Best elementary school for a STEM gifted child?

[Anonymous]

Anyway... welcome to the area, OP!





Here's what you do: you buy a house you like in a neighborhood you like, with a commute you can live with and as good a school cluster as you can afford (ie, west MoCo, preferably Bethesda). This is for the benefit of the entire family.

Keep in mind that boundaries will change in Bethesda with the building of the new high school, Woodward, in the mid-2020s. This means: buy smack bang in the middle of the good clusters, not at the edges.

There. I sit on a PTA board that is well-versed in these matters. You can take that info to the bank

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Blair's 2018 SAT score for the Magnet program is 1531
The whole school SAT score is 1318.
This is from the school documents.

Wow, that is a nice jump! The whole school mean SAT score for 2017 was 1142 according to

https://montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/sharedaccountability/reports/2017/1771102HS%20Princ_SAT%20Partic_Perf%20Class%20of%202017.pdf

Can you post a link for 2018?

https://documentcloud.adobe.com/link/track?uri=urn%3Aaaid%3Ascds%3AUS%3A544d3cea-590a-4234-8efa-69b2be579481

Here is the magnet
https://documentcloud.adobe.com/link/track?uri=urn%3Aaaid%3Ascds%3AUS%3A23375440-8e5c-4664-9a57-f338cc639c57

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
The real-estate industry has always pushed the narrative of good and bad schools to help inflate home prices, but the evidence for this is superficial. Case and point W parents falling all over themselves to get their kids into Blair.

You are misleading people by deliberately ignoring the difference between "Blair Magnet Program" and "Blair".

I haven't heard of any W parents trying to get their kids into the non-magnet part of Blair.

I am not saying Blair is a terrible school - it looks average in the county. So it is still a good school. That's it.

The magnet school is one of the best in the country, that is also well known.

You might want to look at the thread's title. It's a primer on how to get your kids into TPMS. Face you got a case of Blair envy bad.

It looks like you should do that instead. This thread is about the Best ES for a STEM gifted child. If the child does not make the magnet schools, then choosing an ES that feeds into strong STEM schools would be useful.

Again, some people keep saying: "getting in to TPMS, getting into Blair", and pretending that they did not know it is actually getting in to the magnet programs of these schools rather than the non-magnet part.

I am making conclusions (which are clearly reasonable) based on facts. You are not. So I am not going to say that you have a case of "magnet envy" where people just want to ignore the difference between magnet and non-magnet parts of TPMS and Blair - I can't be certain that's your case so I do not make that kind of conclusion.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Blair's 2018 SAT score for the Magnet program is 1531
The whole school SAT score is 1318.
This is from the school documents.

Wow, that is a nice jump! The whole school mean SAT score for 2017 was 1142 according to

https://montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/sharedaccountability/reports/2017/1771102HS%20Princ_SAT%20Partic_Perf%20Class%20of%202017.pdf

Can you post a link for 2018?

https://documentcloud.adobe.com/link/track?uri=urn%3Aaaid%3Ascds%3AUS%3A544d3cea-590a-4234-8efa-69b2be579481

Way to go Blair!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
The real-estate industry has always pushed the narrative of good and bad schools to help inflate home prices, but the evidence for this is superficial. Case and point W parents falling all over themselves to get their kids into Blair.

You are misleading people by deliberately ignoring the difference between "Blair Magnet Program" and "Blair".

I haven't heard of any W parents trying to get their kids into the non-magnet part of Blair.

I am not saying Blair is a terrible school - it looks average in the county. So it is still a good school. That's it.

The magnet school is one of the best in the country, that is also well known.

You might want to look at the thread's title. It's a primer on how to get your kids into TPMS. Face you got a case of Blair envy bad.

Same could be said about half the threads on this board. The alpha-tigers got a seriously bad case of Blair/TPMS envy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Blair's 2018 SAT score for the Magnet program is 1531
The whole school SAT score is 1318.
This is from the school documents.

Wow, that is a nice jump! The whole school mean SAT score for 2017 was 1142 according to

https://montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/sharedaccountability/reports/2017/1771102HS%20Princ_SAT%20Partic_Perf%20Class%20of%202017.pdf

Can you post a link for 2018?

https://documentcloud.adobe.com/link/track?uri=urn%3Aaaid%3Ascds%3AUS%3A544d3cea-590a-4234-8efa-69b2be579481

Way to go Blair!

