Reply to 4th Year of Language

Forum Index » Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS)

Reply to "4th Year of Language"

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]What about top universities? Does it matter for those?[/quote]

We've been told top schools want 3 years in high school (so middle school language doesn't count). And that they prefer spoken and written languages to ASL, FWIW.[/quote]

How is that going to work with the new regional programs which mostly seem to only have room for kids to take 1 or 2 years of foreign language in HS?  [/quote]

What do you mean they only have room for 1 or 2 years? All schools seems to offer through AP/IB, which should take kids through junior year. If you mean that you have to take a bunch of classes to fulfill program requirements, students would need to use an elective slot for foreign language.[/quote]

For the regional programs, many of them have the elective spots filled up with program classes for most years, with space only allotted for 1 or 2 years of foreign language in high school (see here, starts page 37: https://go.boarddocs.com/mabe/mcpsmd/Board.nsf/files/DMJHXR4AA9BD/$file/Boundary%20Studies%20Program%20Analysis%20Update%20251016%20PPT%20REV.pdf)[/quote]

Those are opt-in programs, though, and it's no different than the status quo at many HS magnet programs. My child has a 9th period to help ameliorate some of that pressure, but if they didn't want to take the mandatory classes for the magnet, they could just have declined the spot! [/quote]

The thing is that with the new regional model, there are going to be a bunch of schools that end up with very limited advanced classes because they're losing their advanced kids to magnets elsewhere, meaning that smart kids who don't really want to be in programs are basically going to feel forced to enroll in them purely to be able to take the classes they need.  (And likewise for certain electives like theatre where the magnets will lead to lower demand at home schools, so kids who want to take those electives will have to enroll in a program to get them.)

If those students can't be in this programs and also take enough years of language to get into competitive colleges, they'll be between a rock and a hard place.  MCPS in their presentations about the regional model talked about encouraging kids to complete their foreign language requirements in middle school, so I'm kind of shocked that apparently if kids listen to that they'll be shooting themselves in the foot college-wise...[/quote]

Each magnet is only going to take a handful of kids at best at each school so there isn't going to be a huge impact.  Our schools now have limited advanced classes.  You either go without or go to MC.[/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