Reply to Prep for HGC and MS magnet tests

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I have had two of my three kids in HGC, one finish magnet middle and about to start magnet HS, and the other going into magnet MS. My oldest is not in the magnet system because we moved here from another state and it was too late for him to test.

What really infuriates me about this debate is how it turns parents on each other, all scrambling for limited spaces in the magnet programs when the real issue is why MCPS keeps the pie so small, and why it does such a terrible job of differentiating and accelerating kids who would thrive under acceleration throughout the school system while keeping them in their home schools. Newsflash -- the magnet programs are *not all that accelerated* in HGC and MS. My kid who went to a school system for K-5 in another state -- with no HGC label -- got just as good or better content and instruction in English, math, and science. There are far more kids in ES who would do just as well in the HGC as my kids or any of their classmates than are given the curriculum and instruction they need based on their potential. Hell, growing up and moving around multiple times to multiple school systems *I* got far better instruction, especially in English, than my HGC kids and magnet MS kid have gotten. The Eastern MS humanities curriculum is certainly *better* than the home MS humanities curriculum in our experience, but not actually all that different than regular instruction and curricula in high-performing school districts elsewhere that don't bear a G/T label.

The magnet programs here are not designed for the "tippy top" of brilliant children. These truly are not "gifted" programs in the most rigorous sense of that word. They're designed for smart and eager students who are able to go beyond what the current (poor) mainstream MCPS curriculum offers, and there are far more kids who fit that description than MCPS makes room for in its programs. And remember what Edison said about genius -- 1% inspiration, 99% perspiration and all that. When, with support and some catch-up coaching, kids whose learning opportunities to date have been short-changed by whatever combination of poor curriculum, poor instruction, and/or life circumstances that have not given them the opportunities and supports to do their best work can succeed in these higher-quality programs, the answer is not, from the school system side, to engage in social engineering to promote access for some and deny access to others. Neither should it be, from the parental side, to spend so much time prepping our individual kids so they have a leg up over other kids because we have the resources to coach them for the tests that were never designed in the first place to be the sole determinant of a kid's ability to do more challenging work.

Just think if all the parents who put so much money and effort into prepping their kids to fight for a slice of the tiny pie would devote even a fraction of their time to advocating for systemic change to make that pie bigger.[/quote]

The problem is that most don’t want the pie to be bigger. They want classrooms that look a certain way and the ability to brag how advanced their child is.[/quote]

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