We should try to understand the big jump.

One can check the MCPS page on SAT participation for class of 2018 here:

https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/data/LAR-charts/SAT-Participation.html

Unfortunately they do not provide the scores here, so we'll have to wait until they come out later.

But just for the participation: look at various schools, we see that for example, for Blair, RM, Churchill, Wootton, Walter Johnson, there are consistently significant increases compared to the class of 2017.
For example, Blair: 351 tested out of 664 graduates (2017) to 493/696 (2018)

RM: 309/572 to 411/565
Churchill: 188/504 to 282/470
Wootton: 147/532 to 340/531
Walter Johnson: 298/553 to 406/556

Why?

Even more interesting, if you compare different reports, you get very different answers.
for example, the SAT participation rate of Wootton in 2017, based on SAT participation webpage, it is 147/532 ~ 27.6%. But if we look at the data provided by MCPS schools at a glance:
https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/sharedaccountability/glance/
you will see Wootton' SAT participation being 59%.

Big difference?

If we look at SAT participating rate from Blair:
the class of 2017: 351/664 ~ 52.9% from the SAT Participation website, 65.2% from the MCPS schools at glance
Class of 2018: 493/696 ~ 70.8% from the SAT Participation website, 80% from the Blair document link in PP.

My take is when we look at how things change in one school, or how things are across different schools, we need to compare data from the same report (i.e. data obtained using the same method/standard).
It is better to wait until the MCPS schools at glance report comes out for the class of 2018.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Blair's 2018 SAT score for the Magnet program is 1531
The whole school SAT score is 1318.
This is from the school documents.

Wow, that is a nice jump! The whole school mean SAT score for 2017 was 1142 according to

https://montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/sharedaccountability/reports/2017/1771102HS%20Princ_SAT%20Partic_Perf%20Class%20of%202017.pdf

Can you post a link for 2018?

https://documentcloud.adobe.com/link/track?uri=urn%3Aaaid%3Ascds%3AUS%3A544d3cea-590a-4234-8efa-69b2be579481

Way to go Blair!

We should try to understand the big jump.

One can check the MCPS page on SAT participation for class of 2018 here:

https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/data/LAR-charts/SAT-Participation.html

Unfortunately they do not provide the scores here, so we'll have to wait until they come out later.

But just for the participation: look at various schools, we see that for example, for Blair, RM, Churchill, Wootton, Walter Johnson, there are consistently significant increases compared to the class of 2017.
For example, Blair: 351 tested out of 664 graduates (2017) to 493/696 (2018)

RM: 309/572 to 411/565
Churchill: 188/504 to 282/470
Wootton: 147/532 to 340/531
Walter Johnson: 298/553 to 406/556

Why?

Even more interesting, if you compare different reports, you get very different answers.
for example, the SAT participation rate of Wootton in 2017, based on SAT participation webpage, it is 147/532 ~ 27.6%. But if we look at the data provided by MCPS schools at a glance:
https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/sharedaccountability/glance/
you will see Wootton' SAT participation being 59%.

Big difference?

If we look at SAT participating rate from Blair:
the class of 2017: 351/664 ~ 52.9% from the SAT Participation website, 65.2% from the MCPS schools at glance
Class of 2018: 493/696 ~ 70.8% from the SAT Participation website, 80% from the Blair document link in PP.

My take is when we look at how things change in one school, or how things are across different schools, we need to compare data from the same report (i.e. data obtained using the same method/standard).
It is better to wait until the MCPS schools at glance report comes out for the class of 2018.

SAT's are used for college admission. Rather than speculating about incomplete data, simply examine each high-school's college admission stats for 2018 which is published.

https://bethesdamagazine.com/bethesda-magazine/september-october-2018/where-bethesda-area-high-school-grads-applied-to-college/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Blair's 2018 SAT score for the Magnet program is 1531
The whole school SAT score is 1318.
This is from the school documents.

Wow, that is a nice jump! The whole school mean SAT score for 2017 was 1142 according to

https://montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/sharedaccountability/reports/2017/1771102HS%20Princ_SAT%20Partic_Perf%20Class%20of%202017.pdf

Can you post a link for 2018?

https://documentcloud.adobe.com/link/track?uri=urn%3Aaaid%3Ascds%3AUS%3A544d3cea-590a-4234-8efa-69b2be579481

Way to go Blair!

