CES Decision Letters

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I wish we would be accurate. It's not MCPS percentile - as you can see from reviewing above where at the same National percentile you have vastly different (basically zip code driven) local SES percentile. I suppose this will be shot down, it's dcum, but could we call it what it is, "local SES percentile"?

Interesting theory but sadly you don't really have the details to make that assessment unless you work for the county and wish to share that info

[Anonymous]

MCPS said the decisions were based on an SES percentile but unclear whether what was reported on the letter was SES percentile or overall MCPS percentile. Does anyone know for sure?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I wish we would be accurate. It's not MCPS percentile - as you can see from reviewing above where at the same National percentile you have vastly different (basically zip code driven) local SES percentile. I suppose this will be shot down, it's dcum, but could we call it what it is, "local SES percentile"?

Interesting theory but sadly you don't really have the details to make that assessment unless you work for the county and wish to share that info

Actually MCPS just published yesterday on their website that they calculated MCPS scores differently * according to poverty levels at the home school * :
" What do the MCPS percentiles mean? How are MCPS percentiles determined?
The socioeconomic status of elementary schools was used to determine the locally normed score on
the CogAT® (MCPS Percentiles). In establishing MCPS Percentiles, students in schools with
minimal poverty were compared to one another, students in schools with moderate poverty were
compared to each other, and students from schools highly impacted by poverty were compared to
each other.

Why did MCPS use local norms? How were local norms created?
Based on guidance from the National Association for Gifted Children, the use of local norms was
undertaken to ensure equity and access in identification of students for program access..."


From there to concluding that they give higher MCPS scores to students in high-poverty schools, and lower MCPS scores to students in low-poverty schools, is not even a stretch.

Then you have to understand that at the 99th percentile (national), there is a wide range in abilities between the student who gets 99.0 and the one who gets 99.9, because it's the end of the bell curve. Those decimals matter for selection to a gifted program, and parents don't know them.

So a student who scores 99% for both MCPS and National, is either: highly gifted, because his National (and possibly MCPS) score is actually in the higher decimals of the 99th percentile; or in a high-poverty school, where his MCPS score has been bumped up, and his National score isn't necessarily stratospheric. No way to know which is which with the information currently available to parents.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:MCPS said the decisions were based on an SES percentile but unclear whether what was reported on the letter was SES percentile or overall MCPS percentile. Does anyone know for sure?

It says "MCPS percentile", which is calculated in part according to the poverty level at the home school.

[Anonymous]

Any rejections come today?

[Anonymous]

Yes, you can't really compare the kids who are 99th percentile National scorers since there is such a wide range of scores that can fit but you can compare kids scoring below that on the National scores to see the relative competitiveness of the three SES categories and the the various centers.

[Anonymous]

The scores reported so far don't really tell you much since almost every kid had 99th percentile national scores. But you can see a difference between the MCPS percentiles for Oakview and for an acceptance for a child in the Germantown (?) area. Not sure which CES that is.

Oakview
National/MCPS
95 95

Germantown
95 91

[Anonymous]

According to the FAQ, "information on how your student performed on each subtest is provided in the Student Profile Narrative which you may access on the Parent Portal" (available in mid-April). So you can wait until those come out and obsess over finding the differences between different parts of the county if you care.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:MCPS said the decisions were based on an SES percentile but unclear whether what was reported on the letter was SES percentile or overall MCPS percentile. Does anyone know for sure?

Other than somehow this factors into their scoring nobody knows since it wasn't explained.

DCUM parents often want to believe MCPS is much higher than the national and I guess this gives that illusion but it's only a percentile of the kids who tested which was a little over half in 2018.

The count does, however, show the national vs county percentiles for MAP which isn't grouped by SES and they're really not that different.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:MCPS said the decisions were based on an SES percentile but unclear whether what was reported on the letter was SES percentile or overall MCPS percentile. Does anyone know for sure?

It says "MCPS percentile", which is calculated in part according to the poverty level at the home school.

Nobody knows how they factor for this. It wasn't explained.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I wish we would be accurate. It's not MCPS percentile - as you can see from reviewing above where at the same National percentile you have vastly different (basically zip code driven) local SES percentile. I suppose this will be shot down, it's dcum, but could we call it what it is, "local SES percentile"?

Interesting theory but sadly you don't really have the details to make that assessment unless you work for the county and wish to share that info

Actually MCPS just published yesterday on their website that they calculated MCPS scores differently * according to poverty levels at the home school * :
" What do the MCPS percentiles mean? How are MCPS percentiles determined?
The socioeconomic status of elementary schools was used to determine the locally normed score on
the CogAT® (MCPS Percentiles). In establishing MCPS Percentiles, students in schools with
minimal poverty were compared to one another, students in schools with moderate poverty were
compared to each other, and students from schools highly impacted by poverty were compared to
each other.

Why did MCPS use local norms? How were local norms created?
Based on guidance from the National Association for Gifted Children, the use of local norms was
undertaken to ensure equity and access in identification of students for program access..."


From there to concluding that they give higher MCPS scores to students in high-poverty schools, and lower MCPS scores to students in low-poverty schools, is not even a stretch.

Then you have to understand that at the 99th percentile (national), there is a wide range in abilities between the student who gets 99.0 and the one who gets 99.9, because it's the end of the bell curve. Those decimals matter for selection to a gifted program, and parents don't know them.

So a student who scores 99% for both MCPS and National, is either: highly gifted, because his National (and possibly MCPS) score is actually in the higher decimals of the 99th percentile; or in a high-poverty school, where his MCPS score has been bumped up, and his National score isn't necessarily stratospheric. No way to know which is which with the information currently available to parents.

Again this is just idle speculation since they didn't provide sufficient details to reach any meaningful conclusion. As a PP said wait until April when the actual details are published

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Accepted 20912 to PBES 99% national / 96% mcps

Also accepted 20912 PBES 99% national / 98% mcps

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:According to the FAQ, "information on how your student performed on each subtest is provided in the Student Profile Narrative which you may access on the Parent Portal" (available in mid-April). So you can wait until those come out and obsess over finding the differences between different parts of the county if you care.

Since they used the screener, only the composite score will have a percentile. You will see on the parent report your child's raw score for each section, but not much else. Since there are few questions and only one subtest for each domain CogAT doesn't report more stats and recommends using the composite and not any subtest scores.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:MCPS said the decisions were based on an SES percentile but unclear whether what was reported on the letter was SES percentile or overall MCPS percentile. Does anyone know for sure?

Other than somehow this factors into their scoring nobody knows since it wasn't explained.

DCUM parents often want to believe MCPS is much higher than the national and I guess this gives that illusion but it's only a percentile of the kids who tested which was a little over half in 2018.

The count does, however, show the national vs county percentiles for MAP which isn't grouped by SES and they're really not that different.

Yes! We can all see from MAP scores that MCPS average is a couple MAP points above National MAP averages. MAP and Cogat do generally track so....

[Anonymous]

Also accepted 20854 Cold Spring 99% national / 96% mcps.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Accepted 20912 to PBES 99% national / 96% mcps

Also accepted 20912 PBES 99% national / 98% mcps