Board Bids Adieu to Boutiques

At the April 14, 2009 Montgomery County Board of Education meeting, the agenda topic read, "High School Programs - Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate."

Had the public (and this blogger) only known then what is known now, we might have had more public comment, taken time out of our workday, or at least recorded this on our own home recording equipment.

In reality, this item revealed Dr. Weast's vision of Montgomery County Public Schools. From the wonders of Promethean smart board technology, to yet more calls for teacher training, this agenda topic covered the entire K-12 educational spectrum, across the county.

We've heard for years that Dr. Weast plans to backmap instruction to the College Board's Advanced Placement Tests, with the goal of having each child in Montgomery County Public Schools "college ready," as demonstrated by having 80 percent of MCPS graduates scoring a 3 or better on a scale of 1-5 on at least one Advanced Placement test prior to graduation.

Now, Dr. Weast is adding in International Baccalaureate Program courses throughout the school system.

I don't want to get into the merits of IB vs. AP - that's another post for another time, and as someone with children who have participated in IB and Math/Science magnet programs (one graduate, one current student) with a grand shared total of 6 IB exams, one IB diploma, and 9 AP exams, with four more scheduled for this May, I feel comfortable discussing the pros and cons of each - short answer is each has pluses and minuses, parents need to evaluate what works for any particular child. Another post, another time.

Here is what parents need to know NOW.

"Boutique Programs" are out. I don't know what these are, I can't find a reference to "boutique programs" on the Montgomery County School system website, but these programs are out.

Foreign language offerings will be limited to French, Spanish, and Chinese. No more Arabic, German, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Latin, Russian, or any other language that isn't offered by the International Baccalaureate program. Does this mean that American Sign Language is also out? I suspect that French will also be cut too, since the College Board is phasing out its AP French Literature course shortly. Spanish and Chinese, take your pick.

And those folks at Eastern MS magnet who are concerned that their children will not be able to take both foreign language and music? Choices are tough folks, but really, Eastern isn't a feeder program to the Richard Montgomery or any other IB program, so if you want your child to be able to test in, make a choice and skip middle school music.

Bottom line from Weast et al at the meeting - transitions are tough. We are going to scale, that's the important goal. Amazingly, they extended the discussions past the alloted time period for this meeting, so its unlikely that we will see additional discussion time at the Board table in public view.

Here is my advice to parents of current and future students in Montgomery County school system. Stay tuned, stay informed, ask lots of questions, and most of all, keep up with the lingo.