Did the Takoma MS magnet got MORE white this year?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think you need to learn basic math and reasoning. That statement is not always true. If you take the top 16% of Thomas Jefferson high school they will definitely be higher performers than the top 2.5% of MCPS. See?

Wrong

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

MCPS's own statistics shows which group has high test scores and which don't. Apply probability and statistics to the numbers. If the admittance breakdown to magnets is out of whack with MCPS's own statistics, then that means they are not accepting top performers, and indeed, MCPS has admitted that they look at peer cohort. There is no question about this fact.

But that's not true if there truly is a deficit of seats compared to highly qualified students. If, for example, you have 100 Asian students evaluated and 20 score at whatever your target threshold is (99% or whatever raw score) and you have 100 of some other race evaluated and only 5 score at your SAME target threshold, but you have 10 seats in the program, you can offer those seats to the 5 students of some other race and to 5 of the Asian students and everyone admitted will have met the same threshold for high performance. There will just be 15 Asian kids who also met the same threshold but didn't get admitted. And if those 15 all go to the same school, they will hopefully be a peer cohort in class with each other encouraging each other to excel. Obviously no real life situation is as simple as a stripped-down example, but if there are not enough seats for all of the highly able students (which everyone seems to agree is the case) then it is entirely possible for the student body selected not to mirror the racial percentages of the entire pool (either of MCPS students or of MCPS students who score X on any particular metric) and for each admitted student to still be eminently qualified and not erode the quality of the program at all.

? you just made the argument for me regarding "peer cohort" vs individual performance, and that they are using location as a proxy for race.

My example is a MADE UP example with MADE UP numbers that shows that your statement "that means they are not accepting top performers" does not logically follow from the data that you claim exists. In my example, all of the admitted students ARE top performers. The fact that not all top performers are admitted does not mean that any non-top performers are admitted if there are more top performers than there are seats.

I think you nailed it, but this will get lost in the garbage spew from the angry poster whose kid didn't make the cut this year.

I think people are just not accepting the premise that their target threshold remained as high as it did in years past.
Lets say that last year their target threshold raw score was 140 but this year it was 132. Was it lowered to find more students in an underrepresented geographical part of the county? They really need to release the median raw scores of the accepted kids for this year and years past otherwise people are going to remain suspicious that MCPS lowered admissions standards in order to increase a certain kind of diversity in the magnet programs.

Some people are clearly not accepting the premise that the standards stayed the same but they are doing so based on their own suspicions/biases/opinion, not based on actual data that we have access to. My point is only that we do not know that any students were admitted with statistically significant lower scores than students who were denied, and that to assume this is what happened based on the race of students admitted is not in fact logically reasoning from the data currently available, but rather making leaps of logic based on prejudice or suspicion of MCPS generally.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Why did MCPS put most of the magnets in the lower income (and predominately URM) schools if not because of using location (and race) as the reason?

If MCPS can use location and race as a qualifier for putting in magnets programs in those places, why wouldn't they use location/race as a qualifier for students to be admitted in those magnets?

MCPS did use location. MCPS says it used location.

It is illegal for MCPS to use race. Are you saying that MCPS did use race, and if so, what evidence do you have?

As stated, it just so happens that location has become a proxy for race since most of the URM happen to live mostly on the eastern side.

To repeat: location is a terrible proxy for race.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Some people are clearly not accepting the premise that the standards stayed the same but they are doing so based on their own suspicions/biases/opinion, not based on actual data that we have access to. My point is only that we do not know that any students were admitted with statistically significant lower scores than students who were denied, and that to assume this is what happened based on the race of students admitted is not in fact logically reasoning from the data currently available, but rather making leaps of logic based on prejudice or suspicion of MCPS generally.

The reasoning is as follows:

Premise: The only way to increase the number of low-income kids, African-American/black kids, and Latino/Hispanic kids in the magnets is to lower the standards.
Conclusion: Therefore, if the number of low-income kids, African-American/black kids, and Latino/Hispanic kids in the magnets increased, that proves that MCPS lowered the standards.

I think that this is an example of begging the question.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think people want easy answers, and there aren't any.

