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

[Anonymous]

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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.

So why kill the existing program that gives kids the most exposure?

What exactly is the problem with keeping our outstanding cross-county programs AND reorganizing the school district into regions?

I would have thought this was a good solution too, but apparently it has already been tried and failed with IB programs.

How?

I don't know the details but apparently people think RMIB is way better than the regional IBs?

Even if RMIB is better than the regionals (that's to be expected), doesn't prove that the regionals have failed.

I guess the theory is that the regionals would do better if the top students weren’t all flocking to RMIB.

The kids I know that went to the regionals weren’t significantly worse than the RM kids. But the regional programs just were not good. It turns out you can’t just decide to run an IB program and have it magically appear fully formed without putting a lot of expertise and resources into developing it.

Now this point is true and has already been mentioned repeatedly and I expect will continue to be mentioned. The need for resources and training. Not to mention creating peer cohorts for teachers. The magnet teachers shouldn’t be alone they should be working cross region.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Re: hiring good STEM teachers, I think aside from the pay, there needs to be a way to get STEM skilled folks trained to teach without making them get an Education degree.

If you happen to be at last Tuesday’s MCCPTA meeting, you’ll see Dr Taylor insists on no possibility of hiring of new teachers because of budget limit, and he doesn’t believe training is needed either. He claimed that many teachers had been having multiple certificates and “they are significantly under-utilized”.

A certificate is meaningless. I am certified in software. It means nothing.

There are very few teachers who can teach advanced STEM, and teach it well.

Who creates the math curriculum in the advanced math classes at Blair? Is it central office, or do the magnet teachers have more autonomy?

Blair magnet teachers used to have a great deal of freedom, and they created the curriculum based on many many years of experience dealing with the magnet kids and their own expertise. Now thinking about applying this curriculum to a very much diluted student body with a teacher lacking knowledge in that subject: it’s going to be a disaster to both side.

From how the boundaries are drawn, it looks like there will be strong teachers in whatever program. They should put the regional program in the HS with the best teachers in that subject. So the STEM program for region 1 should be at Blair, for example.

Not really. Region #1 and #4 will be especially hard to train and maintain qualified teachers.

Why is that? I’m pretty happy with Region 1

I meant to say region #2 and #5. It’s going to create large in-equality for these two regions:

Region two: James Hubert Blake and Springbrook in Silver Spring, Paint Branch in Burtonsville, and Sherwood in Sandy Springs

Region five: Crown and Gaithersburg in Gaithersburg, Col. Zadok Magruder in Rockville, Damascus and Watkins Mill in Wheaton

It’s says something that you believe these regions don’t already have qualified teachers.

[Anonymous]

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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.

So why kill the existing program that gives kids the most exposure?

What exactly is the problem with keeping our outstanding cross-county programs AND reorganizing the school district into regions?

I would have thought this was a good solution too, but apparently it has already been tried and failed with IB programs.

How?

I don't know the details but apparently people think RMIB is way better than the regional IBs?

Even if RMIB is better than the regionals (that's to be expected), doesn't prove that the regionals have failed.

I guess the theory is that the regionals would do better if the top students weren’t all flocking to RMIB.

The kids I know that went to the regionals weren’t significantly worse than the RM kids. But the regional programs just were not good. It turns out you can’t just decide to run an IB program and have it magically appear fully formed without putting a lot of expertise and resources into developing it.

How?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

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.

So why kill the existing program that gives kids the most exposure?

What exactly is the problem with keeping our outstanding cross-county programs AND reorganizing the school district into regions?

I would have thought this was a good solution too, but apparently it has already been tried and failed with IB programs.

How?

I don't know the details but apparently people think RMIB is way better than the regional IBs?

Even if RMIB is better than the regionals (that's to be expected), doesn't prove that the regionals have failed.

I guess the theory is that the regionals would do better if the top students weren’t all flocking to RMIB.

The kids I know that went to the regionals weren’t significantly worse than the RM kids. But the regional programs just were not good. It turns out you can’t just decide to run an IB program and have it magically appear fully formed without putting a lot of expertise and resources into developing it.

Hard disagree here. Springbrook IB has grown to the 3rd largest Diploma Programme in the county, behind RMHS and B-CC. There has been tremendous interest in the regional magnet from inside and out of the consortium. The previous poster should come out to the interest night at Springbrook. It is always a packed room of 8th graders from the NEC, Rockville, Magruder, and Sherwood clusters. One thing right at that school is the incredible work of the two coordinators in developing what was once a tiny program of 40 DP students overall into 150+ students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

So why kill the existing program that gives kids the most exposure?

What exactly is the problem with keeping our outstanding cross-county programs AND reorganizing the school district into regions?

