Monique Felder – Equity Centered Leader

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Relax, she is interim.
However, since you are asking - it improves the opportunities for students who historically have been left out. I get that that doesn't help your child, but it helps many children if color to level out the playing field.

+1 I know that MCPS has not done a great job with this, but it's actually possible to apply an equity lens AND to provide a rigorous education to all children. The problem is that Dr. McKnight lurched from one trendy idea to the next without taking time to ensure that any of the trends were actually working.

To take a specific example, there was a brief moment in time when it seemed like MCPS might be close to making much-needed changes to the CES and MS magnet selection processes. By testing all kids instead of just those whose parents knew to sign them up, prioritizing kids with no strong home school cohort, and "tracking" kids who did have a strong peer cohort together, MCPS was close to a better solution. It wasn't perfect, but it would have meant an enriched curriculum and strong cohort for many more children than the status quo.

Then it just sort of never happened. Maybe it was partially the ill-conceived lawsuit, but also a total lack of follow-through on the part of the Central Office.

The same argument can be made about restorative justice. When implemented with fidelity by well-trained teachers/staff, and appropriately resourced, there's a lot of evidence that it can work. The problem is that MCPS just announced that we have restorative justice now, but without any of the scaffolding or training or resources that could have made it successful.

This did happen with CES and the central office followed through on implementing it! Now kids don’t have to apply to CES but instead are selected into a pool by central office after a review of all students. The standards a student needs to meet in order to be in the pool vary depending on the FARMS rate of the student’s home school, so for example, a child in a high FARMS school can qualify for the pool with a MAP-R score in the range of the 70th percentile nationwide, while a student in a low FARMS school will qualify only if they exceed the 95th percentile nationwide. This benefits kids who don’t have a strong cohort at their home school and gives them an edge over kids coming from schools with a very strong cohort who won’t necessarily benefit as much from the CES cohort.

Once kids qualify for the pool, selections are a random lottery. This helps cut down on people being able to game the system since it’s completely random among those who qualify for the pool.

No no no. There was a cohort of kids right before the pandemic selected for CES using the universal review but not given spots by lottery. They also used the cogat in addition to MAP and grades, etc. This is what the PP is referring to. They eliminated needing to apply, teacher references, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Relax, she is interim.
However, since you are asking - it improves the opportunities for students who historically have been left out. I get that that doesn't help your child, but it helps many children if color to level out the playing field.

+1 I know that MCPS has not done a great job with this, but it's actually possible to apply an equity lens AND to provide a rigorous education to all children. The problem is that Dr. McKnight lurched from one trendy idea to the next without taking time to ensure that any of the trends were actually working.

To take a specific example, there was a brief moment in time when it seemed like MCPS might be close to making much-needed changes to the CES and MS magnet selection processes. By testing all kids instead of just those whose parents knew to sign them up, prioritizing kids with no strong home school cohort, and "tracking" kids who did have a strong peer cohort together, MCPS was close to a better solution. It wasn't perfect, but it would have meant an enriched curriculum and strong cohort for many more children than the status quo.

Then it just sort of never happened. Maybe it was partially the ill-conceived lawsuit, but also a total lack of follow-through on the part of the Central Office.

The same argument can be made about restorative justice. When implemented with fidelity by well-trained teachers/staff, and appropriately resourced, there's a lot of evidence that it can work. The problem is that MCPS just announced that we have restorative justice now, but without any of the scaffolding or training or resources that could have made it successful.

This did happen with CES and the central office followed through on implementing it! Now kids don’t have to apply to CES but instead are selected into a pool by central office after a review of all students. The standards a student needs to meet in order to be in the pool vary depending on the FARMS rate of the student’s home school, so for example, a child in a high FARMS school can qualify for the pool with a MAP-R score in the range of the 70th percentile nationwide, while a student in a low FARMS school will qualify only if they exceed the 95th percentile nationwide. This benefits kids who don’t have a strong cohort at their home school and gives them an edge over kids coming from schools with a very strong cohort who won’t necessarily benefit as much from the CES cohort.

Once kids qualify for the pool, selections are a random lottery. This helps cut down on people being able to game the system since it’s completely random among those who qualify for the pool.

No no no. There was a cohort of kids right before the pandemic selected for CES using the universal review but not given spots by lottery. They also used the cogat in addition to MAP and grades, etc. This is what the PP is referring to. They eliminated needing to apply, teacher references, etc.

Yes - that's the point of a lottery. Not everyone gets a spot, but evertone who qualifies gets put into the pool and a lottery ticket to potentially win a spot.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Relax, she is interim.
However, since you are asking - it improves the opportunities for students who historically have been left out. I get that that doesn't help your child, but it helps many children if color to level out the playing field.

+1 I know that MCPS has not done a great job with this, but it's actually possible to apply an equity lens AND to provide a rigorous education to all children. The problem is that Dr. McKnight lurched from one trendy idea to the next without taking time to ensure that any of the trends were actually working.

To take a specific example, there was a brief moment in time when it seemed like MCPS might be close to making much-needed changes to the CES and MS magnet selection processes. By testing all kids instead of just those whose parents knew to sign them up, prioritizing kids with no strong home school cohort, and "tracking" kids who did have a strong peer cohort together, MCPS was close to a better solution. It wasn't perfect, but it would have meant an enriched curriculum and strong cohort for many more children than the status quo.

Then it just sort of never happened. Maybe it was partially the ill-conceived lawsuit, but also a total lack of follow-through on the part of the Central Office.

The same argument can be made about restorative justice. When implemented with fidelity by well-trained teachers/staff, and appropriately resourced, there's a lot of evidence that it can work. The problem is that MCPS just announced that we have restorative justice now, but without any of the scaffolding or training or resources that could have made it successful.

This did happen with CES and the central office followed through on implementing it! Now kids don’t have to apply to CES but instead are selected into a pool by central office after a review of all students. The standards a student needs to meet in order to be in the pool vary depending on the FARMS rate of the student’s home school, so for example, a child in a high FARMS school can qualify for the pool with a MAP-R score in the range of the 70th percentile nationwide, while a student in a low FARMS school will qualify only if they exceed the 95th percentile nationwide. This benefits kids who don’t have a strong cohort at their home school and gives them an edge over kids coming from schools with a very strong cohort who won’t necessarily benefit as much from the CES cohort.

Once kids qualify for the pool, selections are a random lottery. This helps cut down on people being able to game the system since it’s completely random among those who qualify for the pool.

They need to add more gifted programs and have different levels like other school districts.

Gifted programs are bad for the achievement gap. They're purposely eliminating them these days.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Relax, she is interim.
However, since you are asking - it improves the opportunities for students who historically have been left out. I get that that doesn't help your child, but it helps many children if color to level out the playing field.

+1 I know that MCPS has not done a great job with this, but it's actually possible to apply an equity lens AND to provide a rigorous education to all children. The problem is that Dr. McKnight lurched from one trendy idea to the next without taking time to ensure that any of the trends were actually working.

To take a specific example, there was a brief moment in time when it seemed like MCPS might be close to making much-needed changes to the CES and MS magnet selection processes. By testing all kids instead of just those whose parents knew to sign them up, prioritizing kids with no strong home school cohort, and "tracking" kids who did have a strong peer cohort together, MCPS was close to a better solution. It wasn't perfect, but it would have meant an enriched curriculum and strong cohort for many more children than the status quo.

Then it just sort of never happened. Maybe it was partially the ill-conceived lawsuit, but also a total lack of follow-through on the part of the Central Office.

The same argument can be made about restorative justice. When implemented with fidelity by well-trained teachers/staff, and appropriately resourced, there's a lot of evidence that it can work. The problem is that MCPS just announced that we have restorative justice now, but without any of the scaffolding or training or resources that could have made it successful.

