Did the Takoma MS magnet got MORE white this year?
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Anonymous
I think these are difficult questions and they illustrate what MCPS has to deal with. You have one very vocal subset of parents demanding more and more advanced courses, which are in part necessary because those same parents are spending thousands of dollars to keep their kids significantly ahead of grade level. It's basically an arms race, and it is one that MCPS will never win because there will always be a private test prep company willing to keep the kids EVEN FURTHER ahead. All of this in an environment of limited resources where there are bright and motivated kids who are NOT getting coaching outside of school to get and stay ahead. I'm sympathetic to MCPS here. They can't win. |
Anonymous
| I was relieved they took teacher recs out of the mix. They aren't consistent or objective. |
Anonymous
| But they are important insight on a student. To account for potential bias by a teacher, we should require more recs. If there is one bad one, it will be the outlier. Recs are a great way to communicate the whole learner. Tests (and essays, even though they're not supposed to be) can be coached. Recs cannot. They are an important independent marker. |
Anonymous
Not really meaningful since the insights are subjective and vary from one teacher to another. |
Anonymous
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Absolutely meaningful because these people are trained teachers. They understand the curriculum and have many hours to observe the child in an academic setting.
There is subjectivity in many fields/processes (grant selection, academic publishing, college apps, job application, the arts, etc etc), we don't throw out the evaluation because of subjectivity. There should be a breadth of recs to avoid discrimination if one reviewer is overly subjective. |
Anonymous
| There is just so much bias... it is systemic and even good teachers are swayed by it. They are NOT trained to understand the difference between a high performing child and a high potential child. Some do see it, but in my experience, most do not. |
Anonymous
I have to agree. Also, because 3rd graders only have one teacher, it's hard to eliminate bias because there aren't multiple recs. Prefer consistent objective measures like MAP. |
Anonymous
Why do people assume that every high achiever takes prep/tutoring classes? Mine do not. But even if they are, they are still "studying". They are putting in the extra effort so that they do well in school and are more challenged. Why would you want everyone to be mediocre rather than high achieving? And yes, for many students, it takes prepping/tutoring to be high achieving. MCPS like to tout how we have a high AP test participation rate; it touts the high SAT/AP test scores, etc... but then frowns on students studying extra to achieve those high scores? Would they be happier if no one prepped and the test scores were lower than they are now? Can't have it both ways. |
Anonymous
This is clear: When 100s of straight A student is BORED with the ES or MS work, class, lack of discussion, projects. Something needs to be done. No need to speculate who's going to be Steve Jobs later, or have a big A Ha moment at age 16 and suddenly start applying him/herself. Challenge the student today, challenge the student appropriately. Kids have academic track records by 3rd and 4th grade, no need to put SPECULATION as the number 1 determinant for access to a CES or magnet program. No need to project that if Little Julio was just in a special program his 70% scores would be 90% scores. That's speculation. Just what DC did and then everyone ended up cheating to make kids graduate programs and look like a success. Teachers know when smart kids are bored, or aren't having their interests built or worse, are losing their love of learning. But they can't deviate from C2.0, or they have too much material to cover lightly, or no time, or easier to just stay on script. Ideally you'd switch to private school, every top kid I know who was bored and switched, practically snapped out of a funk and loved school again. More ideally, this big, $$$$ public school district would nuture these such students, not only the ESOL, FARMS, bottom half, but the top ones. |
Anonymous
Agree. THe ECs and tutoring going on in our school pyramid is not to catch up, get better grades or ace a standardized test. It is to stimulate the bright child- since MoCo is not, it is to fill in holes with better math or writing methods - since MoCo is riddled with foundational holes, and it is to add content not at MCPS ES like languages, hand writing, science experiments, music, even sports frankly since 30 mins of PE is a joke. Meanwhile, Smith doesn't care and can focus on the achievement gap. |
Anonymous
We have faith in teachers to teach our kids and evaluate them but not evaluate them for a magnet program? Makes no sense. MAP can be an indicator, but some kids are just good test takers and some are not -- it's not a universal indicator, just as teacher recs aren't universal. It's all subjective. So, we shouldn't leave anything out. Use MAP and teacher rec. But, not MAP and magnet test w/o any non-testing performance data. Test taking is one skill. And, it can be taught. |
Anonymous
They are also the ones who really do have a sense of the relative performance, maturity, work ethic, and aptitude of each student. It is not a parent who only sees her child and maybe a handful of child's friends. We loved our pre-schools report cards and commentary; they really knew our child and had suggestions on EC classes or things to work on each trimester. |
Anonymous
This is a good primer on why teacher recommendations are particularly problematic in racially diverse districts like MCPS: https://www.chalkbeat.org/posts/ny/2016/10/20/when-is-a-student-gifted-or-disabled-a-new-study-shows-racial-bias-plays-a-role-in-deciding/ "Racial bias among educators may play a larger role than previously understood in deciding whether students are referred for special education or gifted programs, according to new research from NYU." ..... "Teachers were more likely to see academic shortfalls as disabilities among white students, even when students of color demonstrated the same deficits. They tended to see these struggles as “problems to fix,” the study explains, if students were white. And students of color were more likely be referred for special-education testing when they had emotional or behavioral issues compared with identical white peers — and were less likely to be identified as gifted." |
Anonymous
In your utopia, what should a child do who is above grade level? Or has the mental capacity to learn more material, deeply? |
Anonymous
| The problem is elementary school kids usually have a main teacher and that's it. |