Reply to "Enrichment" in local MS after 6th grade

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Our school is doing: Nada. Bupkis. Given the joke that 6th grade "enrichment" for the highly able group was, did we expect any differently? This was pure lip service. They know parents invested in their highly able kids' education will continue to enrich, which of course we will. But screw MCPS. I am sorry I paid a premium to be in a so-called "great" school system. Enormous classes, virtually no homework, little to no challenge. What a disappointment.[/quote]

I kinda feel sorry for you. But I also kinda don’t. If you are enriching at home it doesn’t seem fair to fault the school for your child being unchallenged. This isn’t a problem unique to MCPS. The vast majority of kids across the country are not challenged at school when they receive extra curricular enrichment. MCPS is still one of the stronger public school districts. But it is still a public school. Paying a premium was your mistake. The truth is a great public school experience is teacher dependent and has very little to do with “a great school system”. Your odd of receiving appropriate challenge go up when you enter the private system. This whole magnet and AAP hoopla has always been lip service. So nothing much has actually changed. The only difference is your dd wasn’t invited. [/quote]

Not PP, but that's kinda unfair, as there are a few families that made the decision to not go to magnet based, in part, on the promise to enrich at home school.[/quote]

It's also unfair that the very highest scoring kids, and ones who earned straight As at the most competitive CESs in the county, were not invited because "peer cohort." The promises to support those kids the home MS proved altogether hollow, didn't they?[/quote]

You are talking about 4th and 5th graders? Where does this mindset come from? Seriously?

The difference between academic instruction at the magnets and the home school magnet classes is very little. For years it’s only been a hundred or so kids tested for the magnet school. It was a strong program. But it wasn’t amazing. It’s great for kids without a peer cohort. But it’s not much different from your home school enriched classes.  It’s a weird thing to gripe about. CES wasn’t much more advanced than your home school either. You just stopped complaining because you perceived your child receiving the most she could get. Now you feel like she’s missing out unfairly. [/quote]

You really don't know what you're talking about. When my current Eastern 8th grader tested for magnet MS, around 600 students applied. And her educational experience has been head and shoulders above that my older kid had at our home W-feeder MS. It's not just about peer cohort -- although it is great for her to be with very smart and hard-working fellow students -- it's that the curriculum and teachers are far better than those at the home MS. I've also had two kids go through CES, and the difference in curriculum between CES and the home ES is also night and day. My kids came from a well-regarded ES that we actually really like, had great teachers, and were still bored out of their minds by 3rd grade because the materials were too easy and because the teachers had to spend all their time with the kids who needed more help. Even if they'd been in fully tracked classrooms, though, the curriculum is still bad.

Peer cohorts don't teach smart kids -- smart kids need, and deserve, to have their needs met with excellent curricular materials, well-trained teachers, and enough tracking that they aren't just getting on with it because the teacher has to devote his/her time to the kids who aren't getting it.

So it is a sham and a travesty that MCPS has not truly expanded the magnet programs to meet the needs of all the students who are capable of succeeding and thriving, whether they are "outliers" or whether they have a "peer cohort." And the fact that they don't have a plan for meeting the needs of these students at the home MS beyond 7th grade demonstrates that their promise was and is hollow.[/quote]

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