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

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If they were smart, they would have created these 6 regional programs (9-12 grades), and have the current Blair/Poolsville only for 10-12 grades (remove 9th).
At the end of the 9th grade, select the top students from the 6 regionals to send them to 10-12 grades at Blair/Poolsville. That would have been smart and competitive

Right, because kids and families want to move schools and make friends twice.

It is absolutely funny to see people unfamiliar with the current magnet programs having opinions.

If you have or had a kid at Blair magnet you will know that kids go there not for friendship and playing. It is all competition, all academics. Most of them have real internship every single summer. Interships at NASA, UMD, Johns Hopkins where their parents drive them 5 days per week.
These programs are serious, and competition is rough. You will see students crying for getting a B that "ruins" their Ivy League chances. You see Robotics kids meeting almost every day after school and in summer.

This is not the normal advanced program you might think about. It is another level that cannot be clone 6 times.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This thread is bonkers. The regional program seems responsive to the concerns parents raise here all the time that high performing kids are shut out of the very few high performing programs. Now, a larger group of high performing kids will be able to learn with their high performing peers, with the speciality focus area piece available to try to equal out the number of high performing kids at each school. Seems like a good approach to me. As for the rarefied Blair offerings, kids can get those in college.

Exactly. HS is about exposure not specialization.

Well that’s the opposite of what they’re doing. With the new regional programs, high performing kids will either need to hyper specialize in a special program that isn’t likely at their school or will risk having the cohort of high performers at the home school cannibalized by the increased seats and focus on special programs. Which are all going to be in a period of transition staffed by teachers who may not have taught this specialty before and with school staff who haven’t worked out the kinks of hosting and managing a special program and establishing signature wrap around activities while not alienating neighborhood students.

I personally think high performers should have stronger options at their home school like not honors for all English. Every survey they give, people say they want to minimize commute and strengthen community where they live. So MCPS decides to come up with a scheme that is literally the opposite.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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

Another DP here

My sibling is an Ivy League PhD with a successful biotech career. He did not attend a magnet. He went to our neighborhood MCPS HS. In fact, at one point he had to drop down from honors math to a regular math class.

[Anonymous]

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.

Actually they don’t deserve anything. It’s a privilege and frankly one not afford to most kids nationwide.

Further, Blair has about 100 seats out of at least 11,250 students county wide and at least 1000 applications.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If they were smart, they would have created these 6 regional programs (9-12 grades), and have the current Blair/Poolsville only for 10-12 grades (remove 9th).
At the end of the 9th grade, select the top students from the 6 regionals to send them to 10-12 grades at Blair/Poolsville. That would have been smart and competitive

Right, because kids and families want to move schools and make friends twice.

It is absolutely funny to see people unfamiliar with the current magnet programs having opinions.

If you have or had a kid at Blair magnet you will know that kids go there not for friendship and playing. It is all competition, all academics. Most of them have real internship every single summer. Interships at NASA, UMD, Johns Hopkins where their parents drive them 5 days per week.
These programs are serious, and competition is rough. You will see students crying for getting a B that "ruins" their Ivy League chances. You see Robotics kids meeting almost every day after school and in summer.

This is not the normal advanced program you might think about. It is another level that cannot be clone 6 times.

If it's like that then they should kill it just on principle and save the kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

They are not "getting rid" of them. They are keeping the programs but changing the catchment areas. Just like they did when Poolesville's program opened.

Did they open that with the same rigor & course selection as at Blair? If they did, and if the new regionals do, the Dr. Li-reliant, Churchill/Wooton families would have fewer qualms about traveling to Rockville instead of to Blair. Heck, they might even prefer their region being more insular or get lucky in seeing the regional STEM magnet placed at one of the two.

But they didn't, did they? And the problem is that they won't, verbally dancing around that issue, and the broader one, in any public meeting with phrases like, "We want to make sure that all of our students, regardless of ZIP code, have equitable access to high quality, enriched programming," instead of, "We will ensure that MCPS students have equitable access to equivalent programming across school communities that provides high quality enrichment to meet individuals at their level of capability."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This thread is bonkers. The regional program seems responsive to the concerns parents raise here all the time that high performing kids are shut out of the very few high performing programs. Now, a larger group of high performing kids will be able to learn with their high performing peers, with the speciality focus area piece available to try to equal out the number of high performing kids at each school. Seems like a good approach to me. As for the rarefied Blair offerings, kids can get those in college.

