Reply to Please sign this petition to continue countywide magnets

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]What’s frustrating here is the continued push to close the existing flagship magnets under the guise of equity. There’s no need to shut them down in order to open more programs. Someone said the county is closing the magnets to open even more and that's a good thing.  The county has already tried expanding access through regional IB programs, compacted math, and ELC. The reality? Very few students enrolled, and many struggled to handle the rigor — in fact, the ELC program had to be discontinued because there simply weren’t enough students prepared for it.  Secondly, look at non criteria based watered down lottery magnets or elementary and middle schools.  They already are a shadow of what they were with watered down rigor and students opting not to go to them.

The flagship high school magnets work because they bring together a critical mass of the most advanced students. Now, by spreading these kids across six “regional magnets”  — you’re inevitably diluting the rigor of the curriculum. That’s not “privilege”; that’s simple logic.  To pretend otherwise is just wrong.

And let’s be honest: if these regional magnets move forward as planned, one of two things will happen — either many families won’t choose them, or the courses offered will no longer resemble true magnet-level academics. This will only accelerate the decline of challenging, high-level programs for the students who need them most.

What’s happening here isn’t about serving all students. It’s about optics — allowing MCPS leadership to showcase their “DEI credentials” to the people who put them in, while undermining the very programs that consistently deliver academic excellence.[/quote]

Yeah thinking about it, I'm not entirely against the programs they're proposing.

But it shouldn't be broken down into six distinct regions with schools segregated from each other.

What they should be doing is seeing is maybe push out a single maybe two schools with the programs.  Kind of like how the county is split between Poolesville and Blair.

Then if there is strong demand for a program, then they open it at another school and can split the areas of the county to go to which school.

Same thing with the current countywide magnet program.  So there's not enough seats for everyone that wants one.  They can open a third one and split the county into thirds.  With the bigger areas, there should ideally be wider range in demographics and backgrounds.  They can also make transportation easier for people that are interested in the programs.

Or if it's really just an equity issue, then they can rank students from more of the underrepresented schools a little bit  more or guarantee a certain amount of seats for them.

For the magnet program though, the issue really starts prior to high school.  I imagine a good portion of students that go to magnet programs were enrolled either at the Eastern or Takoma Park programs.  Or at some gifted program in ES.  By the time these students start looking at high school, they'll already be at different levels compared to others.  So it seems like they should be starting on the other side at the earlier years.  Making sure students have a strong foundation, give students access to advanced tracks if it suits them, etc.

I'm kind of more open to the idea of the other programs, other than magnet.  But as mentioned I don't think they need six separate areas with their own offerings within their areas.  Unless the demand really does show it's big enough where they need to divide the county into six regions.[/quote]

If the demand was big enough, MCPS would have released that data to bolster its position on the regional programming.[/quote]

They did release the data…if over 1,000 kids apply to 60 seats at PHS, doesn’t that show demand??[/quote]

It goes back to what the other poster posted.  1000 applied.  But how many actually qualified?

We're not at the high school level yet.  So don't know how it works.  But we have plenty of kids at our kids' school that qualified for the lottery but didn't get selected.  That might show there is a demand for more seats.

But that's different if someone qualified but didn't meet the requirements.[/quote]

I meant to say if someone applied but didn't meet the requirements.[/quote]

You ask how many applied. They say my smart kids are not interested to apply.
You ask how many are qualified. They say my smart kids are smart but they are just not good at testing or happen to have a bad day in MAP testing.
You ask what criteria to use. They say you can prep MAP. You can prep CoGAT. You can prep for whatever metrics to use. So you cheat if you got in. 
You ask why the majority came from a few HSs. They say, oh, my kids declined/not applied because of the long commute, or later dismissal time is conflicting with their ECs.

They can never recognize or admit that success can never be achieved without consistent self-motivation. There's a will, there's a way. Those students attended and survived these countywide programs because they are willing to challenge themselves and to make a better self, at the sacrifice of longer commute, longer school time, much more homework, away from their local friends, etc. [/quote]

You're barking up the wrong tree here.

I'm a firm believer that magnet programs should have certain thresholds.

If they want to expand it to the 95 percent instead of 99 that's another thing.(which I'm not in disagreement with)

But either way they need to have a firm line on what the criteria is.

For students that are in the 94th percentile, then MCPS will need to make sure whatever is at their current school has what they need.  Or give them access to it.

It's like other poster said, sure [b]if kids are smart but don't test well, then the question is if they really have the discipline to succeed in the program[/b].

And the people that do choose to do the commute are willing to do so for what's offered by the program.  Those that aren't willing to, don't really want to.  We know people that drive across the county to send their kids to the Parkland and Argyle programs and it's not easy on them.

The magnet programs are not supposed to be for everyone, like the honors for all system.

So if 1000 students met the criteria but there are only 60 seats, then there does need to be a consideration for more seats.

But anyone can send an application in or say they're interested.  The question is if they're qualified.

But MCPS needs to improve the offerings at their current schools.[/quote]

The rub is that the important thing is to make sure that the [i]program[/i] succeeds in supporting MCPS's smart [i]kids[/i].  (Or, broadly, to ensure the set of enriched/accelerated/GT offerings, locally and by magnet, adequately provides that support.)

MCPS doesn't succeed if the program is not of sufficient caliber to meet that academic need.

But it also doesn't succeed if the seats are too few in comparison to the highly able student population.

It doesn't succeed if the distances are so great as to make reasonable access across the county infeasible.

It doesn't succeed if there are "solutions" that amount to "separate but 'equal'" (e.g., in person for me but schlep to Montgomery College for thee).

[b]It doesn't succeed if the identification paradigm is [i]more gameable[/i], limiting access to those of high ability, including those with few resources outside of school and those whose schools' resources have to be used to address the needs of more difficult populations at the expense of supporting populations with that ability, in favor of those highly prepared (understanding that a Venn diagram would show considerable overlap between ability and preparation).[/b]

And it doesn't succeed if it designs programs that rely on some unusual level of extant student discipline, rather than having in-program mechanisms to [i]build[/i] the discipline that would improve program outcomes for any of the highly able.

There are many actions MCPS might take to address the needs of the GT student population.  Regionalized magnets [i]can[/i] be part of that [i]if[/i] they adequately address the issues above (and probably several others I've failed to mention).

Should the RMIB and SMCS magnets largely remain as is?  If they can support MCPS's [i]overall[/i] success in addressing the needs of highly able learners [i]as described above[/i], why not?[/quote]
Mathematics is a subject where you have to master easier concepts in order to be capable of learning more complicated concepts. No matter how high your IQ, if there’s a deficit in your body of knowledge, you can’t necessarily move on to more advanced lessons. For that reason, I’m not sure programs like SMCS are truly designed for the smartest students. I think they’re actually designed for the most academically accelerated and ambitious STEM students. Does it matter how they became the most academically accelerated? If admissions is based on demonstrated knowledge, is anyone “gaming” the system by knowing more content?

There’s this rift between people who think these programs are a prize for those who have been blessed with greater innate abilities versus people who think admission to these programs is earned by demonstrating greater proficiency in a subject regardless of how you achieved that proficiency. MCPS has been admitting students to SMCS on the basis of proficiency and ambition, not innate ability. If they want to change that paradigm in the name of equity, they have to completely rethink their admissions criteria.[/quote]

functions are for the kids who are already at the high math level. smart kids without adequate background do not need, and in fact would struggle with, the most advanced classes.[/quote]

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