Then MCPS shouldn’t put this “tiny aspect” as requirement to make it to the pool. Don’t look down upon kids who are “obsessed with puzzles.” They should be seen just like kids who are athletic and good at sports. We are all different, kids are even more different. Let them shine in the area they are good at. |
You are missing the point. Assuming you are a typical DCUM parent, your kid didn't lose that lottery spot to a kid in the 85th percentile. They lost to a kid in the 96th percentile, because the elementary magnets are organized geographically, and MCPS has significant economic segregation. I'm really sorry to tell you that your child could have "lost" to a kid with a 96th percentile even before the lottery, because the magnet admissions process has never been based on test scores alone. |
I don’t think you understand. What I’m talking about is 99 percentile kid lost to the same school classmate who is 85 percentile. Does that make sense to you? The same class does not have significant economic segregation. |
| There’s no point to elementary CES at this point. It used to be for kids whose needs could not be met in the homeroom class, but the lottery has taken that away. If they leave a kid who is 95th percentile, and take one that is 85th percentile, then how are we going to meet the needs of the 95th percentile kid- especially when they’ve taken away other high achieving kids? I work in title 1 and wish that the program was ended at this point. |
Totally! |
I agree this makes it harder for teachers. The whole idea was that the 95th percentile kid should be with other 95th percentile kids. The 85th percentile kid presumably has peers in their current class. I think there's an easy way to model this like the deviation from the mean and to tell how badly the lottery has messed this up and how the lottery has just created more classes of kids with disparate abilities making things worse for more kids and more teachers. |
I agree. They should get rid of them and just offer an advanced class in each home school. It's just so watered down now. |
Does anyone know which department of MCPS should we contact for this matter? |
MCPS has attempted to provide advanced courses at every school AND maintain the magnets - currently both are theoretically happening. This was a part of the change with the lottery. All students who qualified for the lottery were supposed to be in at least some advanced classes. Agree that it doesn't seem all are implementing it well, but that is the current design. |
Do you think it was only your special snowflake who was not selected? It was a lottery for a small number of spaces. As someone else noted you be better advocating for change to the criteria of entry into the lottery, or expansion of seats and programs. Like right now as there is a county wide Program Study going on for the secondary level (MS/HS) with the ES level to follow. |
Interesting, they’ve tried to do this just this by having ELC in every school. How’s that going? |
Curious to know too |
| And it sounds like ELC is going away after this year. |
Office of Accelerated and Enriched Instruction. Good luck. |
The home classes are not the magnet classes. HIGH, for example, is really nothing like what is covered at Eastern. And there are no enriched/accelerated/cohorted English and Science classes. |