Reply to RMIB and Blair criteria for HS program acceptance

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Blair median MAP score has been around 280 for the past few years so kids below that certainly get in. All As in STEM subjects are necessary too. A good rule of thumb is above 99th percentile. I wouldn’t bother below that.

I’m shocked that middle schools are helping with applications. Or at least at one middle school. That doesn’t happen elsewhere.[/quote]

JW feeds into RM and there are 25 seats in the RMIB program specifically set aside for JW cluster students so it makes sense for that middle school.[/quote]

These local set-asides in excess of the ratio of seats-to-overall-student-population for the rest of the county -- one-school CESs, Potomac ES Mandarin Immersion, Takoma Park MS magnet, etc. -- need to go away.  Inequitable on their face.

You can have a set-aside to ensure students from that school get in, but not any more seats than would give the local students a similar overall chance of selection as the non-locals.[/quote]
They should have these ste-aside seats for hosting the programs and taking on additional responsibilities. [/quote]

They should get bonuses for hosting a desired program?  For being local to it/not having to travel longer distances?  What burden to the in-bounds community is possibly being implied, here, that makes it such that they require the set-aside-seat compensation?[/quote]

I think magnet parents like to see their kids as an unmitigated and uncomplicated blessing upon the host school, but it's just not that simple.

Having a magnet program is a mixed blessing. Some of the drawbacks are small (harder to get a spot on a school activity like orchestra, math team, or drama production). Some of them are larger (loss of funding due to demographic shifts, dangerous parking lot situations due to additional busses and drivers). Not to mention the colonization of all parent discussions by the needs of the magnet kids. [/quote]

Indeed.  However, you note only downside effects, and it is a [i]mixed[/i] blessing.

Math team and orchestra were available at TPMS -- it is not so at every school.  TPMS has among the very highest number of available extracurriculars across MCPS middle schools, with a far greater preponderance of those geared toward the academically inclined without loss of activities for those less so.

The demographic shift that sees potential loss of Title I-type funding follows a lower proportion of higher-need students.  Without the magnet, expanded bounds would have been in play to fill seats, drawing from a considerably greater high-need population in the surrounding area.  That magnet demographic shift also facilitates provision of certain electives not available at every MCPS middle school, and it results in the benefit of robust PTSA funding/participation.

But perhaps the most compelling evidence of balance between positives and negatives, and the greater weight of the positives, is the behavior of the community when suggestions arise that the magnet be moved.  The overwhelming response is a firm "NO."[/quote]

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