This did happen with CES and the central office followed through on implementing it! Now kids don’t have to apply to CES but instead are selected into a pool by central office after a review of all students. The standards a student needs to meet in order to be in the pool vary depending on the FARMS rate of the student’s home school, so for example, a child in a high FARMS school can qualify for the pool with a MAP-R score in the range of the 70th percentile nationwide, while a student in a low FARMS school will qualify only if they exceed the 95th percentile nationwide. This benefits kids who don’t have a strong cohort at their home school and gives them an edge over kids coming from schools with a very strong cohort who won’t necessarily benefit as much from the CES cohort.

Once kids qualify for the pool, selections are a random lottery. This helps cut down on people being able to game the system since it’s completely random among those who qualify for the pool.

They need to add more gifted programs and have different levels like other school districts.

Gifted programs are bad for the achievement gap. They're purposely eliminating them these days.

Gifted programs are not bad. It is the admission results of the program is bad. Not enough brown and and black kids in the admission results.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Relax, she is interim.
However, since you are asking - it improves the opportunities for students who historically have been left out. I get that that doesn't help your child, but it helps many children if color to level out the playing field.

+1 I know that MCPS has not done a great job with this, but it's actually possible to apply an equity lens AND to provide a rigorous education to all children. The problem is that Dr. McKnight lurched from one trendy idea to the next without taking time to ensure that any of the trends were actually working.

To take a specific example, there was a brief moment in time when it seemed like MCPS might be close to making much-needed changes to the CES and MS magnet selection processes. By testing all kids instead of just those whose parents knew to sign them up, prioritizing kids with no strong home school cohort, and "tracking" kids who did have a strong peer cohort together, MCPS was close to a better solution. It wasn't perfect, but it would have meant an enriched curriculum and strong cohort for many more children than the status quo.

Then it just sort of never happened. Maybe it was partially the ill-conceived lawsuit, but also a total lack of follow-through on the part of the Central Office.

The same argument can be made about restorative justice. When implemented with fidelity by well-trained teachers/staff, and appropriately resourced, there's a lot of evidence that it can work. The problem is that MCPS just announced that we have restorative justice now, but without any of the scaffolding or training or resources that could have made it successful.

+1000

Equity can be a great thing when people focus on what is causing the inequity or at least what parts can be solved for within their boundaries. And the two above are positive examples of what can be done. But implementation absolutely matters. They are trying to do too much in too many places with not enough resources. Progress takes time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Relax, she is interim.
However, since you are asking - it improves the opportunities for students who historically have been left out. I get that that doesn't help your child, but it helps many children if color to level out the playing field.

+1 I know that MCPS has not done a great job with this, but it's actually possible to apply an equity lens AND to provide a rigorous education to all children. The problem is that Dr. McKnight lurched from one trendy idea to the next without taking time to ensure that any of the trends were actually working.

To take a specific example, there was a brief moment in time when it seemed like MCPS might be close to making much-needed changes to the CES and MS magnet selection processes. By testing all kids instead of just those whose parents knew to sign them up, prioritizing kids with no strong home school cohort, and "tracking" kids who did have a strong peer cohort together, MCPS was close to a better solution. It wasn't perfect, but it would have meant an enriched curriculum and strong cohort for many more children than the status quo.

Then it just sort of never happened. Maybe it was partially the ill-conceived lawsuit, but also a total lack of follow-through on the part of the Central Office.

The same argument can be made about restorative justice. When implemented with fidelity by well-trained teachers/staff, and appropriately resourced, there's a lot of evidence that it can work. The problem is that MCPS just announced that we have restorative justice now, but without any of the scaffolding or training or resources that could have made it successful.

+1000

Equity can be a great thing when people focus on what is causing the inequity or at least what parts can be solved for within their boundaries. And the two above are positive examples of what can be done. But implementation absolutely matters. They are trying to do too much in too many places with not enough resources. Progress takes time.

