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

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So what does this mean. Someone who lives in the Blair pyramid might be able to send their kids to Whitman?

If they applied to and were accepted into a program at Whitman, yes. Or vice versa.

I highly doubt they would put a regional program at Whitman. What they'll do is put it in Northwood or Einstein for that region. They'll make sure that none of the W schools will have a regional program. That said, I think overall, revamping the current system as it is today to this suggested one is a step towards the right direction.

They'll put an arts or PLTW one or something else interest-based that targets less academically competitive students, to balance the performance numbers.

[Anonymous]

Did everyone enjoy the announcement trying to justify the changes with lies about the IB program?

https://ww2.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/publicinfo/community/school-year-2024-2025/Community-Message-20250730-b.html

We are cooked.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Did everyone enjoy the announcement trying to justify the changes with lies about the IB program?

https://ww2.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/publicinfo/community/school-year-2024-2025/Community-Message-20250730-b.html

We are cooked.

My favorite part was the lamentation that the kids that apply for 3 different programs can only attend 1.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Did everyone enjoy the announcement trying to justify the changes with lies about the IB program?

https://ww2.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/publicinfo/community/school-year-2024-2025/Community-Message-20250730-b.html

We are cooked.

This is really terrible, I’d go so far as to say this is the worst idea MCPS had had in a while. Why not keep the county-wide programs?

They are lying when they say the programs will be replicated at a regional level, if they’re doing away with the Global Ecology program there will be nothing like that to replace it.

This entire proposal is completely delusional about MCPS capacity, in both teacher numbers and student numbers, to replicate the county wide programs.

Why don’t they just come out straight and say they’re killing any kind of differentiation in learning, instead driving a race to the bottom for expectations and outcomes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So what does this mean. Someone who lives in the Blair pyramid might be able to send their kids to Whitman?

Gasp!

Honestly, we cannot let the poors invade our school.

Whitman has many poor kids, aka house poor kids with parents who were so desperate to send their kids there that they put all their money into the cheapest ugly shack they could afford.

Whenever I drive through Whitman neighborhoods, the cars are Honda, Toyota, and Subaru, the moms look like they haven’t been to the tanning salon or had their hair touched up in years, and they wear clothes that look like they’re from Old Navy. Totally poor/middle class kids. Potomac is where the real wealth is.

Many stretch for those houses and aren't that wealthy.

Yeah, Whitman gives dual-income household that’s super thinly stretched on money. There’s a reason there’s a Real Housewives of Potomac and not a Real Housewives of Bethesda, because the housewives and real wealth is in Potomac.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:All of the justifications people are giving for why the system has to stay the way it is just sound like gatekeeping to me. People seem to want to benefit from a program and then slam the door behind them and keep access limited. “My kid was smart and had the right combination of skills and genius and prepping to do well, but yours might not!” “If more non-wealthy students have access to what my kids had access to, it will be tragic, the program will go downhill!” I’m all for broadening access. True access for students who qualify for a program. Not more gatekeeping behind lotteries, which is what MCPS has done in recent years and which isn’t any better. Why can’t each high school have the same advanced math classes? Because anonymous posters on dcum say it’s hard to get people with the right background to teach these subjects? It’s public school. People want a fair system, and having your course options limited because of where you live within the school district, or because the county does not create enough seats in a program for the number of students who qualify for the program, does not seem like a fair system.

I’m not gatekeeping. I’m in favor of expanding the number of seats in programs and even introducing a third SMCS program, a third Humanities program, and a second Global Ecology program so more students live within a reasonable commute. Play adjustments to the IB program.

What I’m not interested in is achieving equity by eliminating any meaningful cohorting and pretending that MCPS is flush with highly qualified, motivated teachers who are excited to take on new curricula.

They are going to roughly double the number of seats in SMCS programs (3 times the number of programs but each one will be smaller.). How is that eliminating any meaningful cohorting?

Because most of these programs aren’t for “smart” kids. Half or more MCPS’s students are smarter than the average American. These programs are for students who are already academically advanced, have demonstrated academic excellence, and are highly motivated to learn at a faster pace, dig deeper into material, master lessons on their own, complete special projects, and enter competitions. Not everyone wants that.

People complain about longer commutes to magnets, leaving friends behind at one’s home school, having trouble balancing extracurricular activities with long commutes and extra homework, but the existing programs require students and their parents to identify their top priority. The proposed changes are designed to make people feel like they can have it all.

For some of the current programs, group projects are a huge part of the experience. Projects can be bigger and much more detailed when there are 2-4 students working together. There’s frequently an issue where a student doesn’t do their fair share. Imagine amplifying that issue by admitting twice as many kids, many of whom wouldn’t have been interested in a program if it required a substantially bigger time commitment.

