4th Grade CES Admission Criteria?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Their 6th grade classes were moved a long time ago. The WJ
schools are nowhere near Chevy Chase. Also, would you like to buy a bridge?

6th grade classes were still at CCES through 2017. That's a long time ago?
And the WJ cluster borders BCC and Whitman clusters, all of which now go to the Chevy Chase CES. WJ was also "nowhere near" Barnsley, some would say.

The bus ride is much longer to CCES than to Barnsley for many students from the WJ cluster.

They went from 2 classes in the CCES magnet program to 3 classes, so, yes, they added the WJ cluster, but also made the program larger at CCES. Beyond that, you'd need to know the numbers (AND REASONS) before asserting that that the switch made it harder for WJ-cluster students to attend a regional CES.

[Anonymous]

No one said that.
What they said was it resulted in whites and Asians from WJ competing with whites and Asians from Whitman and BCC for CES spots - leaving Barnsley for more diverse populations.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No one said that.
What they said was it resulted in whites and Asians from WJ competing with whites and Asians from Whitman and BCC for CES spots - leaving Barnsley for more diverse populations.

Did the Barnsley CES program stay the same size, so that it's now just drawing from a smaller (and "more diverse") set of ES's - i.e., more spots for the ES schools that remained? And why would the person making that assertion even care about it unless they felt that it was now harder for students at WJ-cluster ES's to get into a CES program? If the same 28 kids from the WJ cluster who would have been Barnsley are now at CCES, what's the difference?

Of course they are arguing it's harder because they now now have to compete with "whites and Asians" rather than "more diverse populations."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No one said that.
What they said was it resulted in whites and Asians from WJ competing with whites and Asians from Whitman and BCC for CES spots - leaving Barnsley for more diverse populations.

Did the Barnsley CES program stay the same size, so that it's now just drawing from a smaller (and "more diverse") set of ES's - i.e., more spots for the ES schools that remained? And why would the person making that assertion even care about it unless they felt that it was now harder for students at WJ-cluster ES's to get into a CES program? If the same 28 kids from the WJ cluster who would have been Barnsley are now at CCES, what's the difference?

Of course they are arguing it's harder because they now now have to compete with "whites and Asians" rather than "more diverse populations."

Yes, Barnsley stayed the same size, three CES classes per grade.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No one said that.
What they said was it resulted in whites and Asians from WJ competing with whites and Asians from Whitman and BCC for CES spots - leaving Barnsley for more diverse populations.

Did the Barnsley CES program stay the same size, so that it's now just drawing from a smaller (and "more diverse") set of ES's - i.e., more spots for the ES schools that remained? And why would the person making that assertion even care about it unless they felt that it was now harder for students at WJ-cluster ES's to get into a CES program? If the same 28 kids from the WJ cluster who would have been Barnsley are now at CCES, what's the difference?

Of course they are arguing it's harder because they now now have to compete with "whites and Asians" rather than "more diverse populations."

Yes, Barnsley stayed the same size, three CES classes per grade.

So Barnsley, with three classes/grade, went from RM, Rockville, WJ and Wheaton (17-18) to RM, Rockville and Wheaton (18-19)? And CCES went from two classes for BCC and Whitman (17-18) to three classes for BCC, Whitman and WJ (18-19)? So the WJ kids went from competing for three classroom's worth of spots with three other high schools, to three classroom's worth of spots with two other high schools. Sounds great for the Wj kids, unless one thinks that competing with Whitman and BCC kids is harder than competing with RM,Rockville and Wheaton kids. Which is exactly what the poster was arguing (and not some ridiculous offense of having a diverse program at Barnsley become even more diverse). I'm of the view that, at the very top. there are equally very strong kids at every ES, and with the small number of kids who are offered spots, it really doesn't matter. So maybe MCPS actually created more spots by keeping Barnsley at three CES classes for the remaining clusters. That's fine by me, and would be consistent with its stated policies.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No one said that.
What they said was it resulted in whites and Asians from WJ competing with whites and Asians from Whitman and BCC for CES spots - leaving Barnsley for more diverse populations.