They gave up on trying to address this and put most of their energy into tweaking the optics by dumbing down enrichment since that's the easiest way to close the gap.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Relax, she is interim.
However, since you are asking - it improves the opportunities for students who historically have been left out. I get that that doesn't help your child, but it helps many children if color to level out the playing field.

+1 I know that MCPS has not done a great job with this, but it's actually possible to apply an equity lens AND to provide a rigorous education to all children. The problem is that Dr. McKnight lurched from one trendy idea to the next without taking time to ensure that any of the trends were actually working.

To take a specific example, there was a brief moment in time when it seemed like MCPS might be close to making much-needed changes to the CES and MS magnet selection processes. By testing all kids instead of just those whose parents knew to sign them up, prioritizing kids with no strong home school cohort, and "tracking" kids who did have a strong peer cohort together, MCPS was close to a better solution. It wasn't perfect, but it would have meant an enriched curriculum and strong cohort for many more children than the status quo.

Then it just sort of never happened. Maybe it was partially the ill-conceived lawsuit, but also a total lack of follow-through on the part of the Central Office.

The same argument can be made about restorative justice. When implemented with fidelity by well-trained teachers/staff, and appropriately resourced, there's a lot of evidence that it can work. The problem is that MCPS just announced that we have restorative justice now, but without any of the scaffolding or training or resources that could have made it successful.

This did happen with CES and the central office followed through on implementing it! Now kids don’t have to apply to CES but instead are selected into a pool by central office after a review of all students. The standards a student needs to meet in order to be in the pool vary depending on the FARMS rate of the student’s home school, so for example, a child in a high FARMS school can qualify for the pool with a MAP-R score in the range of the 70th percentile nationwide, while a student in a low FARMS school will qualify only if they exceed the 95th percentile nationwide. This benefits kids who don’t have a strong cohort at their home school and gives them an edge over kids coming from schools with a very strong cohort who won’t necessarily benefit as much from the CES cohort.

Once kids qualify for the pool, selections are a random lottery. This helps cut down on people being able to game the system since it’s completely random among those who qualify for the pool.

No no no. There was a cohort of kids right before the pandemic selected for CES using the universal review but not given spots by lottery. They also used the cogat in addition to MAP and grades, etc. This is what the PP is referring to. They eliminated needing to apply, teacher references, etc.

Yes - that's the point of a lottery. Not everyone gets a spot, but evertone who qualifies gets put into the pool and a lottery ticket to potentially win a spot.

I understand what a lottery is, thank you. Those kids were NOT put into a lottery or selected by lottery. All the 3rd graders went through a universal review, and the students with the strongest combo of qualifications were offered spots. There was some norming using FARMS bands and available cohort, but you ended up offering spots to nearly all of the most highly gifted, outlier students rather than leaving it up to luck of the draw. We don’t have lotteries for the football team or the school play. We pick the ones with the best tryouts or auditions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Relax, she is interim.
However, since you are asking - it improves the opportunities for students who historically have been left out. I get that that doesn't help your child, but it helps many children if color to level out the playing field.

+1 I know that MCPS has not done a great job with this, but it's actually possible to apply an equity lens AND to provide a rigorous education to all children. The problem is that Dr. McKnight lurched from one trendy idea to the next without taking time to ensure that any of the trends were actually working.

To take a specific example, there was a brief moment in time when it seemed like MCPS might be close to making much-needed changes to the CES and MS magnet selection processes. By testing all kids instead of just those whose parents knew to sign them up, prioritizing kids with no strong home school cohort, and "tracking" kids who did have a strong peer cohort together, MCPS was close to a better solution. It wasn't perfect, but it would have meant an enriched curriculum and strong cohort for many more children than the status quo.

Then it just sort of never happened. Maybe it was partially the ill-conceived lawsuit, but also a total lack of follow-through on the part of the Central Office.

The same argument can be made about restorative justice. When implemented with fidelity by well-trained teachers/staff, and appropriately resourced, there's a lot of evidence that it can work. The problem is that MCPS just announced that we have restorative justice now, but without any of the scaffolding or training or resources that could have made it successful.

