Blair HS - so many 2014 Intel Science finalists. Impressed.

[Anonymous]

Interesting to note how many minorities make the list! Looks like the next generation of US scientists will be amazingly diverse!

[Anonymous]

Interesting that at Blair the zoned kids have access to all classes while at RM the zoned kids are excluded..even from something like Geometry.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Interesting that at Blair the zoned kids have access to all classes while at RM the zoned kids are excluded..even from something like Geometry.

It's no big deal. When zoned kids are given access to magnet classes, the magnet course is really the course previously available to the general population. In other words, the magnet curriculum declines. Blair is Johnson's experiment to slowly assimilate the magnet kids into the general population by equalizing the curricula across the magnet and the general population. The hope is that students will still keep coming, attracted by the past successes of the program.

If she succeeds, she can claim that she proved that you can assimilate magnets into the general program. It is part of the MCPS general trend to homogenize education.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Interesting to note how many minorities make the list! Looks like the next generation of US scientists will be amazingly diverse!

Seriously? Minorities as in Asians only?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Interesting to note how many minorities make the list! Looks like the next generation of US scientists will be amazingly diverse!

Seriously? Minorities as in Asians only?

Aren't Asians considered minorities? I'm from a different country where most people are from the same race. I find this list very diverse! I'm just going by the names, but there seems to be many different countries of heritage represented. I think that's pretty cool!

[Anonymous]

Yes, Asians are considered minorities. Except in the context of academic achievement in the US, where white people*, at least, consider Asians I-guess-they're-minorities-but-they're-not-really-MINORITY-minorities.

*I am white

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Interesting that at Blair the zoned kids have access to all classes while at RM the zoned kids are excluded..even from something like Geometry.

It's no big deal. When zoned kids are given access to magnet classes, the magnet course is really the course previously available to the general population. In other words, the magnet curriculum declines. Blair is Johnson's experiment to slowly assimilate the magnet kids into the general population by equalizing the curricula across the magnet and the general population. The hope is that students will still keep coming, attracted by the past successes of the program.

If she succeeds, she can claim that she proved that you can assimilate magnets into the general program. It is part of the MCPS general trend to homogenize education.

Yes, clearly having zoned kids hurt blair's overall ability to generate some of the most coveted awards in the country...oh wait, not. It's not like anyone can just sign up. you do have to test into the classes or otherwise convince admin that your kids can handle the material.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Interesting that at Blair the zoned kids have access to all classes while at RM the zoned kids are excluded..even from something like Geometry.

It's no big deal. When zoned kids are given access to magnet classes, the magnet course is really the course previously available to the general population. In other words, the magnet curriculum declines. Blair is Johnson's experiment to slowly assimilate the magnet kids into the general population by equalizing the curricula across the magnet and the general population. The hope is that students will still keep coming, attracted by the past successes of the program.

If she succeeds, she can claim that she proved that you can assimilate magnets into the general program. It is part of the MCPS general trend to homogenize education.

Yes, clearly having zoned kids hurt blair's overall ability to generate some of the most coveted awards in the country...oh wait, not. It's not like anyone can just sign up. you do have to test into the classes or otherwise convince admin that your kids can handle the material.

It is patently untrue that you have to test into classes. As for the coveted awards, take a look at the coursework they offer. Notice that the kids must have done a lot of learning on their own to get where they are? The coursework does not give them what they need for those projects.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Interesting to note how many minorities make the list! Looks like the next generation of US scientists will be amazingly diverse!

Seriously? Minorities as in Asians only?

Aren't Asians considered minorities? I'm from a different country where most people are from the same race. I find this list very diverse! I'm just going by the names, but there seems to be many different countries of heritage represented. I think that's pretty cool!

Well, when people talk about minorities they're really talking about blacks and hispanics; two groups that generally perform considerably worse on most academic measures when compared to whites. Asians (including Indians) generally perform on par or better than whites, so even though they're a "minority" of the population they're not counted.

[Anonymous]

One of the previous posters is right. My kid hasn't seen any testing in of students from the regular schools. He has noticed a lot of math teachers left/retired and the new ones are awful--especially two of them.

This thread was started to drum up support for the MCPS effort to dismantle magnets. If you can essentially teach the regular curriculum and attract students to the magnet you have proved that we don't need magnets.

Take a look at what Starr did in Stamford. Wake up MoCo!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Question - do private high schools generally not pursue this award agressively? Scanning the finalist list for the whole country, all the schools I recognize in other states are all public schools.

I know it's always fun to cheer public schools, but the mix of public-versus-private looks about right to me. I count 5 out of 40 Intel finalists at private schools (12.5%). According to the Dept of Education website, 10% of students are in private schools. So the private-public mix in Intel results is just reflective of where students go to school. If anything, the private school students are slightly over-represented. Sorry.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Question - do private high schools generally not pursue this award agressively? Scanning the finalist list for the whole country, all the schools I recognize in other states are all public schools.

I know it's always fun to cheer public schools, but the mix of public-versus-private looks about right to me. I count 5 out of 40 Intel finalists at private schools (12.5%). According to the Dept of Education website, 10% of students are in private schools. So the private-public mix in Intel results is just reflective of where students go to school. If anything, the private school students are slightly over-represented. Sorry.

Since private schools screen kids based on IQ and a ability to pay, wouldn't you expect then to perform a lot better? If they are only providing an education as good as that of the public sector, why pay all of that money?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Question - do private high schools generally not pursue this award agressively? Scanning the finalist list for the whole country, all the schools I recognize in other states are all public schools.

I know it's always fun to cheer public schools, but the mix of public-versus-private looks about right to me. I count 5 out of 40 Intel finalists at private schools (12.5%). According to the Dept of Education website, 10% of students are in private schools. So the private-public mix in Intel results is just reflective of where students go to school. If anything, the private school students are slightly over-represented. Sorry.

Since private schools screen kids based on IQ and a ability to pay, wouldn't you expect then to perform a lot better? If they are only providing an education as good as that of the public sector, why pay all of that money?

759 again. Many private schools don't screen like that at all. For example, when I looked up the number on the Dept of Ed website, I saw that something like 40-45% of private school students are at Catholic parish schools, and lots others at other religious schools, which don't IME screen for high academic performance. I suspect the number of private schools that screen for high iQ is actually pretty small, just as the number of public school magnet programs is comparatively small. As to whether either is worth the money, that's a personal decision beyond this look at the numbers.

I'm not taking anything away from the public schools, or the magnets, or the students who won these awards. I'm not interested in arguing the relative merits of public versus private schools, because IMHO they both have their place and can't be compared in a vacuum. I just got curious about the relative percentage, so I looked it up. I quite frankly was surprised by the results, so decided to post them.

[Anonymous]

It is true that private schools do not cater to the high IQ crowd. However, they are a self-selecting group of students from relatively wealthy homes.

There are other inaccuracies on this thread:

1. The Blair Magnet Program had only three finalists, the most from any schools
2. There were no finalists or semifinalists from the regular Blair HS
3. All the semifinalists at Blair are from areas of the county that are NOT zoned for Blair. That means they would not have attended the regular Blair HS if they HAD NOT made the magnet
4. Some have publicly stated that under Renay Johnson the magnet is being dismantled http://silverchips.mbhs.edu/story/12272