Another article about the magnet programs in Washington Post

[Anonymous]

"have high quality education for every student at every school"

I have had kids both in the magnets and at their home schools for ES, MS and HS. It seems to me that MC HSs, almost, do this. As AP and IB programs have become more widespread, you could say this goal is in sight. I will say my DS's MIT bound friend, would be disappointed but I think she still would have gotten in.

On the other hand, for ES and MS, we are no where close to high quality. Letting 20% more or 20% different kids into HGCs or MS magnets is not going to change this.

I'm sure we can make a few minor changes like maybe using 3rd grade PARCC reading and math scores to nominate kids to the HGCs or some other more inclusive testing that would help to change certain statistics. This is most likely a reasonable short term goal, but would that really change the size of "THE GAP" OR at least get everyone a high quality education?

To get to a high quality education for everyone we need to SEPARATE the idea of acceleration from the idea of a high quality education and focus on depth of understanding. Not depth as in knowing 6 ways to think about what it means to multiply but depth as in knowing every way you can use possibly use multiplication in your daily life and every way you might need to use it in the future like what the algebraic expression 3X means.

[Anonymous]

I agree with you pp

That's never going to happen as long as we continue to be in the teach to the test/scores obsession

I still say get rid of magnets. Go ahead and track people in the home schools. The tricky question becomes when do you start 3rd grade?, kindergarten? middle school?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
So then why are you saying people are being racist for talking about race and magnets?

What I said:

Lots and lots and lots of PPs: MCPS is planning to admit unqualified kids based on their belonging to certain races/ethnicities!
The PP you're responding to: DCUM is defining people as "us" or "them" based on their belonging to certain races/ethnicities.
You: Stop playing the race card!

Where did I call anybody a racist?

The point is that EVERYBODY is "playing the race card" -- at least in my definition of the phrase. Not just the PP who is talking about people categorizing "us" and "them" by race/ethnicity. But nobody accused the "MCPS is planning to admit unqualified kids based on their belonging to certain races/ethnicities!" posters of "playing the race card". Why not?

Because that is exactly what the MCPS wants to do. How can you be a racist when you are just speaking the truth and use common sense.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
So then why are you saying people are being racist for talking about race and magnets?

What I said:

Lots and lots and lots of PPs: MCPS is planning to admit unqualified kids based on their belonging to certain races/ethnicities!
The PP you're responding to: DCUM is defining people as "us" or "them" based on their belonging to certain races/ethnicities.
You: Stop playing the race card!

Where did I call anybody a racist?

The point is that EVERYBODY is "playing the race card" -- at least in my definition of the phrase. Not just the PP who is talking about people categorizing "us" and "them" by race/ethnicity. But nobody accused the "MCPS is planning to admit unqualified kids based on their belonging to certain races/ethnicities!" posters of "playing the race card". Why not?

Because that is exactly what the MCPS wants to do. How can you be a racist when you are just speaking the truth and use common sense.

Who was calling anybody a racist? The issue was the supposed "playing the race card".

But no, neither the Metis report nor MCPS has said anything about admitting unqualified students based on their race or ethnicity. DCUM is making the assumption that, if MCPS changes the admissions process and/or admissions criteria, the students who are admitted as a result will be unqualified.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Who was calling anybody a racist? The issue was the supposed "playing the race card".

But no, neither the Metis report nor MCPS has said anything about admitting unqualified students based on their race or ethnicity. DCUM is making the assumption that, if MCPS changes the admissions process and/or admissions criteria, the students who are admitted as a result will be unqualified.

we are asking just how mcps proposes to make changes to only admit "qualified" students, including those who don't test high, because that is the crux of it. A lot of URM do not test very high. So, if they don't test high, what other criteria are they proposing to use? Stating "non cognitive" abilities is a catch all. It means nothing. Yes, we are assuming that when the report says to use "non cognitive" abilities, we take it to mean that they want to use other non academic criteria. The problem is that using non academic criteria for an academically rigorous program makes no sense; one can only conclude that they want to include "non cognitive" abilities to allow in lesser qualified kids, ie, kids who don't score high on tests.

And to the argument that there are other ways to test for giftedness, like non cognitive, please, don't tell people to google it. The argument is going around in circles. The onus is on the person arguing for non cognitive abilities to provide specific details on what exactly those abilities are, and why that is a good measure of "giftedness".

Someone posted a link to a study that found that when teacher/parental recommendations were excluded, URM kids tested as gifted at a higher rate. So, some said, then let's do that too. But, of course, we won't because, as stated, as a whole, URM don't test high.