I would have thought this was a good solution too, but apparently it has already been tried and failed with IB programs.

How?

I don't know the details but apparently people think RMIB is way better than the regional IBs?

Even if RMIB is better than the regionals (that's to be expected), doesn't prove that the regionals have failed.

I guess the theory is that the regionals would do better if the top students weren’t all flocking to RMIB.

The kids I know that went to the regionals weren’t significantly worse than the RM kids. But the regional programs just were not good. It turns out you can’t just decide to run an IB program and have it magically appear fully formed without putting a lot of expertise and resources into developing it.

Hard disagree here. Springbrook IB has grown to the 3rd largest Diploma Programme in the county, behind RMHS and B-CC. There has been tremendous interest in the regional magnet from inside and out of the consortium. The previous poster should come out to the interest night at Springbrook. It is always a packed room of 8th graders from the NEC, Rockville, Magruder, and Sherwood clusters. One thing right at that school is the incredible work of the two coordinators in developing what was once a tiny program of 40 DP students overall into 150+ students.

Ok … so why do the magnets have to go away then?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

So why kill the existing program that gives kids the most exposure?

What exactly is the problem with keeping our outstanding cross-county programs AND reorganizing the school district into regions?

I would have thought this was a good solution too, but apparently it has already been tried and failed with IB programs.

How?

I don't know the details but apparently people think RMIB is way better than the regional IBs?

Even if RMIB is better than the regionals (that's to be expected), doesn't prove that the regionals have failed.

I guess the theory is that the regionals would do better if the top students weren’t all flocking to RMIB.

The kids I know that went to the regionals weren’t significantly worse than the RM kids. But the regional programs just were not good. It turns out you can’t just decide to run an IB program and have it magically appear fully formed without putting a lot of expertise and resources into developing it.

Hard disagree here. Springbrook IB has grown to the 3rd largest Diploma Programme in the county, behind RMHS and B-CC. There has been tremendous interest in the regional magnet from inside and out of the consortium. The previous poster should come out to the interest night at Springbrook. It is always a packed room of 8th graders from the NEC, Rockville, Magruder, and Sherwood clusters. One thing right at that school is the incredible work of the two coordinators in developing what was once a tiny program of 40 DP students overall into 150+ students.

Ok … so why do the magnets have to go away then?

Which magnet went away because of the regional IBs?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

So why kill the existing program that gives kids the most exposure?

What exactly is the problem with keeping our outstanding cross-county programs AND reorganizing the school district into regions?

I would have thought this was a good solution too, but apparently it has already been tried and failed with IB programs.

How?

I don't know the details but apparently people think RMIB is way better than the regional IBs?

Even if RMIB is better than the regionals (that's to be expected), doesn't prove that the regionals have failed.

I guess the theory is that the regionals would do better if the top students weren’t all flocking to RMIB.

The kids I know that went to the regionals weren’t significantly worse than the RM kids. But the regional programs just were not good. It turns out you can’t just decide to run an IB program and have it magically appear fully formed without putting a lot of expertise and resources into developing it.

Hard disagree here. Springbrook IB has grown to the 3rd largest Diploma Programme in the county, behind RMHS and B-CC. There has been tremendous interest in the regional magnet from inside and out of the consortium. The previous poster should come out to the interest night at Springbrook. It is always a packed room of 8th graders from the NEC, Rockville, Magruder, and Sherwood clusters. One thing right at that school is the incredible work of the two coordinators in developing what was once a tiny program of 40 DP students overall into 150+ students.

Ok … so why do the magnets have to go away then?

Which magnet went away because of the regional IBs?

RM's will....

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

So why kill the existing program that gives kids the most exposure?

What exactly is the problem with keeping our outstanding cross-county programs AND reorganizing the school district into regions?

I would have thought this was a good solution too, but apparently it has already been tried and failed with IB programs.

How?

I don't know the details but apparently people think RMIB is way better than the regional IBs?

Even if RMIB is better than the regionals (that's to be expected), doesn't prove that the regionals have failed.

I guess the theory is that the regionals would do better if the top students weren’t all flocking to RMIB.

The kids I know that went to the regionals weren’t significantly worse than the RM kids. But the regional programs just were not good. It turns out you can’t just decide to run an IB program and have it magically appear fully formed without putting a lot of expertise and resources into developing it.

Hard disagree here. Springbrook IB has grown to the 3rd largest Diploma Programme in the county, behind RMHS and B-CC. There has been tremendous interest in the regional magnet from inside and out of the consortium. The previous poster should come out to the interest night at Springbrook. It is always a packed room of 8th graders from the NEC, Rockville, Magruder, and Sherwood clusters. One thing right at that school is the incredible work of the two coordinators in developing what was once a tiny program of 40 DP students overall into 150+ students.

