mcps. sounds about right. (GT admissions changes)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have it on good authority that the peer groups in the magnets this year are the strongest ever largely because of universal screening. In the past the only kids in the program were the ones whose parents recommended them and that bar was much lower.

Then why not release the median test scores like they used to so that those tiger parents of students who didn't make it can see that their kids weren't that smart after all?

It would certainly bolster MCPS' position on the changes, pulling in missed qualified students, and hush up the naysayers.

CogAt didn't provide numerical scores-- how can MCPS report the median? All we have is percentiles. Please explain how this would work. The media of percentile rank is statistically useless.

For HGC, they used to show the median scores of admitted students split by for verbal, nonverbal and quantitative along with your child's score in each area. DC took the test a few years ago.

Go back to some old threads. There is a thread where parents posted the median test scores in each of the HGCs.

And I don't think showing %iles is useless. It would probably show that a student with a 99%ile was rejected because of peer cohort over a student with a lower %ile.

The last few percentiles can't be meaningfully distinguished by one taking of the Cogat. Cogat tells you this. MAP info says same thing. It involves statistics. MCPS would be using the tests against the test instructions if they gave meaning to 1 pecentile differences at the upper end. Instead they have to look over a number of factors. Oh, and they do. But some folks here don't want to hear this as they "know" their child "did better." umm, ok.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have it on good authority that the peer groups in the magnets this year are the strongest ever largely because of universal screening. In the past the only kids in the program were the ones whose parents recommended them and that bar was much lower.

Then why not release the median test scores like they used to so that those tiger parents of students who didn't make it can see that their kids weren't that smart after all?

It would certainly bolster MCPS' position on the changes, pulling in missed qualified students, and hush up the naysayers.

CogAt didn't provide numerical scores-- how can MCPS report the median? All we have is percentiles. Please explain how this would work. The media of percentile rank is statistically useless.

For HGC, they used to show the median scores of admitted students split by for verbal, nonverbal and quantitative along with your child's score in each area. DC took the test a few years ago.

Go back to some old threads. There is a thread where parents posted the median test scores in each of the HGCs.

And I don't think showing %iles is useless. It would probably show that a student with a 99%ile was rejected because of peer cohort over a student with a lower %ile.

Median scores for a school will simply reflect an area's average SES. This by itself is not helpful. Further, scores are one of several admission criteria.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm fine with universal screening, but using the cohort criteria really does exclude the brighter kids.

But don’t they get the advanced classes at their home school? I thought they send the kids who are advanced but there’s not enough (20?) other advanced kids at their school, and where there are enough kids to form a class they keep them at their home school? I’d prefer my kid be at the home school, unless the magnet is close.

No. If it was the exact same curriculum, then yes, but it's not the same curriculum, so no.. those one or two classes does not make a magnet program.

Oh, but three classes does?!?! The magnets only have three magnet classes, others magnet students take with "regular" students from that school. So, if they have two magnet classes at their home school and now have the time they would have had to spend on the bus to participate in an extra curricular activity or club, win/win for everyone... seems like a move in the right direction.

i

You don’t understand the middle school magnet program. Not only is the curriculum for each class more advanced, but the curriculum for the magnet classes is coordinated across magnet subjects and between magnet teachers. So for example an “enriched” 6th grade social studies class at a home school will not come close to replicating the 6th grade magnet social studies class at a humanities magnet MS, which will be informed by and complement the work the students are doing in their magnet English, reading, and media classes (4 magnet classes in 6th grade). Those four advanced classes do not I include the math class, which is taken with home school students but for most magnet kids is IM, because they did compacted math in 4th and 5th.

I’ve had kids Inc both the magnet and home middle school programs. The difference is night and day. The home middle school was a snooze fest and the “honors” classes were a joke. I have no objections to universal screening, but I strongly object to the “peer cohort”rationale. Instructional need is a question of individual students’ capability and not whether there are other capable students in the same home school,when they are already being held back by an inadequate curriculum. The presence of other smart students does nothing to solve the fundamental inadequacies of the curriculum. The only solution is for MCPS to expand the magnet programs to home schools to meet the needs of all qualified students, not just rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic to reach a different set of qualified students.

