Reply to CES Decision Letters

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Respectfully, you need to stop. MCPS has been very open about their goals and it has been addressed in countless meetings and reports. [b]They have defined diversity as having to do with race and socio-economic status, and their goal is to close that gap.[/b]

I don't disagree that there are some parents crying foul and blaming the diversity goal for negative results but it's all about your perception of the purpose of the programs and who "deserves" or "needs" admission. No one is wrong.

Some would argue that the 99th percentile rich kid fairly beat out the 89th percentile FARMS kid and should be admitted. My view is that we need to account for hardships so maybe the 89th percentile FARMS kid is more deserving and "needs" it more. But what about a 50th percentile FARMS kid?  [/quote]

I have a teen boy who did not get in magnets and a daughter who did.

I hate the idea that a selective, advanced academic program should consider anything other than academics. Gender, race, or proxies for those, should never be considered. Special programs should not be used as a tool to correct society's ills, when federal, state and local government should (and do, to a large extent) take it upon themselves to bolster upward mobility. I have the same opinion about college admissions.

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But if you go back in history to the MCPS magnets a lot of the goal was desegregation. They evolved over the years to become selective, advanced academic programs for those motivated to apply but it wasn't always that way. I think college admissions are a different issue - related but different.

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Personally, that history matters very little to me.

A modern public school system needs to have:
1. Challenging work for its general population, which MCPS does not really have at the elementary school level, and not much at the middle school level. It gets better in high school.
2. Special programs for its special needs population and ESOL population. There are solid systems in place for learning differences (with the shocking exception of dyslexia, this should be corrected ASAP) and various programs for Asperger's, autism, emotional disorders, etc, as well as magnets for highly able students. Yes, I consider all these differences to be special needs. All of these programs could be made better, but I'm happy they're THERE.

Well and good. What I don't want to do is use the public school system as the tool for racial healing. It won't work, and in the process students are not getting placed where they should be.
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