The earlier poster said that MCPS's reason for moving WJ was so that its whites and Asians "would only compete with other white and Asian kids." But there's no evidence that that was the reason, even if that is the result.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No one said that.
What they said was it resulted in whites and Asians from WJ competing with whites and Asians from Whitman and BCC for CES spots - leaving Barnsley for more diverse populations.

Did the Barnsley CES program stay the same size, so that it's now just drawing from a smaller (and "more diverse") set of ES's - i.e., more spots for the ES schools that remained? And why would the person making that assertion even care about it unless they felt that it was now harder for students at WJ-cluster ES's to get into a CES program? If the same 28 kids from the WJ cluster who would have been Barnsley are now at CCES, what's the difference?

Of course they are arguing it's harder because they now now have to compete with "whites and Asians" rather than "more diverse populations."

Yes, Barnsley stayed the same size, three CES classes per grade.

So Barnsley, with three classes/grade, went from RM, Rockville, WJ and Wheaton (17-18) to RM, Rockville and Wheaton (18-19)? And CCES went from two classes for BCC and Whitman (17-18) to three classes for BCC, Whitman and WJ (18-19)? So the WJ kids went from competing for three classroom's worth of spots with three other high schools, to three classroom's worth of spots with two other high schools. Sounds great for the Wj kids, unless one thinks that competing with Whitman and BCC kids is harder than competing with RM,Rockville and Wheaton kids. Which is exactly what the poster was arguing (and not some ridiculous offense of having a diverse program at Barnsley become even more diverse). I'm of the view that, at the very top. there are equally very strong kids at every ES, and with the small number of kids who are offered spots, it really doesn't matter. So maybe MCPS actually created more spots by keeping Barnsley at three CES classes for the remaining clusters. That's fine by me, and would be consistent with its stated policies.

Yup, that's exactly what they did.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No one said that.
What they said was it resulted in whites and Asians from WJ competing with whites and Asians from Whitman and BCC for CES spots - leaving Barnsley for more diverse populations.

Did the Barnsley CES program stay the same size, so that it's now just drawing from a smaller (and "more diverse") set of ES's - i.e., more spots for the ES schools that remained? And why would the person making that assertion even care about it unless they felt that it was now harder for students at WJ-cluster ES's to get into a CES program? If the same 28 kids from the WJ cluster who would have been Barnsley are now at CCES, what's the difference?

Of course they are arguing it's harder because they now now have to compete with "whites and Asians" rather than "more diverse populations."

Yes, Barnsley stayed the same size, three CES classes per grade.

So Barnsley, with three classes/grade, went from RM, Rockville, WJ and Wheaton (17-18) to RM, Rockville and Wheaton (18-19)? And CCES went from two classes for BCC and Whitman (17-18) to three classes for BCC, Whitman and WJ (18-19)? So the WJ kids went from competing for three classroom's worth of spots with three other high schools, to three classroom's worth of spots with two other high schools. Sounds great for the Wj kids, unless one thinks that competing with Whitman and BCC kids is harder than competing with RM,Rockville and Wheaton kids. Which is exactly what the poster was arguing (and not some ridiculous offense of having a diverse program at Barnsley become even more diverse). I'm of the view that, at the very top. there are equally very strong kids at every ES, and with the small number of kids who are offered spots, it really doesn't matter. So maybe MCPS actually created more spots by keeping Barnsley at three CES classes for the remaining clusters. That's fine by me, and would be consistent with its stated policies.

Yup, that's exactly what they did.

This hardly amounts to a countywide conspiracy to skew CES admissions to the under represented.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No one said that.
What they said was it resulted in whites and Asians from WJ competing with whites and Asians from Whitman and BCC for CES spots - leaving Barnsley for more diverse populations.

