CES Lottery
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Anonymous
The current model doesn’t raise everyone up. It raises up the low performing students while the on grade level and high achievers languish from not being challenged or getting much attention. |
Anonymous
No only the winter score |
Anonymous
You're mistaken it does the opposite. It raises everyone up. |
Anonymous
DP here. You can say that all you want, but it defies logic so not going to believe you. Kids who can't read at grade level should be given a curriculum that is 2 grades above grade level? The teacher will spend her entire time trying to get those kids up to speed, and will not succeed, and the kids at or above grade level will not get attention. |
Anonymous
Where do you get that? I’ve been told by multiple MCPS employees involved in this process it’s the last two or the highest ever. |
Anonymous
Correct, and I want to pull this out because I think it will reassure some parents on this thread, but also encourage them to get involved in advocacy. There is a large-scale enlargement of the ELC curriculum coming for next year's 4th graders. Almost every school in MCPS will get the curriculum. However, contrary to the intent of the ELC and in opposition to best practice for GT education, many schools will be rolling out the new curriculum to every single 4th grader and with no cohorting. That is, it amounts to a change in the reading/ELA curriculum but classes will remain heterogenous. When the ELC was piloted, it was always meant to serve the needs to highly able learners, and to cohort them with one another for ELA. It was meant to provide an appropriate education, with academic peers, in the home school and without the trouble of changing to a CES. This matters because MCPS had found that BIPOC kids and poor/working class kids were far less likely to accept CES placements than their white/Asian and middle class peers. Providing an appropriate, differentiated, education in the home school was meant to serve those kids in their home environment while not creating logistical challenges for their families. So, the good news is that every kid who qualified for the lottery will have access to the ELC curriculum next year (almost). The bad news is that principals may decide NOT to cohort those kids together. The opportunity to advocate for the lottery-eligible kids to receive the ELC curriculum together is right now. Literally right now. Call/email/show up to PTA meetings and ask your principals how they intend to handle the ELC rollout. If they are going to offer it to every single kid without differentiating or cohorting the highly able learners, get in touch with the MCCPTA Gifted Committee and ask them for help advocating to the next level. You can check them out here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/875483609961996 |
Anonymous
I contacted central office. They told me his winter map was below the required threshold. |
Anonymous
Do you know which schools will not have ELC? |
Anonymous
The big problem here is how to advocate. I have 4 kids and have been in MCPS a long time. In my experience MCPS does not care about the MCPTA gifted committee. I'd like to see what the gifted committee has accomplished in the last decade. My guess is very little--not through lack of trying--but due to low prioritization in MCPS. It has gotten harder and harder over the years to advocate for gifted (or just good old enriched) learning because it has become a lower and lower priority. Curriculum 2.0 ended meaningful enrichment in ELA, and pushed math enrichment backward. The number of students in MCPS has dramatically risen but the number of spots at ES and MS magnets has remained the same. MCPS has chosen to solve this problem by providing access to magnet level classes in homeschools (which I think is a wonderful idea), but, many schools don't cohort these classes. During all of these years MCPS is also facing record class sizes and a huge ESL population. |
Anonymous
MCPS teacher w/ an MCPS 3rd grader here--this is very true. I reached out the reading specialist at my kid's school (qualified for lottery but did not get placed, will receive ELC) to ask about what it would look like in our home school next year, which would help us determine whether we would accept a CES spot if offered. I was told that this: -a dedicated teacher will pull the ELC students into another classroom for the entire ELA block every day -all students who qualified for the lottery will be in this group -classroom teachers and others involved in 3rd grade (I'm guessing SpEd, ESOL, etc) will meet soon and add students who did not qualify for the lottery but teachers feel would benefit from the ELC This is just what I was told about my kids' home school. I'm sure it will look different in other schools (although this sounds very similar to what my school is doing). As with everything, if you want to know what's happening in your child's school, just ask! Email the reading specialist and ask what ELC implementation will look like. |
Anonymous
I don't have a dog in this fight, but two things I've seen the MCPSPTA Gifted Commitee do in recent years were to push hard for ELC in every school and file a FOIA making MCPS share the cut-offs for inclusion in the lottery by tier. Making MCPS actually articulate which schools were in with tier, and the cut-offs for each, is a huge win to my mind. Getting ELC in every school (except immersion as of right now) is also a big accomplishment, but now the challenge will be ensuring that individual principals/reading specialists cohort the lottery-eligible kids. The entire point of rolling out the ELC to all schools is so that lottery-eligible kids have access to a similar curriculum as they would have received in the CES. They can only have that if principals choose to cohort the kids who crossed the local threshold. |
Anonymous
| Most of the kids who get accepted to ces will be returning to their home school for middle school. There are very few enrichment opportunities in middle, and none in high unless you get into a magnet program. That said, ces does not determine high school outcomes so those who are waitlisted or didn’t make the pool remember, your kid will be ok. Its not the end of the world. I know, as I have one in ces and the other didn’t make it, one got waitlisted prior to the lottery. They are all okay |
Anonymous
What you describe is how it should be. In our school, they are moving to an ELC-for-all model, which means that it won't be cohorted separately. |
Anonymous
But doesn’t it kind of even out in high school because of APs? |
Anonymous
MCPS is so weird about this. My straight A student with 99th percentile MAP scores was not identified as GT last year bc of “district assessments”. She got 4s in reading and math and you need 5s? I still don’t understand it. A 4 is an A with standards-based grading. It seems like mcps enjoys making things intentionally vague. She was not even entered in the lottery pool this year. I suppose she’ll once again barely miss GT designation… ugh. |