Ok … so why do the magnets have to go away then?

Which magnet went away because of the regional IBs?

RM's will....

It's not going anywhere.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:You need a critical mass of highly able students in the same classroom, a good program, and good teachers for this to be successful. Montgomery county benefited from the national awards won by Blair, Poolesville, and RM students, by increased tax revenue for instance. It is simply not possible to achieve the same level of success with regional programs. There won't be enough interested and capable students to justify the same level of classes at the same number of classes. There won't be enough teachers capable of teaching these classes at the same level they are taught today. For all practical purposes, this is the end of a very successful program. Sad.

Totally agree. It’s just impossible to duplicate those highly successful programs across all six regions. Eventually, the so-called magnet programs in each region will become just regular programs with a few advanced classes.

But I guess no one cares.

Please explain what you mean by "highly successful" and why they need to stay at their current locations and not be expanded. Will the current students not do well at other locations?

Different person by the way.

Blair SMCS has courses that are "more advanced," but are actually unique and taught by very skilled teachers. Spreading the program thin into 5 regions would kill it. It would just be an illusion of "expanding opportunity." The program would just end up being like honors for all.

Also, these magnets are successful because they have many highly motivated and high achieving students in 1 program. That is why Blair has consistently been at the top of the nation in terms of academics and competitions. It is also why Blair's students are able to organize clubs and tournaments for the community, like their math tournament, which gets a few hundred participants every year.

Honestly, there are not enough highly qualified math and science teachers in MCPS to replicate anything close to the Blair programming on a regional basis.

It’s crazy that MCPS doesn’t understand what makes Blair a top-in-the-nation school. Can you imagine NYC giving up Stuyvesant?

[Anonymous]

Poolesville HS’s new building was just completed in 2024. It was built with a core capacity of 1,800 students. This past school year, 1,309 students were enrolled at PHS, including 701 magnet students who are not zoned for PHS. Fewer than 10 students who were zoned for PHS enrolled at RMIB, the only other magnet program for which Poolesville students are eligible. That means PHS’s new building has a core capacity of nearly 3 times the roughly 610 students who are currently zoned for it.

MCPS wants to get rid of Poolesville’s existing magnet programs to move to a regional magnet system. This past year, out of the 16,380 students enrolled at 8 other upcounty high schools, PHS enrolled 700 of them in its magnet programs. Under the proposed regional magnet system, the catchment area from which PHS could enroll students only includes 4 other schools with a combined enrollment of 9,130. Unless multiple programs from the proposed 5 new magnet programs for Region 6 are housed at PHS, enrollment at PHS will plummet. Clearly, this was not the plan when funding was appropriated for PHS’s new building. Why are we abandoning plans we’ve already funded?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

So why kill the existing program that gives kids the most exposure?

What exactly is the problem with keeping our outstanding cross-county programs AND reorganizing the school district into regions?

I would have thought this was a good solution too, but apparently it has already been tried and failed with IB programs.

How?

I don't know the details but apparently people think RMIB is way better than the regional IBs?

one only needs to look at the IBDP rate and the IB classes offered at the regional IBs compared to RMIB.

I believe the regional programs’ failure is because of mcps’s insistence to put them in schools with students have a reputation for unruliness. Better to stick with the home school than to be surrounded by disruptive students.

Regional programs aren’t failures. Diploma rate is not a measure of success of IB. Where kids go for college who take any IB class is the measure of success. For example, many kids at BCC take a mix of IB and AP classes, just out of personal interest. Overall GPA and number of advance class takers would be a better measure of success.

People think RMIB is the best IB Program because it is test in only, therefore it has a very select group of the highest (humanities-interested) students in the county. The level of discussion, participation, background knowledge and drive is much higher than an opt-in program. Blair, for a similar reason, has a much higher level of student ability & preparation than any other math program. It’s a function of the selection pool. The bigger the pool, the more selective the admit group.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

So why kill the existing program that gives kids the most exposure?

What exactly is the problem with keeping our outstanding cross-county programs AND reorganizing the school district into regions?

I would have thought this was a good solution too, but apparently it has already been tried and failed with IB programs.

How?

I don't know the details but apparently people think RMIB is way better than the regional IBs?

Even if RMIB is better than the regionals (that's to be expected), doesn't prove that the regionals have failed.

I guess the theory is that the regionals would do better if the top students weren’t all flocking to RMIB.

The kids I know that went to the regionals weren’t significantly worse than the RM kids. But the regional programs just were not good. It turns out you can’t just decide to run an IB program and have it magically appear fully formed without putting a lot of expertise and resources into developing it.

