Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You are right it does show strong cohorts. It ALSO SHOWS that magnet quality has gone down and the Curriculum is in actuality being “watered down.”

I have read some version of this in various threads and feel the need to respond. You have no idea what is going on in these magnet programs. If you could see the breadth and depth of the curriculum, the creativity of the assignments, the rigor and challenge that stretch both understanding and knowledge, it would take your breath away. It's night and day compared to what's offered at a local MS. It makes a CTY class feel both inadequate and trivial. DC's critical thinking and writing has improved by leaps and bounds at Eastern. I assume a similar story is unfolding at TPMS.

This is the kind of education ALL of our kids deserve. We should be pushing MCPS to replicate this program in all middle schools.

Let me preface this by saying, yes all kids deserve this kind of education, but in the meantime this is what mcps will be doing to the magnet program in the coming years.
It will and has been watered down. When more and more people who aren’t adequately prepared or willing to do the intense work in the magnets because they are either not motivated or simply can’t do the work, the teacher and curriculum follow suit and in turn give easier and lesss challenging work to the students so that the lowest student can keep up. This is essentially watering down the prgm. Mkay do you understand what I am saying. Stay in your lane.

Can any 6th grade parents comment on this?
My child is in a non-lottery, universal screening grade. There are some families with siblings who attended the program a few years ago before the changes and they do say the classes look a bit different. In the past the magnets were a self-selected group. The students and their parents had to be pretty motivated to even apply and now it's more diverse. I don't mean just by race or SES but also but interests, background and strengths. You'll still find many drama kids and kids that are working on their novels in their spare time but it's not everyone. I'm sure some people think this is a bad thing.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You are right it does show strong cohorts. It ALSO SHOWS that magnet quality has gone down and the Curriculum is in actuality being “watered down.”

I have read some version of this in various threads and feel the need to respond. You have no idea what is going on in these magnet programs. If you could see the breadth and depth of the curriculum, the creativity of the assignments, the rigor and challenge that stretch both understanding and knowledge, it would take your breath away. It's night and day compared to what's offered at a local MS. It makes a CTY class feel both inadequate and trivial. DC's critical thinking and writing has improved by leaps and bounds at Eastern. I assume a similar story is unfolding at TPMS.

This is the kind of education ALL of our kids deserve. We should be pushing MCPS to replicate this program in all middle schools.

This is kind of fiction. I have two children in back to back grades with one going to a magnet and one who turned down the same magnet to stay at the local school. Their experiences are not that different other than the magnet child having more homework, but it may depend on the middle school. The regular MS is very high performing, and many teachers are excellent.

That is why you don’t understand. Please try to imagine it isn’t fiction if it doesn’t specifically apply to you and your child. There are many middle schools in the county that do not provide meaningful enrichment.

Agree. I probably misinterpreted your don't-recreate-magnet-for-1-to-3 to mean it would be OK to do so in a school with lots of such kids, but that a school with the 1-3 shouldn't do more than advance those kids a curricular grade (which doesn't meet the need of a GT student the way that a highly-enriched magnet/magnet-equivalent program would). MCPS shouldn't be leaving these local outliers out in the cold.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I, for one, believe that higher performing students without a similarly talented cohort of classmates should be airlifted out of that school. Not even a lottery. Just get them out and put them somewhere they can grow

Absolutely. Every high performing student in a high FARMS school should be offered the choice to enroll in a magnet program and they should just create enough seats to make this happen. Or alternatively, create more magnet programs in high FARMS schools and reserve seats for every high performing student in the host school.

I don't see any point in trying to re-create the magnet curriculum where there are just 1-3 high performers. Just offer those few a chance to work at their level and not the level of their lower performing classmates.

And if you are the parent of a 99% kid worried that a magnet full of 91% kids may impede your child's progress - just try imagining being the parent of an 91% kid in a school where most everyone else is performing at 50% or lower.

Substitute the words "just 1-3 special needs students" in that sentence and see how it lies with you. Remember, IEPs aren't just "[working] at their level."

Alternately, if it's good enough for those 1-3, why not for some 20 or 30 in a different school? Offering something to one group but not the other is inherently inequitable.

To your first point I say "Yes!! That is something to think about. Maybe those 1-3 should be airlifted into a school / program that is better for them?"

