Reply to STEM - Big deal or just a fad

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]The king of STEM around here is TJ - public and test-in.  Judging by the number of Intel semi finalists and finalists, no other school comes close.  Not sure why STEM is being discussed on the private school forum.  [b]For STEM, public schools rule.  We all know private school is for producing well rounded, liberal artsy types.
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No.  Not a fad.  [/quote]

Do you think it's because private schools can be afforded by families with money? So the students who are more likely to go into STEM fields as a way to try climb the SES ladder with well paid STEM jobs come from working or lower SES backgrounds (eg, immigrants) and go to free public school?

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DC attended a free public STEM magnet in the area and the "immigrants" were mainly Asian and South Asian children of engineers and NIH researchers. So I guess if you think of these professions as "lower-SES" relative to private school families then you would be right about the social climbing thing....  But in our case, like a PP, it was DC's choice to leave his private school for the magnet.[/quote]

I think more children of immigrants will pursue liberal art majors if they have been here in the US long enough to have a good grasp of the English language and their parents also hold well paying jobs because at the end of the day being a doctor (and maybe a lawyer, not sure these days) is more prestigious than being an engineer. Immigrants often go into STEM fields because there is more demand for workers with this kind of background and also because of their lack of English language communication skills.[/quote]

Kids who do not speak English well will NOT get into the TJ and Blair magnets. This is a fact - these kids will not pass the entrance exams for these programs and won't have the transcripts either. Also, many, many TJ and Blair kids are in fact the children of well-educated parents, because getting into these magnets is usually the result of years of family support starting with multiplication tables. Honestly, you don't know these kids and their families, while I've spent several years as a parent in a magnet, so you really need to stop spinning foundationless theories. This is a very different group of kids from what you're imagining.[/quote]

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