How is the new pilot offering equivalent to TPMS/Eastern

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What I think MCPS should do is rank kids who were in the running for a magnet program and then track them accordingly. The top 3% go to TPMS/Eastern, the next 10% go to their home schools and take the enriched classes with their cohorts, and those who aren't qualified will just have to make do with 'Honors'.

I believe Faifax County has a similar system in place with their different levels of AAP programs.

I like this idea, but I do think they need to reintroduce some sort of application component. The worst part of this new program is that nowhere in the process are students actually asked to do anything to show their desire to be part of such a challenging academic program. My DS completed the magnet application a few years ago and didn't get in, but it was so valuable for him to ask his teachers for recommendations, and to complete the application on his own. That part of it is just as important in culling kids who will be most successful in the program as the testing is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:what will happen with the kids now looking at clemente? will they be subjected to all of this in the future?

1. Starting next year, the math/sci program will be at Roberto Clemente MS, and the humanities program will be at Martin Luther King Jr. MS.

2. "Subjected to?" Very dramatic language.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m a teacher not a parent, and I believe there should be differentiation for gifted kids, but here are my predictions:

Admin and counselors at places like Cabin John and Pyle get DELUGED with calls/emails from parents who think their child should be in the pilot classes. “We wanted to be close to home so we didn’t apply to the magnet, but my child could have gotten in and therefore they should be in that section.” There probably are way more qualified kids at a huge school like Pyle than there are spots in those classes.

Teachers get ticked off that they have five minutes to learn yet another curriculum, knowing that many parents will be displeased with the rollout and they’ll be the ones to bear the brunt of that.

Mega scheduling problems—yet to be determined, sure to happen. Tons of annoyed counselors upset that they too have yet another thing to deal with. Hopefully that master scheduling training will be done well.

Totally irritated principals who have disdain for the “pushy” gifted community who think their children are “special snowflakes”—and who’ve been trying to head off this type of differentiation for years. They now will have to admit defeat on the matter, at least temporarily.

It won’t be enough. No matter what, it won’t be enough. And there will be a lot of unhappy parents whose kids don’t get to take these classes. And so...

Eventually everyone will get to take the magnet-ish classes, and we’ll all be back to where we started. ?

I am a teacher and a parent who fully supports your perspective.

My oldest decided not to take the magnet test as she didn't think she'd make the cut, but more importantly, she said she knows her stress level too well! Having said that, I personally am against magnets. But what makes me laugh is the ironic measures the system takes in creating and supporting test in magnets, "special magnets" (Argyle, Loiderman, and Parkland), and now school-based magnets.

Instead of spending money busing kids from one school to the next and instead of trying to accommodate every Snowflake at the non-magnet schools, go back to community-supported schools and RAMP UP the rigor in on level classes. Oh - and let's not forget the "all honors" courses, where a course is labeled as advanced across the board.

If even half of you knew what went on in "regular" classes, you'd lose your minds. We are graduating kids who can barely read and write, and I blame multiple stakeholders for shortsighted visions, fear of lawsuits, and selfish motives.

Another MCPS teacher here. What this teacher is saying is absolutely true. The "dumbing down" of courses in MCPS is mindblowing. I cannot believe MCPS is not yet in the news for graduating large numbers of students who are unqualified, just as DC and Prince Georges are charged with doing.

do you think it’s something that’s particularly bad in MCPS, or is it symptomatic of a national trend?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:what will happen with the kids now looking at clemente? will they be subjected to all of this in the future?

Depends on whether they call the pilot a success.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:what will happen with the kids now looking at clemente? will they be subjected to all of this in the future?

1. Starting next year, the math/sci program will be at Roberto Clemente MS, and the humanities program will be at Martin Luther King Jr. MS.

2. "Subjected to?" Very dramatic language.

considering what the teachers have been posting, i think my language is appropriate. will the application process stay the same, or will they switch to the broader testing?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

I like this idea, but I do think they need to reintroduce some sort of application component. The worst part of this new program is that nowhere in the process are students actually asked to do anything to show their desire to be part of such a challenging academic program. My DS completed the magnet application a few years ago and didn't get in, but it was so valuable for him to ask his teachers for recommendations, and to complete the application on his own. That part of it is just as important in culling kids who will be most successful in the program as the testing is.

Did the pilot test get rid of the question that asked how much you want to go to the magnet program?

