Regional model - which programs in which schools?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The thing I don’t like for region 1 is putting humanities at Whitman. I would really like to see this at Einstein or Northwood, and I don’t care which. My DCC kids could apply to IB at BCC but that’s still the second furthest option. I don’t see why Whitman needs a major draw magnet.

Neither BCC nor Whitman need magnets. They already have all the advanced classwork in their schools that they need. We know this because vanishingly few kids from these schools go to RMIB or Blair SMCS.

Obviously, these schools will attract high-performing kids from Einstein and Northwood (and maybe Blair) who have access to transportation from their parents. It won't go the other way around. BCC students and definitely not Whitman students will definitely NOT be traveling to Einstein, Northwood or Blair. This is how you create inequity. You try to make everything uniform, the same for everyone, but you ignore how these schools, including their course offerings, and the populations they serve are very different, and so trying to give everyone the same thing means giving more opportunities to the wealthiest students.

But isn't the only way to attend a school you are not zoned for to apply for a magent? If Whitman doesn't have a magnet, no one other than the students who live in the area could attend.

They should make any programs in these schools interest based. At least then they aren't only taking the top students. I generally though don't think they should have regional programs. From an equity perspective it is horrible. They have plenty of stuff for their own students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The thing I don’t like for region 1 is putting humanities at Whitman. I would really like to see this at Einstein or Northwood, and I don’t care which. My DCC kids could apply to IB at BCC but that’s still the second furthest option. I don’t see why Whitman needs a major draw magnet.

Neither BCC nor Whitman need magnets. They already have all the advanced classwork in their schools that they need. We know this because vanishingly few kids from these schools go to RMIB or Blair SMCS.

Obviously, these schools will attract high-performing kids from Einstein and Northwood (and maybe Blair) who have access to transportation from their parents. It won't go the other way around. BCC students and definitely not Whitman students will definitely NOT be traveling to Einstein, Northwood or Blair. This is how you create inequity. You try to make everything uniform, the same for everyone, but you ignore how these schools, including their course offerings, and the populations they serve are very different, and so trying to give everyone the same thing means giving more opportunities to the wealthiest students.

But isn't the only way to attend a school you are not zoned for to apply for a magent? If Whitman doesn't have a magnet, no one other than the students who live in the area could attend.

They should make any programs in these schools interest based. At least then they aren't only taking the top students. I generally though don't think they should have regional programs. From an equity perspective it is horrible. They have plenty of stuff for their own students.

Where’s the money for this coming from? Are they testing it with one region before expanding it county wide?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:None of this matters if Taylor follows through saying that all kids who meet the criteria get into the criteria magnet and all kids who apply to an interest magnet get in. No more lotteries. But what a headache for staffing, transportation and resources. School populations will be way different than his charts predict. Any kid currently in compacted math will have to go to their region’s stem magnet to fill the required 4 years of math under the new IM pathway that MCPS refuses to do in 3 years as MSDE suggests.

Are you referring to new HS magnets? Is this on slides somewhere? One problem with top magnets today (other than being very selective) is lack of transparency. Nobody knows exactly why they did or did not get accepted into RMIB, for example. What you wrote sounds like there will be well defined criteria who qualifies for magnets. I hope that is true but it sounds too good to be true. It almost mean that every straight A (or some combination of good grades and good MAP scores) middle school kid will be able to choose what criteria magnet to attend within their region.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The thing I don’t like for region 1 is putting humanities at Whitman. I would really like to see this at Einstein or Northwood, and I don’t care which. My DCC kids could apply to IB at BCC but that’s still the second furthest option. I don’t see why Whitman needs a major draw magnet.

Neither BCC nor Whitman need magnets. They already have all the advanced classwork in their schools that they need. We know this because vanishingly few kids from these schools go to RMIB or Blair SMCS.

