.

Agreed. Why is MCPS making this a divisive situation? Keep our successes and build more.

It sounds like they already tried keeping a countywide program (RMIB) and adding regional IB programs and it didn't work at all because all the top students choose RMIB and so the regional programs are weaker and seen as undesirable. So they feel like "just add regional programs but keep the countywide program too" doesn't work. (Also apparently countywide costs a lot more/uses a lot more buses than regional.). That argument makes sense to me but maybe I'm missing something?

My kid went to RMiB and a friends kid went to the regional Ib program. They dropped out after a year or two because the regional program just was not good and the school had a lot of disciplinary problems. RMIB isn’t perfect and they have their own problems getting qualified teachers. The idea that they can provide something of similar quality in six schools around the county seems to me very unlikely unless they start putting a ton more resources into it, which they won’t.

I also really don’t understand the proposal about the themes. So if your region picks visual and performing arts, but you’re not interested in visual and performing arts, then there just isn’t a magnet option for you? The themes concept seems dumb to me, if they won’t have a county wide pull. I come from a school system that has a lot of these specialized schools and they mostly are just gimmicky. I don’t know why McPS is always chasing the latest gimmick. Just provide quality education in the basics.

My kids will be done with McPS by 2029 so all this stuff won’t affect us much. But it just seems like a tremendous waste of money that could be spent elsewhere to constantly reinvent curricula and programs. Just pay teachers more please and do whatever else to attract and retain the best teachers teachers, including decreasing class size and giving teachers more breaks to grade papers and develop lesson plans! That’s all any of us really want, not gimmicky themed programs.

What are you talking about? Every region would have a visual and performing arts magnet, a SmCS program, an IB program, etc.

DP, no they would not. The categories they identified are not the same as existing programs. Like someone else said they sound more like “academies” as at Blair for the non magnet population.

No, they said existing programs would continue at their same schools but just be for that region instead of the wider area.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This exemplifies the naive approach of dismantling successful systems in an attempt to address equity concerns.

Rather than eliminating high-performing elite programs that demonstrate excellent outcomes, MCPS should have expanded access by creating additional regional programs while preserving the existing successful ones as elite programs sitting on top of the reginal ones.
The decision to completely eliminate effective programs instead of building upon them reflects poor strategic thinking or a push of known agenda. A more sensible approach would have been to grow and diversify the program offerings rather than destroy what was already working well.

Agreed. Why is MCPS making this a divisive situation? Keep our successes and build more.

It sounds like they already tried keeping a countywide program (RMIB) and adding regional IB programs and it didn't work at all because all the top students choose RMIB and so the regional programs are weaker and seen as undesirable. So they feel like "just add regional programs but keep the countywide program too" doesn't work. (Also apparently countywide costs a lot more/uses a lot more buses than regional.). That argument makes sense to me but maybe I'm missing something?

Would this work any better if you keep Blair countywide and add regional SMCSes?

The proposals made so far are to both drop Blair and drop any SMCS program and just create entirely new programs instead.

That has not been the proposal. The proposal is to drop countywide programs in favor of regional programs and to ensure that all regions offer the same of complimentary programs, while also providing staff peer groups/resources. That’s the proposal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This exemplifies the naive approach of dismantling successful systems in an attempt to address equity concerns.

Rather than eliminating high-performing elite programs that demonstrate excellent outcomes, MCPS should have expanded access by creating additional regional programs while preserving the existing successful ones as elite programs sitting on top of the reginal ones.
The decision to completely eliminate effective programs instead of building upon them reflects poor strategic thinking or a push of known agenda. A more sensible approach would have been to grow and diversify the program offerings rather than destroy what was already working well.

Agreed. Why is MCPS making this a divisive situation? Keep our successes and build more.

It sounds like they already tried keeping a countywide program (RMIB) and adding regional IB programs and it didn't work at all because all the top students choose RMIB and so the regional programs are weaker and seen as undesirable. So they feel like "just add regional programs but keep the countywide program too" doesn't work. (Also apparently countywide costs a lot more/uses a lot more buses than regional.). That argument makes sense to me but maybe I'm missing something?

Would this work any better if you keep Blair countywide and add regional SMCSes?

The proposals made so far are to both drop Blair and drop any SMCS program and just create entirely new programs instead.

What on earth are you talking about? This is not true. Please don't scare people by spreading false information. They are keeping Blair but want it to serve only 1 of the 6 regions.

It frankly seemed pretty clear to me from the testimony that they are trying to keep as many existing programs as humanly possible, and start ones from scratch only when absolutely necessary. But Blair has been called out by name as being kept.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Those of you with young smart kids, you are screwed. You don’t know it now but by the time your kids’ are ready for HS, you will see.

People with young smart kids have had virtually no magnet access for them based on the current flawed MCPS approach of only providing magnet spots to a tiny number of kids countywide. If others are anything like me, we are freaking thrilled at the idea that MCPS might be changing this approach to provide more slots for more kids, and hoping it will lead to the same at the middle and elementary school level as well. More than 1-2% of the kids in this county deserve advanced programming.