[Anonymous]

And what about those highly able students that are zoned for TPMS and Easten but that didn't get into the magnet?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:And what about those highly able students that are zoned for TPMS and Easten but that didn't get into the magnet?

have you been reading this thread?

[Anonymous]

You know what's interesting? Everyone knows that this process has been unfair all along, and that it advantaged kids who already had all of the advantages (involved parents, access to the HGCs, reliable transportation, essay editing support, cultural literacy around the process).

So, MCPS looked at that and tried to create a more fair process by testing many more kids and doing away with the components that were actually shibboleths for being middle class.

OUTRAGE ensued, and MCPS actually changed something. That's the power of white supremacy. Black and Latinx kids, and poor and working class kids, get passed over for years and nothing changes but weeks after the system actually gives them some tiny advantages of their own, the goalposts shift.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m a teacher not a parent, and I believe there should be differentiation for gifted kids, but here are my predictions:

Admin and counselors at places like Cabin John and Pyle get DELUGED with calls/emails from parents who think their child should be in the pilot classes. “We wanted to be close to home so we didn’t apply to the magnet, but my child could have gotten in and therefore they should be in that section.” There probably are way more qualified kids at a huge school like Pyle than there are spots in those classes.

Teachers get ticked off that they have five minutes to learn yet another curriculum, knowing that many parents will be displeased with the rollout and they’ll be the ones to bear the brunt of that.

Mega scheduling problems—yet to be determined, sure to happen. Tons of annoyed counselors upset that they too have yet another thing to deal with. Hopefully that master scheduling training will be done well.

Totally irritated principals who have disdain for the “pushy” gifted community who think their children are “special snowflakes”—and who’ve been trying to head off this type of differentiation for years. They now will have to admit defeat on the matter, at least temporarily.

It won’t be enough. No matter what, it won’t be enough. And there will be a lot of unhappy parents whose kids don’t get to take these classes. And so...

Eventually everyone will get to take the magnet-ish classes, and we’ll all be back to where we started. ?

I am a teacher and a parent who fully supports your perspective.

My oldest decided not to take the magnet test as she didn't think she'd make the cut, but more importantly, she said she knows her stress level too well! Having said that, I personally am against magnets. But what makes me laugh is the ironic measures the system takes in creating and supporting test in magnets, "special magnets" (Argyle, Loiderman, and Parkland), and now school-based magnets.

Instead of spending money busing kids from one school to the next and instead of trying to accommodate every Snowflake at the non-magnet schools, go back to community-supported schools and RAMP UP the rigor in on level classes. Oh - and let's not forget the "all honors" courses, where a course is labeled as advanced across the board.

If even half of you knew what went on in "regular" classes, you'd lose your minds. We are graduating kids who can barely read and write, and I blame multiple stakeholders for shortsighted visions, fear of lawsuits, and selfish motives.

Another MCPS teacher here. What this teacher is saying is absolutely true. The "dumbing down" of courses in MCPS is mindblowing. I cannot believe MCPS is not yet in the news for graduating large numbers of students who are unqualified, just as DC and Prince Georges are charged with doing.

do you think it’s something that’s particularly bad in MCPS, or is it symptomatic of a national trend?

Though I'm no expert on this, it is my perception that it is particularly bad in MCPS. Over the course of my 20+ year tenure in the county, things have steadily gotten worse in this regard, particularly in recent years as our county has become more diverse. It seems that in an attempt to eliminate the achievement gap, we are instead lowering expectations for everyone. We have eliminated our previous loss of credit policy (whereby students with too many unexcused absences had to retake the course), we have added the 50% minimum grade/due dates vs. deadlines, and ample retakes to our grading policy, we have eliminated final exams, and as a result of the elimination of final exams have changed the grading policy again so that grades are greatly rounded up (example. 79.5% first quarter and 89.5% second quarter round to an A for the semester). These are only a few of the changes that have taken place in recent years that I believe have made the system less challenging for students, and this change in the middle school magnet process, in my mind, is just another such change to add to the list. On level classes are virtually non-existent now and "honors" or "accelerated" classes are no such thing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:And what about those highly able students that are zoned for TPMS and Easten but that didn't get into the magnet?

I haven't heard anything about them. Tell me more?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And what about those highly able students that are zoned for TPMS and Easten but that didn't get into the magnet?

have you been reading this thread?

DP.

