Gifted & talented programs and magnet school opportunities in the public schools?

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:All this arguing for giving an ultra-tiny minority of students some costly classes at taxpayer expense. Those well-resourced families should go private or do dual enrollment.

Expand access to the six regions, or eliminate the programs and just offer AP/IB at each HS.

The cost of bussing due water downed programs is not worth it. End all the magnets. Everyone goes to their assigned school. I am sorry to see Blair end it's run but it does not align with the current county philosophy.

The problem that we found is our school offers very few Ap clases and for smart kids, we don't even have enough math classes to take for the graduaiton requierments. Only the W schools, Blair and Wheaton have advanced classes so you'd need to fix that.

This is an issue in multiple schools. The problem is not kids who can take the classes, it’s school leadership not selecting to offer the classes and then not encouraging staff to want to teach these classes. Or stating they have many more who don’t want need these classes so it’s easier to have a teacher teach another section of a different class. Or that’s what DE is available to support. This later would be viable if the DE campus was more easily accessible.

I'm pretty sure PP is the Einstein parent who is on a tear about their school (an IBDP school) not offering sufficient AP classes. The new proposal isn't going to solve that problem, because IBDP schools will always have fewer AP courses since kids can take IB classes instead.

DP. This is a problem across far more schools than just Einstein, and across many without IB. Even within IB-offering schools, the fact is that some don't offer the breadth of IB courses (and at HL) that might parallel APs, and don't necessarily offer APs where IB doesn't supply a parallel with the same breadth as are available at a few non-magnet high schools in the system.

No, it's not.
20 out of 25 MCPS HS made the AP school Honor roll, which means they offer enough APs, students have access to rigorous course work, and deliver results.

Yes, it is a problem, at multiple schools, with stark differences in offerings.

That AP School Honor Roll? A third of eligible schools -- over 5000 of them -- across the US & Canada (and some foreign American schools) got that. The denominator, there, includes a ton of schools in districts those in MoCo wouldn't touch with a 10 foot pole.

What does it take? There are 4 levels -- the distribution of levels awarded across MCPS schools follows pretty much as one might expect. Bronze requires less than half (40%) of the graduating class to have taken a single AP exam, only a quarter hitting a 3! or better, and only 2 percent! taking 5 or more (1 in 9th or 10th grade).

If there's any thought that 5 is a lot to have available these days, think again. Precalc, CS Principles, Physics 1, US Gov and a language do that. Pretty minimal, considering the 20 or so, including those of significantly greater rigor & interest, that are available at some MCPS schools, not to mention post-AP courses like MVC. Of course some of those "usual suspects" sport Platinum status (80%/50%/15%), but the percentages aren't nearly as important to the conversation as the breadth/depth of advanced offerings.

So if I understand you correctly, you are saying that some HSs in MCPS only offer a handful of AP classes? That sounds to be a really pressing equity issue that MCPS should focus on addressing.

As part of the program analysis, they are also committing to have a set of I believe 20 AP classes at every school (or the IB equivalents-- despite what some people here claim, you can't expect IB schools to also offer the full suite of AP classes, sorry.)

No but they do have to offer equivalents. The problem has been that not all the IB programs have been offering equivalents. Also not all regular HS have the same AP offerings. And they all certainly don’t offer elective equivalents. We won’t even get into grade and expectations.

Right, but that is supposed to change as part of the program analysis. All schools are supposed to offer all 20ish classes on the list via either AP or IB.

And when only 3 kids sign up for a certain class, then what?

Self-correcting over several years if MCPS funds it. Small student/teacher ratio in advanced classes results in a more attractive local school, attracting more families seeking such to the area.

Back-of-the-envelope: adding 15 advanced section periods across subject areas times 15 schools lacking that in comparison to others is 225 periods. Divide by 5 for FTE, and it's 45 positions. Assuming high pay band, say $140k on average, and 25% burden, that comes in under $8M. Say $10M total to add central support and the allocation of some smaller seminar-type spaces within the schools.

I'm sure there are additional pieces, but that's trying to be conservative. Anything that starts to fill, say 12-15 students, would revert to more baseline cost instead of the differential. Less of a need to gerrymander boundaries, too.

This is an interesting proposal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All this arguing for giving an ultra-tiny minority of students some costly classes at taxpayer expense. Those well-resourced families should go private or do dual enrollment.

Expand access to the six regions, or eliminate the programs and just offer AP/IB at each HS.

The cost of bussing due water downed programs is not worth it. End all the magnets. Everyone goes to their assigned school. I am sorry to see Blair end it's run but it does not align with the current county philosophy.

The problem that we found is our school offers very few Ap clases and for smart kids, we don't even have enough math classes to take for the graduaiton requierments. Only the W schools, Blair and Wheaton have advanced classes so you'd need to fix that.

This is an issue in multiple schools. The problem is not kids who can take the classes, it’s school leadership not selecting to offer the classes and then not encouraging staff to want to teach these classes. Or stating they have many more who don’t want need these classes so it’s easier to have a teacher teach another section of a different class. Or that’s what DE is available to support. This later would be viable if the DE campus was more easily accessible.

