Did the Takoma MS magnet got MORE white this year?
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Anonymous
Can you provide a link to his exact words or is this just more rumormongering? |
Anonymous
He wanted more blacks and Hispanics in music programs? Sounds like whatever he did worked. 
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Anonymous
I can speak for our local ES. Instrumental music has really taken off in the last two years. Nicely done Superintendent Smith! |
Anonymous
| Don't know the other race breakdowns but given the MCPS is about 37% white that seems representive. What were you expecting? |
Anonymous
The yearlong, $200,000 study by New York-based Metis Associates was undertaken largely at the prodding of former superintendent Starr, who had focused on issues around selective admission programs when he ran the Stamford, Connecticut, school system before coming to Maryland. Some sources suggest that Starr regarded the study and its findings as a project for a second term. His failure to win reappointment a month after the Choice study was commissioned has left Smith with a political hot potato. “I think Josh saw this study as a way to push the question of ‘How progressive is this community?’ ” says Lloyd, the Montgomery County Education Association president. “It’s not going to be resolved in a single year. …It’s going to be a very tense conversation. Anytime you deal with race and class, it’s going to be uncomfortable.” Among the findings of the Choice study: While these programs were initially designed to promote voluntary racial integration within MCPS, the 14.5 percent of the county school population currently participating in them is disproportionately white and Asian-American. The study has produced a divide, to a significant degree along racial lines, between those who benefit from the status quo and those who want to see it changed. Says the Board of Education’s O’Neill: “People feel very passionately in Montgomery County, and if it’s going to gore your ox, or, as you perceive it, take something away, it’s a very difficult situation.” Several of those at the Walter Johnson session waved placards reading “No on 3A.” Recommendation 3A of the study suggests the use of “non-cognitive criteria” in considering admission to the programs in question, taking into consideration a student’s “motivation and persistence,” as well as test scores. Entrance to language immersion classes is by lottery, but other programs covered by the study generally involve selective admissions. Many of the Asian-Americans who turned out for the Walter Johnson meeting were clearly concerned that would put them at a disadvantage: While a little less than 15 percent of the countywide student population is Asian-American, the percentage of Asians-Americans in the heralded mathematics magnet program at Montgomery Blair High School in Silver Spring is nearly four times that. Following the Walter Johnson session, O’Neill met with a group of Chinese-American parents. “They’re very concerned we’re going to a quota system,” she says. “Those are illegal, but some in the community, particularly in the Asian community, believe that.” O’Neill points to a 2007 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that places restrictions on the use of race in assigning students to particular schools. Some high school principals are said to have complained privately that these programs skim off top students, leaving other schools in an academically weakened condition. Navarro is among those who contend that the future emphasis needs to be on “how can you provide the best opportunities for learning in all schools…versus having these particular programs here and there.” Defenders of programs such as the Blair math magnet, created in the early 1980s, say they provide opportunities to high-achieving students that would not be academically or financially viable otherwise. They also criticized the Choice study for not assessing the quality or value of these programs, focusing instead on who is being admitted to them. What is not in dispute is that the demographic makeup of the students who apply to and get into these programs is highly disproportionate to the overall makeup of the county school system. Furthermore, awareness of the programs—and the ability to deal with an often complicated application process—often varies sharply by race and socioeconomic status. When asked if Smith faces a difficult political task in balancing the needs and demands of schools in such widely varying circumstances, Rice acknowledges that he does—to an extent. “With our W cluster schools [a reference to Walt Whitman, Walter Johnson, Winston Churchill and Thomas S. Wootton high schools], I would say that if we saw a difference in terms of those children not getting into quality schools, not following the career pathways that they wanted to follow, I’d be more concerned. But that’s not what we’re seeing. We’re not seeing those children be the ones who are incarcerated, recruited into gangs, or just falling between the cracks. All of those things are the kinds of things we see with some of our challenged schools. “Let’s focus on these pieces that aren’t performing—get them up to speed and then we lift everything up and accelerate.” http://www.bethesdamagazine.com/Bethesda-Magazine/...Public-Schools-Still-the-Best/ |
Anonymous
Love to see the data of blacks, Hispanics, Whites, Asians and Multi-racial in the MCPS music programs (ES, MS, and HS). Please supply. |
Anonymous
Goit it. Smith never mentioned race. |
Anonymous
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It's not as if test scores are independent of SES. I don't know much about the CogAT but the MAP scores are obviously dependent on what the child has been taught (whether in school or outside of it). Parents who have taught their 2nd graders multiplication and division will have kids who score higher on MAP. I happen to have a kid who always wanted to "play school" and asks us to give her math problems. So we taught her multiplication and division. We've taught her addition and subtraction of fractions/common denominators which apparently MCPS hasn't gotten around to yet. We taught her how to find the area of a triangle, which I have to admit, I didn't exactly remember how to do at first for non-right triangles. If we either didn't have the time or knowledge or inclination to do so, her MAP score would be lower. So I don't see how the scores are the end-all and be-all of who is most qualified. I can understand why the system might rely on scores because it's easy to explain and appears objective, but I don't see how one can say it identifies the kids who are intrinsically most qualified.
