CES letters?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Agree with 19:07. Parents should try to get ELC in their local school/get more enrichment. But for middle school, there’s a much bigger gap and way fewer magnet seats than Center seats. People should be trying to bring back real Honors English and Science classes - or make the existing classes stronger!

Don't disagree with this, but if you have a third grader and it's your first kid, you have very little knowledge about what kinds of classes are offered in middle school, which is why we are talking about 4th grade and not 6-8. How do we go about advocating for these things? (Not a snarky question - if people suggesting this have been though MS already, what do you suggest we do/ask for?) Thanks!

I'm the PP. Here's what I would strongly suggest this year's 3rd grade parents (and below) start fighting for. They can get in touch with the Gifted Education Committee of the Montgomery County PTA, which has recently rediscovered its sense of purpose. I'm going to start with some history so you understand why this is a reasonable ask.

The history: Back in the 2017-2018 school year, MCPS rolled out a new admissions process for the middle school magnets. Some of the changes were excellent and needed, such as getting rid of the teacher recommendations and at-home essays, which were prone to either racial bias or cheating respectively.

Some of those changes were probably objectively correct, but deeply unpopular, such as local norming of test scores and geographic balancing. This meant that the "top" students from a high SES school would get in, but so would the "top" students from a more economically integrated school even if the "top" students from the integrated school had lower test scores than some of the kids in the high SES school.

Imagine the pre-2017 system as a foot race, and the first kids past the finish line got in. The post-2017 system was like multiple different foot races, with participation determined by home school FARMS rates. This meant the incoming class was theoretically more diverse. It's kind of like the UT system where you get automatic admission if you are in the top 8% of your graduating class, no matter where in the great state of Texas you come from. As you can imagine, this was wildly unpopular even as it was probably the fairest way to approach admissions in a county where opportunity is not equally distributed.

Because it was so unpopular, MCPS made a very specific promise. If your kid had a "home school" cohort, they would get access to a similar education as the magnet. They could access AIM (Applied Integrated Math) for mathematics in 6th grade and HIGH (Historical Inquiry in Global Humanities) for social studies. The implicit pledge was that the eligible kids would be cohorted for those classes, just like they would have been at the magnet.

But the principals didn't play ball. Some immediately made HIGH available for everyone (Pyle) and others just refused to offer it (TPMS) for the first few years. As far as I've heard, none of them actually cohorted HIGH so that the kids who would have been eligible for the magnet were together.

At the same time, MCPS rolled out "Advanced English for All." So now you had HIGH for all and Advanced English for all, and in both cases the entire school population was just jumbled up in both classes. So kids who are just learning English (no shame!) were in Advanced English alongside kids who would have been in the Humanities magnet in earlier years. So now the kids who need extra help aren't getting it, and the kids who would benefit from accelerated instruction aren't getting it.

All of this is to say that parents need to ask for MCPS to make good on their earlier promises:

1) Cohort AIM and HIGH for kids who met the eligibility for magnet admission (now 85th percentile on MAP). Put those kids together so they can learn together.

2) Go back to offering both Regular English and Advanced English, reserving Advanced English again for kids in the top 15%.

That's all. But parents need to push push push.

Where I went to school, it was very simple: students choose between regular English and honors/AP English. People tended to choose what was appropriate to them. It sounds like 'Advanced English for All" combines regular and honors English together, which is not cool for the students who were hoping for something more vigorous. As with my school, I think all students should be able to try out honors/'advanced' classes if they'd like. If they find it too much they can switch to regular. I don't think it's necessary to prohibit the non-15% from advanced classes.

You know, this is not a bad idea. No one would complain if they got to choose what they felt was the appropriate placement. Mcps doesn’t actually need to invent arbitrary cut offs and act all gatekeeper-y.

It only works if teachers are willing to fail some students. Today they just dumb things down to match the LCD.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Agree with 19:07. Parents should try to get ELC in their local school/get more enrichment. But for middle school, there’s a much bigger gap and way fewer magnet seats than Center seats. People should be trying to bring back real Honors English and Science classes - or make the existing classes stronger!

