Reply to Third round options on Woodward Boundary study

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][b]Same. Since MCPS is barreling ahead with this ill thought out program I think this is the most pertinent point to drive home to them + the board: academic magnets should be placed at the regional schools with the highest FARMS rates to help ensure sufficient number of academically advanced students to support full range of advanced classes.[/quote]

How about they do a better job educating kids earlier on so that schools with high FARMS rates already have sufficient academically prepared students within the community population?[/quote]

Sure that too but doesn’t negate the above point. I encourage all parents to advocate for academic magnets being placed at the highest FARMS schools. In addition to the benefit cited by PP it will cause wealthier neighborhoods to have some skin in the game as to the overall success of those schools which is also important.[/quote][/b]

The idea of placing academic magnets at schools with the highest FARMS may sound noble but in practice will not work. Parents will simply not send their kids to schools with bad academic reputation. These magnets will become obsolete with only kids from host schools. That will not benefit anyone as students in the host schools will have the same peers and teachers they have now. New magnets will never come even remotely close in success to current magnets  so the plan will have an overall negative effect as academically gifted students in the county will lose any access to good magnets.

Strategically best approach is to place most important magnets in schools with average FARMS numbers, e.g. Blair, RM, etc. This will give new magnets a chance to succeed, while not benefiting schools with low FARMS and already good academic offerings. As for the schools with high FARMS, the only way to help them is to give them resources and mandate they use those resources to hire teachers and offer advanced classes. Giving them magnets just ruins the magnet concept.[/quote]

I agree with this, mid level FARMs schools like RM, Blair, Woodward, QO etc should have these types of programs. Not Whitman, Churchill, Wootton, WJ or BCC. Not Kennedy or Watkins Mill etc.[/quote]

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