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[quote=Anonymous]Let's get focused on the topic rather than being carried away, blindly comparing Blair and other good HS.

The reason for the discussion is to choose the best ES for a STEM kid.

There are two approaches: 
1. choose the best ES that the child can more easily go into a magnet MS (or magnet HS).
2. choose the best ES that if the child fails to get into a magnet MS, the MS and then the HS would be strong in STEM.

For 1, we compare the ES directly.

For 2, we compare the MS and HS (the non-magnet part - because the magnet part is not something a child gets into by just living there)

Here we only focus on 2.

So let's gather up the facts and see where they lead to.

Facts:
(1) In the previous years (up to class 2017), Blair students do reasonably good in SAT. Their average SAT is in the range of 1100 to 1200 (if using reading+math). The Ws are typically somewhat above 1200. There is a 50 to 100 points gap between Blair and the Ws.

If we choose Wootton as an example: 2017: Blair 1142, Wootton: 1230, 2016: Blair 1162, Wootton 1232 ...
 
This is based on data from MCPS schools at a glance: https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/sharedaccountability/glance/

(2) For class 2018, only data from Blair is available from Blair's website as PP mentioned: 1318. No data for Ws are available.

https://documentcloud.adobe.com/link/track?uri=urn%3Aaaid%3Ascds%3AUS%3A544d3cea-590a-4234-8efa-69b2be579481

(3) demographic information is available in 2017: 
https://montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/sharedaccountability/reports/2017/1771102HS%20Princ_SAT%20Partic_Perf%20Class%20of%202017.pdf

This is actually also available in 2018 but the MCPS did not give the scores in their 2018 report so we can't use that.

Here if you only look at the average SAT from various ethnic groups, it appears that Blair is dong better for some groups, worse for some, and similar for some too, compared with the Ws'
For example: White: Blair 1326, Wootton: 1262,  Asian: Blair 1290, Wootton: 1278, Black: Blair 1032, Wootton 986, Hispanic: Blair 1037, Wootton 1143.

Now done with the facts, note that 
(i) the scores from Blair include the magnet part. For comparisons like national honors etc, the magnet program contributes to a significant portion in Blair and can't be ignored.  For example among the 45 National Merit Semifinalists, we can sort of guess how many are from the magnetic program so the non-magnet part is not really doing that great.

For SAT this is not significant due to the large base. 200 more points in average from the magnet students, would only result in less than 40 points higher in the total average for Blair. so let's not worry too much about that.

(ii) (1) and (3) are consistent (they are both MCPS data). If you use data in (3) and multiply the SAT average of each group to the correct ratio in student population, you get the data reported in (1)

Conclusions:

1. If you compare the average SAT, Blair is somewhat at a lower level compared to the Ws. This is typically how people judge whether a school is better or worse. Of course, some people may have their own definitions of a "better" school.

The data from Blair class 2018 has no other school data to compare with, and appears as an outliner even in data from Blair's previous years SAT. We need to understand whether that is due to a different way of calculating the average or a real boost in the 2018 class.

2. If you just compare the same ethnic group, apparently other than Hispanics, Blair is doing better or at least the same (compared to, e.g. Wootton). That could mean Blair teachers are doing a great job so they should be awarded by the district for making the "high performing" group perform even better. And of course people can emphasize that Blair's average SAT is lower than the W's only because unfortunately it gets more low-performing students.

So people can make their own judgement: do you want to go to a school where students in average is doing better, or do you want to choose a school where the "ethnic group" your kid belongs to is doing better.
Some people may think neither matters that much. Some people may emphasize one of the two. These are perfectly fine. Just use the facts and think for yourself.

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