We should try to understand the big jump.

One can check the MCPS page on SAT participation for class of 2018 here:

https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/data/LAR-charts/SAT-Participation.html

Unfortunately they do not provide the scores here, so we'll have to wait until they come out later.

But just for the participation: look at various schools, we see that for example, for Blair, RM, Churchill, Wootton, Walter Johnson, there are consistently significant increases compared to the class of 2017.
For example, Blair: 351 tested out of 664 graduates (2017) to 493/696 (2018)

RM: 309/572 to 411/565
Churchill: 188/504 to 282/470
Wootton: 147/532 to 340/531
Walter Johnson: 298/553 to 406/556

Why?

Even more interesting, if you compare different reports, you get very different answers.
for example, the SAT participation rate of Wootton in 2017, based on SAT participation webpage, it is 147/532 ~ 27.6%. But if we look at the data provided by MCPS schools at a glance:
https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/sharedaccountability/glance/
you will see Wootton' SAT participation being 59%.

Big difference?

If we look at SAT participating rate from Blair:
the class of 2017: 351/664 ~ 52.9% from the SAT Participation website, 65.2% from the MCPS schools at glance
Class of 2018: 493/696 ~ 70.8% from the SAT Participation website, 80% from the Blair document link in PP.

My take is when we look at how things change in one school, or how things are across different schools, we need to compare data from the same report (i.e. data obtained using the same method/standard).
It is better to wait until the MCPS schools at glance report comes out for the class of 2018.

SAT's are used for college admission. Rather than speculating about incomplete data, simply examine each high-school's college admission stats for 2018 which is published.

https://bethesdamagazine.com/bethesda-magazine/september-october-2018/where-bethesda-area-high-school-grads-applied-to-college/

You know the magnet program at Blair contributes to a large part of the high profile of Blair's college admission data, right?


We are not talking about how good a HS is.
We are talking about how to choose an ES for a STEM gifted kid.

Note that an important part of that HS you can't get into by choosing the "RIGHT" ES. That is the whole point of this discussion. If you get into the magnet program, fine.
If not, choosing an ES in the Takoma area would not be a great idea since it feeds into the non-magnet part of the school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Blair's 2018 SAT score for the Magnet program is 1531
The whole school SAT score is 1318.
This is from the school documents.

Wow, that is a nice jump! The whole school mean SAT score for 2017 was 1142 according to

https://montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/sharedaccountability/reports/2017/1771102HS%20Princ_SAT%20Partic_Perf%20Class%20of%202017.pdf

Can you post a link for 2018?

https://documentcloud.adobe.com/link/track?uri=urn%3Aaaid%3Ascds%3AUS%3A544d3cea-590a-4234-8efa-69b2be579481

Way to go Blair!

We should try to understand the big jump.

One can check the MCPS page on SAT participation for class of 2018 here:

https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/data/LAR-charts/SAT-Participation.html

Unfortunately they do not provide the scores here, so we'll have to wait until they come out later.

But just for the participation: look at various schools, we see that for example, for Blair, RM, Churchill, Wootton, Walter Johnson, there are consistently significant increases compared to the class of 2017.
For example, Blair: 351 tested out of 664 graduates (2017) to 493/696 (2018)

RM: 309/572 to 411/565
Churchill: 188/504 to 282/470
Wootton: 147/532 to 340/531
Walter Johnson: 298/553 to 406/556

Why?

Even more interesting, if you compare different reports, you get very different answers.
for example, the SAT participation rate of Wootton in 2017, based on SAT participation webpage, it is 147/532 ~ 27.6%. But if we look at the data provided by MCPS schools at a glance:
https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/sharedaccountability/glance/
you will see Wootton' SAT participation being 59%.

Big difference?

If we look at SAT participating rate from Blair:
the class of 2017: 351/664 ~ 52.9% from the SAT Participation website, 65.2% from the MCPS schools at glance
Class of 2018: 493/696 ~ 70.8% from the SAT Participation website, 80% from the Blair document link in PP.

My take is when we look at how things change in one school, or how things are across different schools, we need to compare data from the same report (i.e. data obtained using the same method/standard).
It is better to wait until the MCPS schools at glance report comes out for the class of 2018.

