Anonymous wrote:MCPS uses geographic location as a proxy for race and exercises racial modeling. Basically too many Asians were taking up spots in the magnets. MCPS has been clear that to them this is a problem. In the 90s, they lost court cases when they tried to use race as a criteria to balance racial demographics for transfer requests (per the Metis report). MCPS is now trying to use geographic location and "cohort" to achieve racial modeling.

If you live in a area with a large asian population/high performing then its very unlikely that your kids will get in. Your kid can get a 99% and be rejected while a kid (even a white kid) in a low performing school can get a 96% and get in. Your kids will get to take a class with an enriched label but it isn't the same curriculum as the magnet and not much different than the courses in the home school before. Welcome to MCPS!

Anonymous wrote:Here is one of the recommendations from the Metis choice study:

Implement modifications to the selection process used for academically competitive
programs in MCPS, comprising elementary centers for highly gifted students and secondary
magnet programs, to focus these programs on selecting equitably from among those
applicants that demonstrate a capacity to thrive in the program, that include use of non-
cognitive criteria, group-specific norms that benchmark student performance against school
peers with comparable backgrounds, and/or a process that offers automatic admissions to
the programs for students in the top 5-10% of sending elementary or middle schools in the
district.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A cohort of academic peers has nothing to do with race. It seems perfectly legitimate to accept kids who do not have a cohort of academic peers in their home school. This "proxy for race" argument just sounds like embittered people looking for scapegoats.

Except the goal of the whole reform was to increase URM representation in the magnet problem. The goal was set first. Then MCPS found a way. Not the other way around.

And increasing the representation of under-represented people is bad because...?

Because they are not as qualified as the "overrepresented" people as shown by test scores..?

Test scores are not the only criteria.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A cohort of academic peers has nothing to do with race. It seems perfectly legitimate to accept kids who do not have a cohort of academic peers in their home school. This "proxy for race" argument just sounds like embittered people looking for scapegoats.

Except the goal of the whole reform was to increase URM representation in the magnet problem. The goal was set first. Then MCPS found a way. Not the other way around.

And increasing the representation of under-represented people is bad because...?

Because they are not as qualified as the "overrepresented" people as shown by test scores..?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Except the goal of the whole reform was to increase URM representation in the magnet problem. The goal was set first. Then MCPS found a way. Not the other way around.

The goal wasn't just to increase URM representation, it was also to reduce Asian participation. MCPS has been pretty transparent about its concern that Asians are over represented in the magnets and over perform.

Where is your evidence for this? Right. The concern is to bring up the performance of black and hispanic kids to that of white and asian kids, has nothing to do with targeting asian students per se. A problem is that using school location as a proxy for race doesn't always work. Admits of black kids went up somewhat but hispanic hardly at all. The number of Asian admits went down, but not by that much, it's just that they were heavily concentrated in the very high achieving cohorts of the Bethesda/Potomac area. Asian students remain the highest percentage of admits, at least as of last year.

Actually, Asian American admit rate drop was pretty high, higher than the increased rate for URM. And yes, Asian American students are over represented in elite academic programs/schools. So? Maybe it's because they deserve it because they work harder?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A cohort of academic peers has nothing to do with race. It seems perfectly legitimate to accept kids who do not have a cohort of academic peers in their home school. This "proxy for race" argument just sounds like embittered people looking for scapegoats.

Except the goal of the whole reform was to increase URM representation in the magnet problem. The goal was set first. Then MCPS found a way. Not the other way around.

And increasing the representation of under-represented people is bad because...?

Because they are not as qualified as the "overrepresented" people as shown by test scores..?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A cohort of academic peers has nothing to do with race. It seems perfectly legitimate to accept kids who do not have a cohort of academic peers in their home school. This "proxy for race" argument just sounds like embittered people looking for scapegoats.

Except the goal of the whole reform was to increase URM representation in the magnet problem. The goal was set first. Then MCPS found a way. Not the other way around.

And increasing the representation of under-represented people is bad because...?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Except the goal of the whole reform was to increase URM representation in the magnet problem. The goal was set first. Then MCPS found a way. Not the other way around.

The goal wasn't just to increase URM representation, it was also to reduce Asian participation. MCPS has been pretty transparent about its concern that Asians are over represented in the magnets and over perform.

Where is your evidence for this? Right. The concern is to bring up the performance of black and hispanic kids to that of white and asian kids, has nothing to do with targeting asian students per se. A problem is that using school location as a proxy for race doesn't always work. Admits of black kids went up somewhat but hispanic hardly at all. The number of Asian admits went down, but not by that much, it's just that they were heavily concentrated in the very high achieving cohorts of the Bethesda/Potomac area. Asian students remain the highest percentage of admits, at least as of last year.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A cohort of academic peers has nothing to do with race. It seems perfectly legitimate to accept kids who do not have a cohort of academic peers in their home school. This "proxy for race" argument just sounds like embittered people looking for scapegoats.

Except the goal of the whole reform was to increase URM representation in the magnet problem. The goal was set first. Then MCPS found a way. Not the other way around.

Anonymous wrote:

Except the goal of the whole reform was to increase URM representation in the magnet problem. The goal was set first. Then MCPS found a way. Not the other way around.

The goal wasn't just to increase URM representation, it was also to reduce Asian participation. MCPS has been pretty transparent about its concern that Asians are over represented in the magnets and over perform.

Anonymous wrote:

Except the goal of the whole reform was to increase URM representation in the magnet problem. The goal was set first. Then MCPS found a way. Not the other way around.

The goal wasn't just to increase URM representation, it was also to reduce Asian participation. MCPS has been pretty transparent about its concern that Asians are over represented in the magnets and over perform.

Anonymous wrote:

Except the goal of the whole reform was to increase URM representation in the magnet problem. The goal was set first. Then MCPS found a way. Not the other way around.

The goal wasn't just to increase URM representation, it was also to reduce Asian participation. MCPS has been pretty transparent about its concern that Asians are over represented in the magnets and over perform.