Is Cold Spring HGC the only HGC targeted by MCPS for denying entrance to MS magnet programs?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:One way is that they stopped publishing the median test scores of the three categories of accepted students. Why did they stop that? Parent would be able to see where their child placed in regards to accepted students. If the student's scores were much lower in all three areas compared to the median of accepted students, it's obvious why the student was denied. If it's lower in only one area, but higher in the other two, and was rejected, you might have the basis to appeal, or at least find out why your child was rejected.

The way it is no, you have no clue where your child falls, and so you have less reason to appeal. IMO, that's why MCPS stopped publishing the test scores.

I feel like I'm beating a dead horse here.

Under the new criteria, you don't get in just because you have higher Cogat scores in all three areas than the mean of accepted students country-wide. You get in based on your differentiation from the local peer group. So in order to know how close you were, you'd need to know your own scores and the medial scores of students who were selected from your local middle school cluster.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Given that MS magnet is a county wide program, and MCPS is supposed to serve ALL of its students equally, they shouldn't be using "cohort" at your home school as a reason to reject a student who scored really high and admit someone who didn't, especially given that the local schools absolutely do not provide anything near an enriched curriculum like the magnets do. That is not serving the needs of ALL its students.

That's an interesting perspective, but it's not the policy currently in place at MCPS. It's also not consistent with what the METIS report says MCPS should be doing to remedy the fact that there are more qualified students than seats at the magnets. (Hint: METIS report says the best solution to the problem is essentially to just dismantle the magnet programs, so that's what MCPS is doing slowly but surely.)

The problem here is that people are acting like there's some big hidden conspiracy, when what you're worried about is actually happening right under your noses.

[Anonymous]

Re-posted from a different thread...

From: Lang Lin
Date: February 19, 2018 at 10:09:57 PM EST
To: [e-mail]
Subject: Urgent message on Magnet program admission
Reply-To: [e-mail]

Dear GT Liaisons,



This year, as many of you are aware, MCPS conducted a pilot program changing the Eastern/Takoma Park magnet application and selection process. MCPS screened the entire 5th grade population of the down county magnet feeder schools, and identified 4000 "potentially qualified" students to test for admission to the 200 spaces in the EMS and TPMS magnet programs. (By contrast, in previous years, approximately 800 students self-selected to test for those spaces.) One of the new selection criteria evaluated whether each student has the "availability of a peer group at the local middle school," as reflected in the evaluation and test results of a much larger number of students at each middle school than was available in earlier years.



Over the last few days, it has come to our attention that, a number of students in the 99th percentile in all of the CogAT categories (Verbal, Quantitative, Nonverbal, and Composite) are being denied entrance - and are not even eligible for the wait pool -- because MCPS believes that the presence of large numbers of academic peers in their local schools will result in their needs being met at those schools. In addition, early indicators suggest that large numbers of very high performing students currently attending one of in the Centers for Enriched Studies (particularly in Barnsley CES, Chevy Chase CES, and Cold Spring CES as we learned for now) are not being offered placement in the magnets, even though those students have completed an elementary curriculum that places them well above the MCPS curriculum offered in local middle schools.



The MCCPTA Gifted Child Committee (GCC) has been working for the last few days to better understand this concern. As we navigate these issues, we encourage the following actions on the part of parents throughout the down county. Please pass this information on to parents in your communities that may be affected by these developments.



APPEAL: For students in the top percentiles, we encourage parents to consider filing an appeal to the decision, following the process outlined in the admission decision letter. We further suggest sending a copy of the appeal to both the Board of Education members ([e-mail]), Dr. Smith, and us. Since the appeal calls for "new" or unknown information, we suggest you inform the magnet coordinators that contrary to what they apparently were told, your local school does not group students by ability or offer accelerated curriculum yet. Ask that your student's need for rigor and challenge be reconsidered in light of this reality.



Please note, we do not think the appeal effort will increase the seats at the magnet, nor do we believe this effort will result in students being added to the wait pool or the class. However, we think this is a critical step to bring BOE members the awareness of the caliber of student that is being denied entrance to the magnet programs and the fallacy of the reasoning for it.



ADVOCATE: Families of all children denied entrance to the magnets that attended one of the Centers for Enriched Studies AND families of any other students that scored in the top percentiles in the CogAT and were rejected from the magnets are encouraged to make inquiries to both the MCPS central office and local home middle schools into the following questions:



1. Will the MCPS central office officially identify these highly able students and inform local middle schools that these students were denied admission because a peer group exists at the middle school?

