Anonymous wrote:I know of at least 8 jewish boys in my sons grade at TPMS. The overwhelming majority of kids are Asian.

Don't know what TPMS you are attending, but when I looked around my son's magnet class, I saw a pretty diverse group of kids with no one in the majority.

The jewish population is about 4% of total population in DC and MD. If there are 8 jewish boys out of 125 at TPMS, that's only about 6% -- not overwhelmingly different from the general population.

What is the profile at Clemente?

Anonymous wrote:

Actually it is true for Takoma Magnet among 100 kids from the county (not additional 25 local kids who are Spanish, white, black etc).
Most kids are Asian (Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Vietnamese), some Indian.
Then you get small set of Jewish boys (very few Jewish girls since most do not focus on science),
plus small set of kids from parents who immigrated from Eastern Europe (Polish, Russian, Hungarian, Bulgarian etc.)
There are very few white kids who do not belong to categories mentioned above.
Parents whose kids are in Takoma have lists of magnet kids from all three grades.
Believe me you will have hard time to pronounce most First and Last names.

Oh, those foreigners with their hard-to-pronounce names. Not to mention those Jewish girls who aren't interested in science.

Good grief.

I know of at least 8 jewish boys in my sons grade at TPMS. The overwhelming majority of kids are Asian.

Since the SCt. left standing the Court of Appeals decision in the Eisenberg case (that MCPS improperly used race as a factor in deciding on a child's application to a magnet program), MCPS is not permitted to consider, by law, the race of the child applying to the magnet program. Since then, it has also been presumed that the school could not use other immutable characteristics like sex or ethnicity to tip the balance in similar magnet program decisions.

So, MCPS is NOT permitted to balance out entering magnet classes by gender. What MCPS IS permitted to do is to put together more programs that encourage girls at an earlier age to be interested in and comfortable performing well in math and science. However, since MCPS has basically gutted the lower level acceleration in math and gutted ES science, it's hard to see how to encourage more girls to apply to TPMS. MCPS could also do the same for boys -- encouraging them to be interested in reading and history. IME, my daughter benefitted in terms of her self-esteem from being invited to skip grades in math. She had never before thought of herself as "good at math". That was something reserved for boys, who constituted most of the students in accelerated maths. Similarly, when my DS was having trouble with reading and writing even though his scores showed he was very bright, our concerns were dismissed, because "girls are better earlier at those things and you think he is having trouble, but really he is just a boy...." (Turns out he had a SLD and is now doing well after receiving private instruction in reading and writing.) MCPS could also put less importance on teacher recommendations -- as I do agree with another PP that teachers tend to give recommendations to those students who are obedient, sit still, follow directions and read, write and speak well, all of which tends to skew towards girls in ES.

As to the gender imbalance in magnets -- our experience both at EMS and TPMS has been that while there may be fewer boys in a class at EMS and fewer girls at TPMS, there are enough of both sexes in each class to make students comfortable expressing a point of view that might be more gender-representative. If anything, IME, the old gender norms still rule in MS magnets (i.e. even when there are way more girls in class, no one is talking about the sexist plot elements of Pearl Buck's "The Good Earth" which all 6th graders read.) Not to mention that the "magnet program" is limited to 3 classes out of 7 a day (4 in 6th grade). The kids in the magnet are in no way isolated or separated from the rest of the school in their non-magnet classes or lunch. These magnet programs are in not akin to a private single-sex school.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The profile of the students are Asian and Jewish.

Not true.

Actually it is true for Takoma Magnet among 100 kids from the county (not additional 25 local kids who are Spanish, white, black etc).
Most kids are Asian (Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Vietnamese), some Indian.
Then you get small set of Jewish boys (very few Jewish girls since most do not focus on science),
plus small set of kids from parents who immigrated from Eastern Europe (Polish, Russian, Hungarian, Bulgarian etc.)
There are very few white kids who do not belong to categories mentioned above.
Parents whose kids are in Takoma have lists of magnet kids from all three grades.
Believe me you will have hard time to pronounce most First and Last names.

Don't know about Eastern, but I was told by someone in admissions for TPMS that they admit roughly a third of the incoming class solely on test scores, then consider other stuff for the remaining two-thirds.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The profile of the students are Asian and Jewish.

Am a non-Asian, non-Jewish parent of TPMS student.

PP again--although lots of DC's friends are Asian or Jewish.

Anonymous wrote:The profile of the students are Asian and Jewish.

Am a non-Asian, non-Jewish parent of TPMS student.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I wonder if the Eastern admissions criteria favor girls.

Only in that stereotypically, boys hate writing.

And maybe the selection committee has a bias towards the way girls write

I have met many girls, and I have read a lot of writing, but I have not yet discovered there to be such a thing as "the way girls write".

Though V.S. Naipaul disagrees with me, of course.

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2011/06/02/136893356/nobel-laureate-v-s-naipaul-says-no-woman-is-his-literary-equal

Anonymous wrote:Grades. Teachers in elementary school give girls better grades and better teacher references.

I don't think this is true. My DS has gotten a lot of ESs in elementary, both in HGC and non HGC. So has his male friends. His HGC right now has way more boys than girls, and I find that HGC skews more towards language arts than math.

Grades. Teachers in elementary school give girls better grades and better teacher references.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I wonder if the Eastern admissions criteria favor girls.

Only in that stereotypically, boys hate writing.

And maybe the selection committee has a bias towards the way girls write

Anonymous wrote:I wonder if the Eastern admissions criteria favor girls.

Only in that stereotypically, boys hate writing.

I wonder if the Eastern admissions criteria favor girls.