Exactly. HS is about exposure not specialization.

Well that’s the opposite of what they’re doing. With the new regional programs, high performing kids will either need to hyper specialize in a special program that isn’t likely at their school or will risk having the cohort of high performers at the home school cannibalized by the increased seats and focus on special programs. Which are all going to be in a period of transition staffed by teachers who may not have taught this specialty before and with school staff who haven’t worked out the kinks of hosting and managing a special program and establishing signature wrap around activities while not alienating neighborhood students.

I personally think high performers should have stronger options at their home school like not honors for all English. Every survey they give, people say they want to minimize commute and strengthen community where they live. So MCPS decides to come up with a scheme that is literally the opposite.

Exactly my thoughts. each school currently has a cohort of high performers and now instead of building on that, they will be siphoned off.

[Anonymous]

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.

Actually they don’t deserve anything. It’s a privilege and frankly one not afford to most kids nationwide.

Further, Blair has about 100 seats out of at least 11,250 students county wide and at least 1000 applications.

It’s a really sick society that doesn’t want to provide education and cultivate its smartest kids. Are you also against everything highly selective?

[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.

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

Actually they don’t deserve anything. It’s a privilege and frankly one not afford to most kids nationwide.

Further, Blair has about 100 seats out of at least 11,250 students county wide and at least 1000 applications.

It’s a really sick society that doesn’t want to provide education and cultivate its smartest kids. Are you also against everything highly selective?

DP but this is just a twisted take. I am an Ivy PhD myself so I am pretty in favor of highly selective but there is not a way to provide the absolute best to every single student. I believe that public school should be serving more students. Opponents of this plan are arguing that the top 1% will suffer if we do not keep them isolated from the next couple of percentage points. Well, those next couple of percentage points worth of kids will benefit from the expansion of the magnet model, and it will not be the same if the very best go to Blair etc and they have next tier access. Honors programs have winners and losers. The top students benefit from more segregation of course but the next tier of students lose in this scenario every time. In a public school you have to find a balance between competing aims across different ability levels.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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

Another DP here

My sibling is an Ivy League PhD with a successful biotech career. He did not attend a magnet. He went to our neighborhood MCPS HS. In fact, at one point he had to drop down from honors math to a regular math class.

Nobody is saying that a magnet is the only way to a successful career; just that a functioning program should not be destroyed based on “equity” concerns. I had thought we were past that era, but make no mistake - equity is also coming for APs, IB and all advanced programming and every level. I mean in SF they literally banned kids from algebra until 9th grade and it took a partial revolution to get that changed.

[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.

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

Actually they don’t deserve anything. It’s a privilege and frankly one not afford to most kids nationwide.

Further, Blair has about 100 seats out of at least 11,250 students county wide and at least 1000 applications.

It’s a really sick society that doesn’t want to provide education and cultivate its smartest kids. Are you also against everything highly selective?

DP but this is just a twisted take. I am an Ivy PhD myself so I am pretty in favor of highly selective but there is not a way to provide the absolute best to every single student. I believe that public school should be serving more students. Opponents of this plan are arguing that the top 1% will suffer if we do not keep them isolated from the next couple of percentage points. Well, those next couple of percentage points worth of kids will benefit from the expansion of the magnet model, and it will not be the same if the very best go to Blair etc and they have next tier access. Honors programs have winners and losers. The top students benefit from more segregation of course but the next tier of students lose in this scenario every time. In a public school you have to find a balance between competing aims across different ability levels.

Reader, they didn’t care about the “next 2%” either.

[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.

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.

Go read the proposal. The subject areas do not replicate existing programs. They are proposing new programs

[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.

"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.

Then you are not paying attention. My kideven received snail Mail letters encouraging applications

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:These programs were initially created to compete with TJ and other magnets in DC area. They are very successful and students have great results.
Now, some MCPS employees decided to make some experiments. Of course, they resolved the problem of unhappy parents with kids not accepted at current selective magnets.
New motto: magnets everywhere, all gifted.

We’ve been talking about expanding access to the top 3-5% of students, which is a pretty far cry from “all gifted.”

There are already places in selective high school programs for 5-10 percent of students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

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.

Go read the proposal. The subject areas do not replicate existing programs. They are proposing new programs

It's a mix of both. Some existing programs will remain, some will be replicated, some new programs will be created.