2. How will the master schedule be used this spring at the local middle schools to ensure the "substantial cohort of highly able students" are grouped together in core courses and group projects?

3. What local school curriculum offerings are planned for the 2018-2019 school year to offer the peer group cohort the rigor and challenge they would have been offered in the magnet programs?

4. What supports and evaluations will be in place to ensure that these highly able students will be served successfully in the local middle schools?



MCCPTA GCC will continue to advocate directly on behalf of all highly able students within MCPS, raising these same concerns. We encourage our GT liaisons to share any information gathered on specific middle school plans on our GTliaison listserv so we can learn from each other and move quickly to ensure that highly able students' needs are met during the 2018-19 school year.



Kim Testa, Iris Masucci, and Lang Lin

Gifted Child Committee, MCCPTA

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:One way is that they stopped publishing the median test scores of the three categories of accepted students. Why did they stop that? Parent would be able to see where their child placed in regards to accepted students. If the student's scores were much lower in all three areas compared to the median of accepted students, it's obvious why the student was denied. If it's lower in only one area, but higher in the other two, and was rejected, you might have the basis to appeal, or at least find out why your child was rejected.

The way it is no, you have no clue where your child falls, and so you have less reason to appeal. IMO, that's why MCPS stopped publishing the test scores.

I feel like I'm beating a dead horse here.

Under the new criteria, you don't get in just because you have higher Cogat scores in all three areas than the mean of accepted students country-wide. You get in based on your differentiation from the local peer group. So in order to know how close you were, you'd need to know your own scores and the medial scores of students who were selected from your local middle school cluster.

That's true as far as selection goes, yes. But if a student scoring in the top 1% (or even top .3% based on raw data) in cumulative scores is rejected in favor of students scoring in the top 2-3% on an IQ test, there is a problem with that former group being served adequately by MCPS. Parents have a right to all the data in order to advocate effectively for their kids, whether that means an appeal or requesting the MCPS *assist* with implementing appropriate instruction at the home schools rather than telling parents to somehow "figure it out."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:That's true as far as selection goes, yes. But if a student scoring in the top 1% (or even top .3% based on raw data) in cumulative scores is rejected in favor of students scoring in the top 2-3% on an IQ test, there is a problem with that former group being served adequately by MCPS. Parents have a right to all the data in order to advocate effectively for their kids, whether that means an appeal or requesting the MCPS *assist* with implementing appropriate instruction at the home schools rather than telling parents to somehow "figure it out."

I agree with you that MCPS doesn't serve those students well (in fact, students in the top 10% overall are poorly served by MCPS IMO), but why do parents have a "right" to that data? Put another way, let's say that MCPS just eliminated the middle school magnets entirely. Would you still have a right to the data? It sounds like you're arguing that because MCPS has created a program (with lack of adequate seats) that's great for GT students, it's now obligated to give all qualified students that same opportunity. By that logic, every student who is willing and able to do Spanish immersion in K but doesn't win the lottery should have a right to do Spanish immersion at their home school. Unfortunately, that's just not how this works.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:That's true as far as selection goes, yes. But if a student scoring in the top 1% (or even top .3% based on raw data) in cumulative scores is rejected in favor of students scoring in the top 2-3% on an IQ test, there is a problem with that former group being served adequately by MCPS. Parents have a right to all the data in order to advocate effectively for their kids, whether that means an appeal or requesting the MCPS *assist* with implementing appropriate instruction at the home schools rather than telling parents to somehow "figure it out."

I agree with you that MCPS doesn't serve those students well (in fact, students in the top 10% overall are poorly served by MCPS IMO), but why do parents have a "right" to that data? Put another way, let's say that MCPS just eliminated the middle school magnets entirely. Would you still have a right to the data? It sounds like you're arguing that because MCPS has created a program (with lack of adequate seats) that's great for GT students, it's now obligated to give all qualified students that same opportunity. By that logic, every student who is willing and able to do Spanish immersion in K but doesn't win the lottery should have a right to do Spanish immersion at their home school. Unfortunately, that's just not how this works.

Although they are similar in the fact that kids qualified are more than available seats, you are comparing something with a murky standard (hence manipulative) to something with random distribution (lottery). Totally different story. If MCPS could consider run a lottery on the GT program, I bet the complaining voice would be much much much weaker.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:That's true as far as selection goes, yes. But if a student scoring in the top 1% (or even top .3% based on raw data) in cumulative scores is rejected in favor of students scoring in the top 2-3% on an IQ test, there is a problem with that former group being served adequately by MCPS. Parents have a right to all the data in order to advocate effectively for their kids, whether that means an appeal or requesting the MCPS *assist* with implementing appropriate instruction at the home schools rather than telling parents to somehow "figure it out."

