Reply to MCPS Local Magnet Middle School

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I think the key here is still keep a test-in requirement to prevent watering down the curriculum.[/quote]

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Do both.  Keep the magnets as is and increase magnet offerings in the home schools.

Frankly, there is no reason that magnet curriculum cannot be offered to home school students grouped by abilities within the homeschool. Why not?    But you will realize that there is no magnet curriculum per se and the magnet teachers do not have any special certification to teach magnet kids.

Magnet curriculum should be made public and be available online.  All students who want to access it should be allowed to at least access the curriculum, if not the instruction.

FWIW, my kids have been in the test-in magnets since ES and my youngest is in HS now.  He got into a highly selective STEM institute of technology. At this point the fate of magnet programs does not impact my children.

[/quote]

I do think the experience of teaching magnet kids does affect teacher ability, though. I have a kid in CES and the teaching style is so different. They give the kids a lot more ownership of their learning — less instruction and more exploration. The kids check their own math homework and figure out why they got work wrong. They never drill. They have multiple overlapping homework projects to plan and complete. The teachers spend a lot of time helping the kids learn to listen to other points of view and debate topics while listening to and responding to the points of others (these are kids who are used to being “right” and can really use some lessons in listening to other classmates!). They grade much more sternly, but with much more feedback. And they digress! My kid loves that his teacher often loops way from the original lesson plan to talk about some other point of interest.

It really seems like the way to teach MOST kids, and there is a joy and challenge to the class that I wish existed throughout the system.[/quote]

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