It Would Come From MoCo....

....Montgomery County Maryland is quite possibly the closest Maryland gets to California. They're both sanctuaries for the insane.

Middle school magnet programs in Montgomery County have traditionally operated as schools within schools, offering specialized curriculum to a few select students....

But this fall, educators decided to try a different approach. Instead of selecting a few hundred students for traditional school magnets, officials opened magnet programs at three middle schools to everyone.

As someone who had a magnet school education, I should explain that magnet schools are open to everyone. Students go through an application process, which involves submitting an application and going through at least one interview. Space is limited, and there's usually a lengthy waiting list for applicants who didn't quite make the cut.

The application process combined with the idea behind magnet schools (that students select an area they want to focus in ex. math and science, visual arts, performing arts, language emersion....) is designed to attract students who are not only gifted/talented, but motivated. I'm not really sure what more could be done to make it more open and still maintain the goals of the program.

The most laughable part of this, is that it's all being done in the name of diversity.

"In the future, where we want to move is where it's not so much identifying children as gifted and talented so much as getting them the services they need to reach their potential," said Martin Creel, director of the accelerated enriched instruction division.

Yeah, but some people have more potential than others and those people are gifted/talented. Let's face it, not everyone can be a neurologist. Though shouldn't schools be getting students what they need to reach their potential. Isn't that the goal of education. Diversity means that some students are gifted.

In Fairfax County, educators have created the Young Scholars Program, aimed at identifying kindergartners from underrepresented populations who have potential but might need extra support. The school system also has added expanded honors classes at its middle schools in hopes of giving a broader spectrum of students more opportunities, said Carol Horn, coordinator of gifted programs for the school system.

Or they could try to identify the actual causes of the "underrepresentation". Oh, but wait... that would mean they'd have to do work. Why bother to find an actual solution when you can just fling some half-assed effort around to appease the minorities.

Educators hope that the new approach will help them address why black and Hispanic students continue to lag behind white and Asian counterparts in achievement and why so few take advanced classes or are admitted into accelerated programs.

A worth while question that needs real answers, not the pointless show they're putting on.