Any updates on the DOE Investigation on discrimination case for magnet middle schools MCPS

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:
Exactly, everyone who posts acts on cohort for their decision making, and then wants to pretend it's insignificant when MCPS does the same.

People sort themselves when they fear their kid will not be the top student. It's better to be a mediocre student at top school, because when the student's not self-motivated the surrounding students become all important (at least that's the fearful parent logic). But this is exactly why the cohort model makes sense. The students who rise to the very top in each setting are the ones to watch, and the ones who might find a magnet transformative. The next 30 best kids may be very good at a high SES school, but they're already punching above their weight, because of their cohort--which was bought and paid for by their parents.

A parent makes decisions that is best for their own child.

MCPS needs to make decisions that is best for ALL the children. Here, we have MCPS only concerned about certain groups, hence "peer cohort".

That's the difference.

Which is exactly why they (1) added the cohort factor and (2) added the new enriched classes in the home middle schools.

1. the enriched classes are a joke. If they are so great, they should put it in the "magnet" with the lower scoring kids, and move the more challenging magnet curriculum to a school that has WAY MORE higher scoring students. That would be serving ALL children.

2. adding peer cohort doesn't serve ALL students. It only serves those who live in a school cluster with a small higher performing student body, and statistically who don't score as high as those left at the home school with a joke of "enriched" classes. These kids score way higher than those who got into the magnet purely because of peer cohort, and it is highly insulting to those students who were not admitted.

Does that mean that you think peer cohort is okay for the 3-4 students at a high FARMs Downcounty ES, but damaging for the 25 at a school in Potomac?

It means that I think MCPS should look at each student as individuals and not their peer cohort.

[Anonymous]

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It means that I think MCPS should look at each student as individuals and not their peer cohort.

But they aren't in school by themselves as individuals. They're in school with their peers.

[Anonymous]

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It’s absurd. It has become acceptable in the US to use racial slurs against Asian Americans and to discriminate against them.

Here in the US, it doesn’t matter if you are a South Indian immigrant kid with two wealthy doctor parents or if you are the child of a Cambodian refugee. You are all lumped together as Asian and that counts against you for college admissions. Or Magnet MS admissions, as is the case here in MCPS.

I don't even know where to begin with this, except to say that being Asian is not counted against you in MS magnet admissions. Being in a highly segregated (by SES) neighborhood does mean you are compared against a different group of peers than an economically diverse neighborhood.

So, your hypothetical Cambodian refugee family? They don't live in an economically segregated neighborhood. They aren't zoned for Cold Spring or Hoover.

That kid is zoned for Colonel Lee, or Eastern MS, and therefore benefits from the new system because they aren't being judged against the South Asian immigrant kid with two wealthy doctor parents. They are being judged against the kid whose parents are refugees from Afghanistan and immigrants from El Salvador.

That hypothetical Cambodian kid you are so concerned about is exactly the kid this system was established to help.

DP.. there are poor kids in the W cluster. Sure, they are small, but they exist. Check out Scotland area in Churchill cluster. These lower income kids are being lumped in with wealthy kids in terms of "peer cohort".

But not in terms of FARMS status. So you don't need to be concerned.

They are looking at "peer cohort" in terms of academics, not how many poor kids are in the school.

One of the factors is the student's FARMS eligibility. In other words, they know who the low-income kids are in the Churchill cluster.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

2. adding peer cohort doesn't serve ALL students. It only serves those who live in a school cluster with a small higher performing student body, and statistically who don't score as high as those left at the home school with a joke of "enriched" classes. These kids score way higher than those who got into the magnet purely because of peer cohort, and it is highly insulting to those students who were not admitted.

Does that mean that you think peer cohort is okay for the 3-4 students at a high FARMs Downcounty ES, but damaging for the 25 at a school in Potomac?

It means that I think MCPS should look at each student as individuals and not their peer cohort.

You may not mean it that way, but that’s how it would play out.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:I've had kids go through TPMS magnet and Eastern magnet. My youngest was not offered magnet admission, but was offered enriched classes. These enriched classes are nothing like the magnet experience. My child at Eastern won a cspan documentary award for middle schoolers. My TPMS kid placed in the National Science Bowl. These are "prestigious" national level competitions that faculty advisors in the magnet programs are able to help kids compete in, and win. This is why people are mad.