Did the Barnsley CES program stay the same size, so that it's now just drawing from a smaller (and "more diverse") set of ES's - i.e., more spots for the ES schools that remained? And why would the person making that assertion even care about it unless they felt that it was now harder for students at WJ-cluster ES's to get into a CES program? If the same 28 kids from the WJ cluster who would have been Barnsley are now at CCES, what's the difference?

Of course they are arguing it's harder because they now now have to compete with "whites and Asians" rather than "more diverse populations."

Yes, Barnsley stayed the same size, three CES classes per grade.

So Barnsley, with three classes/grade, went from RM, Rockville, WJ and Wheaton (17-18) to RM, Rockville and Wheaton (18-19)? And CCES went from two classes for BCC and Whitman (17-18) to three classes for BCC, Whitman and WJ (18-19)? So the WJ kids went from competing for three classroom's worth of spots with three other high schools, to three classroom's worth of spots with two other high schools. Sounds great for the Wj kids, unless one thinks that competing with Whitman and BCC kids is harder than competing with RM,Rockville and Wheaton kids. Which is exactly what the poster was arguing (and not some ridiculous offense of having a diverse program at Barnsley become even more diverse). I'm of the view that, at the very top. there are equally very strong kids at every ES, and with the small number of kids who are offered spots, it really doesn't matter. So maybe MCPS actually created more spots by keeping Barnsley at three CES classes for the remaining clusters. That's fine by me, and would be consistent with its stated policies.

Yup, that's exactly what they did.

They moved WJ cluster out thereby opening more seats to those in the other three clusters because with WJ in the Barnsley HGC cluster, there were less spots available for those from the other clusters because WJ had a ton of kids going to Barnsely HGC in previous years. Without this move, the other kids from the other clusters wouldn't get much of a chance. The move was so that those kids from the less well off areas get a chance.

Sure, it's nice that those kids have a chance, but let's not pretend why they did it, which was that it was much harder for those kids to compete with the WJ kids.

My DC went to Barnsely HGC with a ton of WJ kids. We are not in WJ cluster.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No one said that.
What they said was it resulted in whites and Asians from WJ competing with whites and Asians from Whitman and BCC for CES spots - leaving Barnsley for more diverse populations.

Did the Barnsley CES program stay the same size, so that it's now just drawing from a smaller (and "more diverse") set of ES's - i.e., more spots for the ES schools that remained? And why would the person making that assertion even care about it unless they felt that it was now harder for students at WJ-cluster ES's to get into a CES program? If the same 28 kids from the WJ cluster who would have been Barnsley are now at CCES, what's the difference?

Of course they are arguing it's harder because they now now have to compete with "whites and Asians" rather than "more diverse populations."

Yes, Barnsley stayed the same size, three CES classes per grade.

So Barnsley, with three classes/grade, went from RM, Rockville, WJ and Wheaton (17-18) to RM, Rockville and Wheaton (18-19)? And CCES went from two classes for BCC and Whitman (17-18) to three classes for BCC, Whitman and WJ (18-19)? So the WJ kids went from competing for three classroom's worth of spots with three other high schools, to three classroom's worth of spots with two other high schools. Sounds great for the Wj kids, unless one thinks that competing with Whitman and BCC kids is harder than competing with RM,Rockville and Wheaton kids. Which is exactly what the poster was arguing (and not some ridiculous offense of having a diverse program at Barnsley become even more diverse). I'm of the view that, at the very top. there are equally very strong kids at every ES, and with the small number of kids who are offered spots, it really doesn't matter. So maybe MCPS actually created more spots by keeping Barnsley at three CES classes for the remaining clusters. That's fine by me, and would be consistent with its stated policies.

Yup, that's exactly what they did.

This hardly amounts to a countywide conspiracy to skew CES admissions to the under represented.

It's a way for non W cluster students a chance at the spot because without the change and with the peer cohort criteria, they wouldn't be able to get in. If they had done universal screening without looking at the peer cohort, the representation of certain groups wouldn't have changed that much. How do I know this... look at MCPS' own statistics in regards to test scores. Oh, I know, test scores don't tell you much, but I'm not sure what else you would look at for an academic program. Maybe how fast you could run? My DC would've failed that one.

