Reply to Lawsuit challenging MCPS magnet admissions dismissed

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][i]In her memorandum dismissing the lawsuit, Xinis wrote: “… the Court cannot see how the Pandemic Plan visited a disproportionate burden on Asian American students when the percentage of admitted Asian American students so substantially outpaces the percentage representation among all applicants.”[/i][/quote]

So does this mean MCPS admitted more asians into the program compared to the percentage of asians applied? So it is fair and ok to not admit other equally qualified asian students? May be this is posted out of context?

Doesn't MCPS have a responsibility to meet the academic needs of ALL students? [/quote]

The judge decided that there is no evidence that the non-COGAT lottery structure, which MCPS now says will be in place for the foreseeable future, has a disparate impact on Asian Americans because Asian American students are still being admitted to middle school magnets at a rate higher than their representation among the population of the County.[/quote]

So Judge did not decide whether MCPS is providing equal opportunities for all students. 
But rather[b] If they provide opportunities 10 students and the ratio meets the population demographic ratio, then that is legally fine[/b]? What about all the students who are equally qualified but left out due to lottery system? 
Just trying to understand the rationale[/quote]

Seems reasonable to me.[/quote]

Are you saying that it is reasonable for MCPS to only pick very few students randomly and provided them the resources and magnet opportunities while not providing the same opportunities to other equally or higher qualified students? 
[/quote]

DP.  Given the limited number of seats, particularly in middle school, yes. This is not only reasonable, it’s the only possible solution. There are more qualified students than there are seats, so there will always be students receiving services that other equally (and higher) qualified students won’t receive.

The devil is in the details, of course, but it’s disingenuous to argue that there was not randomness in the process before. It’s just not possible to rank students with the level of certainty required to claim that the “most” qualified students are always admitted. Even if that was the goal, and it’s not clear that it ever was, or that it necessarily should be. [/quote]

Yes, the metrics by which worthiness was judged were easily gamed even in the old system, but the random lottery seems even worse. I'm not sure what the ideal system looks like.  The biggest issue for these programs, as far as I can tell, is they are more qualified kids than there are spots. The best thing they could do is expand them that would also build in local norms since there were more local magnet schools.[/quote]

I'm generally supportive of the changes, and firmly believe that getting rid of teacher recommendations and at-home essays was the correct choice. With that said, a better system would probably be weighted lottery with a higher percentile cut-off. Take the top 5% of each "tier" and put them in a random lottery. Then, and this is critical, build out enrichment at local schools. This means ELA in all elementary schools and cohorted English and HIGH in all middle schools. [/quote]

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