It would be EASY to just use CogAT or a similar test to "fine tune" peer groups, but that assumes CoGAT is the right tool for identifying gifted kids, and/or kids with a large amount of potential.

We all know that the smartest kids we went to school with are not necessarily the most successful today, and, as young people get older, working hard and staying focused becomes almost as important as having "gifts."

Additionally, there are multiple ways to be "gifted" and giftedness is often present in some areas and not others. This means that tests like the CogAT will be "spiky" for some kids, which makes an easy solution hard.

If you take the kid who has a 99% across the board but leave behind the kid who has a 99.99999% on one subtest but a 75% in another, does that serve the second kid?

These are HARD questions, and we haven't even touched the ways in which the tests themselves are culturally biased.

I know we all want a hard and fast rule, but that's not how life works.

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.

Well said. It's sad that the only program MCPS has that can challenge the top-tier private schools (it's test-in magnet program) is being changed due to political correctness and jealousy. I can just picture the conversation

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 had 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!"

I was about to report this for being inflammatory and racist but I think it's better just to let it stand here. You are showing us what people opposed to this new process really think.

It is sort of true though. Studying is not gaming the system, lower the standards is. I wonder if you office lowered their standards to hire you? They might have actually

I'm truly sorry your kid didn't make the cut, but there is no evidence to support these wild assertions. In fact, the evidence suggests the opposite.

BOTTOM LINE the top 2.5% of 4000 (2018 application pool) applicants beats out the top 16% of 600 (2017 application pool)

This is obvious to anyone with a brain but some parents can’t think clearly about this sort of thing.

[Anonymous]

I think 2018 is 38% White and 31% Asian. The published data was redacted for the remaking groups but some fraction of the remaining 31%. The also didn’t give percents just number accepted. I assumed same number of seats as last year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think people want easy answers, and there aren't any.

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.

!"

I was about to report this for being inflammatory and racist but I think it's better just to let it stand here. You are showing us what people opposed to this new process really think.

It is sort of true though. Studying is not gaming the system, lower the standards is. I wonder if you office lowered their standards to hire you? They might have actually

I'm truly sorry your kid didn't make the cut, but there is no evidence to support these wild assertions. In fact, the evidence suggests the opposite.

BOTTOM LINE the top 2.5% of 4000 (2018 application pool) applicants beats out the top 16% of 600 (2017 application pool)

What evidence? How are you loony toons defining "evidence"?

[Anonymous]

The top 2.5% of MCPS students playing hockey (n=160,000) can beat the top 16% of NHL hockey players (n=600).

The math says so.

[Anonymous]

The top 2.5% maybe different than the top16%of the 600. We don’t know that. It may or may not be true. We do know, however, many of the top of the 4000 kids are not accepted due to this bogus peer cohort criteria. We also know that MCPS refuses to publish median accepted cogat scores as they always did before. Anyone without an agenda can draw their own conclusions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Why did MCPS put most of the magnets in the lower income (and predominately URM) schools if not because of using location (and race) as the reason?

If MCPS can use location and race as a qualifier for putting in magnets programs in those places, why wouldn't they use location/race as a qualifier for students to be admitted in those magnets?

MCPS did use location. MCPS says it used location.

It is illegal for MCPS to use race. Are you saying that MCPS did use race, and if so, what evidence do you have?

As stated, it just so happens that location has become a proxy for race since most of the URM happen to live mostly on the eastern side.

To repeat: location is a terrible proxy for race.

Said no anthropologist, politician or socialogist ever.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Why did MCPS put most of the magnets in the lower income (and predominately URM) schools if not because of using location (and race) as the reason?

If MCPS can use location and race as a qualifier for putting in magnets programs in those places, why wouldn't they use location/race as a qualifier for students to be admitted in those magnets?

MCPS did use location. MCPS says it used location.

It is illegal for MCPS to use race. Are you saying that MCPS did use race, and if so, what evidence do you have?

As stated, it just so happens that location has become a proxy for race since most of the URM happen to live mostly on the eastern side.

To repeat: location is a terrible proxy for race.

Said no anthropologist, politician or socialogist ever.

Says the data.

