Reply to I have a freshman at Poolesville smacs program AMA

Forum Index » Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS)

Reply to "I have a freshman at Poolesville smacs program AMA"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Oops! The quote shading was dropped on my previous post, so I’m trying again.

[quote=Anonymous]Sorry OP.  I think the magnet ES and MS has been watered down over the years.  Even the selection criteria has been watered down for the incoming students.  My kid (2022) was the last batch before selection criteria started to go down and RCMS (Roberto) and admin really screwed the program up. Horrible Principal and horrible magnet coordinator last I heard, Also so many experienced magnet teachers left and the selection criteria was such that it was picking up bright but not brilliant kids.  So sorry.

Yes, my kids found PHS SMCS quite manageable because they had learned to organize their work and time very well and were doing a lot more challenging work from their time in HGC (later CES) days. Even the entrance exams were extremely hard and kids really had to be brilliant to be selected.

The previous batches also found college quite manageable because this kind of rigor has become a habit since before 3rd grade.

I think asking alums about the workload is very misleading because our children had their education in a very different MCPS.

The good thing is that the rigor and the difficulty they will endure in PHS (even watered down) will probably help them a lot in college.  You do have to pay the piper sometime in life.  Better in HS than in college.  [/quote]

I disagree that the reason your child is finding the workload heavier than expected is because he is “bright but not brilliant”.

I’m sure the COVID disruption left some weak areas, but I’m not convinced the new selection criteria weakened the overall performance level of the selected students. I was very concerned when they changed the criteria for the middle school magnets, but from what I’ve been able to glean from DCUM, the student quality remains high. MCPS needs to expand the number of slots. I’ve thought for years that once they narrowed the pool to the top students, it basically came down to chance as to which magnet caliber students were admitted and which were denied. It’s hard to tell with the process being so opaque, but it may well be that they’re still picking top students, but weighing the chance of admission for and against certain groups.

[/quote]

The new criteria favored the more naturally gifted over the prep squad.  As a teacher, I could see the crop was more able to pick up new concepts and adapt compared with the kids admitted under the old system who often struggled to keep up since all that prep made them appear gifted but the reality was they were just average kids. Many of the new kids started out with less but quickly surpassed the kids admitted under the old system because of their innate talent. [/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics