Middle school magnet results?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The current system of relying on MAP Scores and Grades is less equitable than relying SOLELY on a CogAT test. (Preferably not the 30-question screener that focuses only on analogies, but the full test). Other districts (Broward FL) have found "diamonds in the rough" that way. From there, however, you don't focus only on 99%ile kids from privileged backgrounds, so there is still room for controversy. (Because even the best intentioned parents focus advocacy so keenly on the results for their own child, or children just like them.)

Both MAP scores and grades evaluate how kids are doing in a system that may be stacked against them in various ways. Even the most privileged gifted kid can have negative grade results for any number of reasons, some directly related to their giftedness.

Having more seats would help. But if the pro-magnet crowd takes the stance that whatever happens in a home school is never going to be good enough, the effort to get more seats gets derailed quickly.

I'm the PP who is frustrated that MCPS gave up on the system they pledged to implement four years ago, and this is exactly right. MAP scores reward out-of-school learning, as they are a test of exposure, not aptitude. Grades are subjective, and gifted kids can end up with a single B (or more) for a variety of reasons that should not disqualify them from the magnets.

However, a purely cogat-based approach has a substantial downside, which I'll call the NYC Trap, in which the magnets become the purview of the highly prepped rather than the gifted. That's what NYC saw with it's "gifted" elementary schools. Kids were prepping for a test administered at 3 or 4, creating a whole industry of test prep for tiny kids.

You can't prep for the cogat. Why do you keep brining up prepping? Most kids that prepped did not get in anywhere. The kids that prepped and got in probably would have gotten in anyway. Why are you so obsessed with assigning blame to a certain group of people? Why do people on this board think it's okay to bash Asian Americans but not other minorities and pretend that you are these gracious people who really want to help poor minorities. I have news for you. In NYC Asian Americans are the poor minorities. The kids going to magnets who are Asian are almost all FARMS.

You *can* prep for CogAT or intelligence tests, but not as effectively as for exposure-biased tests like MAP. They should (and did) have a broad, multi-factored set of criteria and guardrail algorithms to balance against this. They didn't last year and don't this year. It wasn't perfect -- any system has flaws -- but it would be better.

You're injecting the implication that the PP is anti-Asian instead of anti-test-prep when related to accessing a public service. Quite inappropriate to paint them that way.

That person is anti-Asian. You sound like you're pretty racist too.

Again with the unsubstantive response and unsubstantiated aspersions. Leave the conversation if you can't provide information or a point of view of value to others

If you think that someone calling out people who continue to make thinly veiled racist comments is not a point of view of value you should be ashamed of yourself. I'm sometimes mortified to live in this area with people like you are probably parents I interact with.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think it was Pyle. Where's that chart ...

NP. It was 100% not Pyle. Pyle had an extremely high percentage of students, much higher than the other Bethesda, Potomac schools that were "highly able." It was kind of shocking to see the difference actually.
The lower number was Westland.

So ... you're wrong, and the opposite is true. Frost and Hoover MS both have a higher number of highly able students, as measured by MAP-R for example, than Pyle EVEN THOUGH they have two-thirds the student population (each at just around 1000 students). Those are the raw numbers. Percentage-wise, both Frost and Hoover have significantly higher percentages of highly able students than Pyle does.

While the person remembering Pyle had a high percentage of students was wrong...
I think the numbers can be interpreted in different ways. Yes, Frost and Hoover have a higher percentage of students. But in terms of raw numbers it's similar and I think most people care more about the raw numbers if you are talking about cohorted classes like AIM and HIGH. Those students will be grouped together so you really just care about the total number of students.

Unless a school, such as Pyle, eliminates the cohorts by putting every student in HIGH.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The current system of relying on MAP Scores and Grades is less equitable than relying SOLELY on a CogAT test. (Preferably not the 30-question screener that focuses only on analogies, but the full test). Other districts (Broward FL) have found "diamonds in the rough" that way. From there, however, you don't focus only on 99%ile kids from privileged backgrounds, so there is still room for controversy. (Because even the best intentioned parents focus advocacy so keenly on the results for their own child, or children just like them.)

Both MAP scores and grades evaluate how kids are doing in a system that may be stacked against them in various ways. Even the most privileged gifted kid can have negative grade results for any number of reasons, some directly related to their giftedness.

Having more seats would help. But if the pro-magnet crowd takes the stance that whatever happens in a home school is never going to be good enough, the effort to get more seats gets derailed quickly.

I'm the PP who is frustrated that MCPS gave up on the system they pledged to implement four years ago, and this is exactly right. MAP scores reward out-of-school learning, as they are a test of exposure, not aptitude. Grades are subjective, and gifted kids can end up with a single B (or more) for a variety of reasons that should not disqualify them from the magnets.

