Reply to Anyone know when HGC letters are sent and how much time u have to accept/decline?

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Reply to "Anyone know when HGC letters are sent and how much time u have to accept/decline?"

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[quote=Anonymous]On the issues of race playing a part in selection in any magnet process.  Under the SC decision Eisenberg, that is patently illegal.  Neither race nor gender can play a part in the selection process.  At all public meetings I have attended, magnet selection people have been very careful to acknowledge this reality.

If race and gender are playing a role "under the table," it would still be illegal, but, of course, much harder to prove.  In general, FOIA and the appeals process together provide you with rights to see information about your child and the basis for decisions made.  Any appealing family who was able to document that their child had higher scores on all instruments considered in the admissions process than another accepted candidate of a different race or gender would have a decent case that the acceptance was based on race or gender, which is illegal.

The way that MCPS has gotten around the Eisenberg decision in the non-competitive magnets is to use FARMS status as a factor in the decision-making.  FARMS status is not taken into account in the HGC or middle school magnet selection.  But, using FARMS status is legal because it is not race (although it is used as a proxy for race).  MCPS may also legally use "geographic diversity" as a factor in the admit process, i.e. the idea that every school in the cluster should have some students admitted to the HGC (or middle school magnet).  This would also be legal.

The MCPS statistics on percentage of kids applying and admitted by ethnic group would seem to indicate that race is not playing a role in any systematic way.  These statistics show that some racial groups are admitted at a rate higher than their overall presence in the population, and some racial groups are under-represented compared to their overall population rate in the school system.

I am a parent of kids who have applied to TPES magnet, an HGC and middle school magnet, sometimes successfully and sometimes unsuccessfully.  I think it's really important that diversity be increased in the magnets.  But, I think it's a disservice to kids of every color to do that thru explicit admits on the basis of race.  I think MCPS should be focusing more on recruiting a more diverse pool of kids to apply.  They should also focus on the admissions process which really weights against minority/low income kids.  And, they should focus on the financial and logistical reality of going to a magnet, which discourages many minorities/low income families from applying.

To be clear, I don't believe admits on the basis of race or gender happen, but if people have information that it is they should be explicit about naming officials or meetings where this has been described.

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