If it is possible to identify a 3rd grader who has never been exposed to long division or fractions, but who would learn it in 40 minutes if instructed on it, that kid is just as qualified for select/gifted instruction as a kid who has been taught long division and fractions outside of school and can demonstrate that knowledge on the MAP-M. How to identify that kid is the issue, and it's a difficult one that MCPS is struggling with. |
Anonymous
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choice study showed that there weren't many blacks and hispanics in HGC or magnet programs.
Among the findings of the Choice study: While these programs were initially designed to promote voluntary racial integration within MCPS, the 14.5 percent of the county school population currently participating in them is disproportionately white and Asian-American. The study has produced a divide, to a significant degree along racial lines, between those who benefit from the status quo and those who want to see it changed. Says the Board of Education’s O’Neill: “People feel very passionately in Montgomery County, and if it’s going to gore your ox, or, as you perceive it, take something away, it’s a very difficult situation.” So they went and gored to the ox to racially diversify the CES and Magnet programs. Smith furthermore said he doesn't care about highly performing students, since the're not the ones getting incarcerated. Would rather focus on kids not performing. |
Anonymous
That is called IQ. And there are indeed IQ tests (MAP is not an IQ test). WISC-IV, FSIQ, SSAT are. You want to test raw intellectual horsepower. That plus strong work ethic will do well in rigorous academic programs and help push other like-minded students. |
Anonymous
It is a difficult issue - how to identify kids with "promise" and talent who might not test well for various reasons. I think that might be one reason why there is (not sure if this is still the case) a Raven type component to the 3rd grade test. I think it is harder to admit kids who might have promise but can't demonstrate it through traditional means (on a test) when they are applying to a high school or to some extent middle school magnet program. The pace of instruction is really accelerated and if there is a sizeable group of admits who are playing catch up, the program would inevitably get watered down. |
Anonymous
Reading comprehension - the article attributes that statement to Rice (I assume that is Councilmember Craig Rice but the excerpt posted here does not say) commenting on the challenges facing Superintendent Smith. It is not a quote from Smith. |
Anonymous
I think you are confusing two issues, and it is hard to not think you are doing it intentionally. Smith (and MCPS, and lots of other folks) care about serving at risk kids, but expanding the pool for CES and middle school magnet screenings is not actually about serving low performers. It is about serving high performers who may not have tested, or may not have had parent letters of recommendation, or impressive extracurricular, under the old system. I speak as someone whose proverbial ox is going to be gored by this move, in that my kids would have compelling essays and impressive extracurriculars, as I have the time and resources to support them. Those things don't make them "gifted," though, and doing away with those elements of the screening was the correct choice. |
Anonymous
Nicely said! |
Anonymous
| Lots of people agree universal testing and doing away with teacher recs. People are objecting to the peer cohorts criteria. |