mcps. sounds about right. (GT admissions changes)

[Anonymous]

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/13/us/education-gifted-students.html?action=click&module=In%20Other%20News&pgtype=Homepage&action=click&module=News&pgtype=Homepage

[Anonymous]

This is BS that should have been addressed in the article:

"Mr. Lin, an engineering manager who immigrated from China two decades ago, said his 11-year-old daughter had earned good grades in an elementary school for enriched studies, but was effectively de-selected this spring. She was not invited to continue in the magnet program into middle school."

She wasn't de-selected. There are fewer middle school than elementary seats.

[Anonymous]

Interesting. Well, I'm Asian, and the share of Asians admitted went down but I'm glad MCPS moved to universal screening. It is appalling that parental nomination was required for kids to get screened before. Talk about a regressive education policy!

[Anonymous]

And as people have stated, putting less weight on test scores would result in lowering the ability of the group:

Kimberly Petrola, a fourth-grade teacher at Fox Chapel Elementary School in Germantown, one of the Centers for Enriched Studies, acknowledged that instruction had changed since the school became part of the pilot program last year, ahead of the rest of the county.

With a more diverse student body, not every child performed above grade level, Ms. Petrola said. She said she and other teachers used ability grouping to teach at different levels. For example, for a unit in which students read an author’s autobiography and fiction side by side, to look for consistent themes, some groups were assigned authors who wrote at a more challenging reading level.

[Anonymous]

I feel like this article muddles some key facts, including the fact that there are many fewer MS places than CES slots, so many many kids will get "deselected" no matter what the metric.

Also, it muddles the middle school process and the decision to open local CES centers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:And as people have stated, putting less weight on test scores would result in lowering the ability of the group:

Kimberly Petrola, a fourth-grade teacher at Fox Chapel Elementary School in Germantown, one of the Centers for Enriched Studies, acknowledged that instruction had changed since the school became part of the pilot program last year, ahead of the rest of the county.

With a more diverse student body, not every child performed above grade level, Ms. Petrola said. She said she and other teachers used ability grouping to teach at different levels. For example, for a unit in which students read an author’s autobiography and fiction side by side, to look for consistent themes, some groups were assigned authors who wrote at a more challenging reading level.

My kid's teachers did that when my kid was at an HGC (not Fox Chapel). If they weren't already doing that at the Fox Chapel HGC/CES, it makes me wonder about the Fox Chapel HGC/CES.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I feel like this article muddles some key facts, including the fact that there are many fewer MS places than CES slots, so many many kids will get "deselected" no matter what the metric.

Also, it muddles the middle school process and the decision to open local CES centers.

Right. There is no "de-selection". The middle school program is separate from the elementary school program. Even before the changes to the process, plenty of kids who were in the elementary program didn't get accepted to the middle-school program, and some kids who didn't get accepted to the elementary-school program did get accepted to the middle-school program.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Interesting. Well, I'm Asian, and the share of Asians admitted went down but I'm glad MCPS moved to universal screening. It is appalling that parental nomination was required for kids to get screened before. Talk about a regressive education policy!

And it's appalling that there aren't enough seats to handle all the kids who qualify for the gifted program.

MCPS needs to get it together here.

[Anonymous]

^^Well, if the gifted program were truly for gifted kids, there would be plenty of seats.

[Anonymous]

And what is this all about?

SILVER SPRING, Md. — It was a searing summer day before the start of the school year, but Julianni and Giselle Wyche, 10-year-old twins, were in a classroom, engineering mini rockets, writing in journals and learning words like “fluctuate” and “cognizant.”

Do they now have remedial 'gifted' education? Why were these kids even in school?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:^^Well, if the gifted program were truly for gifted kids, there would be plenty of seats.

This!

[Anonymous]

I will echo the Asian PP, and say that as a fellow Asian, I am relieved there are no more parent nominations and teacher recommendations. Soft criteria are never good.

There is no such thing as a fair selection process, since the applicants will always be judged on a very narrow range of their multiple talents and skills. But the least we can do is make the process as TRANSPARENT and OBJECTIVE as possible.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:^^Well, if the gifted program were truly for gifted kids, there would be plenty of seats.

This.

Kids who got selected from our school are not 'gifted', they are just prepped to death and scored slightly higher on MAPs than other 10 or so children who could have done equally well in MCPS's 'enriched studies'. None of them is a genuis, I know that for a fact.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:And what is this all about?

SILVER SPRING, Md. — It was a searing summer day before the start of the school year, but Julianni and Giselle Wyche, 10-year-old twins, were in a classroom, engineering mini rockets, writing in journals and learning words like “fluctuate” and “cognizant.”

Do they now have remedial 'gifted' education? Why were these kids even in school?

I'm guessing this was something similar to YSP, which identifies high performing kids in underperforming schools and offers Saturday School options. My child took part their 3rd grade year, and it was fine. The problem that I saw was that it mostly identified middle class kids in majority FARMS schools, which kind of defeated the point.

[Anonymous]

Surprised to see the article said that outside testing was used to qualify. I did not think this was true.