Obviously, these schools will attract high-performing kids from Einstein and Northwood (and maybe Blair) who have access to transportation from their parents. It won't go the other way around. BCC students and definitely not Whitman students will definitely NOT be traveling to Einstein, Northwood or Blair. This is how you create inequity. You try to make everything uniform, the same for everyone, but you ignore how these schools, including their course offerings, and the populations they serve are very different, and so trying to give everyone the same thing means giving more opportunities to the wealthiest students.

Yes, exactly.  The program analysis team admitted they did not consider equity in where programs were placed, and it shows. They seemed confused at the idea that anyone would have expected them to.  They really do not understand equity at all, and just use it as a buzzword.

And to the other poster who said "if Whitman doesn't have magnets, no one from out of boundaries will get to go to Whitman"... you can still give Whitman interest-based programs that allow out of boundary kids to go to Whitman if they really want.  The languages magnet seems fine to me-- Whitman offers more languages than other schools, let kids from other schools take advantage of Whitman language classes if they really want them. Their interest-based LASJ program also seems fine to me as an acceptable generic "I want my kid at Whitman, here's a way to do it" option.  

However, criteria-based academic magnets drawing top students are a totally different ballgame.  They increase the number of advanced students and advanced classes at schools, which can be really important and valuable for schools that struggle with that otherwise.  Giving a program like that to Whitman not only gives this benefit to a school that does not at all need it rather than to a school like Northwood that would have gained a lot from it, but actually actively hurt other schools by decreasing the number of advanced students in-bounds who stay. 

(It's also just offensive that Whitman kids will get a leg up in admissions to the humanities program because they will have a local set-aside that gives them a disproportionate share of slots.)

[Anonymous]

At this point, since it's clear the programs shift is happening, I just want to hear about the logistics of registering for the programs and the course details behind each program. There really aren't any additional changes I can see being made to it at this point.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The thing I don’t like for region 1 is putting humanities at Whitman. I would really like to see this at Einstein or Northwood, and I don’t care which. My DCC kids could apply to IB at BCC but that’s still the second furthest option. I don’t see why Whitman needs a major draw magnet.

Neither BCC nor Whitman need magnets. They already have all the advanced classwork in their schools that they need. We know this because vanishingly few kids from these schools go to RMIB or Blair SMCS.

Obviously, these schools will attract high-performing kids from Einstein and Northwood (and maybe Blair) who have access to transportation from their parents. It won't go the other way around. BCC students and definitely not Whitman students will definitely NOT be traveling to Einstein, Northwood or Blair. This is how you create inequity. You try to make everything uniform, the same for everyone, but you ignore how these schools, including their course offerings, and the populations they serve are very different, and so trying to give everyone the same thing means giving more opportunities to the wealthiest students.

Yes, exactly.  The program analysis team admitted they did not consider equity in where programs were placed, and it shows. They seemed confused at the idea that anyone would have expected them to.  They really do not understand equity at all, and just use it as a buzzword.

And to the other poster who said "if Whitman doesn't have magnets, no one from out of boundaries will get to go to Whitman"... you can still give Whitman interest-based programs that allow out of boundary kids to go to Whitman if they really want.  The languages magnet seems fine to me-- Whitman offers more languages than other schools, let kids from other schools take advantage of Whitman language classes if they really want them. Their interest-based LASJ program also seems fine to me as an acceptable generic "I want my kid at Whitman, here's a way to do it" option.  

However, criteria-based academic magnets drawing top students are a totally different ballgame.  They increase the number of advanced students and advanced classes at schools, which can be really important and valuable for schools that struggle with that otherwise.  Giving a program like that to Whitman not only gives this benefit to a school that does not at all need it rather than to a school like Northwood that would have gained a lot from it, but actually actively hurt other schools by decreasing the number of advanced students in-bounds who stay. 

(It's also just offensive that Whitman kids will get a leg up in admissions to the humanities program because they will have a local set-aside that gives them a disproportionate share of slots.)

+100 to all of this, and it's on top of Northwood starting out at 77% utilization as I posted above.