I'm pretty sure PP is the Einstein parent who is on a tear about their school (an IBDP school) not offering sufficient AP classes. The new proposal isn't going to solve that problem, because IBDP schools will always have fewer AP courses since kids can take IB classes instead.

DP. This is a problem across far more schools than just Einstein, and across many without IB. Even within IB-offering schools, the fact is that some don't offer the breadth of IB courses (and at HL) that might parallel APs, and don't necessarily offer APs where IB doesn't supply a parallel with the same breadth as are available at a few non-magnet high schools in the system.

No, it's not.
20 out of 25 MCPS HS made the AP school Honor roll, which means they offer enough APs, students have access to rigorous course work, and deliver results.

Yes, it is a problem, at multiple schools, with stark differences in offerings.

That AP School Honor Roll? A third of eligible schools -- over 5000 of them -- across the US & Canada (and some foreign American schools) got that. The denominator, there, includes a ton of schools in districts those in MoCo wouldn't touch with a 10 foot pole.

What does it take? There are 4 levels -- the distribution of levels awarded across MCPS schools follows pretty much as one might expect. Bronze requires less than half (40%) of the graduating class to have taken a single AP exam, only a quarter hitting a 3! or better, and only 2 percent! taking 5 or more (1 in 9th or 10th grade).

If there's any thought that 5 is a lot to have available these days, think again. Precalc, CS Principles, Physics 1, US Gov and a language do that. Pretty minimal, considering the 20 or so, including those of significantly greater rigor & interest, that are available at some MCPS schools, not to mention post-AP courses like MVC. Of course some of those "usual suspects" sport Platinum status (80%/50%/15%), but the percentages aren't nearly as important to the conversation as the breadth/depth of advanced offerings.

LOL
Now a random internet warrior, idiot/savant thinks he/she knows more about APs than the college board.
You could not make this $hit up.

Get back to us when you can present a real argument instead of ad hominem drivel.

The differences in local HS advanced offerings remains, and the variable (student participation/achievement) and limited (course offerings) nature of the AP School Honor Roll designation does not provide a meaningful support to an argument of similarity.

The point was already made, but there's no point of arguing with an idiot-savant.

Aaaannnnd...get back to us when you can avoid drivel of either ad hominem or other (hand-waving, here, with no "point already made") broken-rhetoric nature.

The differences in local HS advanced offerings remain. If you find no point in arguing this, you can just let it go instead of trying to last-word it without meaningful support.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Differential access to high level HS courses across home schools should not exist. At the same time:

-- Any HS class that would be in sequence at the highest level for those completing standard offerings of acceleration/enrichment through MS should be available (e.g., APUSH/APGov in one or other arrangement in 9th & 10th, MVC in 12th or 11th with the coming 2-year Integrated Algebra),

-- Any HS class or that is within standard academic core subjects (ELA, Social Studies, Science, Math, plus World Languages) should be made accessible at the earliest grade level consistent with prerequisite/corequisite fulfillment (i.e., students should not be required to take other elective subjects or lower-level coursework if doubling up in these subject areas at a higher level would facilitate a more rigorous experience or later course access), and

-- Exception policies allowing higher paths of access should be consistent across schools.

Differential access to HS-sequence-enabling MS courses likewise should not exist. Any curricular enrichment meant to be offered locally to those qualifying for, but not offered a seat at, an ES or MS magnet should be such that it not only is meaningful, in and of itself, but also affords the same liklihood of later-level magnet admission and preserves access to any later sequence facilitated by attendance at a magnet.

In other words, one's zip code should have no bearing on one's access to in-school course offerings, a standard suite of courses should be available to allow maximal access to high levels of rigor, and any lottery-based magnet placement should have no bearing on access to programs or courses at later levels within the system.

MVC will not be standard. MCPS will add a course after integrated algebra 2 and before pre-calculus to cover the missing standards. Already students are having trouble with pre-calculus with the current 3-year sequence.

The two-year sequence is for those who are not in the calculus track and therefore do not need all the standards covered to prepare for pre-calculus.

They should just create a 2yrs and 3year integrated Algebra course.

Make the 2yr how MSDE wants and make the 3yr based on market integrated curriculum already available and be sure to incorporate enough statistics. Illustrative Mathematics created an integrated Math 1-3. Kids are already using Illustrative Mathematics for Math6-8. Viola done.

Yes, that is what I think MCPS will do - wuth the third year only for kids who will do precalc/calc. They will not have students go from integrated algebra 2 to precalc — they know this is a recipe for failure.

They should implement the 3yr IM starting this year with the advance students or those who want to join with noting that once you’re on the 3yr path you are there. Then they can use the feedback from teachers alongside working with Illustrative Math this year to create a workable 2yr IM class and bridge to Advance math course. This would make it so people understand they need to choose the 3yr path carefully and the 2yr path would be readynext year. It would exist for those who don’t want to take advance math or those who want to take it slower.

Want to respond but think it will be too off-topic for this thread. Will start a new one momentarily.