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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]The point isn't that every kid who wants something gets it, it specifically is to put a concentrated high achievers into a environment where there wouldn't be enough to prevent a schools reputation form slipping to the point where middle class flight occurs. Bair and Takoma where chosen because they where the first areas in MoCo to see demographic influxes of poorer minorities into the school system and the white flight era of DC was still fresh on everybody's mind and signs of it happening in Silver Spring/Takoma were present. There simply was no other politically viable way to get richer west county all-stars to self integrate into eastern schools. [b]It was a carrot based based bussing program for the weakest schools and not some showcase for a intellectual nurturing enclave put in the best schools.[/b] There is a reason one of the strongest Magnet programs / schools nationally is in the worst school district in NoVa. They took the the school by school approach of MoCo and made it a whole county/whole school strat to give parents hope for all of Alexandria. That enables them to do their cute close in elementary schools and have hope for the later grades even though many go private. But talk to any parent of a young kid in Alexandra or the DCC and the magnet will assuredly come up soon, and that is the whole point.

The plan worked and now middle class take pride in their pocket programs that most will never utilize, the schools test scores are good enough to be middle of the pack and the county has moved on and applied the lessons learned in other areas and to lower grade schools. Integration in DC metro area means sending rich kids to poor schools and typically not vise versa [/quote]

There are people up in arms over these programs that don't seem to understand this... at all[/quote]

The funny part is the quest to diversify the program actually runs counter to the mission statement of getting richer kids to opt into poorer schools. The other parents got so sick of the rich kids getting the carrot that they fought for a bite too. Now you will get poorer kids into a programs designed to dilute the local make up of poorer kids.  Reminds me of the old question: Are kids graduating from Harvard successful because they went to elite Harvard or is Harvard elite because they only admit successful kids?  [/quote]

The quest was never to diversify a program - it was to slow down, prevent, reverse white flight from those neighborhoods/schools.

That was many, many school years ago and now, as far as I can tell, not many of those families are all that worried about the "diversity" of magnet programs housed in otherwise blah schools.

At this point the programs are being used to rescue a handful of better students from schools where the cohort of high achievers is just too small. Noble enough I suppose[/quote]

That's odd as a parent whose kids both went there I was really impressed by the quality of not just the magnet courses but everything. In fact, the English and social studies teachers were among DC's favorites![/quote]

Curriculum for HIGH is good. The 7th grade NHD project is a blast. Curriculum for advanced English is such a lame. We are not impressed by the English teachers there either, but thought it's mainly the issue with curriculum. They don't have much room but to stay bored with every magnet student together.
But still it's worth the long drive. The peer is superb (my son is in 7th grade, pre-lottery). The STEM teachers are professional, dedicated, and couldn't be appreciated more. Although the java teacher was retired, the newly hired CS teacher has mechanical engineering background, and hence taught Arduino circuit in his class.

For STEM oriented kids, I'd say if you are luckily to get selected from the lottery, go for the program. 3-year of programing preparation will give your kid a big leg-up for USACO, google coding competition, etc. [/quote]

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