Reply to I don't get it- very few CES kids get into magnet school?

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Reply to "I don't get it- very few CES kids get into magnet school?"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]What it clearly shows is how heavily people were self selecting for the magnets before universal screening.  In 2016, 299 Asian students applied for Takoma, in 2018, 689 were screened--about a 60% increase.  By comparison only only 241 white students applied in 2016, while 1230 were identified for screening in 2018--a five fold increase.  Of course Asian numbers went down, they had a disproportionate interest in the program and they're applications from viable candidates were probably beyond saturation.  Anything that causes more students to apply, is going to disadvantage such a group.  URMs are still under represented but the numbers identified are up substantially.  Meanwhile Asians are still represented at twice their population, whites at 25% their population--so in no way has anyone been shut out or a quota been instituted.

I just don't see how it can be argued that screening more applicants is a bad thing.  Sure it means more people may not accept an offer, but that's better than having people who didn't even know their child should be in the program.[/quote]

It's a bad thing for parents who had gotten used to gaming the system to their child's advantage, but a good thing since changes like universal screening and cohort ensure more children benefit.[/quote]

I haven't seen a lot of disagreement to universal screening. I think even the people who are upset their children didn't get in see the logic in universal screening. That is not the problem.
What people are up in arms about is that they are no longer picking the top scoring kids from the county. They argue that the reason MCPS isn't doing this is because if you took the top scoring kids from the county even WITH universal screening you would still get a disproportionate group of Asian American kids admitted.

So they made up this peer cohort criteria to get their desired results which is to increase the number of URMs. The argument is that if MCPS was able to increase the number of URMs by taking all the top scoring kids from the county they would get rid of the peer cohort criteria. Basically MCPS is making up whatever criteria serves their purpose which is to make the magnet programs more diverse and decrease the number of Asian American students and increase URM students. Some would call that discrimination while others would not. I'm not expressing an opinion about what whether it is good or bad, but this is what MCPS has done.

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