Reply to MCPS to end areawide Blair Magnet and countywide Richard Montgomery's IB program

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]How about each school has advanced (gifted, whatever you want to call it, but truly advanced) classes so kids at all schools can access rigorous courses if they are ready for the material? Beginning in elementary school so there’s no more of this lottery nonsense where some people get a golden ticket to go to special snowflake magnet programs and other equally eligible students get nothing. I hate all the gate keeping this county does. If anyone is so convinced that their kid needs to go to Blair or Richard Montgomery to access the most advanced classes, and that the only way their kid’s advanced educational abilities and needs can be adequately served is by the county making so few spots available that those few people can feel so special that they got in, those people are delusional. [/quote]

The delusional ones are those that claim that “gifted” programs at every school can truly be advanced. Or that there are enough specialized teachers to provide the breadth of advanced classes available at Blair at every school. [/quote]

Whatever you say. All I know is that MCPS has started identifying elementary and middle school students for magnet programs and then placing those kids in lotteries. How is it fair to identify kids for programs and then not provide it to them? And then how does that not trickle up to application programs at the high school level? If kids in a math magnet in middle school get extra exposure to classes and content, and equally eligible students who didn’t lottery in didn’t get that same benefit, who has the better shot at the math program at Blair? And how is that fair? This is public school. I’ll take a baseline gifted program in every single school over some arbitrary lottery  that picks winners and losers among equally eligible kids. People like you who want to gatekeep must not have ever been on the losing side of MCPS’s arbitrariness, but I can tell you it’s frustrating. I also find it hard to believe that a school system as big as MCPS can’t find enough good teachers to teach the classes Blair offers and do it well. But I guess let’s never try so you can continue to believe that this is the only way. [/quote]

My oldest is 7, so what do I know, but I’d rather not gamble that my kids win all the lotteries and make the cut for the very top high school magnets.  And not just them, but all their friends.[/quote]

I have a kid in the Blair magnet and it’s not for everyone. It’s an extremely advanced, intense program. It’s tough. It’s only suitable for the most motivated, most organized students who are extremely hard working and grasp concepts very quickly. The selection process is good, but some of the kids selected are probably not in the right place. This assumption that thousands of kids could benefit from such a pace is misplaced. Not everyone needs to be accelerated to that extent and, by the time your 7 year old is getting ready for high school, you likely will also know whether that would be the right place for then. It’s not the right place for the vast majority of kids. Most kids are not ready for calculus in sophomore year.[/quote]

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