However, a purely cogat-based approach has a substantial downside, which I'll call the NYC Trap, in which the magnets become the purview of the highly prepped rather than the gifted. That's what NYC saw with it's "gifted" elementary schools. Kids were prepping for a test administered at 3 or 4, creating a whole industry of test prep for tiny kids.

You can't prep for the cogat. Why do you keep brining up prepping? Most kids that prepped did not get in anywhere. The kids that prepped and got in probably would have gotten in anyway. Why are you so obsessed with assigning blame to a certain group of people? Why do people on this board think it's okay to bash Asian Americans but not other minorities and pretend that you are these gracious people who really want to help poor minorities. I have news for you. In NYC Asian Americans are the poor minorities. The kids going to magnets who are Asian are almost all FARMS.

You *can* prep for CogAT or intelligence tests, but not as effectively as for exposure-biased tests like MAP. They should (and did) have a broad, multi-factored set of criteria and guardrail algorithms to balance against this. They didn't last year and don't this year. It wasn't perfect -- any system has flaws -- but it would be better.

You're injecting the implication that the PP is anti-Asian instead of anti-test-prep when related to accessing a public service. Quite inappropriate to paint them that way.

That person is anti-Asian. You sound like you're pretty racist too.

Again with the unsubstantive response and unsubstantiated aspersions. Leave the conversation if you can't provide information or a point of view of value to others

If you think that someone calling out people who continue to make thinly veiled racist comments is not a point of view of value you should be ashamed of yourself. I'm sometimes mortified to live in this area with people like you are probably parents I interact with.

Substantiate your claim of racism by pointing to the particular quote. You can't because it isn't there. (Now watch as something is manufactured.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think it was Pyle. Where's that chart ...

NP. It was 100% not Pyle. Pyle had an extremely high percentage of students, much higher than the other Bethesda, Potomac schools that were "highly able." It was kind of shocking to see the difference actually.
The lower number was Westland.

So ... you're wrong, and the opposite is true. Frost and Hoover MS both have a higher number of highly able students, as measured by MAP-R for example, than Pyle EVEN THOUGH they have two-thirds the student population (each at just around 1000 students). Those are the raw numbers. Percentage-wise, both Frost and Hoover have significantly higher percentages of highly able students than Pyle does.

While the person remembering Pyle had a high percentage of students was wrong...
I think the numbers can be interpreted in different ways. Yes, Frost and Hoover have a higher percentage of students. But in terms of raw numbers it's similar and I think most people care more about the raw numbers if you are talking about cohorted classes like AIM and HIGH. Those students will be grouped together so you really just care about the total number of students.

Unless a school, such as Pyle, eliminates the cohorts by putting every student in HIGH.

Yes, Pyle puts everyone in to avoid complaints. But while the whole cohort piece may seem irrelevant to outsiders, they do have a real top cohort that they’re aware of internally and they do keep those students together. They just don’t tell the broader parent population that part. But yes, everyone can take HIGH.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Perhaps you should let MCPS know about your kid so that they can place someone else in that spot. Thiese kids that we are talking about are already recognized by the MCPS as gifted learners. Only due to the lottery these kids are at a disadvantage and have to attend high FARM schools with no local cohort. someone argues that gifted kids from high FARMS deserve to be in regional program beacuse they do not have a local cohort. But then why does MCPS send gifted kids with 99th percentile to that very same high FARMS school with no local cohort? MCPS is failing these kids and If you teach these kids that the merit and their academic achievement does not matter, then in the future, they will receprocate the same way once they grow up and become the decision makers.

Okay, so I think you are conflating a few issues here and making some unfounded assumptions.

First of all, MCPS *formerly* had a system that to some degree prioritized the magnets for kids with no home school cohort. That's no longer true. Now they have a lottery. So you are right that some kids are going to have more of a peer group, and others won't.

However, you are wrong to assume that a child attending a high-FARMS school will have zero academic peers. Actual test scores released by MCPS at one point showed that pretty much every school could scrape together a cohort if they tried hard enough. The point is that they need to try hard enough. There are bright kids in every school, so now your job is to stop complaining about how unfair the lottery is and start talking to the MS administration about how they are going to put the "highly able" kids together.