People keep posting that every kid who is qualified should have access to these programs. I don’t disagree with that, but I’m not sure we’re all envisioning the same definition of “qualified.” Is every student who could manage to pass these classes qualified? Students who maintain at least a C average in their program’s core classes? Students who are at least in the 90th percentile on subject related standardized testing? The top 10% of students in each individual region? 12% of all students countywide (twice the number currently being served)? What does qualified mean?

The top 10 percentile (ie, A students) by MAP M and R seems a good gauge. Having a hard cutoff, and an administration that will stand by it regardless of complaints) would prevent a watered down curriculum. From observation, those under 90 percentile really are B-type students and that’s where the wheels start coming off.

I have a 99.99% kid (MAP test at 99% level for 12th grade since 4th grade; CoGAT full score), and a 99% kid (MAP test on-level 99% or 1-2 level above; 3-4 questions wrong in CoGAT in each category). They are totally different kids. The first one barely learns anything from school but just self-studied through online materials they are able to find, but they find their peers at TPMS and Blair and are extremely happy to be able to finally social with their-kinds. They sought all kinds of national or international competition opportunities and worked as a team. They were able to deliver research analysis within a few weeks that typically takes a PhD student several months to complete. My second one is in general happy with school although still complaining about boredom from time to time. If my second one can be admitted to Blair, I think they would be able to survive, but would struggle from time to time and need to work hard.

Now you are talking about applying a curriculum that designed for the 99.9% kid, and a 99% kid would find very challenging, to the 90%-level kids. It will bring more harm than good. Only people went through this could understand.

I hope you say this out loud to someone in real life and they visibly roll their eyes at you. I mean, wth even is this?

The so-ridiculous-it's-not-even-wrong-it's-just-crazy bit "deliver research analysis within a few weeks that typically takes a PhD student several months to complete" ruined what otherwise would have been passable. But the whole comment is suspect now.

PP here. I myself is a university professor, and have supervised a half dozen of PhD students and mentored a dozen HS interns. I'm not comparing them to MIT PhD students, but just comparing them to students in my department. These high schoolers (Blair, TJ, Poolsville) are much better at learning and implementing an idea than new PhD students. Many of them later earned ISEF/Regeneron semi-finalists or published papers before entering college. Go attend a few MCPS science fair or FCPS science fair, you can quickly find that their projects are at a completely different level. I appreciate MCPS and FCPS in providing the educations, peer groups and teaching resources to help them be so advanced and prepared for directly diving into research. It's just my fortune that one of my kids is one of them, and it's going to be a loss to let this type of students die in solitary and not-learning-at-all during K-12. I'm also proud and happy for my 99% kid that they can learn somewhat, from which I see some value in the expansion to regional programs. What I originally wanted to emphasize is that current SMACS curriculum is not suited for 90% kid at all. Tremendous watering down is needed (e.g., chopping off all junior and senior selectives) before suiting their needs, but to do this at the expense of butchering the current SMACS program is like a suicidal move for MCPS.

Why is your lab so dysfunctional that you insist on running it almost entirely by people with a Master degree even though the work doesn't require a college education?

Those students who “need” college classes should take them at the community college. We should not waste taxpayer money for a handful of students.

Guess you will never need brilliant people to address the world's ills.

[Anonymous]

SMCs will be criteria based and all others will be lottery/ interest. It’s awful!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:SMCs will be criteria based and all others will be lottery/ interest. It’s awful!

I thought they said each of the 5 areas would have both criteria-based and interest-based options?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:SMCs will be criteria based and all others will be lottery/ interest. It’s awful!

I thought they said each of the 5 areas would have both criteria-based and interest-based options?

Each of the 5 program areas (STEM, IB/Humanities, Arts, etc), I mean.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:SMCs will be criteria based and all others will be lottery/ interest. It’s awful!

I thought they said each of the 5 areas would have both criteria-based and interest-based options?

Will the criteria-based programs have magnet curriculum such as this?

https://sites.google.com/mcpsmd.net/mbhscoursebulletin/magnet-program

Sure you can cut and paster this program across regions, limiting each to a regional cohort. Sure MCPS, you are all about excellence these days...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:SMCs will be criteria based and all others will be lottery/ interest. It’s awful!

I thought they said each of the 5 areas would have both criteria-based and interest-based options?

Each of the 5 program areas (STEM, IB/Humanities, Arts, etc), I mean.

Yes STEM criteria based, all others interest.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:SMCs will be criteria based and all others will be lottery/ interest. It’s awful!

I thought they said each of the 5 areas would have both criteria-based and interest-based options?

Each of the 5 program areas (STEM, IB/Humanities, Arts, etc), I mean.

