For years, competitive magnet programs have attracted widespread interest from prospective high schoolers across MCPS. These long-standing offerings may soon change as the MCPS Board of Education proposes a new regional system for providing specialized secondary opportunities, claiming to support a commitment to equity and academic excellence. However, these changes also present logistical challenges and concerns, threatening a diminution of academic value that suggests a need for urgent reconsideration.
The future of existing programs is another worrying question. Currently, “you’re pooling kids together who are very academically focused, and I think it’s a great educational culture,” AP and IB Physics teacher Jon Goetz said. “I think it’s evolved to the point where I don’t really understand why the need to get rid of them is coming upon us.”
The Proposed Changes
Under the new system, MCPS plans to dismantle the countywide programs and consortiums currently available. Currently, there are three major high-school countywide magnet programs available in Montgomery County. Any “Grade 8 Montgomery County Resident” can apply to the International Baccalaureate Program at Richard Montgomery or the Global Ecology Program at Poolesville. Together, the Science, Mathematics, and Computer Science Magnet Program at Montgomery Blair and Poolesville accept applications from all of MCPS. The offerings will be replaced by a “6 Region Model,” in which clusters of 4-5 high schools will be created across the county. Within each of these six districts, all of the magnet programs MCPS currently offers (around twelve) will be available, essentially creating a total of around 96 new programs across the county.
The specifics of which high schools will be clustered together has not been determined, but MCPS has created six “scenarios,” each with a distinct set of districts based on limiting travel times in order to maximize accessibility within the ‘region’. In Scenario 1, for instance, “Region 1” would include the high schools BCC, Blair, Whitman, Einstein and Northwood.
While existing magnet programs could continue based on interest, under the proposed plan RM would be not only an IB magnet school, but also a school with Humanities and performing arts opportunities.
Issues and Concerns
MCPS has provided multiple different reasons for their decision to change the way Magnet programs are run, but their core rationale is “equity of access” through an “abundance of options” approach. In expanding magnet programs to the entire county, theoretically, regional opportunities would experience an increase in interest and students across the county would gain access to advanced courses.
However, there are concerns to be had. One such issue is the idea that under the proposed changes, the quality of magnet programs would decrease and be “diluted.” Montgomery Blair High School, for instance, offers courses like quantum physics or discrete mathematics—classes that are only available because of staff that are highly specialized. From the Humanities and Communications program at Eastern Middle School to the Middle Years Program and subsequent IB program at Richard Montgomery, senior Emily Liu has been through several magnet programs throughout the course of her academic career. “I think it might be hard to find teachers who are specialized in different fields that are available in six different districts,” Liu said. “It would definitely take more work to standardize magnet schools [if] there’s so many.”
Part of what makes the magnet programs that MCPS currently offers so effective and highly demanded are the teachers who have specific expertise and experience in the fields that they are teaching. With the drastic increase in the number of programs available across the county, logistical concerns arise with regard to staffing and training of these programs. It is virtually impossible for all of the teachers who will be taking on roles in these new magnet programs to have the same level of training and experience that have become so characteristic of the programs we have now, leading to these new ‘regions’ having ‘magnet programs’ without the true academic value that programs purport to provide.
While students and parents worry about changes in instruction, changes in student interest should also be considered. Although expanding magnet offerings under the proposed plan would increase access to advanced courses through , a large part of the reason why these courses can exist in the first place is because of substantial student interest in selective programs. “The advantage of the centralized magnet program is you now have a larger program,” Mr. Goetz said. “A lot of IB programs are much smaller. So I don’t know what the county’s envisioning in that place.”
Simply having more “magnet programs” is not enough to significantly raise the level of academic rigor and opportunity available in the way that the Board is envisioning. In order for a county-wide increase in educational quality to take place, MCPS needs to fully ensure that the programs that they provide are fully supported by the appropriate resources, teachers and a high level of student interest.
Beyond changes in quality, another concern is the unplanned divisions the six region model might unexpectedly create. “I think the good thing about RM is, you have people from all over the county,” Liu said. “People probably never go to school with kids from Silver Spring, or kids from, you know, Gaithersburg, or Rockville…I feel like if you split the districts up it limits the pool even more, because then it creates borders between what people are exposed to.”
Some of the push for eliminating magnets likely comes from a belief that selectionism and elimination are a harmful system, which is a valid concern. Current magnet programs aren’t perfect. However, a drastic switch in the other direction ignores historic successes. “At some point, your child’s going to probably go through a process that may be somewhat fair, maybe somewhat unfair… I don’t think that’s a good reason to eliminate a program like this,” Mr. Goetz said. Applying to things (and by extension, getting rejected or accepted) is an unchanging part of the academic and working world. The fairness of the system is another issue — if students are being unfairly judged or admitted, then that is something that can and should be addressed without the removal of magnets as a whole. But completely changing the system into something worse for the sake of protecting children’s egos is not a worthy reason.
MCPS will continue to discuss the current plan (which is set to begin at the start of the 2027-2028 school year) until they come to a final decision in March of 2026. A switch to this region-based magnet system threatens the educational quality that has made the magnet programs in MCPS into the academic powerhouses that the county is known for, and will likely fail to create the increase in overall educational quality that MCPS is hoping to generate.