Call it whatever you want.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No one said that.
What they said was it resulted in whites and Asians from WJ competing with whites and Asians from Whitman and BCC for CES spots - leaving Barnsley for more diverse populations.

Did the Barnsley CES program stay the same size, so that it's now just drawing from a smaller (and "more diverse") set of ES's - i.e., more spots for the ES schools that remained? And why would the person making that assertion even care about it unless they felt that it was now harder for students at WJ-cluster ES's to get into a CES program? If the same 28 kids from the WJ cluster who would have been Barnsley are now at CCES, what's the difference?

Of course they are arguing it's harder because they now now have to compete with "whites and Asians" rather than "more diverse populations."

Yes, Barnsley stayed the same size, three CES classes per grade.

So Barnsley, with three classes/grade, went from RM, Rockville, WJ and Wheaton (17-18) to RM, Rockville and Wheaton (18-19)? And CCES went from two classes for BCC and Whitman (17-18) to three classes for BCC, Whitman and WJ (18-19)? So the WJ kids went from competing for three classroom's worth of spots with three other high schools, to three classroom's worth of spots with two other high schools. Sounds great for the Wj kids, unless one thinks that competing with Whitman and BCC kids is harder than competing with RM,Rockville and Wheaton kids. Which is exactly what the poster was arguing (and not some ridiculous offense of having a diverse program at Barnsley become even more diverse). I'm of the view that, at the very top. there are equally very strong kids at every ES, and with the small number of kids who are offered spots, it really doesn't matter. So maybe MCPS actually created more spots by keeping Barnsley at three CES classes for the remaining clusters. That's fine by me, and would be consistent with its stated policies.

Yup, that's exactly what they did.

This hardly amounts to a countywide conspiracy to skew CES admissions to the under represented.

Agreed. Some people must live on a different planet. Our DC went to an excellent home ES before going to a CES program; a friend's DC is at a Title 1 ES school in MoCo. I have no doubt that both school try very hard to provide the best education possible to the students they serve, but the challenges in a Title 1 school are stark. For the very best students there, a spot at a CES program is going to be night and day different, and possibly life-altering; for somebody coming from a strong home ES, it's different and better, but, really, more very nice/glad-to-be-here than critical. I get the frustration that many parents have with the perceived shortage of spots at the CES programs, but the bigger picture is that I have no problem with a decision by MoCo to create more spots for students who are going to benefit most. (And, no, these students are not less qualified or promising.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No one said that.
What they said was it resulted in whites and Asians from WJ competing with whites and Asians from Whitman and BCC for CES spots - leaving Barnsley for more diverse populations.

Did the Barnsley CES program stay the same size, so that it's now just drawing from a smaller (and "more diverse") set of ES's - i.e., more spots for the ES schools that remained? And why would the person making that assertion even care about it unless they felt that it was now harder for students at WJ-cluster ES's to get into a CES program? If the same 28 kids from the WJ cluster who would have been Barnsley are now at CCES, what's the difference?

Of course they are arguing it's harder because they now now have to compete with "whites and Asians" rather than "more diverse populations."

Yes, Barnsley stayed the same size, three CES classes per grade.

So Barnsley, with three classes/grade, went from RM, Rockville, WJ and Wheaton (17-18) to RM, Rockville and Wheaton (18-19)? And CCES went from two classes for BCC and Whitman (17-18) to three classes for BCC, Whitman and WJ (18-19)? So the WJ kids went from competing for three classroom's worth of spots with three other high schools, to three classroom's worth of spots with two other high schools. Sounds great for the Wj kids, unless one thinks that competing with Whitman and BCC kids is harder than competing with RM,Rockville and Wheaton kids. Which is exactly what the poster was arguing (and not some ridiculous offense of having a diverse program at Barnsley become even more diverse). I'm of the view that, at the very top. there are equally very strong kids at every ES, and with the small number of kids who are offered spots, it really doesn't matter. So maybe MCPS actually created more spots by keeping Barnsley at three CES classes for the remaining clusters. That's fine by me, and would be consistent with its stated policies.