SAT's are used for college admission. Rather than speculating about incomplete data, simply examine each high-school's college admission stats for 2018 which is published.

https://bethesdamagazine.com/bethesda-magazine/september-october-2018/where-bethesda-area-high-school-grads-applied-to-college/

You know the magnet program at Blair contributes to a large part of the high profile of Blair's college admission data, right?


We are not talking about how good a HS is.
We are talking about how to choose an ES for a STEM gifted kid.

Note that an important part of that HS you can't get into by choosing the "RIGHT" ES. That is the whole point of this discussion. If you get into the magnet program, fine.
If not, choosing an ES in the Takoma area would not be a great idea since it feeds into the non-magnet part of the school.

Yes, in fact, that was addressed by an earlier post in this thread. I belive they were able to definitelively showed Blair's SAT average for a particular group went from 1296 to 1326 because of the 30 something magnet students included in that group.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Blair's 2018 SAT score for the Magnet program is 1531
The whole school SAT score is 1318.
This is from the school documents.

Wow, that is a nice jump! The whole school mean SAT score for 2017 was 1142 according to

https://montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/sharedaccountability/reports/2017/1771102HS%20Princ_SAT%20Partic_Perf%20Class%20of%202017.pdf

Can you post a link for 2018?

https://documentcloud.adobe.com/link/track?uri=urn%3Aaaid%3Ascds%3AUS%3A544d3cea-590a-4234-8efa-69b2be579481

Way to go Blair!

We should try to understand the big jump.

One can check the MCPS page on SAT participation for class of 2018 here:

https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/data/LAR-charts/SAT-Participation.html

Unfortunately they do not provide the scores here, so we'll have to wait until they come out later.

But just for the participation: look at various schools, we see that for example, for Blair, RM, Churchill, Wootton, Walter Johnson, there are consistently significant increases compared to the class of 2017.
For example, Blair: 351 tested out of 664 graduates (2017) to 493/696 (2018)

RM: 309/572 to 411/565
Churchill: 188/504 to 282/470
Wootton: 147/532 to 340/531
Walter Johnson: 298/553 to 406/556

Why?

Even more interesting, if you compare different reports, you get very different answers.
for example, the SAT participation rate of Wootton in 2017, based on SAT participation webpage, it is 147/532 ~ 27.6%. But if we look at the data provided by MCPS schools at a glance:
https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/sharedaccountability/glance/
you will see Wootton' SAT participation being 59%.

Big difference?

If we look at SAT participating rate from Blair:
the class of 2017: 351/664 ~ 52.9% from the SAT Participation website, 65.2% from the MCPS schools at glance
Class of 2018: 493/696 ~ 70.8% from the SAT Participation website, 80% from the Blair document link in PP.

My take is when we look at how things change in one school, or how things are across different schools, we need to compare data from the same report (i.e. data obtained using the same method/standard).
It is better to wait until the MCPS schools at glance report comes out for the class of 2018.

SAT's are used for college admission. Rather than speculating about incomplete data, simply examine each high-school's college admission stats for 2018 which is published.

https://bethesdamagazine.com/bethesda-magazine/september-october-2018/where-bethesda-area-high-school-grads-applied-to-college/

You know the magnet program at Blair contributes to a large part of the high profile of Blair's college admission data, right?


We are not talking about how good a HS is.
We are talking about how to choose an ES for a STEM gifted kid.

Note that an important part of that HS you can't get into by choosing the "RIGHT" ES. That is the whole point of this discussion. If you get into the magnet program, fine.
If not, choosing an ES in the Takoma area would not be a great idea since it feeds into the non-magnet part of the school.

Yes, in fact, that was addressed by an earlier post in this thread. I belive they were able to definitelively showed Blair's SAT average for a particular group went from 1296 to 1326 because of the 30 something magnet students included in that group.

which was still higher than any W

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Blair's 2018 SAT score for the Magnet program is 1531
The whole school SAT score is 1318.
This is from the school documents.

Wow, that is a nice jump! The whole school mean SAT score for 2017 was 1142 according to

https://montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/sharedaccountability/reports/2017/1771102HS%20Princ_SAT%20Partic_Perf%20Class%20of%202017.pdf

Can you post a link for 2018?

https://documentcloud.adobe.com/link/track?uri=urn%3Aaaid%3Ascds%3AUS%3A544d3cea-590a-4234-8efa-69b2be579481

Way to go Blair!