I agree with you that MCPS doesn't serve those students well (in fact, students in the top 10% overall are poorly served by MCPS IMO), but why do parents have a "right" to that data? Put another way, let's say that MCPS just eliminated the middle school magnets entirely. Would you still have a right to the data? It sounds like you're arguing that because MCPS has created a program (with lack of adequate seats) that's great for GT students, it's now obligated to give all qualified students that same opportunity. By that logic, every student who is willing and able to do Spanish immersion in K but doesn't win the lottery should have a right to do Spanish immersion at their home school. Unfortunately, that's just not how this works.

Although they are similar in the fact that kids qualified are more than available seats, you are comparing something with a murky standard (hence manipulative) to something with random distribution (lottery). Totally different story. If MCPS could consider run a lottery on the GT program, I bet the complaining voice would be much much much weaker.

I don't think the new standard is murky; I think people just refuse to take their head out of the sand about how the system changed (or they are otherwise too emotional because they think the new cohort-based criteria seems unfair, which it very well may be).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Given that MS magnet is a county wide program, and MCPS is supposed to serve ALL of its students equally, they shouldn't be using "cohort" at your home school as a reason to reject a student who scored really high and admit someone who didn't, especially given that the local schools absolutely do not provide anything near an enriched curriculum like the magnets do. That is not serving the needs of ALL its students.

That's an interesting perspective, but it's not the policy currently in place at MCPS. It's also not consistent with what the METIS report says MCPS should be doing to remedy the fact that there are more qualified students than seats at the magnets. (Hint: METIS report says the best solution to the problem is essentially to just dismantle the magnet programs, so that's what MCPS is doing slowly but surely.)

The problem here is that people are acting like there's some big hidden conspiracy, when what you're worried about is actually happening right under your noses.

It's no hidden conspiracy. MCPS has simply found what they believe is a loophole in the law prohibiting making race an admissions criteria. If it were my 99,99,99,99 child who got passed over, I would definitely talk to a lawyer. This may even be a class action lawsuit worthy. I would be interested to see what would come of it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Re-posted from a different thread...

From: Lang Lin
Date: February 19, 2018 at 10:09:57 PM EST
To: [e-mail]
Subject: Urgent message on Magnet program admission
Reply-To: [e-mail]

Dear GT Liaisons,



This year, as many of you are aware, MCPS conducted a pilot program changing the Eastern/Takoma Park magnet application and selection process. MCPS screened the entire 5th grade population of the down county magnet feeder schools, and identified 4000 "potentially qualified" students to test for admission to the 200 spaces in the EMS and TPMS magnet programs. (By contrast, in previous years, approximately 800 students self-selected to test for those spaces.) One of the new selection criteria evaluated whether each student has the "availability of a peer group at the local middle school," as reflected in the evaluation and test results of a much larger number of students at each middle school than was available in earlier years.



Over the last few days, it has come to our attention that, a number of students in the 99th percentile in all of the CogAT categories (Verbal, Quantitative, Nonverbal, and Composite) are being denied entrance - and are not even eligible for the wait pool -- because MCPS believes that the presence of large numbers of academic peers in their local schools will result in their needs being met at those schools. In addition, early indicators suggest that large numbers of very high performing students currently attending one of in the Centers for Enriched Studies (particularly in Barnsley CES, Chevy Chase CES, and Cold Spring CES as we learned for now) are not being offered placement in the magnets, even though those students have completed an elementary curriculum that places them well above the MCPS curriculum offered in local middle schools.



The MCCPTA Gifted Child Committee (GCC) has been working for the last few days to better understand this concern. As we navigate these issues, we encourage the following actions on the part of parents throughout the down county. Please pass this information on to parents in your communities that may be affected by these developments.



APPEAL: For students in the top percentiles, we encourage parents to consider filing an appeal to the decision, following the process outlined in the admission decision letter. We further suggest sending a copy of the appeal to both the Board of Education members ([e-mail]), Dr. Smith, and us. Since the appeal calls for "new" or unknown information, we suggest you inform the magnet coordinators that contrary to what they apparently were told, your local school does not group students by ability or offer accelerated curriculum yet. Ask that your student's need for rigor and challenge be reconsidered in light of this reality.



Please note, we do not think the appeal effort will increase the seats at the magnet, nor do we believe this effort will result in students being added to the wait pool or the class. However, we think this is a critical step to bring BOE members the awareness of the caliber of student that is being denied entrance to the magnet programs and the fallacy of the reasoning for it.



ADVOCATE: Families of all children denied entrance to the magnets that attended one of the Centers for Enriched Studies AND families of any other students that scored in the top percentiles in the CogAT and were rejected from the magnets are encouraged to make inquiries to both the MCPS central office and local home middle schools into the following questions:



1. Will the MCPS central office officially identify these highly able students and inform local middle schools that these students were denied admission because a peer group exists at the middle school?

2. How will the master schedule be used this spring at the local middle schools to ensure the "substantial cohort of highly able students" are grouped together in core courses and group projects?

3. What local school curriculum offerings are planned for the 2018-2019 school year to offer the peer group cohort the rigor and challenge they would have been offered in the magnet programs?

4. What supports and evaluations will be in place to ensure that these highly able students will be served successfully in the local middle schools?



MCCPTA GCC will continue to advocate directly on behalf of all highly able students within MCPS, raising these same concerns. We encourage our GT liaisons to share any information gathered on specific middle school plans on our GTliaison listserv so we can learn from each other and move quickly to ensure that highly able students' needs are met during the 2018-19 school year.



Kim Testa, Iris Masucci, and Lang Lin

Gifted Child Committee, MCCPTA

I highly recommend people take this advice and appeal. Also send a copy to jack smith and MCCPTA GT committee as recommended. The appeal might not help but if enough parents in your home middle school file an appeal it will put more pressure on MCPS to offer your kids something better/ more appropriate than the advanced classes at your Home middle school

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Re-posted from a different thread...

From: Lang Lin
Date: February 19, 2018 at 10:09:57 PM EST
To: [e-mail]
Subject: Urgent message on Magnet program admission
Reply-To: [e-mail]

Dear GT Liaisons,



This year, as many of you are aware, MCPS conducted a pilot program changing the Eastern/Takoma Park magnet application and selection process. MCPS screened the entire 5th grade population of the down county magnet feeder schools, and identified 4000 "potentially qualified" students to test for admission to the 200 spaces in the EMS and TPMS magnet programs. (By contrast, in previous years, approximately 800 students self-selected to test for those spaces.) One of the new selection criteria evaluated whether each student has the "availability of a peer group at the local middle school," as reflected in the evaluation and test results of a much larger number of students at each middle school than was available in earlier years.



Over the last few days, it has come to our attention that, a number of students in the 99th percentile in all of the CogAT categories (Verbal, Quantitative, Nonverbal, and Composite) are being denied entrance - and are not even eligible for the wait pool -- because MCPS believes that the presence of large numbers of academic peers in their local schools will result in their needs being met at those schools. In addition, early indicators suggest that large numbers of very high performing students currently attending one of in the Centers for Enriched Studies (particularly in Barnsley CES, Chevy Chase CES, and Cold Spring CES as we learned for now) are not being offered placement in the magnets, even though those students have completed an elementary curriculum that places them well above the MCPS curriculum offered in local middle schools.



The MCCPTA Gifted Child Committee (GCC) has been working for the last few days to better understand this concern. As we navigate these issues, we encourage the following actions on the part of parents throughout the down county. Please pass this information on to parents in your communities that may be affected by these developments.



APPEAL: For students in the top percentiles, we encourage parents to consider filing an appeal to the decision, following the process outlined in the admission decision letter. We further suggest sending a copy of the appeal to both the Board of Education members ([e-mail]), Dr. Smith, and us. Since the appeal calls for "new" or unknown information, we suggest you inform the magnet coordinators that contrary to what they apparently were told, your local school does not group students by ability or offer accelerated curriculum yet. Ask that your student's need for rigor and challenge be reconsidered in light of this reality.



Please note, we do not think the appeal effort will increase the seats at the magnet, nor do we believe this effort will result in students being added to the wait pool or the class. However, we think this is a critical step to bring BOE members the awareness of the caliber of student that is being denied entrance to the magnet programs and the fallacy of the reasoning for it.



ADVOCATE: Families of all children denied entrance to the magnets that attended one of the Centers for Enriched Studies AND families of any other students that scored in the top percentiles in the CogAT and were rejected from the magnets are encouraged to make inquiries to both the MCPS central office and local home middle schools into the following questions:



1. Will the MCPS central office officially identify these highly able students and inform local middle schools that these students were denied admission because a peer group exists at the middle school?

2. How will the master schedule be used this spring at the local middle schools to ensure the "substantial cohort of highly able students" are grouped together in core courses and group projects?

