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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote]In addition to in-consortium students, there are ~80 students per grade level (~25%) that are from out-of-consortium. They get a place at the school by lottery (not an academic requirement). All students in the school are considered magnet students, and they all have access to all of the courses and programs offered at the school. Students are placed in academic courses according to their readiness - some students are in all of the highest academic classes (English, Math, Science, World Studies, Language), some students have a mix of the highest classes and regular classes, and some are in just regular classes.[/quote]

Argyle, Parkland and Loederman are terrible examples. These are poorly performing schools that are not desirable to anyone. Their latest PARCC scores show that 70-80% of the kids fail ELA. This is no way competes with the quality of TPMS, Eastern or Blair [b]and no one in their right mind who values academic excellence would choose this model. [/b]

A lottery is not a magnet. Saying that a school is a whole magnet when anyone in the school can get in if their grades are high enough and then lowering the standards because not enough kids meet a high standard to get in is not a magnet.

What is VERY concerning is that this is exactly the type of dishonest BS that MCPS pulls. Shut down the real magnets and then slap the name magnet on a bunch of schools without any gifted magnet education going on. The real idea here is to save money on busses and create better optics. [/quote]
80 students per grade level across three grade levels and three schools and that's 720 families willing to provide their own transportation to the schools (no busing for out-of-area). You look at the school as a whole, and see a poorly performing school, but you are missing the fact that there are some very advanced students in these schools doing top academic work. I know that a fair amount of students come from Rockville, Gaithersburg, Germantown and even Clarksburg to go to Parkland and Argyle (have had kids/friends kids at both). They may not fit your elitist model of what a magnet should be, but part of what got the program high ratings from Metis was that [b]the presence of additional high performing students allowed creation of more advanced courses,[/b] which benefits the home-school population and its advanced students. A school has a very different feel when only 30-40 students out of 300 in a grade are in "advanced" classes compared to 100-120 out of 300.

But go on dismissing this program. The families who have found this hidden gem are more than happy to not compete against you for a spot.[/quote]

Can someone provide some examples of advanced math/science courses at these schools? (I'm just curious, I know nothing of these schools since I never read anything about them).[/quote]

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