What are these "FARMS tiers" eveyone is talking about and where can i see a breakdown by "tier"?

[Anonymous]

title.

[Anonymous]

In what respect?

[Anonymous]

Are you talking about Title I schools vs. Focus schools? You can find a breakdown of these here, on page 3:

https://gis.mcpsmd.org/cipmasterpdfs/CIP26_Chapter3.pdf

[Anonymous]

Are you referring to the way schools are categorized by FARMs levels for the purpose of comparing students’ MAP scores for CES admissions?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Are you referring to the way schools are categorized by FARMs levels for the purpose of comparing students’ MAP scores for CES admissions?

I'm guessing OP almost certainly was talking about that (also used for the criteria-based MS lottery).

MCPS uses 5 tiers of schools with roughly similar FARMS rates. (Side note: the FARMS rates across the County are really high compared to the impression that many, especially on DCUM, may have. Look at the data in the Superintendent's budget presentation -- 44.6% across the system this year!) To my understanding, the last known public list of elementary schools by FARMS-rate tier was provided in response to an MPIA (essentially a state-level FOIA request) by the MCCPTA back in the 21-22 school year:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/120BRtShXf9_kQcNvKSxHKG4nJhnyTjL7/view

That referenced data from the fall of 2021, as MAP-M & MAP-R scores from that period were used in the criteria-based magnet MS lottery conducted in early 2022. (The inclusion of prior spring MAP locally normed percentiles for Math didn't come until a later year when they realized that they'd then decided that kids taking accelerated Math be given the 6th grade variation of the test in 5th grade, creating an minor apples-to-oranges situation.) Those same FARMS-rate tiers also were applied to the later CES lottery for that year, which was based on winter 2021-22 MAP scores (MAP-R only, for that).

It is known that the schools in each tier have shifted somewhat from that time. MCPS makes a new tier list each year, but has not made that public after the above, to my knowledge. Someone else may be able to point to a BOE presentation with more recent info.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are you referring to the way schools are categorized by FARMs levels for the purpose of comparing students’ MAP scores for CES admissions?

I'm guessing OP almost certainly was talking about that (also used for the criteria-based MS lottery).

MCPS uses 5 tiers of schools with roughly similar FARMS rates. (Side note: the FARMS rates across the County are really high compared to the impression that many, especially on DCUM, may have. Look at the data in the Superintendent's budget presentation -- 44.6% across the system this year!) To my understanding, the last known public list of elementary schools by FARMS-rate tier was provided in response to an MPIA (essentially a state-level FOIA request) by the MCCPTA back in the 21-22 school year:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/120BRtShXf9_kQcNvKSxHKG4nJhnyTjL7/view

That referenced data from the fall of 2021, as MAP-M & MAP-R scores from that period were used in the criteria-based magnet MS lottery conducted in early 2022. (The inclusion of prior spring MAP locally normed percentiles for Math didn't come until a later year when they realized that they'd then decided that kids taking accelerated Math be given the 6th grade variation of the test in 5th grade, creating an minor apples-to-oranges situation.) Those same FARMS-rate tiers also were applied to the later CES lottery for that year, which was based on winter 2021-22 MAP scores (MAP-R only, for that).

It is known that the schools in each tier have shifted somewhat from that time. MCPS makes a new tier list each year, but has not made that public after the above, to my knowledge. Someone else may be able to point to a BOE presentation with more recent info.

Op here, yup!