Reply to Another article about the magnet programs in Washington Post

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]
Who was calling anybody a racist? The issue was the supposed "playing the race card".

But no, neither the Metis report nor MCPS has said anything about admitting unqualified students based on their race or ethnicity. DCUM is making the assumption that, if MCPS changes the admissions process and/or admissions criteria, the students who are admitted as a result will be unqualified.[/quote]

we are asking just how mcps proposes to make changes to only admit "qualified" students, including those who don't test high, because that is the crux of it.  A lot of URM do not test very high.    So, if they don't test high, what other criteria are they proposing to use?  Stating "non cognitive" abilities is a catch all. It means nothing.  Yes, we are assuming that when the report says to use "non cognitive" abilities, we take it to mean that they want to use other non academic criteria.  The problem is that using non academic criteria for an academically rigorous program makes no sense; one can only conclude that they want to include "non cognitive" abilities to allow in lesser qualified kids, ie, kids who don't score high on tests.

And to the argument that there are other ways to test for giftedness, like non cognitive, please, don't tell people to google it.  The argument is going around in circles.  The onus is on the person arguing for non cognitive abilities to provide specific details on what exactly those abilities are, and why that is a good measure of "giftedness".

Someone posted a link to a study that found that when teacher/parental recommendations were excluded, URM kids tested as gifted at a higher rate.  So, some said, then let's do that too.  But, of course, we won't because, as stated, as a whole, URM don't test high.

Some have stated that mcps should provide additional services to low income areas to provide additional support, and to do a better job of reaching out to make parents aware of the programs; some have argued that maybe *all* kids be tested instead of making it optional.   People are trying to come up with real ideas to get more URM interested in the programs.  But, all you keep saying is that dcum doesn't want more URM in the programs.  That is not true.  Most parents just want qualified kids in the program, no special treatment. That's all.

There are lots of families whose kids are in magnets who are not wealthy.  It's not just about money.  We chose to live in a non W cluster because of the diversity, both race and SES.  We actually used to live in a predominately white/asian area where the only low income people were Hispanics; there were no Blacks, and we wanted to move partly because of this.  For me, it's not about race. It's about the integrity of the program, the purpose of it, which is to provide those kids who meet the criteria, regardless of race, a more challenging and rigorous academic environment.

What is MCPS' goal?  Is it to get more URM to apply, or to get more of them actually in the magnets?   If it is the former, no one has any issues with it.  It is the latter that we are concerned about.  The "how" they are going to try to achieve this that is cause for concern in terms of fairness for *all* kids.[/quote]

I stopped at the first mention of MCPS...  This is not MCPS![/quote]

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