We should try to understand the big jump.

One can check the MCPS page on SAT participation for class of 2018 here:

https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/data/LAR-charts/SAT-Participation.html

Unfortunately they do not provide the scores here, so we'll have to wait until they come out later.

But just for the participation: look at various schools, we see that for example, for Blair, RM, Churchill, Wootton, Walter Johnson, there are consistently significant increases compared to the class of 2017.
For example, Blair: 351 tested out of 664 graduates (2017) to 493/696 (2018)

RM: 309/572 to 411/565
Churchill: 188/504 to 282/470
Wootton: 147/532 to 340/531
Walter Johnson: 298/553 to 406/556

Why?

Even more interesting, if you compare different reports, you get very different answers.
for example, the SAT participation rate of Wootton in 2017, based on SAT participation webpage, it is 147/532 ~ 27.6%. But if we look at the data provided by MCPS schools at a glance:
https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/sharedaccountability/glance/
you will see Wootton' SAT participation being 59%.

Big difference?

If we look at SAT participating rate from Blair:
the class of 2017: 351/664 ~ 52.9% from the SAT Participation website, 65.2% from the MCPS schools at glance
Class of 2018: 493/696 ~ 70.8% from the SAT Participation website, 80% from the Blair document link in PP.

My take is when we look at how things change in one school, or how things are across different schools, we need to compare data from the same report (i.e. data obtained using the same method/standard).
It is better to wait until the MCPS schools at glance report comes out for the class of 2018.

SAT's are used for college admission. Rather than speculating about incomplete data, simply examine each high-school's college admission stats for 2018 which is published.

https://bethesdamagazine.com/bethesda-magazine/september-october-2018/where-bethesda-area-high-school-grads-applied-to-college/

You know the magnet program at Blair contributes to a large part of the high profile of Blair's college admission data, right?


We are not talking about how good a HS is.
We are talking about how to choose an ES for a STEM gifted kid.

Note that an important part of that HS you can't get into by choosing the "RIGHT" ES. That is the whole point of this discussion. If you get into the magnet program, fine.
If not, choosing an ES in the Takoma area would not be a great idea since it feeds into the non-magnet part of the school.

Yes, in fact, that was addressed by an earlier post in this thread. I belive they were able to definitelively showed Blair's SAT average for a particular group went from 1296 to 1326 because of the 30 something magnet students included in that group.

which was still higher than any W

Yes if choose a "particular group" instead of looking at the whole average.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. See I’m glad I asked! I have no idea about all this magnet stuff. Good thing my husband grew up in MiCo. He’ll have a better idea. But great to know the regular schools aren’t going to cut it. And when I mentioned he was gifted,
I’m just saying it’s his strong point. Very strong. But not trying to suggest there aren’t plenty of gifted children out there!

Blair Magnet for high school is what you should be shooting for. Otherwise, he is eligible to test into the elementary magnet programs starting in 4th grade. There are lots and lots of exceptionally bright kids who do not get into the magnet programs.

[Anonymous]

This flawed notion that there are "good" and "bad" schools is at the crux of this thread. It seems when one looks beyond simple demographics, these schools perform similarly at least that's my takeaway.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This flawed notion that there are "good" and "bad" schools is at the crux of this thread. It seems when one looks beyond simple demographics, these schools perform similarly at least that's my takeaway.

If a school's performance is defined as how good the students do, then no, these schools perform differently. And different parts of the same school (e.g. magnet in Blair vs non-magnet in Blair) perform very differently.

If a school's performance is defined as how much change the school can do to a student (this is a bit hard to judge but we can have some idea), then I agree, these schools perform similarly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This flawed notion that there are "good" and "bad" schools is at the crux of this thread. It seems when one looks beyond simple demographics, these schools perform similarly at least that's my takeaway.

If a school's performance is defined as how good the students do, then no, these schools perform differently. And different parts of the same school (e.g. magnet in Blair vs non-magnet in Blair) perform very differently.

If a school's performance is defined as how much change the school can do to a student (this is a bit hard to judge but we can have some idea), then I agree, these schools perform similarly.

I agree just because a similarly affluent group of Blair students outperform its counterpart at a random W by 20-30 points on the SAT doesn't really make it better.