Reply to Can we fight to put more of the academic magnets in middle & high FARMS schools? (no humanities at Whitman, etc)

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Reply to "Can we fight to put more of the academic magnets in middle & high FARMS schools? (no humanities at Whitman, etc)"

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[quote=Anonymous]Putting strong criteria-based academic magnets in higher-FARMS/lower-SES schools has been done in MCPS and other districts around the county for decades for a variety of good reasons.  It generally increases economic and racial diversity at the host school, gives the lower-resourced local students the lowest barriers to participation (many of whom would not travel to a distant school to attend a magnet but would do so at their local school), has spill-over effects as far as improving academic and extracurricular offerings for all local students, and can sometimes turn the quality and reputation of an entire school around.

MCPS seems to be completely ignoring this in the proposed distribution of regional programs, with what seem destined to be deeply inequitable results, especially paired with MCPS's plan for extra seats for host-school students (but would still be deeply problematic without that.) The most egregious example I've seen is the proposed humanities magnet at Whitman, which has absolutely no need for the benefits of hosting an academic magnet, is very far away geographically from most of the poorest families in the region (many of whom also don't want that kind of school environment for their kids), and who very much should not get the extra admissions boost of a local set-aside (although that may end up being a moot point because so few DCC families will likely even consider going.)  But skimming the other regions I see a number of other examples as well. (Would love for folks familiar with other parts of the county to point those out!)

I don't think there needs to be a hard and fast policy that there should be zero academic magnets at low-FARMS schools-- but there should certainly be an attempt to prioritize the higher-FARMS schools where possible (which there clearly hasn't been-- there's no reason why the humanities magnet can't be at Northwood rather than Whitman, for example, and I see a number of other regions where poorer schools have no academic magnets while richer schools do.). I think MCPS ought to make sure that all high-FARMS schools have at least one criteria-based academic magnet, and that high and medium FARMS schools are prioritized for these magnets, with them only going to the richest schools when there is a specific and strong justification.

Any ideas on how to raise this issue holistically to try to push for a better distribution of programs across all regions?  (If there's no broader energy and interest on this, I can just focus on trying to get the region 1 humanities program out of Whitman-- but it really does feel like an overarching issue and I'd love to advocate not just for what's best and fairest for our region but for all regions.)[/quote]

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