Yes STEM criteria based, all others interest.

This hasn't been decided or announced yet.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:38 pages of pissing back and forth... folks, if your kids are really smart, move to different school districts like howard county. if your kids are avg at best, stay in MCPS.

The brightest, smartest kids in the DMV are in MCPS. HoCo kids can't even compete with them.

The state proficiency rate for Algebra I MCAP for 2023-2024 is 20 percent.

MCPS is slightly above that at 25.1 percent. But Howard County is even better at 42.1 percent.

Here are the links to mdreportcard:

https://reportcard.msde.maryland.gov/Graphs/#/Assessments/MathPerformance/UALG01/U/6/3/1/15/XXXX/2024

https://reportcard.msde.maryland.gov/Graphs/#/Assessments/MathPerformance/UALG01/U/6/3/1/13/XXXX/2024

But it looks like you have to click around it for a bit to bring up the overall profiency percentages and the direct link doesn't work.

For reference, Frederick has a rate of 25.2, Baltimore County 31.8 and Prince George's County 8.8.

My concern and issue is that with the way things going, I don't see MCPS going the right direction with the things they're focusing on and the changes they're trying to make. While every school system has issues, I would like to think some of the other ones are doing something right where they're able to get more students to pass the Algebra test.

Algebra is the most basic math course for high school. Where students will struggle in the rest of the high school math course sequence if they don't have a solid foundation in Algebra. Also students that struggle in Algebra, likely don't have a firm foundation in the math taken before it. This is all assuming that the MCAP accurately reflects the knowledge a student has in Algebra.

But I think the days of thinking that MCPS as a top school district is an outdated notion. Where you can point to other nearby school systems that perform better based on various measures.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:38 pages of pissing back and forth... folks, if your kids are really smart, move to different school districts like howard county. if your kids are avg at best, stay in MCPS.

The brightest, smartest kids in the DMV are in MCPS. HoCo kids can't even compete with them.

The state proficiency rate for Algebra I MCAP for 2023-2024 is 20 percent.

MCPS is slightly above that at 25.1 percent. But Howard County is even better at 42.1 percent.

Here are the links to mdreportcard:

https://reportcard.msde.maryland.gov/Graphs/#/Assessments/MathPerformance/UALG01/U/6/3/1/15/XXXX/2024

https://reportcard.msde.maryland.gov/Graphs/#/Assessments/MathPerformance/UALG01/U/6/3/1/13/XXXX/2024

But it looks like you have to click around it for a bit to bring up the overall profiency percentages and the direct link doesn't work.

For reference, Frederick has a rate of 25.2, Baltimore County 31.8 and Prince George's County 8.8.

My concern and issue is that with the way things going, I don't see MCPS going the right direction with the things they're focusing on and the changes they're trying to make. While every school system has issues, I would like to think some of the other ones are doing something right where they're able to get more students to pass the Algebra test.

Algebra is the most basic math course for high school. Where students will struggle in the rest of the high school math course sequence if they don't have a solid foundation in Algebra. Also students that struggle in Algebra, likely don't have a firm foundation in the math taken before it. This is all assuming that the MCAP accurately reflects the knowledge a student has in Algebra.

But I think the days of thinking that MCPS as a top school district is an outdated notion. Where you can point to other nearby school systems that perform better based on various measures.

They don't have any structure to the classes. No textbooks, just random handouts if you are lucky. Kids get taught a basic concept for 15 minutes or so and then given a handful of problems and that's it. They need to go back to textbooks, structured classes (as in, go over homework from day before and lesson), a real syllabus with clear expections and what happens on what day, clear days where kids can come in for extra help, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So what does this mean. Someone who lives in the Blair pyramid might be able to send their kids to Whitman?

Gasp!

Honestly, we cannot let the poors invade our school.

Whitman has many poor kids, aka house poor kids with parents who were so desperate to send their kids there that they put all their money into the cheapest ugly shack they could afford.

Whenever I drive through Whitman neighborhoods, the cars are Honda, Toyota, and Subaru, the moms look like they haven’t been to the tanning salon or had their hair touched up in years, and they wear clothes that look like they’re from Old Navy. Totally poor/middle class kids. Potomac is where the real wealth is.

Many stretch for those houses and aren't that wealthy.

Yeah, Whitman gives dual-income household that’s super thinly stretched on money. There’s a reason there’s a Real Housewives of Potomac and not a Real Housewives of Bethesda, because the housewives and real wealth is in Potomac.

It is also one income as its not hard to make $250-300K on one income but they want the lifestyle. Most of us with that kind of income in other neighborhoods aren't stretching and comfortable as its lifestyle choices. A honda, toyota or subaru, can still be over 50K.