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[quote=Anonymous]Poolesville is a better overall school because it has a higher number of magnet students and not as many local non-magnet students as Blair.  Blair overall has less magnet students and a large non-magnet population.

This is Blair. 
https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/regulatoryaccountability/glance/currentyear/schools/04757.pdf

This is Poolesville. 
https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/regulatoryaccountability/glance/currentyear/schools/04152.pdf

Poolesville non-magnet population is mainly White.  Blair non-magnet population is mainly colored.  Poolesville FARMS rates are very low. Blair is almost 50% FARMS.  So, Poolesville average student performance looks better because the students SES are better overall.  In US - low SES falls along racial lines.   White and Asians are more educated and more affluent. African-Americans and Hispanics are not.  Nothing to do with the intelligence of the races as amply demonstrated by the educated and affluent Blacks who immigrate from Africa and Caribbean and make use of Affirmative Action to get ahead.

Overall Poolesville has only a handful of Blacks and Hispanics and they tend to be the affluent and educated recent immigrant Blacks whose kids come in through the magnet program into the school.

NOW, if you look at how Blair SMACS students do as compared to Poolesville SMACS students - Blair SMACS is higher performing than Poolesville SMACS, mainly because of three things 1) More connected W parents in Blair vs. less connected UpCounty parents in Poolesville, 2) Blair has more experienced teachers than Poolesville and 3) Blair trains a select group of SMACS students to excel and participate in all kinds of scholastic competitions unlike Poolesville that leaves it all the students and parents.

Blair has institutional knowledge about all types of competitions and contests, have a great understanding of how and when to prepare for it and it takes pride in winning these competition.

If we did not compare entire schools and only the magnet programs, I would rank Blair SMACS over RMIB and Poolesville SMACS.  Poolesville SMACS and RMIB are in the same category of rigor.  Blair SMACS is a bit more harder because some of the students (after a rigorous audition) are in the Math and Science Teams and they are trained to participate in these contests and competitions.

This is not apples to apples comparison. Magnet schools and programs will automatically do better than other schools because of academically stronger students who also are higher SES and have more parental involvement.

There is a reason why the magnet schools are better than the W schools and Private schools.  It is the magnet kids. When SES is high and parents are equally involved in all three types of schools - magnet program, W schools, private schools - eventually, the difference between very bright kids and the highly gifted magnet kids is made very clear.

When there is a need to rank the schools in MoCo, the magnet schools should be removed from the list because that is a very high level of student capability and excellence we are talking about. And since these students are handpicked by the program and tested for their knowledge and ability, even before they come to the program - it is an advantage to the school.  These magnet students make the schools look very good.  These schools may be just average for the non-magnet students.

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