TPMS MAP-M scores

[Anonymous]

If I were in charge of gifted magnet programs I would have to seriously question whether it’s the students who have obviously been exposed to advanced math topics at home and score in the 260s on MAP....or the students who score merely in the 99th percentile but are actually gifted...whom I’d want to put in a magnet program.

I don’t envy those in charge. Is it supposed to be a competition? Is it supposed to be for the greater good? Is it supposed to be for who would benefit most from the program? Who would suffer most without?

Surely you can argue that kids who are scoring so well on MAP testing are doing well without a specialized program. Just one argument.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You cannot pause in the middle of a question.

Actually you can. You just don't finish it and then come back the next day and resume. In our school many students took days to finish the test. Not that it matters one way or another, except make some students think that they are competitive when they are not. The way many standardized tests are set up - SAT, ACT, APs - you are supposed to be able to answer a set amount of questions in a given finite time. Many students who score high in MAP in MCPS are doing poorly on these standardized exams because they have not really mastered the content and concepts. Perhaps we need to give all of them IEPs for life? Being an MCPS student is a disability at times, is it not?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You cannot pause in the middle of a question.

Actually you can. You just don't finish it and then come back the next day and resume. In our school many students took days to finish the test. Not that it matters one way or another, except make some students think that they are competitive when they are not. The way many standardized tests are set up - SAT, ACT, APs - you are supposed to be able to answer a set amount of questions in a given finite time. Many students who score high in MAP in MCPS are doing poorly on these standardized exams because they have not really mastered the content and concepts. Perhaps we need to give all of them IEPs for life? Being an MCPS student is a disability at times, is it not?

Where are you getting this data to draw this conclusion? From the MAP student reports MCPS students' scores are only slightly higher than the national average and there are not that many high scorers. Are you saying that the few MCPS high scorers (95%+) are not doing well on SAT tests? The same kids that do well on MAP do well on PARCC according to research (https://montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/sharedaccountability/reports/2016/PARCC%20and%20MAP%20linking%20study%20report%202016_6_15.pdf), which doesn't allow days to complete the test. Very few students score high on PARCC in MCPS. Your claim doesn't hold based on available data. See the following from the research report linked above:

"Although PARCC and the college admission tests do not measure exactly the same content in a similar subject area, the correlational analyses and regression analyses showed that there was a moderate and significant relationship between PARCC tests and corresponding SAT/ACT subtests."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You cannot pause in the middle of a question.

Actually you can. You just don't finish it and then come back the next day and resume. In our school many students took days to finish the test. Not that it matters one way or another, except make some students think that they are competitive when they are not. The way many standardized tests are set up - SAT, ACT, APs - you are supposed to be able to answer a set amount of questions in a given finite time. Many students who score high in MAP in MCPS are doing poorly on these standardized exams because they have not really mastered the content and concepts. Perhaps we need to give all of them IEPs for life? Being an MCPS student is a disability at times, is it not?

Firstly, I am not sure how you determine "many students", unless you are a county administrator. Your sampling of 5, 10, even 20 students is negligible.

Secondly, this is why the county has multiple tests. My kid is at a highly competitive with who I am sure are highly competitive students who likely are accused of cheating the system by DCUM. He reports that he is always the last 2-3 to finish, and even with that, he finishes in the first block of hour they provide him. So I think you are exaggerating this entire concept of many kids in the county taking DAYS to be done.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You cannot pause in the middle of a question.

Actually you can. You just don't finish it and then come back the next day and resume. In our school many students took days to finish the test. Not that it matters one way or another, except make some students think that they are competitive when they are not. The way many standardized tests are set up - SAT, ACT, APs - you are supposed to be able to answer a set amount of questions in a given finite time. Many students who score high in MAP in MCPS are doing poorly on these standardized exams because they have not really mastered the content and concepts. Perhaps we need to give all of them IEPs for life? Being an MCPS student is a disability at times, is it not?

Firstly, I am not sure how you determine "many students", unless you are a county administrator. Your sampling of 5, 10, even 20 students is negligible.

Secondly, this is why the county has multiple tests. My kid is at a highly competitive with who I am sure are highly competitive students who likely are accused of cheating the system by DCUM. He reports that he is always the last 2-3 to finish, and even with that, he finishes in the first block of hour they provide him. So I think you are exaggerating this entire concept of many kids in the county taking DAYS to be done.

My apologies for the multiple grammar/spelling mistakes as I am rushing out the door, but I think you get the idea.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You cannot pause in the middle of a question.

Actually you can. You just don't finish it and then come back the next day and resume. In our school many students took days to finish the test. Not that it matters one way or another, except make some students think that they are competitive when they are not. The way many standardized tests are set up - SAT, ACT, APs - you are supposed to be able to answer a set amount of questions in a given finite time. Many students who score high in MAP in MCPS are doing poorly on these standardized exams because they have not really mastered the content and concepts. Perhaps we need to give all of them IEPs for life? Being an MCPS student is a disability at times, is it not?

No, you cannot. The program does not let you pause. You will get a new question the next day. I don't know if it counts as a wrong answer or whether they just don't score that question.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You cannot pause in the middle of a question.