Some have stated that mcps should provide additional services to low income areas to provide additional support, and to do a better job of reaching out to make parents aware of the programs; some have argued that maybe *all* kids be tested instead of making it optional. People are trying to come up with real ideas to get more URM interested in the programs. But, all you keep saying is that dcum doesn't want more URM in the programs. That is not true. Most parents just want qualified kids in the program, no special treatment. That's all.

There are lots of families whose kids are in magnets who are not wealthy. It's not just about money. We chose to live in a non W cluster because of the diversity, both race and SES. We actually used to live in a predominately white/asian area where the only low income people were Hispanics; there were no Blacks, and we wanted to move partly because of this. For me, it's not about race. It's about the integrity of the program, the purpose of it, which is to provide those kids who meet the criteria, regardless of race, a more challenging and rigorous academic environment.

What is MCPS' goal? Is it to get more URM to apply, or to get more of them actually in the magnets? If it is the former, no one has any issues with it. It is the latter that we are concerned about. The "how" they are going to try to achieve this that is cause for concern in terms of fairness for *all* kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Who was calling anybody a racist? The issue was the supposed "playing the race card".

But no, neither the Metis report nor MCPS has said anything about admitting unqualified students based on their race or ethnicity. DCUM is making the assumption that, if MCPS changes the admissions process and/or admissions criteria, the students who are admitted as a result will be unqualified.

we are asking just how mcps proposes to make changes to only admit "qualified" students, including those who don't test high, because that is the crux of it. A lot of URM do not test very high. So, if they don't test high, what other criteria are they proposing to use? Stating "non cognitive" abilities is a catch all. It means nothing. Yes, we are assuming that when the report says to use "non cognitive" abilities, we take it to mean that they want to use other non academic criteria. The problem is that using non academic criteria for an academically rigorous program makes no sense; one can only conclude that they want to include "non cognitive" abilities to allow in lesser qualified kids, ie, kids who don't score high on tests.

And to the argument that there are other ways to test for giftedness, like non cognitive, please, don't tell people to google it. The argument is going around in circles. The onus is on the person arguing for non cognitive abilities to provide specific details on what exactly those abilities are, and why that is a good measure of "giftedness".

Someone posted a link to a study that found that when teacher/parental recommendations were excluded, URM kids tested as gifted at a higher rate. So, some said, then let's do that too. But, of course, we won't because, as stated, as a whole, URM don't test high.

Some have stated that mcps should provide additional services to low income areas to provide additional support, and to do a better job of reaching out to make parents aware of the programs; some have argued that maybe *all* kids be tested instead of making it optional. People are trying to come up with real ideas to get more URM interested in the programs. But, all you keep saying is that dcum doesn't want more URM in the programs. That is not true. Most parents just want qualified kids in the program, no special treatment. That's all.

There are lots of families whose kids are in magnets who are not wealthy. It's not just about money. We chose to live in a non W cluster because of the diversity, both race and SES. We actually used to live in a predominately white/asian area where the only low income people were Hispanics; there were no Blacks, and we wanted to move partly because of this. For me, it's not about race. It's about the integrity of the program, the purpose of it, which is to provide those kids who meet the criteria, regardless of race, a more challenging and rigorous academic environment.

What is MCPS' goal? Is it to get more URM to apply, or to get more of them actually in the magnets? If it is the former, no one has any issues with it. It is the latter that we are concerned about. The "how" they are going to try to achieve this that is cause for concern in terms of fairness for *all* kids.

I stopped at the first mention of MCPS... This is not MCPS!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
we are asking just how mcps proposes to make changes to only admit "qualified" students, including those who don't test high, because that is the crux of it.

MCPS hasn't proposed to do anything at all. MCPS paid a consultant to do a report that made recommendations.

Also, why do people (I don't know whether it's just you, or other people too) keep using the term "urms"? The consultant's report doesn't use the term. And people aren't using the term "orms", which would be the logical corollary.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
we are asking just how mcps proposes to make changes to only admit "qualified" students, including those who don't test high, because that is the crux of it.

MCPS hasn't proposed to do anything at all. MCPS paid a consultant to do a report that made recommendations.

Also, why do people (I don't know whether it's just you, or other people too) keep using the term "urms"? The consultant's report doesn't use the term. And people aren't using the term "orms", which would be the logical corollary.

Presumably, MCPS hired this company to do the study because they felt that certain groups weren't represented enough. MCPS is focused on closing the achievement gap. Put two and two together. It usually equals 4.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Presumably, MCPS hired this company to do the study because they felt that certain groups weren't represented enough. MCPS is focused on closing the achievement gap. Put two and two together. It usually equals 4.

