That’s why I said all students get the same funding (unless they are special needs, then the school gets more).
My kids went to school in a system where class size was limited to 25 in high school…except for AP or honors classes, electives like drama, music, or art. The reasoning was that ‘average’ students deserved more of the teacher’s time and attention, that limiting class size would help them . AP and honors students, however, were capable of learning in a larger class size. I know the ‘best’ school system here also limits the class size to 22 for elementary and 25 for high school except for honors and AP. So the school gets the same funding per student, but the more advanced students have a bigger class size.
Instead of going to a regular high school they go to a magnet high school. You don’t need extra resources. The same class hours can be taught, albeit at a different level – as their needs require. Not even like special needs kids who actually do get extra resources to address their needs.
If the state can’t cater to the unique needs of kids that are significantly ahead of the main class, the state should not collect taxes from the families – at least they can try and figure out how to fend for themselves in some private school setting.
Unlike perhaps how people like @mtmind think, resources don’t always mean money, and money alone. The most critical resources are the teachers who are capable and willing to teach the advanced topics. Many of these teachers may not even want to teach at regular public high schools and would have opted to go teach at private schools if the magnet school option weren’t offered. Financially, it actually costs much less to teach advanced topics in magnet schools where there’s a critical mass of students who are interested in and capable of doing more advanced work than in typical regular schools. It’s simply the best use of available resources.
Do you have any facts supporting this claim? Because my understanding is the opposite is often true. For example, as discussed in the same linked article, schools in SF were receiving an extra $600 per AP test given, about $3.6M extra for a school like Lowell, and that cutting this extra money tied to advanced offerings would cost Lowell about 20% of its faculty.
If you hire competent teachers who can teach both up and down the curriculum then there is no extra cost. As an example, our school runs some large number of sections of history – call it 8-9 for 140 kids. Of these 8-9, some are AP sections and some are regular. Varies year to year based on student needs. Nobody is beating their chest saying oh look at how many AP students I am teaching. The first requirement is that History is taught by teachers who know history. Likewise Math is taught by people who know math. Not by people who only have some random degree teaching math.
And this is not going to cost you more per teacher because private school teachers are paid less than public teachers. The number of students per teacher is less than at a public school, and to that extent it likely costs more. But that is just a service level decision. We run 16 kids per class max. You can run a 25 person class, pay less money per student, but still maintain the flexibility of how many AP students you want to teach as a school each year.
@1NJParent thinks that teachers who are qualified teach at the upper end are unwilling to teach at schools which admit kids who aren’t at the upper end.
Here’s an article in The New York Times Magazine from a few years ago:
There’re some parallels with the current effort to “expand access” to magnet schools. Hopefully we learned some lessons from the expansion of AP classes.
Given that @Lindagaf just asked us to move the conversation forward, and given that this post will lead us exactly back into the same conversation, I’ll note that the parallels aren’t necessarily the ones you might think, and neither are the lessons we could learn, and leave it at that.
@1NJParent
You live in NJ but seem to be unaware of such an allocation exits in NJ for county based academies ( like Engineering, Healthcare, Biotechnology etc). They do have entrance examination but each middle school in the county has a minimum number of seats reserved. D went to such an academy in NJ.
If you live in NJ, you must be aware that each county in NJ does things differently. The most comparable magnet school in NJ to TJ is probably the Bergen Academies. Correct me if I’m wrong (I don’t live in Bergen county) but I don’t believe it reserve seats for each middle school.
My daughter attended one of Monmouth County’s Career Academies for HS, class of 2015. When she went, essentially they selected one student from each middle school as long as they met the minimum grade requirements and applied. That worked out to about 40 kids for a class of 80. The next 40 students represented the top 40 students without regard to what their home school district was. It is actually more nuanced than that but I can’t remember the exact numbers and couldn’t find it on their website.
D’s home high school has about 1000 kids, coming from 8 different K-8 school districts. Some of those schools are very small - a single 8th grade class of 20 kids - but each could have at least one student who would be automatically accepted (again assuming they met the minimum criteria and applied). Her elementary school was one of the largest for the high school (~500 K-8 students) but very small compared to many other county schools. That year 5 kids were accepted from her elementary school to her academy.
Her school did not fair as well in acceptances at some of the other schools though. But at least one student went to each school. https://www.mcvsd.org/
Seems like faux-outrage. Which colleges award scholarships based on Commended status? Any?
The school with which I am most familiar doesn’t hold breakfasts or ceremonies for NMS Commended honorees, nor does it notify the parents of the status. My guess is that this is the case at many high performing schools where commended status is more the norm than the exception.
They also list NMSF in the article.
In any case it is up to the student to decide what they want to do with that recognition. You should at least let them know before somtime in October so that they can mention it in applications.
The article doesn’t say that the Semi-Finalists weren’t notified. It says Commended scholars weren’t notified. Again, which colleges award scholarship based on Commended status? Which colleges aren’t capable of figuring out whether test scores are high enough to qualify?
Apparently a few parents convinced themselves that “Commended” status means more than it really does for the purposes of college admissions, so they are trying to make it a culture war issue.
Traditionally, Commended hasn’t meant much for college admissions. But even if it doesn’t mean anything, why withhold it? National Merit typically sends a small certificate for both NMSF and Commended (I have an NMSF and a very recent Commended kid), so why not let the kid know?
I think it is more important now to let kids know, because in this age of test optional - and particularly in the case of test blind - Commended status gives admissions an idea of your SAT score. My youngest is now in college, and the others have been graduated for some time, so the policies don’t impact my kids. But for those who may feel that the current turn against testing could impact their college admissions, they should know their National Merit status.
And as for the comment that Commended is the norm - except perhaps for some very selective gifted high schools, it is not the norm. My 2022 Commended grad comes from a class of 300, with 17 NMSF and 27 Commended. I think that is a fairly high percentage of a class, especially for a “not special” HS (only HS in the district).
I agree that Commended is not the norm at even good public high schools. Ours is considered one.
For the Class of 2022 in our HS, there were 19 semifinalists and 60 commended students in a class of 426. Being commended is an honor, although one can quibble about how weighty the honor is.
It makes no sense for school leaders to conceal such achievements from students and families.
I think that’s a private school, right? Private schools are allowed to do whatever they want, as long as it’s lawful. When parents put their children there, they effectively sign up for those policies.
Public schools should be held to a different standard, which is to maximize the education and opportunities for each child. Letting them know about commended status fits within that, as TJ’s administrators eventually realized.
