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

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08/07/2025 20:07

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

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Anonymous wrote:You need a critical mass of highly able students in the same classroom, a good program, and good teachers for this to be successful. Montgomery county benefited from the national awards won by Blair, Poolesville, and RM students, by increased tax revenue for instance. It is simply not possible to achieve the same level of success with regional programs. There won't be enough interested and capable students to justify the same level of classes at the same number of classes. There won't be enough teachers capable of teaching these classes at the same level they are taught today. For all practical purposes, this is the end of a very successful program. Sad.

Totally agree. It’s just impossible to duplicate those highly successful programs across all six regions. Eventually, the so-called magnet programs in each region will become just regular programs with a few advanced classes.

But I guess no one cares.

People don't care because the few magnets slots are placed in the far eastern part of the county or upper Northwest part of the county. For the vast majority of us, our kids either didn't qualify because we haven't been prepping them since the age of 5 AND/OR we live far away and travel time isn't worth it. What is the plan for middle school magnets? IMO, that is the level where we most need reform.

Enough with the prepping them garbage. What a myth you tell yourself. Smart kids are smart kids.

And smart kids exist all throughout the county. We're not going to continue to pretend like only 90 kids out of a class of 10K+ are the only ones that deserves access to opportunity.

All 10k kids have access to the opportunity. Only 90 (actually many more) take full advantage of it. The work is very hard so those that don't want to be there or can't handle the work eventually drop out. Most normal kids don't want to work that hard. I know, my daughter is in the IB program and it's unbelievable. It's really incredible to see the level of intelligence and effort that these students display day in and day out. The conversations I hear are crazy intelligent and these kids are amazing. These are the kids that will go to medical school, also get an MBA because they can, and have a side hustle at the same time. They are machines. Lots of them are the children of first generation immigrants and some born in other countries. Some IB students live in big houses with pools others live in apartments in Gaithersburg. I had hoped the desire to tear down those that are smart and work hard had died with obvious failures of the last administration but apparently not. Really is amazing that MCPS is willing to focus on truancy but cannot stand to allow high achievers to shine.

They don’t all have access to the opportunity if MCPS doesn’t create enough seats for the students who meet the criteria. They have access to the application, but not access to the program. It’s not a good look to point out how hard your kid and her classmates work to justify why they should be in the program and imply that other kids wouldn’t also do so.

You'll have access to the new regional programs, but you may be disappointed in the quality of those programs. And while a lot of students apply for magnet programs, MCPS has never released data as to how many applicants meet entrance criteria.

It’s at least acknowledgment that there’s more need and demand than is currently being met. I just hope they quit it with their stupid magnet lotteries and don’t expand those to high school. Those help no one and are the worst.

How much should we expand special programs? 1% of students are currently enrolled in them. Should it be 3%? 5%? 10%? 20%?

If you admit everyone who meets the minimum criteria, the program will be no more rigorous or selective than if you randomly select students from a pool of all students who meet the minimum criteria.