"More than 1-2% of the kids in this county deserve advanced programming"

Correct, more advanced programming is fine but magnet should remain selective.

At the high school level there are already programs available for about 10 percent of kids. Some of those have trouble filling spaces.

They should advertise it and allow kids to fill those spots.

They do. There just isn’t enough interest!

I haven’t seen them advertised.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This exemplifies the naive approach of dismantling successful systems in an attempt to address equity concerns.

Rather than eliminating high-performing elite programs that demonstrate excellent outcomes, MCPS should have expanded access by creating additional regional programs while preserving the existing successful ones as elite programs sitting on top of the reginal ones.
The decision to completely eliminate effective programs instead of building upon them reflects poor strategic thinking or a push of known agenda. A more sensible approach would have been to grow and diversify the program offerings rather than destroy what was already working well.

Agreed. Why is MCPS making this a divisive situation? Keep our successes and build more.

It sounds like they already tried keeping a countywide program (RMIB) and adding regional IB programs and it didn't work at all because all the top students choose RMIB and so the regional programs are weaker and seen as undesirable. So they feel like "just add regional programs but keep the countywide program too" doesn't work. (Also apparently countywide costs a lot more/uses a lot more buses than regional.). That argument makes sense to me but maybe I'm missing something?

Would this work any better if you keep Blair countywide and add regional SMCSes?

The proposals made so far are to both drop Blair and drop any SMCS program and just create entirely new programs instead.

What on earth are you talking about? This is not true. Please don't scare people by spreading false information. They are keeping Blair but want it to serve only 1 of the 6 regions.

It frankly seemed pretty clear to me from the testimony that they are trying to keep as many existing programs as humanly possible, and start ones from scratch only when absolutely necessary. But Blair has been called out by name as being kept.

The fact that they changed the name to STEM signals to me it will be different. Will all 5 offer functions 9 period days and block scheduling?

[Anonymous]

I wonder what Mr Ostranders opinion on this is!?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Those of you with young smart kids, you are screwed. You don’t know it now but by the time your kids’ are ready for HS, you will see.

People with young smart kids have had virtually no magnet access for them based on the current flawed MCPS approach of only providing magnet spots to a tiny number of kids countywide. If others are anything like me, we are freaking thrilled at the idea that MCPS might be changing this approach to provide more slots for more kids, and hoping it will lead to the same at the middle and elementary school level as well. More than 1-2% of the kids in this county deserve advanced programming.

The top 1-2% deserve their own program. The rest of the smart kids have access to AP or IB already.

As someone who was a top 1% kid in a small school system whose classes were with kids from various parts of the top 25%, with none of the fantastic classes or teachers MCPS's magnet programs have... these kids will do just fine being forced to take classes with top 5% kids rather than top 2% kids and no longer being able to take marine biology or plate tectonics.

Sorry if I think our public system should aspire to more than “just fine.” We are falling apart.

Do you realize how you sound? You really think that keeping your kids away from the 95th percentile riff-raff and making sure they have 15 super-specialized science classes to choose from (rather than 6 or 8 or however many the regional ones would have) is an intolerable tragedy worth denying access to the magnet experience to hundreds more kids a year?

Actually my kid is not cut out for the magnets. But as a society we need to give the most able kids the best education so they can be our scientists and engineers and doctors. It is amazing to me that people don’t get this.

For this to be a justification for opposing these changes:

1) it has to be true that these scientists and engineers and doctors are only in the top 1-2%, and that leaving out kids in the few percent below that is fine because they don't have the capability to contribute to society in those ways;
2) it has to be true that an MCPS admission process can accurately identify those top 1-2% of kids (including those who don't have the highest test scores because they haven't been able to access magnet classes in elementary or middle school and haven't gotten parental supplementation, and/or are from lower-income backgrounds and schools)
3) it has to be true that being in class with 95th-98th percentile kids will hurt the chances of those top percentile kids to succeed.

Are you confident enough about those things that you're willing to sell out the other kids to keep Blair a walled garden for a tiny number of kids?

Actually, MCPS leadership could have kept the countywide programs (including Down/UpCounty like Blair SMCS), while also creating regional magnet programs too. Too bad they are making it an "either/or."

Agree with other poster that Blair SMCS and Blair STEM will not be the same. So incredibly astonished and saddened at either the failure to comprehend or worse the deliberate indifference and hostility by the MCPS leadership to these programs. When all else has been sinking, these have been the crown jewels of MCPS. Does Central Office know only destruction, not how to build and improve things?

[Anonymous]

Remember the HGCs? They were expanded into something totally different

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They are expanding these programs to more schools so more students can take advantage of them. Why should MC taxpayers continue to support these programs when there are so many kids that could benefit from a magnet, but there aren't enough spaces? Now hopefully they'll start working on middle school magnet issue.

No they aren’t. they are getting rid of the selective test-in schools.

Please don't lie and spread alarmist rumors. They said the opposite of this.

They are absolutely getting rid of highly selective schools. That is the point. The new programs will be less selective.