Yup, that's exactly what they did.

This hardly amounts to a countywide conspiracy to skew CES admissions to the under represented.

It's a way for non W cluster students a chance at the spot because without the change and with the peer cohort criteria, they wouldn't be able to get in. If they had done universal screening without looking at the peer cohort, the representation of certain groups wouldn't have changed that much. How do I know this... look at MCPS' own statistics in regards to test scores. Oh, I know, test scores don't tell you much, but I'm not sure what else you would look at for an academic program. Maybe how fast you could run? My DC would've failed that one.

Call it whatever you want.

This is rank speculation. They aren't selecting students, then or now, based on some median test score or percentage of students at grade level. It's based on individual qualifications. So unless you are willing to say that NO "non W cluster students" would qualify based on his or her own test scores (which, actually, is exactly what you said), this is just a gross generalization. Assuming three classes per grade at each regional CES, they are looking for the less than 95 students across the covered clusters. Unless you have the data for the students actually there, and students who aren't there, you can't make that assertion credibly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
They moved WJ cluster out thereby opening more seats to those in the other three clusters because with WJ in the Barnsley HGC cluster, there were less spots available for those from the other clusters because WJ had a ton of kids going to Barnsely HGC in previous years. Without this move, the other kids from the other clusters wouldn't get much of a chance. The move was so that those kids from the less well off areas get a chance.

Sure, it's nice that those kids have a chance, but let's not pretend why they did it, which was that it was much harder for those kids to compete with the WJ kids.

My DC went to Barnsely HGC with a ton of WJ kids. We are not in WJ cluster.

+1 Let's stop pretending that all schools have equal numbers of high achieving children. Notice I didn't say deserving children. But it's a fact that the number of "highly qualified" children according to MCPS's own criteria is much higher at WJ, BCC and Whitman than at the other schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
They moved WJ cluster out thereby opening more seats to those in the other three clusters because with WJ in the Barnsley HGC cluster, there were less spots available for those from the other clusters because WJ had a ton of kids going to Barnsely HGC in previous years. Without this move, the other kids from the other clusters wouldn't get much of a chance. The move was so that those kids from the less well off areas get a chance.

Sure, it's nice that those kids have a chance, but let's not pretend why they did it, which was that it was much harder for those kids to compete with the WJ kids.

My DC went to Barnsely HGC with a ton of WJ kids. We are not in WJ cluster.

+1 Let's stop pretending that all schools have equal numbers of high achieving children. Notice I didn't say deserving children. But it's a fact that the number of "highly qualified" children according to MCPS's own criteria is much higher at WJ, BCC and Whitman than at the other schools.

Unless the numbers actually changed, it's a red herring. Do you have the numbers?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
They moved WJ cluster out thereby opening more seats to those in the other three clusters because with WJ in the Barnsley HGC cluster, there were less spots available for those from the other clusters because WJ had a ton of kids going to Barnsely HGC in previous years. Without this move, the other kids from the other clusters wouldn't get much of a chance. The move was so that those kids from the less well off areas get a chance.

Sure, it's nice that those kids have a chance, but let's not pretend why they did it, which was that it was much harder for those kids to compete with the WJ kids.

My DC went to Barnsely HGC with a ton of WJ kids. We are not in WJ cluster.

+1 Let's stop pretending that all schools have equal numbers of high achieving children. Notice I didn't say deserving children. But it's a fact that the number of "highly qualified" children according to MCPS's own criteria is much higher at WJ, BCC and Whitman than at the other schools.

Well if we are going to stop pretending than the whole point of the system is to get W kids in to help out the other school's metrics. If they don't care about the metrics, why do you care about helping so much? The admission criteria were set up to target UMC kids. The poor kids and reg middle class kids complained that they didn't get the shiny in their school and wanted to re-purpose the program to get them out of classes with even poorer kids. Let them use their school how they want.