This did happen with CES and the central office followed through on implementing it! Now kids don’t have to apply to CES but instead are selected into a pool by central office after a review of all students. The standards a student needs to meet in order to be in the pool vary depending on the FARMS rate of the student’s home school, so for example, a child in a high FARMS school can qualify for the pool with a MAP-R score in the range of the 70th percentile nationwide, while a student in a low FARMS school will qualify only if they exceed the 95th percentile nationwide. This benefits kids who don’t have a strong cohort at their home school and gives them an edge over kids coming from schools with a very strong cohort who won’t necessarily benefit as much from the CES cohort.

Once kids qualify for the pool, selections are a random lottery. This helps cut down on people being able to game the system since it’s completely random among those who qualify for the pool.

No no no. There was a cohort of kids right before the pandemic selected for CES using the universal review but not given spots by lottery. They also used the cogat in addition to MAP and grades, etc. This is what the PP is referring to. They eliminated needing to apply, teacher references, etc.

Yes - that's the point of a lottery. Not everyone gets a spot, but evertone who qualifies gets put into the pool and a lottery ticket to potentially win a spot.

DP. You miss the point, again.

The lottery was a construct introduced after that first adjustment (universal review -- good!; local cohorts vs. outliers -- promising if well implemented!). It was a need that following year due to the great uncertainty introduced by the pandemic: lack of testing and high variability in student experience/performance vs. expectation. It also was cheaper, with no need to have a process to rank-order candidates and with continued elimination of abilities-related testing in favor of exposure-dominant MAP, which always was going to be administered anyway for school accountability purposes.

The lottery paradigm stuck, with MCPS desperately trying to show there was some benefit to racial equity along the way to get continued BOE buy-in. However, instead of ending up with large local cohorts being well served with magnet-equivalent programming and scattered outliers being well served with opportunities at the magnet, we've ended up with local programming not at the same level, and difficult to implement with proper effect even to that lower level where large cohorts do not exist. Guess where that might be and which demographic that, then, more greatly underserves...

The MCPS presentation to the BOE committee on special populations at the beginning of the school year underscored MCPS' unfortunate dedication to this paradigm, with one-sided analysis failing to provide a holistic picture of MAP efficacy and highly questionable conclusions that MAP is a good proxy for ability, given the flimsy statistical result even to those softball and one-sided hypotheticals posed.

Let me be clear, a lottery, itself, while it might not be the best approach, is not necessarily unworkable, but only if they can guarantee reasonably equivalent local programming for any who demonstrate need, regardless of the size of the remaining local cohort, and only if that need is well-identified so that there isn't a vicious cycle of misidentification due to differential prior instructional exposure, both within MCPS and provided externally. Local norming helps with this, but the underlying measure is not one designed to be a highly reliable indicator of individual ability (more as a modest indicator of likely strengths and weaknesses to "hone the lesson" when viewed over a number of tests and a more meaningful assessment of whole-school/whole-district performance).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Relax, she is interim.
However, since you are asking - it improves the opportunities for students who historically have been left out. I get that that doesn't help your child, but it helps many children if color to level out the playing field.

+1 I know that MCPS has not done a great job with this, but it's actually possible to apply an equity lens AND to provide a rigorous education to all children. The problem is that Dr. McKnight lurched from one trendy idea to the next without taking time to ensure that any of the trends were actually working.

To take a specific example, there was a brief moment in time when it seemed like MCPS might be close to making much-needed changes to the CES and MS magnet selection processes. By testing all kids instead of just those whose parents knew to sign them up, prioritizing kids with no strong home school cohort, and "tracking" kids who did have a strong peer cohort together, MCPS was close to a better solution. It wasn't perfect, but it would have meant an enriched curriculum and strong cohort for many more children than the status quo.

Then it just sort of never happened. Maybe it was partially the ill-conceived lawsuit, but also a total lack of follow-through on the part of the Central Office.

