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

Forum Index » Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS)

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

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Some of ya'll really need to settle down.  Great teachers exist outside of the magnet programs.  One of my kids not at a magnet Algebra teacher had a masters in math from John Hopkins.  My other kid's MS math teacher (different school) was certified to teach math at the MS and HS level and was finishing up an Education Leadership doctorate.

Some teach a schools that are closer to where they live, others want to influence a certain demographic, and others are just happy at their school.

Will there likely need to be some hiring and training, sure, but if they finalize things in short order, like by February, they will have at least a whole year to get that done.  Heck they could make it part of the recruiting strategy now.[/quote]
No one said we don't have some great teachers, but some people want advanced math in *every* HS.  Finding good teachers to teach really advanced math for every HS is going to be very difficult to find, not to mention the fact that in some schools there won't be enough demand for such classes to fill the classroom.  Not good use of taxpayer $.[/quote]

They only need one teacher for anything past bc.   We have several teachers who could teach it.  You just need Mv and linear algebra at every school.  So, that’s two extra classes beyond what is provided now.  [/quote]

Not true... At Blair, math classes include Logic, Discrete Mathematics, Advanced Geometry, Origins of Math, Complex Analysis (This is the course after MV calc and Lin Alg), and an Advanced Statistics Class (not to be confused with AP Stats). Similar things hold for science classes. As you can clearly see, it will be impossible to implement all these classes to the level they are taught at at Blair across the regional programs.[/quote]

You are missing the point that we don't need a school offering all these COLLEGE LEVEL classes when we haven't even solved for offering the basic advance class offerings to all academically advanced students.  Some schools aren't even offering AP Stats, BC Calc, or MVC.  [/quote]

So are you hoping the deterioration of the current Blair magnet can lead to creation of those advanced math classes (just AP Stats, BC Calc and MVC) in every other HS? You do realize that teachers who are capable of teaching these class require either math-major background or excessive training. And schools who can open these courses require enough student enrollment. Taylor has been very explicit that he plans to spend zero dollar on extra training or recruiting new teachers. The savings that you can get from letting Blair magnet teachers go wouldn't afford the 6 regional programs nor advanced math classes in every HS. [/quote]

Both are needed but the magnets serve a very small number of kids so is it worth MCPS funding when they can go to their home schools and get advance classes and then more kids can benefit from it?[/quote]

The regional model wouldn't shut down Blair/Poolsville SMACS nor RMIB. So assuming teachers there still want to stay, you don't save any $$ from not letting the very small number of high-achiever kids attending Blair SMACS anymore. Instead, the ones with homeschool from Ws can probably still at least take up to MVC back in their home schools or in a regional STEM program, but the other ones will find no advanced math courses back in their regions, because either lacking qualified teachers, or enough high-achieving students to enroll with him/her. In the same time, the regional model will face more and more in-equality over the time. In practice, you probably will see the magnet teachers either leave (because there's no more really advanced class to teach anymore) or move to regions with more resources (money-wise, student resource-wise, etc.). [/quote]

Exactly, the regional model creates further inequalities, so if the regional model is being proposed in the name of equity, then it makes no sense. The regions with established nationally-known programs will benefit from those programs while the regions with the new watered-down programs will be blocked off from those excellent programs. All this regional model does is ghettoize the inequalities further within some regions. For example, someone on here crunched the numbers on existing learning gaps and other socioeconomic indicators and some regions are really getting the short end of the stick here. That's the whole point of these county wide magnets, to make the same opportunities available to students from across the county, not ghettoize resources and the best opportunities within the W regions.[/quote]

The regional model is silly as few will want to travel cross county.  Rich schools still will have all the classes and the other schools still will not.  It really is all show and no substance.  [/quote]

It may well come down to what you have written. Higher SES students in west county will stay home, and [b]the home catchment students are prioritized for a seat in those west county schools[/b]. East county students in the same regions won't have an opportunity to attend a west county school in their home regions.[/quote]

No, yesterday they described it as only a  portion of the program seats being dedicated to the home school students, and the rest being for the other schools in that region.[/quote]

[b]But they didn't give actual numbers yesterday, did they? Of course not. [/b]Because they have little idea what the programs will look like, and no idea yet what those program (physical building) requirements will be, which has an impact on the number of student seats that will be available. Then, factor in population growth, which increases home catchment student populations. East county will have a limited number of students being able to get into west county schools. Meanwhile, the east county schools are being made to weaken, likely significantly, the programs that have provided the east county schools academic achievement.[/quote]

They did have numbers on slide 43: 200-240 regional seats plus 100 local seats each for two programs at GHS. I don't know if those are representative of all programs or just how those particular programs might be proportioned.[/quote]

The school district is pulling numbers out of the air at this point. Look at where new developments are going in the county. Regional seat apportionment will be decreased to allow for local students who must be given access to their local schools. We'll have to see what the final boundaries are for schools, but take a look at current capacities and general enrollment at the high schools to see what the numbers of available seats are. And how long will it take for a school system that doesn't allocate sufficient staffing and resources for professional learning to build regional programs that will attract high achieving cohorts? Do you think west county students are going to sign up for programs in east county? [/quote]

I think they should just add more countywide programs. Not sure why this is so hard.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics