Blind item: Regional criteria "magnets" will be lottery

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:MCPS has been lying since October.
The Program Deign Team (who MCPS "deigns" to share their designs to) was notified that the criteria programs will be lottery based.

The non-lottery version, announced after parent resistance in October, was a lie to get parents off MCPS's back

Equity and Opportunity in MCPS are cancelled.

Ironically, MCPS middle scholers are studying Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery" this week.

A lottery is fine, as long as all entrants actually meet the criteria for admission.

The devil is in the details. What should the criteria be - meeting the lowest bar or the highest bar? Right now, looks like the lowest bar.

Also high/low FARMS school have different bars now. Is it fair?

Correct for current CES and MS magnet. They published the threshold like 2 years ago. High farm threshold is 60% on map-r for CES lottery pool, while low farm threshold threshold is 95%.

It was actually 71st percentile for the highest FARMS schools (a tiny group of extremely high poverty schools, only 8 of the 100+ elementary schools at MCPS.) For the rest of the Title 1 schools and other "moderately high FARMS" schools (which still generally are majority-FARMS) it was 79th percentile.

Now let's think how this would be modified/adapted to the new regional model. For Region 1, you have Whitman that is low-farm, and some others are moderate FARM. If you apply 95% threshold, do you basically hand almost the entire lottery pool to Whitman students?

Whitman isn’t going to let other kids in. Maybe a token few but that’s it.

Or do they leave in appreciable averages. Whitman send very to magnets or IB programs despite having the highest test scores in the county and often the state many years. It’s school wide SAT avg is comparable to the best magnet programs most years yet they place very few into them. If they are counting on a liberal mixing of students between the clusters they should anticipate not all schools are desperate to leave towards lesser options.

Not all of us want our kids at Whitman or W schools either. Ever consider that? Some of us can afford to live in those clusters but choose not to.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:MCPS has been lying since October.
The Program Deign Team (who MCPS "deigns" to share their designs to) was notified that the criteria programs will be lottery based.

The non-lottery version, announced after parent resistance in October, was a lie to get parents off MCPS's back

Equity and Opportunity in MCPS are cancelled.

Ironically, MCPS middle scholers are studying Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery" this week.

A lottery is fine, as long as all entrants actually meet the criteria for admission.

The devil is in the details. What should the criteria be - meeting the lowest bar or the highest bar? Right now, looks like the lowest bar.

Also high/low FARMS school have different bars now. Is it fair?

Correct for current CES and MS magnet. They published the threshold like 2 years ago. High farm threshold is 60% on map-r for CES lottery pool, while low farm threshold threshold is 95%.

It was actually 71st percentile for the highest FARMS schools (a tiny group of extremely high poverty schools, only 8 of the 100+ elementary schools at MCPS.) For the rest of the Title 1 schools and other "moderately high FARMS" schools (which still generally are majority-FARMS) it was 79th percentile.

Now let's think how this would be modified/adapted to the new regional model. For Region 1, you have Whitman that is low-farm, and some others are moderate FARM. If you apply 95% threshold, do you basically hand almost the entire lottery pool to Whitman students?

You are just realizing this now when people are concerned that the DCC students will get even less with this model?

But many will have a chance at a non-DCC school which is a huge improvement

Run the numbers vs. that offered now. Also run the numbers on likely access, across schools, to a plethora of advanced courses.

There are likely to be more DCC students left behind at their home schools without offerings commensurate with their capabilities in any way reasonably equivalent to the other schools in their regions, without neither a sizeable enough local cohort of high achievers nor a commitment from MCPS to ensure that equivalent access across schools.

If you run the numbers, you have to take into account with redistricting and reducing student numbers, there will be fewer staff/teachers at each school, so something has to be cut, and most likely that will be the few upper classes and electives offered, as there isn't much else to cut. Every year our school is seeing a reduction in teaching staff. Then, the excuses come as to why we cannot have upper-level or AP classes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:MCPS has been lying since October.
The Program Deign Team (who MCPS "deigns" to share their designs to) was notified that the criteria programs will be lottery based.

The non-lottery version, announced after parent resistance in October, was a lie to get parents off MCPS's back

Equity and Opportunity in MCPS are cancelled.

Ironically, MCPS middle scholers are studying Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery" this week.

A lottery is fine, as long as all entrants actually meet the criteria for admission.

The devil is in the details. What should the criteria be - meeting the lowest bar or the highest bar? Right now, looks like the lowest bar.

Also high/low FARMS school have different bars now. Is it fair?

Correct for current CES and MS magnet. They published the threshold like 2 years ago. High farm threshold is 60% on map-r for CES lottery pool, while low farm threshold threshold is 95%.

It was actually 71st percentile for the highest FARMS schools (a tiny group of extremely high poverty schools, only 8 of the 100+ elementary schools at MCPS.) For the rest of the Title 1 schools and other "moderately high FARMS" schools (which still generally are majority-FARMS) it was 79th percentile.

Now let's think how this would be modified/adapted to the new regional model. For Region 1, you have Whitman that is low-farm, and some others are moderate FARM. If you apply 95% threshold, do you basically hand almost the entire lottery pool to Whitman students?

You are just realizing this now when people are concerned that the DCC students will get even less with this model?

But many will have a chance at a non-DCC school which is a huge improvement

Run the numbers vs. that offered now. Also run the numbers on likely access, across schools, to a plethora of advanced courses.

There are likely to be more DCC students left behind at their home schools without offerings commensurate with their capabilities in any way reasonably equivalent to the other schools in their regions, without neither a sizeable enough local cohort of high achievers nor a commitment from MCPS to ensure that equivalent access across schools.

Yeah, I really don't appreciate how Taylor is suggesting the DCC schools are privileged and need something taken away to make things equitable. It is just not true and is so offensive. The schools in the county that offer the most courses are Blair, Seneca Valley, RM, and BCC. Blair has the most students of any high school and 300 more than WJ which is the next highest. Plus SMCS. So it has nothing to do with the DCC.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:MCPS has been lying since October.
The Program Deign Team (who MCPS "deigns" to share their designs to) was notified that the criteria programs will be lottery based.

The non-lottery version, announced after parent resistance in October, was a lie to get parents off MCPS's back

Equity and Opportunity in MCPS are cancelled.

Ironically, MCPS middle scholers are studying Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery" this week.

A lottery is fine, as long as all entrants actually meet the criteria for admission.

The devil is in the details. What should the criteria be - meeting the lowest bar or the highest bar? Right now, looks like the lowest bar.

Also high/low FARMS school have different bars now. Is it fair?

Correct for current CES and MS magnet. They published the threshold like 2 years ago. High farm threshold is 60% on map-r for CES lottery pool, while low farm threshold threshold is 95%.

It was actually 71st percentile for the highest FARMS schools (a tiny group of extremely high poverty schools, only 8 of the 100+ elementary schools at MCPS.) For the rest of the Title 1 schools and other "moderately high FARMS" schools (which still generally are majority-FARMS) it was 79th percentile.

Now let's think how this would be modified/adapted to the new regional model. For Region 1, you have Whitman that is low-farm, and some others are moderate FARM. If you apply 95% threshold, do you basically hand almost the entire lottery pool to Whitman students?

It's not going to be 95th percentile-- the number of seats they are designing academic criteria-based magnet programs for is about 10% even if you just count SMCS, IB, and Humanities (more if you count the seats in criteria-based engineering and medical science magnets as well.) Given that some will prefer their home school or other magnets, the cutoff is likely going to be the 80th or 85th percentile (locally normed)-- ie the top 15 or 20% from each school will be eligible to attend.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Taylor specifically said they would not turn away students and that they would not be operating with a scarcity model. Plus, he said there are no caps on seats.

So it sounded like admissions was pretty much going to be an open door and no one would be rejected.

This is like when they say they are providing transportation. It isn’t actually the full true story. They can’t have unlimited seats for these programs.

The question is about criteria. I actually have no problem if they have as many seats as they need to accommodate all applicants who are as qualified and prepared as the current program students. The issue is when they have so much room or maybe not so much interest that they lower the criteria. Which is how you end up with underperforming programs, like some of the regional IB programs.

Exactly. The question is about criteria. I asked Jennie Franklin last winter during one in-person info session: as you are assigning similar program size, how do you set up the qualification criteria? Student stats and number of students who are interested in STEM will be significantly higher than another region (yes, I'm talking about scenarios like Region 4 vs. Region 5, but I don't want to offend anyone). So do you apply different criteria? Or do you use lottery for the former region? Jennie didn't give me an answer. She hasn't thought about this back then. Applying different criteria is what's CES and MS magnet is doing, and you'll end us with very different student body no matter you then run a lottery or not. This student body will be significantly stronger in academics and more suitable for adapting into the current SMCS curriculum where the future STEM program will most likely be successful.

I agree that stats will be different, but interest? I think you'd be surprised.

This is your guess based on your limited personal experience in your friendship circle. Central office did run a survey last spring to ask you select the top program themes that you'll be interested in. They did presented the ranking, but if I recall correctly, it's not breaking down into different regions nor parents/students/educators. The only purpose of the survey is to showcase that hey, people are interested. And then they run full-speed ahead with the agenda in their mind.

But they didn’t say these programs would be the ONLY way for a child to access high level courses. Why can’t we have good quality regular high schools in every building?

Have you read the proposal? Guarantees a baseline group of AP courses for every school. Or are you crazy MVC mom?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Taylor specifically said they would not turn away students and that they would not be operating with a scarcity model. Plus, he said there are no caps on seats.

So it sounded like admissions was pretty much going to be an open door and no one would be rejected.

This is like when they say they are providing transportation. It isn’t actually the full true story. They can’t have unlimited seats for these programs.

The question is about criteria. I actually have no problem if they have as many seats as they need to accommodate all applicants who are as qualified and prepared as the current program students. The issue is when they have so much room or maybe not so much interest that they lower the criteria. Which is how you end up with underperforming programs, like some of the regional IB programs.

Exactly. The question is about criteria. I asked Jennie Franklin last winter during one in-person info session: as you are assigning similar program size, how do you set up the qualification criteria? Student stats and number of students who are interested in STEM will be significantly higher than another region (yes, I'm talking about scenarios like Region 4 vs. Region 5, but I don't want to offend anyone). So do you apply different criteria? Or do you use lottery for the former region? Jennie didn't give me an answer. She hasn't thought about this back then. Applying different criteria is what's CES and MS magnet is doing, and you'll end us with very different student body no matter you then run a lottery or not. This student body will be significantly stronger in academics and more suitable for adapting into the current SMCS curriculum where the future STEM program will most likely be successful.

I agree that stats will be different, but interest? I think you'd be surprised.

This is your guess based on your limited personal experience in your friendship circle. Central office did run a survey last spring to ask you select the top program themes that you'll be interested in. They did presented the ranking, but if I recall correctly, it's not breaking down into different regions nor parents/students/educators. The only purpose of the survey is to showcase that hey, people are interested. And then they run full-speed ahead with the agenda in their mind.

But they didn’t say these programs would be the ONLY way for a child to access high level courses. Why can’t we have good quality regular high schools in every building?

Have you read the proposal? Guarantees a baseline group of AP courses for every school. Or are you crazy MVC mom?

No it doesn’t! It says AP or IB. There are big differences between those. HL IB courses are 2 years long versus APs being one year courses.

Also, there is zero accountability or consequences for secondary principals. They do whatever they want already and will find ways not to run the promised courses. We are experiencing this now in the DCC and I dealt with it as an electives teacher in the NEC.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Taylor specifically said they would not turn away students and that they would not be operating with a scarcity model. Plus, he said there are no caps on seats.

So it sounded like admissions was pretty much going to be an open door and no one would be rejected.

This is like when they say they are providing transportation. It isn’t actually the full true story. They can’t have unlimited seats for these programs.

The question is about criteria. I actually have no problem if they have as many seats as they need to accommodate all applicants who are as qualified and prepared as the current program students. The issue is when they have so much room or maybe not so much interest that they lower the criteria. Which is how you end up with underperforming programs, like some of the regional IB programs.

Exactly. The question is about criteria. I asked Jennie Franklin last winter during one in-person info session: as you are assigning similar program size, how do you set up the qualification criteria? Student stats and number of students who are interested in STEM will be significantly higher than another region (yes, I'm talking about scenarios like Region 4 vs. Region 5, but I don't want to offend anyone). So do you apply different criteria? Or do you use lottery for the former region? Jennie didn't give me an answer. She hasn't thought about this back then. Applying different criteria is what's CES and MS magnet is doing, and you'll end us with very different student body no matter you then run a lottery or not. This student body will be significantly stronger in academics and more suitable for adapting into the current SMCS curriculum where the future STEM program will most likely be successful.

I agree that stats will be different, but interest? I think you'd be surprised.

This is your guess based on your limited personal experience in your friendship circle. Central office did run a survey last spring to ask you select the top program themes that you'll be interested in. They did presented the ranking, but if I recall correctly, it's not breaking down into different regions nor parents/students/educators. The only purpose of the survey is to showcase that hey, people are interested. And then they run full-speed ahead with the agenda in their mind.

But they didn’t say these programs would be the ONLY way for a child to access high level courses. Why can’t we have good quality regular high schools in every building?

Have you read the proposal? Guarantees a baseline group of AP courses for every school. Or are you crazy MVC mom?

DP. Aside from PP's response about AP vs. IB -- and there's more to that than just rough equivalence of content, since 9th & 10th graders are restricted from IB courses at the schools that might offer IB instead of AP -- a baseline isn't what's needed. What's needed is equivalence of educational access to high level/rigor/quality courses across schools, and that baseline isn't coming close to doing that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This isn’t surprising- that’s how the DCC worked.

And aren’t those some of the lower performing schools in the county?

Yes.

And a parent of a kid who currently attends one of these schools from out of consortium, I can say that it is not very rigorous. Teachers and Principal are good though.