Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't understand the skepticism on this thread. I've seen good things happen when parents organize. It's easy to ignore one parent but more difficult to ignore a well organized group of parents of high achieving children especially if these same parents are active in the school.

NP

We have tried. A groups of parents worked hard to advocate at our ES a few years ago and got nothing. It’s incredibly frustrating.

So now I worry about my own kid and spend my time and energy and resources on her.

They only care about the gap and the only way to close it is to bring everyone else down.

Anonymous wrote:I would not be confident in any reassurances from the principal on what might be provided.

Here's how that will go down. Kids whose parents refuse to spend time with their kids and the kids struggle will get 99% of all resources. Kids who might have done well in a CES program will get ignored.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wow, if my kids' school educated my kids so well that they ended up with 99th percentile scores, I'd be grateful not looking for "leverage" to get them to do something different. I don't understand why a kid "needs" enrichment if they are doing that well.

-- parent of two 99th percentile kids (out of 3) who will never understand this mentality.

?
Guaranteed the kids are 99 percentile because of genetic IQ, not MCPS interference.

If you don’t view education as something that is helpful to your kid, and think the results are all things that happen outside school, then why would you try to shift resources and focus away from kids in need to your kid?

You probably feel very emotional and invested in this, but beware: I don't think you're seeing it very clearly.

1. The school WANTS to (maybe needs to) send kids to the CES. Doesn't really matter if they're your kids or not. With MCPS being very focused on equity these days, they may PREFER to send kids that aren't your kids and keep your kids at the home school...no deals needed to keep them happy.

2. They don't have to offer you anything, and even if they do, principals leave all the time. We had two leave over the summer (after 3rd, after 6th) with no warning.

3. Frankly, and I don't think you mean to be like this, you and your "pact" sound obnoxiously presumptuous, to assume that 1. your kids will get in (especially in the much wider lottery-based system) and that 2. you won't come across as really entitled with a request like this. You have NO idea how other kids test. You may know they receive free lunch, or seem different than your kid, but you have NO IDEA where the other kids stand with these admissions. Is this perhaps an effort to sidestep rejection, if you're all worried your kid will not be admitted, or worse, will be the only one not admitted of the "core group?" I get that, but let it go. You'll all be fine.

4. You can make all the pacts you want: guarantee you that at least 1, probably more, families will still enter the lottery and send their kid if they are admitted.


I have a kid to went to CES 3 years ago with the different type of admissions. It was great. If I were you, and could swing the transit, I'd just see what happens and go if you get in. It's a great program.

The question is… what can be negotiated with the principal? If I can get several families to commit to staying at our school (5 families would represent as many as half of the very highest scoring kids), would that provide us any leverage? E.g., we take our kids out of the running for CES, so you’ll keep our high-scoring students, and in return, you provide us with additional enrichment

This isn't going to work. MCPS is going to remove 5 kids from the school no matter what, because they want to keep representation at the regional CES programs reasonably balanced. So even if it isn't YOUR 5 kids, it's going to be the 5 kids whose parents agree to send them.

More to the point, if you truly believe that the G/T programs as currently set up are racist/classist in origin and in execution (they are), then you need to be willing to pull your child out of the running without any promises of extra attention. PP was kind of blunt, but also correct. Your 99 percenter is going to be fine - lots of kids go and do not go to the CES program for a laundry list of reasons and they all end up in the same place. So, if sending your child to a pull-out program is not a good fit for your personal values, then you have that option, but you can't use it to leverage even more advantages for kids who already have quite a few.

Anonymous wrote:LOL! The reality is that the largest group that will be shat upon by MCPS in the magnet selection will be Asian-Americans. They have the most to lose because college and jobs are stacked against their children. Magnet or enriched education is a necessity for them for college admissions, not just a "good to have". If the magnet education is not available to their children, they will do their best to enrich by themselves because they are not lacking in education themselves. They are also likely to spend on education by cutting corners on every other aspect of their life because it is a swim or sink scenario for them. They are also likely to have least amount of faith on MCPS or any talk of "equity" because they know that they are targeted. So, it is hard to get them to "speak up" against the administration as they don't want any retaliatory action against their kids. They have learned to bite their tongue and just work harder. Anyways, it is nice of OP to think of the whole community and I wish her best of luck.

Also, "brain drain" is a lot better than "brain in the drain".

Please do not wrap an entire race into a stereotypical manner. If you are of the race spoken for, speak for your own self - your views do not represent mine. If not, do not use my race as a card for whatever agenda you are after. The fact that someone would think I will have the least amount of faith in any talk of equity, purely based on how I look, is extremely troublesome.

Anonymous wrote:I don't understand the skepticism on this thread. I've seen good things happen when parents organize. It's easy to ignore one parent but more difficult to ignore a well organized group of parents of high achieving children especially if these same parents are active in the school.

NP

We have tried. A groups of parents worked hard to advocate at our ES a few years ago and got nothing. It’s incredibly frustrating.

So now I worry about my own kid and spend my time and energy and resources on her.

Anonymous wrote:Wow, if my kids' school educated my kids so well that they ended up with 99th percentile scores, I'd be grateful not looking for "leverage" to get them to do something different. I don't understand why a kid "needs" enrichment if they are doing that well.

-- parent of two 99th percentile kids (out of 3) who will never understand this mentality.

?
Guaranteed the kids are 99 percentile because of genetic IQ, not MCPS interference.

Anonymous wrote:What is CES?

Centers for Enriched Studies - magnet program (focused on reading/writing) for 4th/5th graders.

You should work with the MCCPTA Gifted Ed committee, which is trying to expand ELC to all schools next year, as well as ask your principal and reading specialist how they meet needs of advanced learners in ELA — not just in 4th/5th but in 3rd too. Ask if they are using the enriched Benchmark options like Jr Great Books, Jacobs Ladder, and William & Mary.

I have seen similar negotiations for magnet MS vs home, at the end, most kids who got in went to the magnet

Lets be real. A parent will tell you one thing and if their kid gets in and they choose to send them they will. You are very lucky you get all that you do. We only got compacted math, no enriched language arts or extra math. So, that is why many parents push it. We got very very little.

Maybe the school should work on educating poor students better. I’m UMC and realized a while ago that school wasn’t educating my kid beyond a mediocre level. So I supplement, lots of reading, museums, tutors and lots of extracurriculars.

Anonymous wrote:I don't understand the skepticism on this thread. I've seen good things happen when parents organize. It's easy to ignore one parent but more difficult to ignore a well organized group of parents of high achieving children especially if these same parents are active in the school.

You need a couple of Big Law parents to make things happen. They certainly make things happen in W schools or schools where W students go for special programs.

What is CES?