The fourth course (lit) is now optional and only about 1/3 of Eastern’s 6th graders are taking it. There are also students who are not in the Magnet that take Lit as an elective.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A few things that bother me here

1. Fox Chapel teacher says "not every child performed above grade level". How the heck can you be in a an advanced program and not at grade level?

2. "Parents can no longer submit private evaluations attesting that their children are gifted". That was never part of the application process that I was aware of.

3. I'm all for universal screening and more local programs but the instruction level needs to be similar to what was available at the magnets. I have a child in a local CES and had one at an HGC a few years ago. Believe me, it is nowhere close.

The population you get when you admit a whole class from one elementary school is different from the population you get when you admit a few students with high standardized-test scores from 15+ different elementary schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm fine with universal screening, but using the cohort criteria really does exclude the brighter kids.

But don’t they get the advanced classes at their home school? I thought they send the kids who are advanced but there’s not enough (20?) other advanced kids at their school, and where there are enough kids to form a class they keep them at their home school? I’d prefer my kid be at the home school, unless the magnet is close.

No. If it was the exact same curriculum, then yes, but it's not the same curriculum, so no.. those one or two classes does not make a magnet program.

Oh, but three classes does?!?! The magnets only have three magnet classes, others magnet students take with "regular" students from that school. So, if they have two magnet classes at their home school and now have the time they would have had to spend on the bus to participate in an extra curricular activity or club, win/win for everyone... seems like a move in the right direction.

i

You don’t understand the middle school magnet program. Not only is the curriculum for each class more advanced, but the curriculum for the magnet classes is coordinated across magnet subjects and between magnet teachers. So for example an “enriched” 6th grade social studies class at a home school will not come close to replicating the 6th grade magnet social studies class at a humanities magnet MS, which will be informed by and complement the work the students are doing in their magnet English, reading, and media classes (4 magnet classes in 6th grade). Those four advanced classes do not I include the math class, which is taken with home school students but for most magnet kids is IM, because they did compacted math in 4th and 5th.

I’ve had kids Inc both the magnet and home middle school programs. The difference is night and day. The home middle school was a snooze fest and the “honors” classes were a joke. I have no objections to universal screening, but I strongly object to the “peer cohort”rationale. Instructional need is a question of individual students’ capability and not whether there are other capable students in the same home school,when they are already being held back by an inadequate curriculum. The presence of other smart students does nothing to solve the fundamental inadequacies of the curriculum. The only solution is for MCPS to expand the magnet programs to home schools to meet the needs of all qualified students, not just rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic to reach a different set of qualified students.

The fourth course (lit) is now optional and only about 1/3 of Eastern’s 6th graders are taking it. There are also students who are not in the Magnet that take Lit as an elective.

Sorry, 2/3 not 1/3. Fat finger. Just rereading this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A few things that bother me here

1. Fox Chapel teacher says "not every child performed above grade level". How the heck can you be in a an advanced program and not at grade level?

2. "Parents can no longer submit private evaluations attesting that their children are gifted". That was never part of the application process that I was aware of.

3. I'm all for universal screening and more local programs but the instruction level needs to be similar to what was available at the magnets. I have a child in a local CES and had one at an HGC a few years ago. Believe me, it is nowhere close.

The population you get when you admit a whole class from one elementary school is different from the population you get when you admit a few students with high standardized-test scores from 15+ different elementary schools.

Agreed. And it is for the better. More representative of how the County has gifted kids from many neighborhoods and socioeconomic backgrounds. Not to mention highly gifted students who move to MoCo too late to apply for a Center for ES. Look at how often the latter are going to private instead or families advised to move to VA.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I remember seeing this in a previous thread and found it both funny and probably closer to the truth than people want to believe....

