Reply to How is the new pilot offering equivalent to TPMS/Eastern

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[quote=Anonymous]Going back to the OP's question which is whether the new pilot would be equivalent I think the short answer is probably not.  I realize that MCPS has not given us any details of these two classes but I don't think it is possible to replicate the magnet experience in the home school because:
1.  Peer cohort.  Eastern and TPMS bring together the most motivated and highest performing kids from 20 home middle schools and this does create a special learning environment and allows teachers to move more quickly and dig deeper.  It is one of the most important (and most subtle) advantages of a true magnet program.
2.  At Eastern at least, you have three magnet courses (four in sixth grade) and the teachers coordinate with each other throughout the year.  So for example, in 6th grade when you learn about the Russian Empire in World Studies, you would be reading Animal Farm in English.  During Greek Fest you learn about Greek history and culture in World Studies, read Greek myths in English and this culminates in an all day interdisciplinary festival where students participate in Socratic debates, display posters about famous Greeks they have researched, write and perform skits that meld modern media tools and Greek mythology and screen Greek themed animation shorts they made in their media class.
In seventh grade, they research and write a ten page research paper which is more involved than anything my child has done in high school including AP courses.  They spend two days in the UMD library doing research and are expected to use scholarly books and articles as part of their research.  This paper is a project that is jointly supervised by their history and english teachers.
In eighth grade they do smaller projects but many of them are interdisciplinary.  The CSPAN documentary for example (you may have seen the thread about the number of Eastern kids who won awards this year) is primarily a media project but the students find their topics as a result of work they do in their 8th grade US History class.  They make several documentaries that year and I would say all of them are heavily informed by material they learn in their US History class.
3.  The workload is quite high and one of the reasons the middle school and high school magnet programs have been so successful is because they have typically screened for intelligence (Cogat and MAP scores), ability/study skills (grades and teacher recs.) and motivation (teacher recs and application essays).  It also means that the curricula and expectations are not likely to be dumbed down and watered down over time.
There are tons of projects and papers every single year and the expectations are really high.  Even classes like media which sounds easy involve a lot of work especially in 8th grade when you make a few documentaries, and work on several other projects including a capstone personal project (my son for example wrote an eighty page novella).  
One of the main reasons the kids get so much out of the program is because the teachers give them very demanding projects and papers and expect them to perform at a high level.
The interdisciplinary projects are especially tough because every year there are several time periods when you have multiple projects and papers due simultaneously in all of your magnet classes.  I have to say though that as stressful as that can be, these are the experiences my kid got the most out of because he was only able to make deep and meaningful connections across the disciplines as a result of these cross and interdisciplinary projects.
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