I don't get your twist on the second point? But maybe I'm just tired? I think that schools should get the resources they need to support the students they have. But if they only have 1-3 students in a given cohort then those kids should be considered for programs in schools that DO have kids with similar needs

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I, for one, believe that higher performing students without a similarly talented cohort of classmates should be airlifted out of that school. Not even a lottery. Just get them out and put them somewhere they can grow

Absolutely. Every high performing student in a high FARMS school should be offered the choice to enroll in a magnet program and they should just create enough seats to make this happen. Or alternatively, create more magnet programs in high FARMS schools and reserve seats for every high performing student in the host school.

I don't see any point in trying to re-create the magnet curriculum where there are just 1-3 high performers. Just offer those few a chance to work at their level and not the level of their lower performing classmates.

And if you are the parent of a 99% kid worried that a magnet full of 91% kids may impede your child's progress - just try imagining being the parent of an 91% kid in a school where most everyone else is performing at 50% or lower.

Substitute the words "just 1-3 special needs students" in that sentence and see how it lies with you. Remember, IEPs aren't just "[working] at their level."

Alternately, if it's good enough for those 1-3, why not for some 20 or 30 in a different school? Offering something to one group but not the other is inherently inequitable.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I, for one, believe that higher performing students without a similarly talented cohort of classmates should be airlifted out of that school. Not even a lottery. Just get them out and put them somewhere they can grow

Absolutely. Every high performing student in a high FARMS school should be offered the choice to enroll in a magnet program and they should just create enough seats to make this happen. Or alternatively, create more magnet programs in high FARMS schools and reserve seats for every high performing student in the host school.

I don't see any point in trying to re-create the magnet curriculum where there are just 1-3 high performers. Just offer those few a chance to work at their level and not the level of their lower performing classmates.

And if you are the parent of a 99% kid worried that a magnet full of 91% kids may impede your child's progress - just try imagining being the parent of an 91% kid in a school where most everyone else is performing at 50% or lower.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I, for one, believe that higher performing students without a similarly talented cohort of classmates should be airlifted out of that school. Not even a lottery. Just get them out and put them somewhere they can grow

Absolutely. Every high performing student in a high FARMS school should be offered the choice to enroll in a magnet program and they should just create enough seats to make this happen. Or alternatively, create more magnet programs in high FARMS schools and reserve seats for every high performing student in the host school.

Anonymous wrote:I, for one, believe that higher performing students without a similarly talented cohort of classmates should be airlifted out of that school. Not even a lottery. Just get them out and put them somewhere they can grow

Anonymous wrote:That post says explicitly that it may depend on the local middle school that you are comparing the magnet to but the point which you seem to have missed is that they are not that unique and special in the county. You can have a great enriched program locally which is what MCPS should aim to be doing for all the highly able students.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sligo MS also has similar number of highly-abled kids to Pyle although it has less than half the student population of Pyle. Sligo has only 700 kids at that school. It really makes you think differently about Pyle when you look at these numbers.

I suspect that Pyle suffers from "brain drain" caused by the siphoning off of highly-abled students into private schools in the area. Westland too.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You are right it does show strong cohorts. It ALSO SHOWS that magnet quality has gone down and the Curriculum is in actuality being “watered down.”

I have read some version of this in various threads and feel the need to respond. You have no idea what is going on in these magnet programs. If you could see the breadth and depth of the curriculum, the creativity of the assignments, the rigor and challenge that stretch both understanding and knowledge, it would take your breath away. It's night and day compared to what's offered at a local MS. It makes a CTY class feel both inadequate and trivial. DC's critical thinking and writing has improved by leaps and bounds at Eastern. I assume a similar story is unfolding at TPMS.

This is the kind of education ALL of our kids deserve. We should be pushing MCPS to replicate this program in all middle schools.

This is kind of fiction. I have two children in back to back grades with one going to a magnet and one who turned down the same magnet to stay at the local school. Their experiences are not that different other than the magnet child having more homework, but it may depend on the middle school. The regular MS is very high performing, and many teachers are excellent.

That is why you don’t understand. Please try to imagine it isn’t fiction if it doesn’t specifically apply to you and your child. There are many middle schools in the county that do not provide meaningful enrichment.

Your post was over the top exaggerated: "If you could see the breadth and depth of the curriculum, the creativity of the assignments, the rigor and challenge that stretch both understanding and knowledge, it would take your breath away. It's night and day compared to what's offered at a local MS. It makes a CTY class feel both inadequate and trivial."

If your child is in a low performing middle school I'm sure the magnets will look terrific, but so would Frost, Hoover, SSI, Pyle,