The same argument can be made about restorative justice. When implemented with fidelity by well-trained teachers/staff, and appropriately resourced, there's a lot of evidence that it can work. The problem is that MCPS just announced that we have restorative justice now, but without any of the scaffolding or training or resources that could have made it successful.

+1000

Equity can be a great thing when people focus on what is causing the inequity or at least what parts can be solved for within their boundaries. And the two above are positive examples of what can be done. But implementation absolutely matters. They are trying to do too much in too many places with not enough resources. Progress takes time.

You are more generous than I am. I'm not sure they ever meant to see these initiatives through or to do them well. I think the highest levels of the CO were more concerned about saying that they did all of this than in actually doing it. At the school level, I think folks have the best of intentions, but at the C-Suite level, those folks felt like they were throwing some trendy stuff around in service of their next gig.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Relax, she is interim.
However, since you are asking - it improves the opportunities for students who historically have been left out. I get that that doesn't help your child, but it helps many children if color to level out the playing field.

+1 I know that MCPS has not done a great job with this, but it's actually possible to apply an equity lens AND to provide a rigorous education to all children. The problem is that Dr. McKnight lurched from one trendy idea to the next without taking time to ensure that any of the trends were actually working.

To take a specific example, there was a brief moment in time when it seemed like MCPS might be close to making much-needed changes to the CES and MS magnet selection processes. By testing all kids instead of just those whose parents knew to sign them up, prioritizing kids with no strong home school cohort, and "tracking" kids who did have a strong peer cohort together, MCPS was close to a better solution. It wasn't perfect, but it would have meant an enriched curriculum and strong cohort for many more children than the status quo.

Then it just sort of never happened. Maybe it was partially the ill-conceived lawsuit, but also a total lack of follow-through on the part of the Central Office.

The same argument can be made about restorative justice. When implemented with fidelity by well-trained teachers/staff, and appropriately resourced, there's a lot of evidence that it can work. The problem is that MCPS just announced that we have restorative justice now, but without any of the scaffolding or training or resources that could have made it successful.

This is a thoughtful balanced post and I completely agree. I don't think it's fair to attack her before she has an opportunity to do her job.

[Anonymous]

Equity means “equity of outcome.”

Put another way, equity puts closing the racial achievement gap, and the easiest way to do that is:

- from the top down.

Just follow the NYC example and eliminate all gifted and talented programs. To further equity, MoCo should also eliminate magnet and charter schools, take away AP and IB programs, and eliminate all homework.

Soon, all students will come out of MCPS on an equal level.

Mission accomplished!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Equity means “equity of outcome.”

Put another way, equity puts closing the racial achievement gap, and the easiest way to do that is:

- from the top down.

Just follow the NYC example and eliminate all gifted and talented programs. To further equity, MoCo should also eliminate magnet and charter schools, take away AP and IB programs, and eliminate all homework.

Soon, all students will come out of MCPS on an equal level.

Mission accomplished!

You must not be in the county. We don't have charter schools. We had one and it was shut down pretty quickly (not surprising given who ran it) and there are a few in the application process.

Some schools, like ours have few AP or higher level classes. There is very little homework. They send the kids to community college for higher level classes so they don't have to be bothered.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Equity means “equity of outcome.”

Put another way, equity puts closing the racial achievement gap, and the easiest way to do that is:

- from the top down.

Just follow the NYC example and eliminate all gifted and talented programs. To further equity, MoCo should also eliminate magnet and charter schools, take away AP and IB programs, and eliminate all homework.

Soon, all students will come out of MCPS on an equal level.

Mission accomplished!

You must not be in the county. We don't have charter schools. We had one and it was shut down pretty quickly (not surprising given who ran it) and there are a few in the application process.

Some schools, like ours have few AP or higher level classes. There is very little homework. They send the kids to community college for higher level classes so they don't have to be bothered.

Most of the people posting on MCPS forum are trolls and private schools parents.

[jsteele]

https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/1184605.page