Reply to High points from MS magnet at Blair tonight

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]  
I have mixed feelings about the test prep centers.  My personal opinion is that they do not necessarily give children an unfair advantage.  [b]What gives many of these children an advantage is that they are more likely to be hard working, come from families that prize education etc.[/b]  I would not be surprised if many of these kids would have succeeded without the prep center.  I am not convinced that the majority of magnet kids have gone to a prep center- I personally don't know many who did.  I will also restate what I said earlier - you need a combination of raw ability and years of practice and hard work to get in and to succeed in the HS and to some extent the MS magnets.  Kids who have a lot of raw ability but don't have the competency that comes with years of practice will have a tough time AND kids who work really hard or perhaps prep a lot but don't have a lot of raw ability will also have a hard time.  I actually think the current HS magnet selection process does a decent job of identifying kids who have both qualities in abundance- raw ability as well as the proficiency that comes with years of hard work and practice.[/quote]

[b]This is true, if by "hard working" you mean "willing to do what they're told to do", and by "families that prize education" you mean "parents that are willing and able to spend money on test prep classes[/b]".[/quote]

No that is not what I mean.  
I really don't think more than 15% of magnet students have attended prep courses and that might not even have been the deciding factor in getting them admission although I am sure there are a handful for whom it made the difference.
However, there is no doubt that the families I meet in the magnet program care about their child's education very strongly.  These are families who have been reading to their children since they were babies, taken them to museums in strollers. and generally pursued as many enrichment activities as possible.  These are also by and large families with highly educated parents and so I think they do have a good idea about what it takes to be successful especially in Math and Science - you need a lot of practice over many, many years.  I never sent my kid to a test prep center but I did work with Singapore Math materials every summer through 6th grade because I felt the MCPS math curriculum did not stress the essentials enough.  My child was not always keen on spending 45 minutes a day 3 or 4 times a week on Math during the summer vacation and it did take some convincing but I think it was important.  [/quote]

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