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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]

That's what advanced placement is for, not magnet schools. By far most "smart" students in high school are not smart in everything, and sports on top of that. Creating magnets for the "smart" and neighborhood schools for the whole rest of them indeed leaves us all worse off. I think that's what another poster meant to point to. It's not even the best solution for the smartest. I teach in a private university (granted not hard sciences so can't speak to that) and I can't tell you how much of an advantage those students have who are used to working with and in the presence of a broad range of capabilities and interests. All this said, there is no way wiping magnets off the map is practical. Reforming incentive structures and bringing schools in line yes, or maybe transforming those magnet schools into charter schools. That's a more realistic and useful approach.

[/quote]Maybe that approach will work with 'soft' subjects, but for mathematics, and hard sciences, and foreign languages, AP requires a progression ...geometry starting in  in eighth grade, followed by algebra 2/trig/precalc/calc....in the neighborhood setting, the likelihood of having enough students at that level to make a class viable is pretty low; unless the school is of significant size  with each class >300 students. I had a conversation with the Banneker principal a few years back, asking why AP physics was not being offered that year, and she cited a lack of demand/prepared students...If a magnet had problems finding enough students to schedule an AP class, I can only imagine what the neighborhood school is up against. I don't know about DC's policies now, but I doubt that a class will run with only 2 or 3 students. Hence the need for decent sized magnets, where a quorum of students can be reached for AP.  'Soft' subjects probably run differently, but foreign languages, chemistry etc won't...[/quote]

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