Are you making up stuff from under your seat? Can you provide source?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Perhaps you should let MCPS know about your kid so that they can place someone else in that spot. Thiese kids that we are talking about are already recognized by the MCPS as gifted learners. Only due to the lottery these kids are at a disadvantage and have to attend high FARM schools with no local cohort. someone argues that gifted kids from high FARMS deserve to be in regional program beacuse they do not have a local cohort. But then why does MCPS send gifted kids with 99th percentile to that very same high FARMS school with no local cohort? MCPS is failing these kids and If you teach these kids that the merit and their academic achievement does not matter, then in the future, they will receprocate the same way once they grow up and become the decision makers.

Okay, so I think you are conflating a few issues here and making some unfounded assumptions.

First of all, MCPS *formerly* had a system that to some degree prioritized the magnets for kids with no home school cohort. That's no longer true. Now they have a lottery. So you are right that some kids are going to have more of a peer group, and others won't.

However, you are wrong to assume that a child attending a high-FARMS school will have zero academic peers. Actual test scores released by MCPS at one point showed that pretty much every school could scrape together a cohort if they tried hard enough. The point is that they need to try hard enough. There are bright kids in every school, so now your job is to stop complaining about how unfair the lottery is and start talking to the MS administration about how they are going to put the "highly able" kids together.

Are you making up stuff from under your seat? Can you provide source?

DP here. If you look at the chart (including ** footnote at the bottom), every MS has at least 10-20 highly able students identified.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Perhaps you should let MCPS know about your kid so that they can place someone else in that spot. Thiese kids that we are talking about are already recognized by the MCPS as gifted learners. Only due to the lottery these kids are at a disadvantage and have to attend high FARM schools with no local cohort. someone argues that gifted kids from high FARMS deserve to be in regional program beacuse they do not have a local cohort. But then why does MCPS send gifted kids with 99th percentile to that very same high FARMS school with no local cohort? MCPS is failing these kids and If you teach these kids that the merit and their academic achievement does not matter, then in the future, they will receprocate the same way once they grow up and become the decision makers.

Okay, so I think you are conflating a few issues here and making some unfounded assumptions.

First of all, MCPS *formerly* had a system that to some degree prioritized the magnets for kids with no home school cohort. That's no longer true. Now they have a lottery. So you are right that some kids are going to have more of a peer group, and others won't.

However, you are wrong to assume that a child attending a high-FARMS school will have zero academic peers. Actual test scores released by MCPS at one point showed that pretty much every school could scrape together a cohort if they tried hard enough. The point is that they need to try hard enough. There are bright kids in every school, so now your job is to stop complaining about how unfair the lottery is and start talking to the MS administration about how they are going to put the "highly able" kids together.

Are you making up stuff from under your seat? Can you provide source?

DP here. If you look at the chart (including ** footnote at the bottom), every MS has at least 10-20 highly able students identified.

Do you know what happens at a school with only about 15 in the cohort? And a principal who doesn’t put enrichment as a priority? They don’t have the class. Or, for math, they combine the cohort/advanced kids with the less advanced kids in the grade above.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Perhaps you should let MCPS know about your kid so that they can place someone else in that spot. Thiese kids that we are talking about are already recognized by the MCPS as gifted learners. Only due to the lottery these kids are at a disadvantage and have to attend high FARM schools with no local cohort. someone argues that gifted kids from high FARMS deserve to be in regional program beacuse they do not have a local cohort. But then why does MCPS send gifted kids with 99th percentile to that very same high FARMS school with no local cohort? MCPS is failing these kids and If you teach these kids that the merit and their academic achievement does not matter, then in the future, they will receprocate the same way once they grow up and become the decision makers.

Okay, so I think you are conflating a few issues here and making some unfounded assumptions.

First of all, MCPS *formerly* had a system that to some degree prioritized the magnets for kids with no home school cohort. That's no longer true. Now they have a lottery. So you are right that some kids are going to have more of a peer group, and others won't.

However, you are wrong to assume that a child attending a high-FARMS school will have zero academic peers. Actual test scores released by MCPS at one point showed that pretty much every school could scrape together a cohort if they tried hard enough. The point is that they need to try hard enough. There are bright kids in every school, so now your job is to stop complaining about how unfair the lottery is and start talking to the MS administration about how they are going to put the "highly able" kids together.

Are you making up stuff from under your seat? Can you provide source?

DP here. If you look at the chart (including ** footnote at the bottom), every MS has at least 10-20 highly able students identified.

Do you know what happens at a school with only about 15 in the cohort? And a principal who doesn’t put enrichment as a priority? They don’t have the class. Or, for math, they combine the cohort/advanced kids with the less advanced kids in the grade above.

Also keep in mind that chart is for downcounty. I never saw the same chart made public for the upcounty schools

[Anonymous]

I agree it's not ideal. Just responding to the PP.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sligo MS also has similar number of highly-abled kids to Pyle although it has less than half the student population of Pyle. Sligo has only 700 kids at that school. It really makes you think differently about Pyle when you look at these numbers.