Hard disagree here. Springbrook IB has grown to the 3rd largest Diploma Programme in the county, behind RMHS and B-CC. There has been tremendous interest in the regional magnet from inside and out of the consortium. The previous poster should come out to the interest night at Springbrook. It is always a packed room of 8th graders from the NEC, Rockville, Magruder, and Sherwood clusters. One thing right at that school is the incredible work of the two coordinators in developing what was once a tiny program of 40 DP students overall into 150+ students.

159 students out of 2000-3000 seats that’s not what students want. B

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Poolesville HS’s new building was just completed in 2024. It was built with a core capacity of 1,800 students. This past school year, 1,309 students were enrolled at PHS, including 701 magnet students who are not zoned for PHS. Fewer than 10 students who were zoned for PHS enrolled at RMIB, the only other magnet program for which Poolesville students are eligible. That means PHS’s new building has a core capacity of nearly 3 times the roughly 610 students who are currently zoned for it.

MCPS wants to get rid of Poolesville’s existing magnet programs to move to a regional magnet system. This past year, out of the 16,380 students enrolled at 8 other upcounty high schools, PHS enrolled 700 of them in its magnet programs. Under the proposed regional magnet system, the catchment area from which PHS could enroll students only includes 4 other schools with a combined enrollment of 9,130. Unless multiple programs from the proposed 5 new magnet programs for Region 6 are housed at PHS, enrollment at PHS will plummet. Clearly, this was not the plan when funding was appropriated for PHS’s new building. Why are we abandoning plans we’ve already funded?

Not only is Poolesville’s shiny, large new building exactly the kind of building meant to attract students from all over the county, but it was literally designed with the magnet programs in mind. The building has four “hubs,” one for each program (including ISP), which are even painted its program’s designated color. No other school looks like PHS — even another school built in 2024 wouldn’t — because the literal construction of the school was intended to serve the four programs. To alter Poolesville’s magnets after all of this won’t just waste MCPS a shit ton of money, but it’ll render the design of its brand new building pointless and irrelevant.

[Anonymous]

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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.

What benefit does NASA get from having a 14-year old work with them for a summer? Even a prodigy genius one? These “internships” honestly sound like fake charities created by parents for Ivy applications.

Another outsider having no idea about what these kids do but having strong opinions. LOL
One of the NASA internships is about robotics. 50 kids from entire US.
If you have the curiosity to check Blair's and Poolsville's robotics teams you will understand that this is not charity. They build fully functional robots in 2 months to compete in First Robotics events. This is serious stuff with high budgets (~40k per year) and a lot at effort all year round. Last 2 years, Blair's team qualified to the Worlds Championship in Texas. Many of these kids get into the famous CMU or MIT Engineering programs and end up building robots for NASA later in life.
Get your facts right before writing non sense here.

That "World championship" is for everyone with enough money to fund an expensive hobby.

The famous CMU and MIT (and BYU, btw) Engineering programs that educated people who built robots for NASA didn't intern at NASA at 14.

Tell me you know nothing about it, without telling me you know nothing about it. Most funded robotics teams do not go to worlds every year. Some never make it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

What benefit does NASA get from having a 14-year old work with them for a summer? Even a prodigy genius one? These “internships” honestly sound like fake charities created by parents for Ivy applications.

Another outsider having no idea about what these kids do but having strong opinions. LOL
One of the NASA internships is about robotics. 50 kids from entire US.
If you have the curiosity to check Blair's and Poolsville's robotics teams you will understand that this is not charity. They build fully functional robots in 2 months to compete in First Robotics events. This is serious stuff with high budgets (~40k per year) and a lot at effort all year round. Last 2 years, Blair's team qualified to the Worlds Championship in Texas. Many of these kids get into the famous CMU or MIT Engineering programs and end up building robots for NASA later in life.
Get your facts right before writing non sense here.

That "World championship" is for everyone with enough money to fund an expensive hobby.

The famous CMU and MIT (and BYU, btw) Engineering programs that educated people who built robots for NASA didn't intern at NASA at 14.

You must be joking! There are thousands of teams and only a fraction qualify. Budget matters but it's not everything. And btw, the teams have a business sub team responsible with donations and budget. It is serious stuff with some kids sending letters and meeting with potential sponsors, and others designing and building the robot. Not as simple as you might think.

So, rich kids with parents with rich friends?

The sponsors are companies like Boeing and Lockheed Martin. Not parents. My Blair magnet kid is in robotics and unlike other schools (cough, Whitman) parents have not been asked to contribute hundreds of dollars. We are asked to pay for travel for our own kids, but even that is covered in case of financial need.