Why do you presume that?

I presume that MCPS commissioned a comprehensive study of the wide variety of choice and other special academic programs that Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) offers, with the goal of determining if these programs effectively advance the MCPS mission, purpose, values, and core competencies. The reason I presume this is because that's why MCPS says they commissioned the study.

http://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/info/choice/report.aspx

[Anonymous]

The Washington Post acts like magnet acceptance is some kind of "perk".

The purpose of the magnet programs is to serve those students whose needs would not be met by the standard curriculum.

Is there any study or data indicating that the magnet programs have excluded students who are now in regular curricula and frustrated that their schoolwork is too easy?

And does that set of wrongly excluded students disproportionately include some particular demographic? Where's that data?

Collect that data, then we can discuss whether the magnet acceptance procedures are flawed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
we are asking just how mcps proposes to make changes to only admit "qualified" students, including those who don't test high, because that is the crux of it.

MCPS hasn't proposed to do anything at all. MCPS paid a consultant to do a report that made recommendations.

Also, why do people (I don't know whether it's just you, or other people too) keep using the term "urms"? The consultant's report doesn't use the term. And people aren't using the term "orms", which would be the logical corollary.

Presumably, MCPS hired this company to do the study because they felt that certain groups weren't represented enough. MCPS is focused on closing the achievement gap. Put two and two together. It usually equals 4.

Completely wrong...

This whole study spun out of the JEE policy on how students transfer from school to school. The board wanted to do away with sibling preference in the immersion program while at the same time BCC PTA was unhappy about immersion kids continuing on to the highschool after immersion ended in middle school. When they came out with the proposed changes, there was a huge back lash from several different communities (including those in other magnets) that would be impacted. This prompted the board to ask whether it was worthwhile to step back and look at all the "choice" programs and examine whether they were "achieving their original intent" since inception. So it originally had nothing to do with the test in magnets.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Presumably, MCPS hired this company to do the study because they felt that certain groups weren't represented enough. MCPS is focused on closing the achievement gap. Put two and two together. It usually equals 4.

Why do you presume that?

I presume that MCPS commissioned a comprehensive study of the wide variety of choice and other special academic programs that Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) offers, with the goal of determining if these programs effectively advance the MCPS mission, purpose, values, and core competencies. The reason I presume this is because that's why MCPS says they commissioned the study.

http://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/info/choice/report.aspx

When the Metis report covered only one core value equity, you bet people are concerned. Closing the gap should never be the only goal of a school system. MCPS is obsessed with window dressing a deeply rooted problem. No matter people are skeptical of their motives.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The Washington Post acts like magnet acceptance is some kind of "perk".

The purpose of the magnet programs is to serve those students whose needs would not be met by the standard curriculum.

Is there any study or data indicating that the magnet programs have excluded students who are now in regular curricula and frustrated that their schoolwork is too easy?

And does that set of wrongly excluded students disproportionately include some particular demographic? Where's that data?

Collect that data, then we can discuss whether the magnet acceptance procedures are flawed.

Well when you identify a whole slew of kids as gifted in 2nd grade many who are at the top of their class and the majority don't make it to the magnet its understandable that many feel like they are getting slighted and that they would be better served in a more challenging environment.

[Anonymous]

Thank you for that background, PP.

I wish that people would read the whole study, instead of fixating on a few recommendations. There is a lot of information in the study.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
we are asking just how mcps proposes to make changes to only admit "qualified" students, including those who don't test high, because that is the crux of it.

MCPS hasn't proposed to do anything at all. MCPS paid a consultant to do a report that made recommendations.

Also, why do people (I don't know whether it's just you, or other people too) keep using the term "urms"? The consultant's report doesn't use the term. And people aren't using the term "orms", which would be the logical corollary.

Presumably, MCPS hired this company to do the study because they felt that certain groups weren't represented enough. MCPS is focused on closing the achievement gap. Put two and two together. It usually equals 4.

Completely wrong...

This whole study spun out of the JEE policy on how students transfer from school to school. The board wanted to do away with sibling preference in the immersion program while at the same time BCC PTA was unhappy about immersion kids continuing on to the highschool after immersion ended in middle school. When they came out with the proposed changes, there was a huge back lash from several different communities (including those in other magnets) that would be impacted. This prompted the board to ask whether it was worthwhile to step back and look at all the "choice" programs and examine whether they were "achieving their original intent" since inception. So it originally had nothing to do with the test in magnets.

I bet the BOE is regretting that they got them this can of worms.