Administrator #1: "Wow, look at those SAT scores over there at Blair. It's really amazing isn't it? We need to send out a press release!"
Administrator #2: "Definitely! Hold on a second, all these names of Intel Scholars sound Asian. Let me see the full list of Magnet students. All these names sound Asian and White."
Administrator #1: "Yea, they've been gaming the system for years. Sending their kids to tutors, supplementing education, and actually filling out the application"
Administrator #2: "Oh no, we can't have that! That isn't fair"
Administrator #1: "I know. We send parents information and leave phone mail message constantly in both English and Spanish but Hispanics and African Americans don't apply"
Administrator #2: "It sounds like we need try and make the application easier."
Administrator #1: "I've got a better idea! Lets get rid of the application all together. Test everyone."
Administrator #2: "Brilliant! But what about the fact that Black and Hispanics test lower across the board on all standardized tests, how do we overcome that?"
Administrator #1: "We should just set up quotas by race."
Administrator #2: "I wish. They passed a stupid law against quotas."
Administrator #1: "Let's think, how can we get around the law. Most Whites and Asians like to live in the same snobby rich areas, right?"
Administrator #2: "Right... God I hate those Whites and Asians!"
Administrator #1: "Then lets say that if you live in an area where your home school has other really smart kids then you get penalized in the admissions process."
Administrator #2: "Great Idea! That way, we can say that we aren't giving preference to race, we can disguise it as preference by opportunity."
Administrator #1: "Wait, but won't that make the SAT scores at Blair go down? Won't that make us look bad?"
Administrator #2: "Of course it will but we are doing it for the greater good. Plus, we work for the Government. What are they going to do? Fire us?
Administrator #1: "Ha ha ha ha ha ha!"
Administrator #2: "Ha ha ha ha he he ha ha!"

This may be closer to the truth than anyone wants to admit....

[Anonymous]

kumbaya MCPS. try your social experiments with other people's tax monies somewhere else.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have it on good authority that the peer groups in the magnets this year are the strongest ever largely because of universal screening. In the past the only kids in the program were the ones whose parents recommended them and that bar was much lower.

Then why not release the median test scores like they used to so that those tiger parents of students who didn't make it can see that their kids weren't that smart after all?

It would certainly bolster MCPS' position on the changes, pulling in missed qualified students, and hush up the naysayers.

CogAt didn't provide numerical scores-- how can MCPS report the median? All we have is percentiles. Please explain how this would work. The media of percentile rank is statistically useless.

For HGC, they used to show the median scores of admitted students split by for verbal, nonverbal and quantitative along with your child's score in each area. DC took the test a few years ago.

Go back to some old threads. There is a thread where parents posted the median test scores in each of the HGCs.

And I don't think showing %iles is useless. It would probably show that a student with a 99%ile was rejected because of peer cohort over a student with a lower %ile.

Median scores for a school will simply reflect an area's average SES. This by itself is not helpful. Further, scores are one of several admission criteria.

Yes we know... "cohort" is the other, which has nothing to do with academic metrics.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Yes we know... "cohort" is the other, which has nothing to do with academic metrics.

Really? But I have often read on DCUM that cohort is very important academically - usually in discussion about application magnet programs or schools in Bethesda/Potomac/Chevy Chase.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I remember seeing this in a previous thread and found it both funny and probably closer to the truth than people want to believe....