[Anonymous]

Zip code and school catchment area is a highly correlated proxy for SES and race. Many people purposely live near their own markets, churches/temples/mosques, restaurants and communities within a larger society.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Zip code and school catchment area is a highly correlated proxy for SES and race. Many people purposely live near their own markets, churches/temples/mosques, restaurants and communities within a larger society.

Pick a kid at random from Robert Frost MS. What race/ethnicity is that kid? What are the chances that the kid is not that race/ethnicity?

Now do the same for North Bethesda MS, Silver Spring International MS, Argyle MS, Rosa Parks MS...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

MCPS's own statistics shows which group has high test scores and which don't. Apply probability and statistics to the numbers. If the admittance breakdown to magnets is out of whack with MCPS's own statistics, then that means they are not accepting top performers, and indeed, MCPS has admitted that they look at peer cohort. There is no question about this fact.

But that's not true if there truly is a deficit of seats compared to highly qualified students. If, for example, you have 100 Asian students evaluated and 20 score at whatever your target threshold is (99% or whatever raw score) and you have 100 of some other race evaluated and only 5 score at your SAME target threshold, but you have 10 seats in the program, you can offer those seats to the 5 students of some other race and to 5 of the Asian students and everyone admitted will have met the same threshold for high performance. There will just be 15 Asian kids who also met the same threshold but didn't get admitted. And if those 15 all go to the same school, they will hopefully be a peer cohort in class with each other encouraging each other to excel. Obviously no real life situation is as simple as a stripped-down example, but if there are not enough seats for all of the highly able students (which everyone seems to agree is the case) then it is entirely possible for the student body selected not to mirror the racial percentages of the entire pool (either of MCPS students or of MCPS students who score X on any particular metric) and for each admitted student to still be eminently qualified and not erode the quality of the program at all.

? you just made the argument for me regarding "peer cohort" vs individual performance, and that they are using location as a proxy for race.

My example is a MADE UP example with MADE UP numbers that shows that your statement "that means they are not accepting top performers" does not logically follow from the data that you claim exists. In my example, all of the admitted students ARE top performers. The fact that not all top performers are admitted does not mean that any non-top performers are admitted if there are more top performers than there are seats.

I think you nailed it, but this will get lost in the garbage spew from the angry poster whose kid didn't make the cut this year.

I think people are just not accepting the premise that their target threshold remained as high as it did in years past.
Lets say that last year their target threshold raw score was 140 but this year it was 132. Was it lowered to find more students in an underrepresented geographical part of the county? They really need to release the median raw scores of the accepted kids for this year and years past otherwise people are going to remain suspicious that MCPS lowered admissions standards in order to increase a certain kind of diversity in the magnet programs.

Some people are clearly not accepting the premise that the standards stayed the same but they are doing so based on their own suspicions/biases/opinion, not based on actual data that we have access to. My point is only that we do not know that any students were admitted with statistically significant lower scores than students who were denied, and that to assume this is what happened based on the race of students admitted is not in fact logically reasoning from the data currently available, but rather making leaps of logic based on prejudice or suspicion of MCPS generally.

Some people *clearly* do not understand statistics and probabilities.

If you have a group that normally scores high, then statistically, the median score of that group will be high.

If you widen the group and include many more groups that statistically score lower, then the median score of the whole group will go down.

You can argue that kids aren't a statistic, but the question of whether the median score went down with this new method is a simple matter of math.

I'm just using a bit of math and statistics to reach a conclusion. The naysayers are using emotion, not math or logic.

MCPS can put this question to rest by publishing the test scores of median accepted students like they used to do. Why did they stop doing so?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Some people *clearly* do not understand statistics and probabilities.

If you have a group that normally scores high, then statistically, the median score of that group will be high.

If you widen the group and include many more groups that statistically score lower, then the median score of the whole group will go down.

You can argue that kids aren't a statistic, but the question of whether the median score went down with this new method is a simple matter of math.

I'm just using a bit of math and statistics to reach a conclusion. The naysayers are using emotion, not math or logic.

MCPS can put this question to rest by publishing the test scores of median accepted students like they used to do. Why did they stop doing so?

Why do you care about the median test scores of the accepted students? What does this information tell you? If you had this information, what would you do with it?