Actually you can. You just don't finish it and then come back the next day and resume. In our school many students took days to finish the test. Not that it matters one way or another, except make some students think that they are competitive when they are not. The way many standardized tests are set up - SAT, ACT, APs - you are supposed to be able to answer a set amount of questions in a given finite time. Many students who score high in MAP in MCPS are doing poorly on these standardized exams because they have not really mastered the content and concepts. Perhaps we need to give all of them IEPs for life? Being an MCPS student is a disability at times, is it not?

Firstly, I am not sure how you determine "many students", unless you are a county administrator. Your sampling of 5, 10, even 20 students is negligible.

Secondly, this is why the county has multiple tests. My kid is at a highly competitive with who I am sure are highly competitive students who likely are accused of cheating the system by DCUM. He reports that he is always the last 2-3 to finish, and even with that, he finishes in the first block of hour they provide him. So I think you are exaggerating this entire concept of many kids in the county taking DAYS to be done.

Lots of misinformation in the first post.
There's no evidence that children who score high in MAP in MCPS do poorly on other standardized tests. To the contrary, the only study that I think is public looks at PARCC scores and high PARCC scores of 6 correlate very strongly to very high MAP scores.
The children I know who are in magnet programs got very high MAP scores also got very high Cogat (99th percentile) scores. This is why MAP isn't the sole criteria for admitting students into a magnet program. They also look at Cogat and grades and for the older grades PARCC.
I think you're one of those posters who has been ranting about their child not getting into the TPMS, Eastern or one of the CES schools despite decently high scores. I do think the process this year seemed illconceived. But it doesn't help anyone for you to make up fiction to justify your child's rejection.

[Anonymous]

PARCC scores of 5. Typo!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You cannot pause in the middle of a question.

Actually you can. You just don't finish it and then come back the next day and resume. In our school many students took days to finish the test. Not that it matters one way or another, except make some students think that they are competitive when they are not. The way many standardized tests are set up - SAT, ACT, APs - you are supposed to be able to answer a set amount of questions in a given finite time. Many students who score high in MAP in MCPS are doing poorly on these standardized exams because they have not really mastered the content and concepts. Perhaps we need to give all of them IEPs for life? Being an MCPS student is a disability at times, is it not?

Firstly, I am not sure how you determine "many students", unless you are a county administrator. Your sampling of 5, 10, even 20 students is negligible.

Secondly, this is why the county has multiple tests. My kid is at a highly competitive with who I am sure are highly competitive students who likely are accused of cheating the system by DCUM. He reports that he is always the last 2-3 to finish, and even with that, he finishes in the first block of hour they provide him. So I think you are exaggerating this entire concept of many kids in the county taking DAYS to be done.

There are always a few children that take extra time at our school and it's a mix of high flyers and children who may have LDS or slow processing. The test is designed to not be timed. It's not cheating. It's designed to measure the breadth of knowledge/mastery of a lot of different concepts and some kids work faster than others. It doesn't mean they are less smart or less good. If you're going to build a rocket ship the guy who will create the best design isn't necessarily the one who designs it the fastest.
Also, there can be significant variability in the number of questions a child gets. I think in a typical sitting there may be around 55 but DC's teacher once told me she saw a child get more than 70 or a 27% difference so it's not surprising a child with more questions may require more time. The questions also get more difficult as they go along. One child might be getting 100/2 while another child may get a question that will require a half page of calculations to complete. You cannot compare the test experience for these two children.

[Anonymous]

OP here, I am glad I started this thread, my only reason was to make an effort to remove that misconception which most parents including me had earlier in spring that magnet test is watered down. It was more after I started seeing additional threads from the parents of current fifth graders popping up with similar prejudged thinking about the CES and Cogat and MAP. Thanks to all those who take few minutes out to post to clear doubts and sometimes false notions about the tests and evaluations.

[Anonymous]

Umm OP I think the general consensus of this thread is that your comments did nothing to show the quality of the magnet has not been watered down.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Just to let all those parents know who criticized the magnet selection not being fair as many high performing kids from CES centers did not get selected, raw scores were requested, data were shared, and law suits were threatened, MAP- M scores of most of selected kids range from 250-294. Math counts try outs are competitive and still have high flyers from sixth grade though the selection criteria of these sixth graders was based on cogat and not traditional way, science class is serious business with lots of hands raised to answer teacher’s questions on a specific topic discussion. I don’t see these kids being any less smart (than those who did not make it to the magnet and parents cried foul).
Just sharing my observations as I see similar threads popping up about this year’s selection to middle school magnets.

The lady doth protest too much, methinks.

It is possible that the kids are not any less smart as you claim, but nothing that you have said proves that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Umm OP I think the general consensus of this thread is that your comments did nothing to show the quality of the magnet has not been watered down.

This.

Was thinking the same. But people see what they want to be true.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:PARCC scores of 5. Typo!

My kid got an 11.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Umm OP I think the general consensus of this thread is that your comments did nothing to show the quality of the magnet has not been watered down.

This.

Was thinking the same. But people see what they want to be true.

On the contrary, with universal screening, magnet admissions are now more competitive than ever.