My youngest kid's MS doesn't even offer mathcounts or significant academic after school programming.

I would expand the magnet program. I think they should rank kids by test scores in all ES's. Top 3% (or less if they need to) from each school gets a spot automatically in the magnet. The remainder of the seats go to the most qualified FARMS students based on test scores.

Am I the only person here who doesn't care about middle school competitions?

Oh, yeah. Probably. I will note that my non-magnet child wasn't even told those contests existed. That's fine--we don't chase trophies, we chase learning.

Not a “trophy “. These are programs providing highly gifted students with an appropriate education.
I think programs like TP and Eastern should be open to students solely based on academic merit. If there are kids who don’t do well enough on the application test but don’t have a large peer cohort they should be given preference for programs such as Parkland MS

+1 a student who scores much lower than those who have a peer cohort should have an enriched curriculum. The students who score very high should have the more challenging curriculum. That is logical. The student who scores lower is not the one in dire need of a very challenging curriculum.

+1

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I wouldn't worry so much about retaliation as having my child become the Whitman cluster equivalent of #BeckyWithTheBadGrades.

We know there were ZERO sending middle schools with no kids accepted to the magnets, but that the bar was higher for clusters with a large number of "high achieving" kids, in order to select outliers from each sending school.


I would not want my kid publicly identified as a "above average but not exceptional" kid in a court case. I mean, my kid actually IS above average but not exceptional, but there's something particularly cruel about making that the basis of a legal complaint.

I think the point is that these kids WERE actually exceptional. But did not get accepted. Whereas many kids who were ‘above average and not exceptional’ did get in.

My kid in a 5th grade CES did not get in and she’s completely fine with it. But she knows of several truly exceptional students who were denied admission. Yes, they happen to be Asian. And even the young 5th graders have discussed how it’s a strange, possibly unfair system of admission. They’re bright kids and they know what’s going on.

This.
Also it looks like MCPS lowered the bar on the test scores they now consider to be qualifying for the MS magnets in order to imply that a kid at the 86th percentile from a low performing cluster is as deserving of a spot as a 99th percentile kid from a high performing cluster

+500

[Anonymous]

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But the BOE does, so why use peer cohort? You are just willfully ignoring what I posted about how the BOE stated that those schools with lots of low income kids are just as good as those with more higher income kids. That is what she said. I was there. If they really believed that, then they shouldn't be looking at peer cohort. If they do believe that, then it's clear why they look at peer cohort.

This is not about what parents believe. This is about what BOE has stated publicly and how they are engineering magnet admission so that students who live in certain areas are given preference over those who live in more affluent areas. That is biased. They should treat each individual students as individuals and not as a statistic.

By using peer cohort at the home middle school, they are treating each individual student as an individual.

By using test scores, you are treating each individual student as a statistic.

+10

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So being smart in a school with mediocre kids could get you access to a magnet program and the enriched material associated with it. But being exceptional in a school with other exceptional kids means you stay behind in your home cohort and do not get access to enriched material, because you can self enrich? Nice.

I do not know why people are against kids studying / preparing for tests. It is not like the kids who prepare come in to the test knowing that the answer for question 1 is C, for question 2 is D etc....

Yep. Pretty much. Nice indeed

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To answer OP's question, no you will not be likely to suffer any negative consequences.

1. Retaliation is illegal. MCPS is already in hot water and it would be insane to push things any further. Some central office staff may hate the parents who reported the discrimination but their lawyers will be breathing down their necks going forward. If anything, you are more likely to receive slightly favorable consideration or at least not be overlooked because of fear of getting into a retaliation class action suit.

2. Teachers do not like the central office and even if someone in the central office were to somehow signal to a school that you reported them to the feds, you will only be more popular with the teachers. Teachers don't have the same type of protections that parents do and have more to lose with their pensions on the line. Retaliation is quite common by the central office against teachers because they know they have little recourse unlike parents. Teachers are cheering you on!

3. MCPS is a bully. Like all bullies, if you stand up to them they stand down. MCPS banks on Asian American parents being meek and staying quiet, good for you for proving them wrong!