3. What local school curriculum offerings are planned for the 2018-2019 school year to offer the peer group cohort the rigor and challenge they would have been offered in the magnet programs?

4. What supports and evaluations will be in place to ensure that these highly able students will be served successfully in the local middle schools?



MCCPTA GCC will continue to advocate directly on behalf of all highly able students within MCPS, raising these same concerns. We encourage our GT liaisons to share any information gathered on specific middle school plans on our GTliaison listserv so we can learn from each other and move quickly to ensure that highly able students' needs are met during the 2018-19 school year.



Kim Testa, Iris Masucci, and Lang Lin

Gifted Child Committee, MCCPTA

I highly recommend people take this advice and appeal. Also send a copy to jack smith and MCCPTA GT committee as recommended. The appeal might not help but if enough parents in your home middle school file an appeal it will put more pressure on MCPS to offer your kids something better/ more appropriate than the advanced classes at your Home middle school

+1

I think this is a good way to make your voice heard.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:MCPS has simply found what they believe is a loophole in the law prohibiting making race an admissions criteria. If it were my 99,99,99,99 child who got passed over, I would definitely talk to a lawyer. This may even be a class action lawsuit worthy. I would be interested to see what would come of it.

Nothing will come of it because MCPS will say that it has a legitimate, non-race based policy rationale for the new criteria (i.e., making sure all students in the county are able to be with a comparable cohort). There's no civil right being violated here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I really hope that parents of accepted kids don't bring this attitude with them to the magnet programs. I am picturing them side-eyeing any black and hispanic 11-year-olds who they assume are unqualified.

It is absolutely the case that prior to this new admission procedure, tons of kids with uninformed parents or parents who don't speak English didn't know they were supposed to apply. Testing more kids means correcting for that problem. It doesn't mean admitting unqualified students. It means that the kids who used to be admitted were not the only qualified students out there.

Oh good, I know you originally had "slant-eyeing" typed in and changed it. You do hate them Asians and Crackers don't you.

What in God's name??

Definition of side-eye
: a sidelong glance or gaze especially when expressing scorn, suspicion, disapproval, or veiled curiosity

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:MCPS has simply found what they believe is a loophole in the law prohibiting making race an admissions criteria. If it were my 99,99,99,99 child who got passed over, I would definitely talk to a lawyer. This may even be a class action lawsuit worthy. I would be interested to see what would come of it.

Nothing will come of it because MCPS will say that it has a legitimate, non-race based policy rationale for the new criteria (i.e., making sure all students in the county are able to be with a comparable cohort). There's no civil right being violated here.

The county is offering a selective program under the guise of being race neutral but implements a policy specifically designed to put more AA and Hispanics in the program. I think there is a case to be made.

Think about this scenerio:

Lets say that MCPS decides that there are not enough Asian and White kids getting free lunch. They decide that there is no longer a requirement to apply for free and reduced lunch and instead decide to have teachers and administrators identify a large group of kids who seem like they might be a good fit to get free lunch. They then ask all these families for their income. Letters come in the mail and there are families told that even though they only make $10k/yr their kids won't be getting free lunch because they have a peer group in Middle School who can give them part of their free lunch. There are kids from Bethesda/Potomac whose families make ($ unknown) that are given free lunch because they don't have a peer group of free lunch kids at their home MS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
The county is offering a selective program under the guise of being race neutral but implements a policy specifically designed to put more AA and Hispanics in the program. I think there is a case to be made.

Think about this scenerio:

Lets say that MCPS decides that there are not enough Asian and White kids getting free lunch. They decide that there is no longer a requirement to apply for free and reduced lunch and instead decide to have teachers and administrators identify a large group of kids who seem like they might be a good fit to get free lunch. They then ask all these families for their income. Letters come in the mail and there are families told that even though they only make $10k/yr their kids won't be getting free lunch because they have a peer group in Middle School who can give them part of their free lunch. There are kids from Bethesda/Potomac whose families make ($ unknown) that are given free lunch because they don't have a peer group of free lunch kids at their home MS.

First people move to Bethesda and Potomac so that their children can attend "good" -- i.e., segregated -- schools. And then they complain that MCPS is making decisions based on their schools being segregated. (And then they compare access to a magnet program to access to food.)

Is this the thread where a PP advised asking yourself what your argument would sound like to somebody who isn't from Bethesda or Potomac? That's good advice.

[Anonymous]

MCPS could have solved the whole issue but not including the 99s in the rejection letter.

Just show students scores based on their peer cohort. rejection letters will show that these students are just average with their peer cohort and not an outlier relative to their peers as described in the FAQs.