I suspect that Pyle suffers from "brain drain" caused by the siphoning off of highly-abled students into private schools in the area. Westland too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Perhaps you should let MCPS know about your kid so that they can place someone else in that spot. Thiese kids that we are talking about are already recognized by the MCPS as gifted learners. Only due to the lottery these kids are at a disadvantage and have to attend high FARM schools with no local cohort. someone argues that gifted kids from high FARMS deserve to be in regional program beacuse they do not have a local cohort. But then why does MCPS send gifted kids with 99th percentile to that very same high FARMS school with no local cohort? MCPS is failing these kids and If you teach these kids that the merit and their academic achievement does not matter, then in the future, they will receprocate the same way once they grow up and become the decision makers.

Okay, so I think you are conflating a few issues here and making some unfounded assumptions.

First of all, MCPS *formerly* had a system that to some degree prioritized the magnets for kids with no home school cohort. That's no longer true. Now they have a lottery. So you are right that some kids are going to have more of a peer group, and others won't.

However, you are wrong to assume that a child attending a high-FARMS school will have zero academic peers. Actual test scores released by MCPS at one point showed that pretty much every school could scrape together a cohort if they tried hard enough. The point is that they need to try hard enough. There are bright kids in every school, so now your job is to stop complaining about how unfair the lottery is and start talking to the MS administration about how they are going to put the "highly able" kids together.

Are you making up stuff from under your seat? Can you provide source?

DP here. If you look at the chart (including ** footnote at the bottom), every MS has at least 10-20 highly able students identified.

Do you work for MCPS? Which chart are you talking about? Please provide link.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I agree it's not ideal. Just responding to the PP.

Your post is just bunch of opinions and unsubstantiated claims. You failed to provide any links for the source.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Having more seats would help. But if the pro-magnet crowd takes the stance that whatever happens in a home school is never going to be good enough, the effort to get more seats gets derailed quickly.

This is a very good point. You had parents a few years ago acting like being FORCED to attend Pyle or Frost or whatever highly segregated home MS they were assigned was basically consigning their child to a life of drudgery and wage slavery.

If those parents spend 1/10th of their efforts trying to get home school differentiation, it would be a win-win for everyone.

A few years ago, numerous motivated parents tried to get home school differentiation and this is where we are today. They spent significant time meeting with middle school principals and CES teachers along with writing letters and emails to AEI. They wanted their kids in their home school with enriched classes, not necessarily at the magnets.

Thank you for raising this. The PPPs childish insults aside, they are just factually incorrect. No parent wants to have their kid on a bus 2 hours a day to attend Eastern instead of going to Pyle. I would be surprised if Eastern has any students in the Whitman cluster at all. People, particularly those in the Whitman cluster, have always wanted more home school accelerated programs.

And they should have them, as long as all the highly able kids across the system have reasonably equivalent availability of/access to the same.

They do not have the access. That is the problem

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
DP here. If you look at the chart (including ** footnote at the bottom), every MS has at least 10-20 highly able students identified.

Do you work for MCPS? Which chart are you talking about? Please provide link.

If you just looked upthread, you would've seen it:

https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/uploadedFiles/schools/msmagnet/about/MS%20Magnet%20Field%20Test%20Data%20by%20Sending%20MS.pdf

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Having more seats would help. But if the pro-magnet crowd takes the stance that whatever happens in a home school is never going to be good enough, the effort to get more seats gets derailed quickly.

This is a very good point. You had parents a few years ago acting like being FORCED to attend Pyle or Frost or whatever highly segregated home MS they were assigned was basically consigning their child to a life of drudgery and wage slavery.

If those parents spend 1/10th of their efforts trying to get home school differentiation, it would be a win-win for everyone.

A few years ago, numerous motivated parents tried to get home school differentiation and this is where we are today. They spent significant time meeting with middle school principals and CES teachers along with writing letters and emails to AEI. They wanted their kids in their home school with enriched classes, not necessarily at the magnets.

Thank you for raising this. The PPPs childish insults aside, they are just factually incorrect. No parent wants to have their kid on a bus 2 hours a day to attend Eastern instead of going to Pyle. I would be surprised if Eastern has any students in the Whitman cluster at all. People, particularly those in the Whitman cluster, have always wanted more home school accelerated programs.

And they should have them, as long as all the highly able kids across the system have reasonably equivalent availability of/access to the same.

They do not have the access. That is the problem

So we need advocacy for it along with the willingness to support that with associated funding (taxes).