Middle school magnet results?
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Anonymous
So it's only for kids who score well on cogat? Or get all A's on homework? Or all As on assessments? Which specific ways are important? |
Anonymous
It’s kids who test well and are overall consistently high achievers. It’s just like sports, you know who the good players are, even if they play one bad game. They consistently play well in all aspects of the game. If your kid makes one home run but can’t catch a ball, it doesn’t mean they can be in the team. Show me the kid who consistently plays well. |
Anonymous
So an otherwise bright kid - hard worker, all As - but who bombs the cogat isn't worthy? |
Anonymous
Or the student that gets the 99% CoGat but sometimes struggles in class from boredom? |
Anonymous
Point taken these programs were never about kids who were prepped to get 99% but about helping develop slightly above average students who were interested in stem. It's clear that many more kids could do the work and a shame they don't expand the program to all who would like to participate and are able. |
Anonymous
| Just adding to say my oldest went to middle school magnet a few years ago and it was the worst. He was slated to go to one of the top high schools in the nation. We moved and sent him to a regular middle school for his 8th grade year. The best decision we ever made. So much happier and the environment was less competitive. Parents can be crazy in those magnet schools too....Do your exceptionally bright child a favor and let them be the top of their class at a regular school. |
Anonymous
I absolutely agree with this. The program should be expanded so that all qualifying students should be offered the opportunity for this enrichment. |
Anonymous
Glad that worked for your child. But lots of bright kids don’t do so well when they are at the top always. They don’t learn to collaborate well. They often become anxious perfectionists. They never get to be fully themselves because they are always playing the role of “the smart one.” And when they hit challenges later in life, they give up easily because they find the experience new and upsetting. I’ve had kids in ES and MS magnets here in MCPS and my kids are FAR happier and more joyful during those years. Most of the parents I know from the magnets are just so relieved to have appropriate education for their kids that they seem quite happy and relaxed, too. There are some competitive parents, but they are everywhere. You know them from every walk of kids’ life -they are there in sports, in music, etc. |
Anonymous
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"Glad that worked for your child. But lots of bright kids don’t do so well when they are at the top always. They don’t learn to collaborate well. They often become anxious perfectionists. They never get to be fully themselves because they are always playing the role of “the smart one.” And when they hit challenges later in life, they give up easily because they find the experience new and upsetting." Exactly why you should take your kid out of Magnet. Magnet kids spit out anxious perfectionists and entitled children because their parents treat them as "the smart one" I suggest you watch Malcom Gladwell's talk on Why you shouldn't apply to Harvard. |
Anonymous
No, please read more carefully. The magnet programs help ease that perfectionism, at least for my kids (and for me, when I was in MCPS magnets decades ago, and realized I wasn’t the “best” student anymore and just relaxed and started being…. me.). People use the word entitled all the time now, mostly when they feel resentful. Lots of people put down kids in magnets without knowing much about them. Most of the magnet kids I know are middle class kids with hard working immigrant parents and are the opposite of entitled. It sounds like your child had a bad experience. Harvard is a very different thing than a public middle school magnet program. |
Anonymous
Agree. In line with my child's experience at TPMS Magnet. |
Anonymous
| Does anyone know how many kids were selected for each of the middle school lotteries? Did they release this information last year? |
Anonymous
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There are supposed to be 125 Math, Science & CS seats in each grade at TPMS. 25 are reserved for the TPMS catchment, while the other 100 are drawn from the rest of the south/east of the county (maybe 2/3 of the MCPS student population? not just the DCC). 75 at Clemente, with 25 of those reserved for the Clemente catchment and the other 50 for the rest of the north/west.
I think there are similar numbers at Eastern for downcounty and King for upcounty for the humanities magnets, though Eastern might have 112 instead of 125, per a 2020 report to the BOE covering placement data through the 2020-21 school year. From that report, the number of seats at each school used to be higher; in 2019-20, there were 90 at Clemente, 188 at Eastern, 136 at King and 147 at Takoma Park. I'm guessing that accommodation of appeals, which probably lost basis with the institution of the lottery, had something to do with that, and that the 2020-21 (& likely 2021-22) numbers are reflective of the intended capacity. Which is way too low, of course. Separately, it looks like each of the MSMC schools (Loiederman, Argyle & Parkland), which are not criteria based, have 100 or more slots each for those outside the MSMC catchment. Additional outside seats are made available there if local populations plus the 100 or so outsiders don't fill the school capacity. |
Anonymous
A second thought -- the report (https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/uploadedFiles/departments/schoolchoice/210818%20CES%20Secondary%20App%20Prog%20Admission%20Results.pdf) shows numbers placed, which may mean the number offered seats instead of the number enrolled. If the report had been generated at the time of initial offers for 2020-21, there may only have been as many offered seats as there was capacity. The higher numbers for the earlier years may be from those offered seats ("placed"), not all of whom eventually enrolled, with their declined seats going to later rounds of those placed, though they were counted in the total placed for that year -- the report was highlighting placement by race/ethnicity, by application from private and by FARMS status. So it could be that there were always just the 125 at TPMS, 112 at EMS, 75 at RCMS and 75 at MLKMS. Which, again, is way too low. |
Anonymous
It is unclear why they insist on rationing access to quality, accelerated instruction to student that MCPS has deemed worthy. Makes zero sense. |