Did MCPS do a sneaky thing for the magnet lotteries?

[Anonymous]

It looks like they greatly expanded the "considered" pool for the lottery in order to get their desired demographics. For the CESes they considered 11,446 students. Isn't that almost every child in that grade? The same goes for middle schools where the "considered" pool was almost double what it was in previous years. Does anyone have an explanation for how this happened and why this was done in such secrecy?

https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/uploadedFiles/departments/schoolchoice/210818%20CES%20Secondary%20App%20Prog%20Admission%20Results.pdf

[Anonymous]

Yes, to control full of Asian/white kids. Otherwise, not enough qualified kids from black/Latino families. Oh, my popcorn is about to pop...

[Anonymous]

My kid is in a regional CES this year and his class definitely has more AA and Latino kids than in previous years.

Usually, the CES is full of Asian kids.

[Anonymous]

I haven't been following the stuff with middle school magnets as closely, but didn't they expressly consider everyone in grade 3 last year? Am I wrong? I thought that was very publicly decided.

[Anonymous]

Does that mean 11k students were actually entered into the lottery? Or 11k students were examined for their eligibility for the lottery? In long past, only some students were even recommended to try for the HGC. That has expanded to all students being allowed to try for the HGC/CES, meaning all students are "considered."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It looks like they greatly expanded the "considered" pool for the lottery in order to get their desired demographics. For the CESes they considered 11,446 students. Isn't that almost every child in that grade? The same goes for middle schools where the "considered" pool was almost double what it was in previous years. Does anyone have an explanation for how this happened and why this was done in such secrecy?

https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/uploadedFiles/departments/schoolchoice/210818%20CES%20Secondary%20App%20Prog%20Admission%20Results.pdf

Oh, how terrible! MCPS considered more kids! Dreadful! Horrible!

Wait, what?

[Anonymous]

I wouldn’t say this is a change in policy exactly. Even before the pandemic, in the Es CES process prior to the pandemic, MCPS had said that every ES child would be tested and considered for CES. This allowed admissions committees to consider children who they thought were bright but who hadn’t necessarily been “applies” by their parents for consideration. Instead, parents who didn’t apply for their qualified kids might have just been notified of acceptance instead of encouraged to apply. IMO, this is a bette process because it captures more eligible children and becomes an opt out instead of opt in process. For a wide variety of reasons, opt in always privileges the more advantaged.

Thus, in the pandemic, when there was no equitable way to evaluate students by test, or by teacher recommendation, making the whole process a lottery was reasonable, IMO.

THe real question is what is the qualitative and quantitative result of a lottery admissions process?

Just as with colleges who made do without SATs last year, if a process undertaken without test scores or recommendations or opt in produces an equally capable student body that was capable of achieving at a similar level, that begs the question as to whether the process was necessary to begin with?

[Anonymous]

Looks like the Hispanic/Latino group benefited the most from their new placement process

[Anonymous]

If all those kids thrive in the magnet program, that will be a clear indication that MCPS can and should expand the offering to have more seats for more kids. Ridiculous to keep so many students away from a wonderful program that could give them a more suitable education.

But it is important to remember that there are some highly able students who are desperate for the pace and content of the magnets, and they should probably be considered priority if there are limited seats - the programs are supposed to be about providing enrichment to kids who are slowly going bananas in regular classrooms.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If all those kids thrive in the magnet program, that will be a clear indication that MCPS can and should expand the offering to have more seats for more kids. Ridiculous to keep so many students away from a wonderful program that could give them a more suitable education.

But it is important to remember that there are some highly able students who are desperate for the pace and content of the magnets, and they should probably be considered priority if there are limited seats - the programs are supposed to be about providing enrichment to kids who are slowly going bananas in regular classrooms.

This. If everyone is gifted, nobody is gifted.

I know that's an exaggeration, but we should probably actually reduce the number of spots in these programs to a very select few.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Looks like the Hispanic/Latino group benefited the most from their new placement process

Or...these are the groups who were most disadvantaged by the previous process.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If all those kids thrive in the magnet program, that will be a clear indication that MCPS can and should expand the offering to have more seats for more kids. Ridiculous to keep so many students away from a wonderful program that could give them a more suitable education.

But it is important to remember that there are some highly able students who are desperate for the pace and content of the magnets, and they should probably be considered priority if there are limited seats - the programs are supposed to be about providing enrichment to kids who are slowly going bananas in regular classrooms.

Or, on the other hand, it's a clear indication that MCPS should dismantle the existing magnet program and offer the magnet curriculum to kids in their home schools.

In my limited personal experience, the number of really "highly able" students is much smaller than the number of seats. At least in the previous, pre-form, test-to-get-in admissions processes, most of the kids in the magnet programs were just regular bright middle-class/upper-middle-class kids from families with educated parents.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Does that mean 11k students were actually entered into the lottery? Or 11k students were examined for their eligibility for the lottery? In long past, only some students were even recommended to try for the HGC. That has expanded to all students being allowed to try for the HGC/CES, meaning all students are "considered."

I think the latter. Almost every kid in the grade was "considered" but not all made it to the lottery phase. I agree that it is confusing, though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Looks like the Hispanic/Latino group benefited the most from their new placement process

Or...these are the groups who were most disadvantaged by the previous process.

Could be both

[Anonymous]

Current 4th grade parent. Last year, they screened everyone. We eventually got a letter saying that our kid was put into the "pool" as "eligible" for the CES, but he was not drawn for a spot. We know lots of people in the same situation, and a few whose eligible kids WERE drawn in the lottery and subsequently went to the CES.

At our elementary, there was a substantial enough cohort of kids that were eligible but not drawn in the lottery that the school is now running a self-contained Enriched Literacy Curriculum class for 4th graders. From what we were told, it's the same curriculum used for literacy at the CES. It's definitely a big step up from what my kid was getting last year (virtually) and feels appropriately challenging for bright 4th graders.