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][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]make sure you're looking at the most recent region groupings. The link on the MCPS message to region maps was an old version. Not all regions are east-to-west anymore. [/quote]

Do you have a link to the new maps?[/quote]

Starting on slide 23: https://go.boarddocs.com/mabe/mcpsmd/Board.nsf/files/DJVQ4P6782A9/$file/Sec%20Prog%20Analysis%20Boundary%20Studies%20Engaga%20Plan%20Update%20250724%20PPT.pdf[/quote]
So, they are going with option #5? - pg 26.[/quote]
DP. Yes. I think these boundaries balance higher and lower SES, and harmony of communities as much as possible. You cannot ignore harmony. I know a student from a very different community who was bussed into a program due to its opportunity at the insistence of their parent. That student was miserable and was elated at switching to a school community they could better resonate with at the first opportunity.[/quote]

No one wants forced bussing.  The best option is to put more money in the schools that don’t have much and make them equal.  The disparities are significant.  [b]A smart kid at a w school can get all their classes and academics met.  A smart kid dcc is forced to another school, Mc or go without. [/b] They don’t allow homeschooling or independent study or virtual classes outside Mcps.   Or, at least being back virtual so it aligns with MCPS schedules.

The demographics are changing in mcps in the dcc due to crazy housing prices.

Blair is a great program but not for all kids.  Not all kids want a magnet and prefer to choose their own classes and those kids should get the same opportunities.  One reason why dcc kids try for Blair is the other schools don’t have the academics and they leave which causes the low scores.  [/quote]

I think this is part of what MCPS is trying to figure out, and I credit Taylor with at least tackling it. My understanding is that they are going to make sure every school has a baseline number of advanced classes, and that they are currently auditing what is available where.

But we also need to be realistic and aim for what is possible. I think making sure every HS has AP Calculus BC is sufficient, and then bringing back virtual for MVC for some kids.

What other courses do you think every school should be offering? 
[/quote]
Does MCPS have enough good math teachers to teach AP BC calc in every HS?   There's a shortage of STEM teachers.  I don't think MCPS can find enough good teachers for math.

My kid wanted to take AB Calc but the teacher was so bad that they downgraded to Applied Calc.     A bad math teacher can make the class awful, and the kid to hate math.[/quote]

Then fix that part. But saying that there shouldn't be an advanced math class in every HS is terrible. And yes some schools may only offer one AP calc class and have 10 kids. That's ok. But someone will complain that too many resources are used on the 10 kids in that school while a W school has to have 3 sections of 30 kids in calculus and won't get funding for a 4th. [/quote]

40 kids to a class is normal.  Be thankful your school has it.  It’s not ok if they aren’t offering Mv and beyond while your school has multiple advanced classes.  [b]Why should my tax dollars fund your kids advance classes when my kids don’t get them?[/b][/quote]

Because your kid isn't smart enough to pass MV. Now, I said it!

dp[/quote]

Except my kid is and already did bc.  [/quote]

So nobody should get it if your kid cannot? Is that really where we are at? [/quote]

No, we are at all kids should have access to the same classes.  So mine should get the same as yours.  It’s unfair to kids who take bc sophomore year that they don’t have enough math classes to graduate.  [/quote]

So that means the magnets should be destroyed?[/quote]

You have zero evidence the magnets are being destroyed.  The world will not end if the current status quo changes from that which only kids from a few high school areas that are closest to the program sites attend.  Ideally they'd change the narrow selection criteria as well so it's not focused only on MAP-R or MAP-M scores, which are not designed to measure cognitive ability.[/quote]

Actually, the countywide magnets and SMCS will be destroyed. Said so during Q&A of the most recent BOE mtg. It is their plan NOT to replicate these programs.[/quote]

They didn't say destroyed.  They said they would all be regional, not countywide, and that each reguon would have some program that falls within the same magnet category (e.g., STEM).

The interpretation by some, here, is that there are not enough capable students, and perhaps not enough capable teachers, to support the same kinds of high-level & specialized classes that have been available at the county-wide/semi-county-wide magnets.  That interpretation and the assumptions on which it is based are the subjects of debate.

The thing that MCPS [i]hasn't[/i] clarified is whether each regional magnet will operate at the same level, not only as each other, but as the original county-wide/semi-county-wide magnets, offering similar, if not the same, depth, breadth and rigor to meet the needs of the highly able students attending.  This reticence, combined with MCPS's history over the past 3 or so decades of withholding pertinet information to limit opposition to internally determined plans, lends credence to some of the concerns expressed, even if some of the underlying assumptions regarding the prevalence and dispersion of student and teacher capability might be incorrect.  Deep, persistent questions on this issue, and the parallel issue of truly equitable access to local high-level courses outside of the magnets, should be, and, sadly, should already have been but were not, among the very first asked by the BOE.[/quote]

Yes, this is my concern.  Say they kept the current countywide magnets exactly as-is, but open to only the students in those new regions. And then each region offered something in the content area, but not at the level of the current program. Doesn’t that just reduce even the possibility of access for most of the county?

Sorry, top 10% art kid in region 2. VAC still exists, but not for you. Have this other, yet-to-be-defined, art program instead. Who needs a 50-year history and proven success?  Not you![/quote]

Want the VAC, move to the area.  Simple.[/quote]

[b]Aside from the possibility that the PP is a Wooton parent really concerned (and rightly so) about losing access to Blair SMCS[/b] (whether or not that, itself, survives at its current level) and the risk of whatever the Wheaton STEM magnet becomes offering a pale shadow in comparison (at least for the first few years), hoping to rope in others with the VAC example, instead (again, not a bad thing, either strategically or ethically; you can provide whatever probability of this fits your mindset :wink:), the idea behind suggesting that a family should have to move within a school district to access educational opportunity meeting their children's needs is the most persistent of inequities we have in the county.  It also feeds, via the predjudice of low expectation and other factors, the deepest of those inequities, and the one about which central admin and the BOE spend the bulk of their time analyzing, discussing and trying to address, sadly overlooking the possibility of doing the admittedly harder work of addressing both.[/quote]

PP here. I’ve had kids at both the VAC and Blair SMCS. We live in region 1 anyway, so we’d continue to have access to both programs - we’re not directly affected.

That said, I still think it stinks to give at most 1/6 of kids continued access to a proven, award-winning, countywide magnet while giving everyone else the opportunity to play guinea pig in a new, untested program.

And, I know this board loves STEM, but I think my VAC kid would be less likely to get a workable replacement in the new system. Would my SMCS student have had the same range and selection of college-level STEM courses in the new system?  Probably not. But they’d be fine with a variety of AP math & science courses and a few cool electives. I don’t see a less-intensive art equivalent serving the same function for my VAC student. [/quote]

I guess you missed the part about SMCS not existing anymore.Blairs magnet will be whatever the new STEM thing is.  [/quote]

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