Reply to What is the real reason MCPS uses Lottery for Middle School Magnet Program

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I find the whole  magnet thing racist and favoring rich people in general even with the lottery.

A top 100 school district in another state did away with then for “equity” reasons around 20 years ago.

They took that money and instead of focusing on the top 5 percent of students spent it in a new type of magnet school for  the bottom 5 percent of students to provide remedial help, better teacher to student rations, provide autistic and help special needs kids and kids with emotional issues.

Why did well off straight A  white and Asian kids with college educated parents need extra help.

It is like putting Tom Brady on a bad football team and deciding let’s only give Tom Brady extra help. No you spend resources on the players that need it not the already great players. [/quote]

This whole thread reminds me of the NYT podcast Nice White Parents. Privledged, wealthy people who think the public school owes them something special because they’re enrolling precious Larla in their local school system and who feed off exclusion at the expense of a vast majority of children. That there are so many people who are freaking out because a small number of kids who are very bright and capable and who will likely be successful in the magnet have been admitted despite not being 99th percentile is absurd - and shows how entitled so many parents on this forum are. No wonder MCPS is going to the crapper. Parents like these drain resources and divert attention from a majority of the children in the school. [/quote]

Neither of you have any idea what you’re talking about. Really.

This is not about rich white families. This is not about kids who would be fine anyway. This is not about parent egos.

Most of the magnets are absolutely full of brown kids from middle class and immigrant families. The white and/or wealthy families I know don’t want to send their kids to the magnets. They prefer for them to stay with their friends at their home school. They aren’t worried about education because they can afford to send their kids to CTY or other nice enrichment if they want to. They usually want to focus their kids on sports. They know their kids will be ok. They like home school enrichment. The few white families who do send their kids to the magnets do so because they have a kid who is really complaining about the pace of school, usually because the home school doesn’t have a strong academic cohort and they aren’t wealthy enough to pay for regular enrichment or private. Or, because they are in Takoma Park and it is their home school anyway.

MCPS was on track to really improve the magnet selection a couple of years ago, putting emphasis on selection methods which favored CoGAT and cohort over MAP and grades (ability over privilege) and doing away with inherent bias like teacher recommendations and parent- initiated applications. By bringing MAP and grades back as the prime selection methods, they have had to vastly widen the pool to overcome the strong privilege bias those metrics create. So they are now just scooping tons of kids into the magnet system without making any effort to consider the need.

PP was correct that home school enrichment, except for kids who don’t have a cohort, is ideal. By adding enriched MS classes and paying attention to need for the actual magnets (ability and available cohort), that is exactly what MCPS was well on their way to doing two years ago, but they have now done a strange and self-destructive about face. It’s a public school system. Parents are allowed to complain and question. The new selection process creates a wasteful and silly system where the magnets are offered as a prize to be won instead of a service to meet student need.

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