Administrator #1: "Wow, look at those SAT scores over there at Blair. It's really amazing isn't it? We need to send out a press release!"
Administrator #2: "Definitely! Hold on a second, all these names of Intel Scholars sound Asian. Let me see the full list of Magnet students. All these names sound Asian and White."
Administrator #1: "Yea, they've been gaming the system for years. Sending their kids to tutors, supplementing education, and actually filling out the application"
Administrator #2: "Oh no, we can't have that! That isn't fair"
Administrator #1: "I know. We send parents information and leave phone mail message constantly in both English and Spanish but Hispanics and African Americans don't apply"
Administrator #2: "It sounds like we need try and make the application easier."
Administrator #1: "I've got a better idea! Lets get rid of the application all together. Test everyone."
Administrator #2: "Brilliant! But what about the fact that Black and Hispanics test lower across the board on all standardized tests, how do we overcome that?"
Administrator #1: "We should just set up quotas by race."
Administrator #2: "I wish. They passed a stupid law against quotas."
Administrator #1: "Let's think, how can we get around the law. Most Whites and Asians like to live in the same snobby rich areas, right?"
Administrator #2: "Right... God I hate those Whites and Asians!"
Administrator #1: "Then lets say that if you live in an area where your home school has other really smart kids then you get penalized in the admissions process."
Administrator #2: "Great Idea! That way, we can say that we aren't giving preference to race, we can disguise it as preference by opportunity."
Administrator #1: "Wait, but won't that make the SAT scores at Blair go down? Won't that make us look bad?"
Administrator #2: "Of course it will but we are doing it for the greater good. Plus, we work for the Government. What are they going to do? Fire us?
Administrator #1: "Ha ha ha ha ha ha!"
Administrator #2: "Ha ha ha ha he he ha ha!"

This may be closer to the truth than anyone wants to admit....

Yeah, show us the evidence beyond your bigotry.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Yes we know... "cohort" is the other, which has nothing to do with academic metrics.

Really? But I have often read on DCUM that cohort is very important academically - usually in discussion about application magnet programs or schools in Bethesda/Potomac/Chevy Chase.

Putting a bunch of kids together w/o a proper curriculum is as useful as a bunch of smart kids chewing bubble gum together. Doesn't really achieve much. I cannot comment much about the middle school program, but I can certainly make a comment about elementary school. So they keep a bunch of smart kids back at the local school. They spend too much time doing very little and not being properly challenged in class. Unless the county plans a proper and challenging program for these kids with teachers who know how to implement the curriculum, cohorts mean very little.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Yes we know... "cohort" is the other, which has nothing to do with academic metrics.

Really? But I have often read on DCUM that cohort is very important academically - usually in discussion about application magnet programs or schools in Bethesda/Potomac/Chevy Chase.

Putting a bunch of kids together w/o a proper curriculum is as useful as a bunch of smart kids chewing bubble gum together. Doesn't really achieve much. I cannot comment much about the middle school program, but I can certainly make a comment about elementary school. So they keep a bunch of smart kids back at the local school. They spend too much time doing very little and not being properly challenged in class. Unless the county plans a proper and challenging program for these kids with teachers who know how to implement the curriculum, cohorts mean very little.

+1000

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Yes we know... "cohort" is the other, which has nothing to do with academic metrics.

Really? But I have often read on DCUM that cohort is very important academically - usually in discussion about application magnet programs or schools in Bethesda/Potomac/Chevy Chase.

Putting a bunch of kids together w/o a proper curriculum is as useful as a bunch of smart kids chewing bubble gum together. Doesn't really achieve much. I cannot comment much about the middle school program, but I can certainly make a comment about elementary school. So they keep a bunch of smart kids back at the local school. They spend too much time doing very little and not being properly challenged in class. Unless the county plans a proper and challenging program for these kids with teachers who know how to implement the curriculum, cohorts mean very little.

Well, tell that to the Whitman etc. parents. If cohort doesn't matter, why not live in the DCC?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
The last few percentiles can't be meaningfully distinguished by one taking of the Cogat. Cogat tells you this. MAP info says same thing. It involves statistics. MCPS would be using the tests against the test instructions if they gave meaning to 1 pecentile differences at the upper end. Instead they have to look over a number of factors. Oh, and they do. But some folks here don't want to hear this as they "know" their child "did better." umm, ok.

True but this contradicts the wack and baseless conspiracy theories. Reality is parents are now less able to game the system and the admission criteria is more competitive.