Seems to me if you have a brand-new facility, low utilization... maybe that's a good candidate for a MAGNET to draw in more students to fill the school?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The thing I don’t like for region 1 is putting humanities at Whitman. I would really like to see this at Einstein or Northwood, and I don’t care which. My DCC kids could apply to IB at BCC but that’s still the second furthest option. I don’t see why Whitman needs a major draw magnet.

Einstein has the IB program. They don't need humanities, they need STEM.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The thing I don’t like for region 1 is putting humanities at Whitman. I would really like to see this at Einstein or Northwood, and I don’t care which. My DCC kids could apply to IB at BCC but that’s still the second furthest option. I don’t see why Whitman needs a major draw magnet.

Einstein has the IB program. They don't need humanities, they need STEM.

No school should have both IB/humanities and STEM.

The worst thing that can happen to school is to not get IB, humanities, nor STEM. Which is exactly what happened to Woodward. They couldn't screw the new school more even if they tried to.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The thing I don’t like for region 1 is putting humanities at Whitman. I would really like to see this at Einstein or Northwood, and I don’t care which. My DCC kids could apply to IB at BCC but that’s still the second furthest option. I don’t see why Whitman needs a major draw magnet.

Einstein has the IB program. They don't need humanities, they need STEM.

I forgot about the local program.

But I’m guessing if they got a real humanities magnet that plenty of those kids would choose to take AP math and science, and that would improve demand. Einstein kids can apply to Blair for true STEM magnet.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The thing I don’t like for region 1 is putting humanities at Whitman. I would really like to see this at Einstein or Northwood, and I don’t care which. My DCC kids could apply to IB at BCC but that’s still the second furthest option. I don’t see why Whitman needs a major draw magnet.

Einstein has the IB program. They don't need humanities, they need STEM.

Why does Einstein need a STEM magnet?

[Anonymous]

Do we think there’s any hope of changing the school choices for these programs at this point or is it too late?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do we think there’s any hope of changing the school choices for these programs at this point or is it too late?

It depends on Mr. O's role and determination on level of participation next year. He is at the age for retirement with full pension. So he can choose to retire if he sees he is not listened or even worse, used by CO as a scapegoat, or he can choose to voice out as loud as he can and see if CO could be convinced. I'm not optimistic that the latter situation could happen. The entire study team didn't convince CO a tiny bit and ended up in a hostile situation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do we think there’s any hope of changing the school choices for these programs at this point or is it too late?

It depends on Mr. O's role and determination on level of participation next year. He is at the age for retirement with full pension. So he can choose to retire if he sees he is not listened or even worse, used by CO as a scapegoat, or he can choose to voice out as loud as he can and see if CO could be convinced. I'm not optimistic that the latter situation could happen. The entire study team didn't convince CO a tiny bit and ended up in a hostile situation.

Unfortunately, even if Mr. O fully embraces his new role, he will focus his energy on making sure that new magnets have credible curriculums. He won't try to influence magnet placement since that will only antagonize people.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do we think there’s any hope of changing the school choices for these programs at this point or is it too late?

It depends on Mr. O's role and determination on level of participation next year. He is at the age for retirement with full pension. So he can choose to retire if he sees he is not listened or even worse, used by CO as a scapegoat, or he can choose to voice out as loud as he can and see if CO could be convinced. I'm not optimistic that the latter situation could happen. The entire study team didn't convince CO a tiny bit and ended up in a hostile situation.

If he jumps ship, then you'll know that it's going really badly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do we think there’s any hope of changing the school choices for these programs at this point or is it too late?

It depends on Mr. O's role and determination on level of participation next year. He is at the age for retirement with full pension. So he can choose to retire if he sees he is not listened or even worse, used by CO as a scapegoat, or he can choose to voice out as loud as he can and see if CO could be convinced. I'm not optimistic that the latter situation could happen. The entire study team didn't convince CO a tiny bit and ended up in a hostile situation.

Unfortunately, even if Mr. O fully embraces his new role, he will focus his energy on making sure that new magnets have credible curriculums. He won't try to influence magnet placement since that will only antagonize people.

Sadly but true. One hand cannot clap.