Building upon the magnet curriculum, staff in the Office of Curriculum and Instructional Programs is developing two enriched and accelerated courses for highly able cohorts in the local middle school field study catchment area. The catchment area includes Benjamin Banneker, Briggs Chaney, William H. Farquhar, Robert Frost, Herbert Hoover, Cabin John, Francis Scott Key, Col. E. Brooke Lee, Newport Mill, Rosa M. Parks, North Bethesda, Thomas W. Pyle, Silver Creek, Silver Spring International, Sligo, Tilden, Julius West, Westland, Earle B. Wood, and White Oak middle schools.

Eastern and TPMS are not on this list. I guess now we can go back to discussing what "includes" means.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And what about those highly able students that are zoned for TPMS and Easten but that didn't get into the magnet?

I haven't heard anything about them. Tell me more?

Why would you think that there weren't any?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And what about those highly able students that are zoned for TPMS and Easten but that didn't get into the magnet?

have you been reading this thread?

DP.

Building upon the magnet curriculum, staff in the Office of Curriculum and Instructional Programs is developing two enriched and accelerated courses for highly able cohorts in the local middle school field study catchment area. The catchment area includes Benjamin Banneker, Briggs Chaney, William H. Farquhar, Robert Frost, Herbert Hoover, Cabin John, Francis Scott Key, Col. E. Brooke Lee, Newport Mill, Rosa M. Parks, North Bethesda, Thomas W. Pyle, Silver Creek, Silver Spring International, Sligo, Tilden, Julius West, Westland, Earle B. Wood, and White Oak middle schools.

Eastern and TPMS are not on this list. I guess now we can go back to discussing what "includes" means.

Pilot, means pilot, they had to make choices. I think we know the explanation for TKMS, they already have a special program for 25 in boundary kids to be accepted to the magnet. (Did that go away this year? I still hear complaints about it, so I assume not). That's they're contribution to the pilot program and may offer a point of comparison.

[Anonymous]

Going back to the OP's question which is whether the new pilot would be equivalent I think the short answer is probably not. I realize that MCPS has not given us any details of these two classes but I don't think it is possible to replicate the magnet experience in the home school because:
1. Peer cohort. Eastern and TPMS bring together the most motivated and highest performing kids from 20 home middle schools and this does create a special learning environment and allows teachers to move more quickly and dig deeper. It is one of the most important (and most subtle) advantages of a true magnet program.
2. At Eastern at least, you have three magnet courses (four in sixth grade) and the teachers coordinate with each other throughout the year. So for example, in 6th grade when you learn about the Russian Empire in World Studies, you would be reading Animal Farm in English. During Greek Fest you learn about Greek history and culture in World Studies, read Greek myths in English and this culminates in an all day interdisciplinary festival where students participate in Socratic debates, display posters about famous Greeks they have researched, write and perform skits that meld modern media tools and Greek mythology and screen Greek themed animation shorts they made in their media class.
In seventh grade, they research and write a ten page research paper which is more involved than anything my child has done in high school including AP courses. They spend two days in the UMD library doing research and are expected to use scholarly books and articles as part of their research. This paper is a project that is jointly supervised by their history and english teachers.
In eighth grade they do smaller projects but many of them are interdisciplinary. The CSPAN documentary for example (you may have seen the thread about the number of Eastern kids who won awards this year) is primarily a media project but the students find their topics as a result of work they do in their 8th grade US History class. They make several documentaries that year and I would say all of them are heavily informed by material they learn in their US History class.
3. The workload is quite high and one of the reasons the middle school and high school magnet programs have been so successful is because they have typically screened for intelligence (Cogat and MAP scores), ability/study skills (grades and teacher recs.) and motivation (teacher recs and application essays). It also means that the curricula and expectations are not likely to be dumbed down and watered down over time.
There are tons of projects and papers every single year and the expectations are really high. Even classes like media which sounds easy involve a lot of work especially in 8th grade when you make a few documentaries, and work on several other projects including a capstone personal project (my son for example wrote an eighty page novella).
One of the main reasons the kids get so much out of the program is because the teachers give them very demanding projects and papers and expect them to perform at a high level.
The interdisciplinary projects are especially tough because every year there are several time periods when you have multiple projects and papers due simultaneously in all of your magnet classes. I have to say though that as stressful as that can be, these are the experiences my kid got the most out of because he was only able to make deep and meaningful connections across the disciplines as a result of these cross and interdisciplinary projects.