MCPS to end areawide Blair Magnet and countywide Richard Montgomery's IB program
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Anonymous
If you say so |
Anonymous
And Health shows all interest based too a few slides later . The fact they don’t describe anything else as criteria based specifically is worrisome. |
Anonymous
The brightness will flea away from MCPS. They stay because of these stellar county-wide SMACS/GE/IB programs, and there's no reason for them to stay. Howard County is way much better in terms of making sure high quality for overall education. |
Anonymous
Agreed. You make all the programs "equal," and then, watch as the outcomes of these equal programs are decidedly lopsided from west to east. No highly able programs will exist east of Conn. Ave. |
Anonymous
So they are proposing 5 '"programs" and then multiple pathways within each program. Slide 33 is an example of one specific program (STEM) with what some of the pathways within it could look like. Slide 35 drills down further and gives an example of one particular pathway (in this case, the "Clinical Healthcare Pathway (interest-based)", one of multiple pathways that fall under the "Medical Science and Healthcare" program.). There will likely be a number of other pathways under Medical Science and Healthcare as well including one that is criteria-based, probably something along the lines of the Wheaton biomedical program. Slide 35 doesn't show "all interest based' pathways for health, it literally only looks at one of the many medical science/healthcare pathways and it just happens to be an interest-based one. |
Anonymous
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Anonymous
Yeah, yeah. We have been hearing this for the last 15+ years. It is HoCo and everyone else in the DMV's wet dreams, so they could finally be able to compete with MCPS. |
Anonymous
I hope the brightest are brighter than a flea. |
Anonymous
Worrisome how? How do to determine which 8th graders are meet the elite academic criteria required for nursing? There's simply no need for criteria-based selection for programs that aren't prep for highly advanced university work. |
Anonymous
that made me laugh.. thanks |
Anonymous
Anybody who is unwilling to accept the fact that the surrounding counties are just as good or better than MCPS is just close minded and not accepting reality. Based on 2020 Census, the order of counties with the highest household median income in the US are: 1 Loudoun 2 Falls Church 5 Fairfax 6 Howard 17 Calvert 20 Montgomery https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest-income_counties_in_the_United_States And it's often stated that school/student performance is related to SES. Looking at the mdreportcard, which btw is 2023-2024 scores. The part for 2020-21 is a link to 2020-2021 data. MCPS trails Howard County in all MCAP math subject areas except for Algebra 2. And I think Howard County doesn't really administer the Algebra 2 test. In fact Montgomery County has proficiency rate below the state average for the MCAP Math 7 and 8 tests. There's signs that MCPS isn't really focused on the brightest students. Back when our oldest was getting ready to enroll in school, someone was trying to sell us on private schools saying that the issue with public education is that the classroom has to work along the pace of the slowest student. We kind of see this now but on a county level. Where it's common for us to ask our child why they don't have any assignments or are not learning anything in class and they said according to their teacher their class was on a faster pace then the rest of the county so didn't have to do anything until the next marking period. Um, how about letting the kids keep learning and advancing instead of keeping them on the same track with everyone else? The flight from Montgomery County has been real. And it's not just white flight. It's been black and brown families who either sees the same issues or realize they can get more for their money elsewhere. If they take away these reputable programs, it just gives less reason for families to choose MCPS over the surrounding school systems. Montgomery County still has some things going for it. We were looking before the Silver line was built and back then Montgomery County had the easiest access to DC. And Montgomery County had offerings that people from the surrounding counties would travel to. But now things are branching out to the other counties and if commuting to DC isn't a factor, families should really seriously consider the other counties to live in addition to MCPS. There are issues with the other counties too. But you can't say that MCPS is still definitely better than the rest of them. |
Anonymous
Here’s the thing, who cares if MCPS is better than the surrounding counties like HOCo and Fairfax. It’s still a top school district in the area and in the country overall, and still offer lots of opportunities to students/families who engage with them. And there are still plenty of people moving or wanting to move into the county. And despite fear mongering that hasn’t changed. Good for this other counties for stepping up an becoming better. Hopefully people do move to those other counties. And when they do, overtime those school districts will have to deal with the same real issues that MCPS has to deal with. If folks want changes in MCPS and frankly in US public schools generally then folks should start putting on blast politicians in statehouse and Congress. There shouldn’t be a day that goes by where reporters aren’t investigating the state departments of education policy, investigating vouchers and charter schools, comparing counties, comparing states, etc etc. |
Anonymous
To be fair, MCPS "used to be" better than any of those programs. I still think we are better than PG/DCPS, I hope. |
Anonymous
Your point? What does that have to do with anything? They still cannot compete with MCPS. |
Anonymous
I am okay with that. The purpose of public education is to prepare all children to contribute to society. I love teaching gifted kids. It’s why I took my current position. But teaching average and struggling students is also rewarding. |