Reply to Parents of current 7th graders - what do you think about the 6 regional magnets

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I have an academically strong 7th grader and I support the new programs. Here’s why.

According to the October 3rd I Hate Politics podcast, when the popular SMCS programs began at Blair and Poolesville High Schools in the 1980s, the organizers had just 20 days to implement the program from scratch. The success of the program was attributed to focusing on gifted and talented testing. They accepted students as low as 54 percentile in academic performance and were still successful.

In contrast, MCPS has allocated two whole  academic years, has historical information t guide them and has since shifted towards focusing instead on academic performance for criteria-based programs. I have no reason to believe that it isn’t possible to pull this off successfully.

Many parents and teachers point to MCPS in the past. However, I am confident in Taylor’s leadership so far. It is clear to me that he is listening and making intelligent, well thought-out choices for our district. He answered many of the questions asked here in the November 19th meeting with BOE.

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I admit I haven't listened to the podcast, but Poolesville SMCS opened in 2006 with the support of the Blair program. And the Blair program opened in 1985, but the program initial development started with a survey presented in 1982 followed by a task force that built all the plans before opening 3 years later. So opening a single magnet at Blair was a three year process and now they are planning to open new programs in every high school over less than two years. Also, it's great that Blair focused on gifted testing, but the county no longer uses gifted testing in their criteria. [/quote]

This +1. The pp that this post responded to must not listen to that podcast carefully, or intentionally trying to spread wrong perspectives. Rome is not built in one day, nor did these two SMCS programs. [/quote]

I am “the pp that [the] post responded to”. I went back and re-listened to the podcast to see where the discrepancy might be.

According to Eileen, MCPS had a meeting in January 1985 to look at what program would bring students into the Blair High School because it was not yet associated with high academic achievement. According to Bob who was collaborating with Eileen, back then teachers had more planning time and so they both spent over a hundred hours in each other’s classrooms. They then had about 20 paid days over the summer right before implementing it at Blair.

Bob started the Poolesville SMCS program and was involved in SMCS from the very start in 1985. It just wasn’t clear from the podcast that the programs were deployed 13 years from each other - Blair SMCS in 1985 with both coordinators and Poolesville SMCS in 2006 with Bob as coordinator so thank you to the poster who provided that clarification.

When asked about the feasibility of what MCPS is doing right now, they mentioned:

(1) Teacher quality: Teacher planning time was a core component as it allowed teachers to observe each other’s classrooms to determine which teacher was engaging to students, excited about their craft and willing to speak up;

(2) Student Quality: MCPS should “recreate” the Gifted and Talented Office and continue using Algebra I as a criterion and use essays that are done in-person to help weed out which students are passionate abd which ones are only indicating an interest because of a parent;

(3) Program Continuity and Flexibility: The dynamics of the program depend on continuity with teachers guiding students through how to do a presentation and work as a team and MCPS should trust teachers to adapt the program to current events

(4) Program Outcome: The main objective was for students to get into the college of their choice and the program coordinator felt it was successful at that

It would be good to highlight the areas where MCPS has departed from this approach and find out why.

Please correct me if I’m wrong but I believe that my point still stands that it did not take them long between deciding what programs to implement at Blair in January 1985 and full implementation from scratch at Blair by fall of 1985 and [b]so I have have full faith and confidence that MCPS’ timeline is achievable.[/b]

Source: IHatePolitics.com
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Some further clarification. This information is from the Blair magnet foundation website: “In 1982, the Superintendent and the Board of Education authorized a survey of a representative sample of prospective high school students and their parents to assess the level of interest in a magnet program with a focus on the Performing Arts or Mathematics/Science/Computer Science.  Sufficient interest was expressed in the latter, so a task force prepared a report of needed facility renovations, proposed program offerings and a  4-year budget needed for staff and other resources for such a program to begin at Blair"

So planning did start 3 years earlier, and it started with a survey to determine interest and demand. This time around, MCPS proposed doing a survey in the next few months, after making a plan that is not based on data and that ignored the planning committee input. Also, they are keeping existing regional programs that do not have a good track record without any plans or funds to figure out why the programs aren't successful and what is needed to make them successful.

I'm all for improving access, but the current plan is not the way to do that.
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