Reply to MCPS to end areawide Blair Magnet and countywide Richard Montgomery's IB program

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Reply to "MCPS to end areawide Blair Magnet and countywide Richard Montgomery's IB program"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I appreciate the perspective of the current student, but listen to those of us with experience outside specialized schools. You would still have your string peer group because you would be taking the same classes for your specialized program. Possibly some of your electives might be integrated with “regular” kids, but it’s an important life skill for you to learn. You will not live your adult life surrounded by peers with your same level of intelligence, motivation, and access.

My own experience at a HS in a different state with 3,000 students, 555 in my graduating class. Our grade had a cohort of kids on advanced tracks and we were need up with almost all of our classes together for 4 years because we were the only students eligible for those advanced courses.[/quote]

MCPS doesn't have a TJ or Stuy.
The countywide programs already have electives and even core courses shared with the host school.

Regardless, people who have never seen a specialized countywide program for don't understand the value it provides for the students who would be bored in the "advanced" courses.

When we were young, students who didn't have access to such programs would graduate high school early or Dual Enroll at a university, and have to find a gap year program or deal with the social challenge of being a year or more younger than their classmates. [/quote]

And that’s what will happen again. For the regular advanced kids there are already many options - there is a wealth of AP classes, more IB spots than demand, the CAP program, Project Lead the Way, early college, dual enrollment. SO MANY options, not all well used. Any motivated advanced student can build a path through high school that meets their needs. But for the very highly motivated and extremely high achieving, Blair is the offering with the track record of meeting their needs. For a very small number of kids who need it. It is extremely short sighted to take this away. [/quote]

A) Blair isn’t going away it’s catchment area is changing 
B) If it’s for a very small number of kids then it actually makes sense if it does go away and instead funnel those kids to their next stage at university. The county has to be good stewards of resources in providing opportunity.[/quote]

So basically don’t provide a challenge for the most advanced learners. Got it!

Where does this logic end? Should UMD become open enrollment in order to provide opportunities?

The only thing I find persuasive against the magnets is that the academic pressure is too much now because of the escalating competition. I’m not sure how you solve for that - if kids do just as well in a less intense setting then maybe it is important for schools to consider the kids’ overall wellness. But you hear plenty of stories of kids from top public HS fighting the same battles for accomplishments so I am not at all sure that this is unique to the culture of magnets. [/quote]

K-12 does not serve the same end as higher education, nor does access function in the same way.  You cannot compare a public school magnet to a flagship university.  And no one has claimed we shouldn’t be challenging the top students.  We are arguing about how to allocate resources in a large public school system that needs to provide for all students.  UMD has no such obligation.[/quote]

Yeah only because you are creating arbitrary distinctions though.  It used to be that there was no question that the smartest kids in K-12 should get tracked or placed in magnets. In the past decade, this has become anathema for K-12 for a variety of reasons variously (and contradictorily) expressed as concerns with equity, or assertions that kids did not "need" advancement and it was bad for them (that was the SF argument for withholding algebra until 9th grade). Especially with regards to HS, there is no logical distinction between this kind of negative view of selectivity in private school that would not also extend to flagship colleges.  What I believe happened is that K-12 education was caputured by dumbsh*ts chasing educational trends with no regard for actually teaching kids. And this extends also to other disastrous choices like "Zoom school," getting rid of textbooks, teaching kids math via computer apps ... [/quote]

I do believe the smartest kids should get access to an accelerated track.  The issue is that they currently don’t.  CES and middle school magnets are lottery based.   High school magnets have some successes but also some widespread equity issues including geography.  I want more many more students to get access to advanced classes and a peer cohort.  [b]I’m less concerned about the couple dozen students per year across the entire county that might lose something kind of cool.[/b][/quote]
2024-2025 School Year:

• There were 12 special programs housed in 8 different high schools.

• 3,149 high school students (6% of all high school students; roughly 775 per grade) were enrolled in special programs.

Proposal for 2027-2028 School Year

•No countywide special programs

•The same 5 special programs will be offered in each of 6 regions (30 smaller special programs)

1. Going from 12 special programs to 30 means we’re going to need many more teachers who are qualified to teach the most advanced classes.

2. The catchment area for each new program will be much, much smaller than the catchment areas for current programs. The most competitive students in the county will be spread out across 6 regions instead of clustered together.

3. How much can we increase the number of students enrolled in special programs without any significant decrease in the average ability of the cohorts? We currently enroll 6% of high school students in special programs. Should we enroll 10%? More than that?

At some point there is a diminishing return on the expansion of seats. A) We can offer the most rigorous classes to a modest number of the top students or B) we can offer slightly more rigor to all good students.

If your child is a good student who didn’t make it into any high school magnet program, it’s understandable that you would support any change that would give your child access to more advanced classes or a stronger cohort, but I’m not sure the proposed plan will deliver that. I fear that the new system will result in the equivalent of MCPS putting everyone into Honors English in middle school: Honors English ends up not being an advanced course because the classes are made up of plenty of students who aren’t particularly advanced.[/quote]

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