Reply to Getting into Takoma Park Middle School's magnet as a boy

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Me too! (OP here)

His exact questions to MCPS were "Does MCPS take the gender or socioeconomic status of the student applicant into account in admission decisions for TP or Eastern's Middle School application programs?" And same question but does MCPS take into account the "FARMS rate (or other socioeconomic indicator) of the home/sending middle school."

This was the response--to both questions: "MCPS can consider this information but this information cannot be the reason for inviting or not inviting a student."

So, I offered to ask for some real-life answers from real-life people on this list serve.[/quote]

Gender and race are not permissible considerations for admission to these magnets. This is well-settled law after the Eisenstein case.  I have heard many MCPS staff involved in the magnet administration or application process say this.  More girls apply to Eastern and more boys apply to Takoma, but MCPS is not allowed to even out the genders in the admissions process.  Thus, a higher percent of the entering class is female at Eastern, and a higher percent of the entering class at Takoma is male.

Unlike race and gender, socioeconomic status is not a protected status in the law, and so schools can make decisions on this basis.  The "choice" magnets like Loiderman explicitly use socioeconomic status as part of the decision-making process.

Eastern and Takoma, if they do it, are not explicit about it.  But, all magnet programs (HGCs and Takoma and Eastern) have long said the magnet programs exist to serve students whose needs could not otherwise be met in their home school.  Thus, if you are a very advanced academic learner and come from a high-FARMS rate school where no advanced math is offered and where there is no peer group for an advanced World Studies or English class, then you might be favored (as long as you meet other criteria like testing and recommendations) over a similarly situated child whose home school would offer advanced math and/or reading.  The competitive magnets also clearly try to accept a few students from each school in the cluster, thus favoring socioeconomic status to some degree (although this is not apportioned on an individual basis necessarily).  
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