Thank you for standing up for yourself, your child and others. Discrimination against any high performing kids to favor lower performing URM kids harms everyone and only propagates racial discriminatory institutions. White kids would be far better served being required to compete on their own merits and not having a group in the central office watching out to make sure they stay on top.

Well said.

Ditto.

[Anonymous]

Bottom line a few tigers are angry that its harder to get into the magnets now that the application pool is so much larger than in the "good old days", but it also means the real cream of the crop is now in the magnets as opposed to when it was just kids with pushy parents.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I've had kids go through TPMS magnet and Eastern magnet. My youngest was not offered magnet admission, but was offered enriched classes. These enriched classes are nothing like the magnet experience. My child at Eastern won a cspan documentary award for middle schoolers. My TPMS kid placed in the National Science Bowl. These are "prestigious" national level competitions that faculty advisors in the magnet programs are able to help kids compete in, and win. This is why people are mad.

My youngest kid's MS doesn't even offer mathcounts or significant academic after school programming.

I would expand the magnet program. I think they should rank kids by test scores in all ES's. Top 3% (or less if they need to) from each school gets a spot automatically in the magnet. The remainder of the seats go to the most qualified FARMS students based on test scores.

At our W feeder, we have all these amazing enriched classes and the cohort is as good or better than any magnet on the bad side of town.

[Anonymous]

MCPS is looking at cohort at middle school, their own data showed that every middle school in MCPS has 20+ highly able kids, thus highly able cohort exist at every middle school, how do you justify this cohort thing if every middle school has a cohort?

Isn’t that if you pull some kids from the MS that has just 20 something highly able kids, it kind of automatically dissolved that cohort? Leave the rest of highly able kids without cohort? Unless they take all of those kids..

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Exactly, everyone who posts acts on cohort for their decision making, and then wants to pretend it's insignificant when MCPS does the same.

People sort themselves when they fear their kid will not be the top student. It's better to be a mediocre student at top school, because when the student's not self-motivated the surrounding students become all important (at least that's the fearful parent logic). But this is exactly why the cohort model makes sense. The students who rise to the very top in each setting are the ones to watch, and the ones who might find a magnet transformative. The next 30 best kids may be very good at a high SES school, but they're already punching above their weight, because of their cohort--which was bought and paid for by their parents.

A parent makes decisions that is best for their own child.

MCPS needs to make decisions that is best for ALL the children. Here, we have MCPS only concerned about certain groups, hence "peer cohort".

That's the difference.

Which is exactly why they (1) added the cohort factor and (2) added the new enriched classes in the home middle schools.

1. the enriched classes are a joke. If they are so great, they should put it in the "magnet" with the lower scoring kids, and move the more challenging magnet curriculum to a school that has WAY MORE higher scoring students. That would be serving ALL children.

2. adding peer cohort doesn't serve ALL students. It only serves those who live in a school cluster with a small higher performing student body, and statistically who don't score as high as those left at the home school with a joke of "enriched" classes. These kids score way higher than those who got into the magnet purely because of peer cohort, and it is highly insulting to those students who were not admitted.

Does that mean that you think peer cohort is okay for the 3-4 students at a high FARMs Downcounty ES, but damaging for the 25 at a school in Potomac?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Bottom line a few tigers are angry that its harder to get into the magnets now that the application pool is so much larger than in the "good old days", but it also means the real cream of the crop is now in the magnets as opposed to when it was just kids with pushy parents.

Yes. That's all

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Bottom line a few tigers are angry that its harder to get into the magnets now that the application pool is so much larger than in the "good old days", but it also means the real cream of the crop is now in the magnets as opposed to when it was just kids with pushy parents.

Yes. That's all

+100 imagine going through life obsessing where your kid goes to middle school. Bunch of shallow pathetic freaks

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:MCPS is looking at cohort at middle school, their own data showed that every middle school in MCPS has 20+ highly able kids, thus highly able cohort exist at every middle school, how do you justify this cohort thing if every middle school has a cohort?

Isn’t that if you pull some kids from the MS that has just 20 something highly able kids, it kind of automatically dissolved that cohort? Leave the rest of highly able kids without cohort? Unless they take all of those kids..

Hooray, there's a highly-able cohort at every middle school in MCPS, people can stop paying hundreds of thousands of dollars extra to live in the areas with the "good" schools!