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

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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][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]You need a critical mass of highly able students in the same classroom, a good program, and good teachers for this to be successful. Montgomery county benefited from the national awards won by Blair, Poolesville, and RM students, by increased tax revenue for instance. It is simply not possible to achieve the same level of success with regional programs. There won't be enough interested and capable students to justify the same level of classes at the same number of classes. There won't be enough teachers capable of teaching these classes at the same level they are taught today. For all practical purposes, this is the end of a very successful program. Sad.[/quote]

Totally agree. It’s just impossible to duplicate those highly successful programs across all six regions. Eventually, the so-called magnet programs in each region will become just regular programs with a few advanced classes.

But I guess no one cares. [/quote]

Please explain what you mean by "highly successful" and why they need to stay at their current locations and not be expanded. Will the current students not do well at other locations?[/quote]

Different person by the way.

Blair SMCS has courses that are "more advanced," but are actually unique and taught by very skilled teachers. Spreading the program thin into 5 regions would kill it. It would just be an illusion of "expanding opportunity." The program would just end up being like honors for all.

Also, these magnets are successful because they have many highly motivated and high achieving students in 1 program. That is why Blair has consistently been at the top of the nation in terms of academics and competitions. It is also why Blair's students are able to organize clubs and tournaments for the community, like their math tournament, which gets a few hundred participants every year. [/quote]

Blair magnet is highly regarded because they bus a highly selective group of kids cherry picked from one of the largest and wealthy school districts in the county to it. Those kids will now just stay closer to home and aren’t leaving the county. The classes and teachers are the smallest of variables.

What will happen is Blair will drop to one of the worst high schools in the county just like eastern middle. Unable to hide behind the boost in perception and test scores provided by the program and middle class parents will be pushing there kids to sign up for what ever program is offered in BCC or Whitman even if it is basket weaving to make it easier for poor kids to opt in there.[/quote]

No logic to your argument. Because there is a critical mass of highly able motivated students at Blair the class offerings are extremely advanced and the teachers have decades of experience teaching them. There is no way to replicate this for 10 highly able students at another high school vs 100 at Blair. The classes offered and the teachers available, plus also the number of truly gifted kids in the region are all key.

And no one is going out of county. You do understand that Blair is in Montgomery county, don’t you?[/quote]

Oh, I think a lot of students, including the highly able, will be looking at private schools with this new regional program system. If I was a private school president, I would immediately start planning how I could duplicate one of the magnets now that MCPS is changing its system.[/quote]

They can’t possibly replicate it. [/quote]

That might be so, but since MCPS is, in effect, tossing these programs aside, some private schools might try to try to fill that void.[/quote]

:lol:  :lol:  :lol:  Nope. [/quote]

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