Don't disagree with this, but if you have a third grader and it's your first kid, you have very little knowledge about what kinds of classes are offered in middle school, which is why we are talking about 4th grade and not 6-8. How do we go about advocating for these things? (Not a snarky question - if people suggesting this have been though MS already, what do you suggest we do/ask for?) Thanks!

I'm the PP. Here's what I would strongly suggest this year's 3rd grade parents (and below) start fighting for. They can get in touch with the Gifted Education Committee of the Montgomery County PTA, which has recently rediscovered its sense of purpose. I'm going to start with some history so you understand why this is a reasonable ask.

The history: Back in the 2017-2018 school year, MCPS rolled out a new admissions process for the middle school magnets. Some of the changes were excellent and needed, such as getting rid of the teacher recommendations and at-home essays, which were prone to either racial bias or cheating respectively.

Some of those changes were probably objectively correct, but deeply unpopular, such as local norming of test scores and geographic balancing. This meant that the "top" students from a high SES school would get in, but so would the "top" students from a more economically integrated school even if the "top" students from the integrated school had lower test scores than some of the kids in the high SES school.

Imagine the pre-2017 system as a foot race, and the first kids past the finish line got in. The post-2017 system was like multiple different foot races, with participation determined by home school FARMS rates. This meant the incoming class was theoretically more diverse. It's kind of like the UT system where you get automatic admission if you are in the top 8% of your graduating class, no matter where in the great state of Texas you come from. As you can imagine, this was wildly unpopular even as it was probably the fairest way to approach admissions in a county where opportunity is not equally distributed.

Because it was so unpopular, MCPS made a very specific promise. If your kid had a "home school" cohort, they would get access to a similar education as the magnet. They could access AIM (Applied Integrated Math) for mathematics in 6th grade and HIGH (Historical Inquiry in Global Humanities) for social studies. The implicit pledge was that the eligible kids would be cohorted for those classes, just like they would have been at the magnet.

But the principals didn't play ball. Some immediately made HIGH available for everyone (Pyle) and others just refused to offer it (TPMS) for the first few years. As far as I've heard, none of them actually cohorted HIGH so that the kids who would have been eligible for the magnet were together.

At the same time, MCPS rolled out "Advanced English for All." So now you had HIGH for all and Advanced English for all, and in both cases the entire school population was just jumbled up in both classes. So kids who are just learning English (no shame!) were in Advanced English alongside kids who would have been in the Humanities magnet in earlier years. So now the kids who need extra help aren't getting it, and the kids who would benefit from accelerated instruction aren't getting it.

All of this is to say that parents need to ask for MCPS to make good on their earlier promises:

1) Cohort AIM and HIGH for kids who met the eligibility for magnet admission (now 85th percentile on MAP). Put those kids together so they can learn together.

2) Go back to offering both Regular English and Advanced English, reserving Advanced English again for kids in the top 15%.

That's all. But parents need to push push push.

Where I went to school, it was very simple: students choose between regular English and honors/AP English. People tended to choose what was appropriate to them. It sounds like 'Advanced English for All" combines regular and honors English together, which is not cool for the students who were hoping for something more vigorous. As with my school, I think all students should be able to try out honors/'advanced' classes if they'd like. If they find it too much they can switch to regular. I don't think it's necessary to prohibit the non-15% from advanced classes.

You know, this is not a bad idea. No one would complain if they got to choose what they felt was the appropriate placement. Mcps doesn’t actually need to invent arbitrary cut offs and act all gatekeeper-y.

It only works if teachers are willing to fail some students. Today they just dumb things down to match the LCD.

I respectfully disagree. Even if a teacher is not willing to fail a student, getting a "B" may be enough for them to opt for Regular English. For STEM-focused students, they might prefer an easier English class to offset their more advanced math class.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Agree with 19:07. Parents should try to get ELC in their local school/get more enrichment. But for middle school, there’s a much bigger gap and way fewer magnet seats than Center seats. People should be trying to bring back real Honors English and Science classes - or make the existing classes stronger!

Don't disagree with this, but if you have a third grader and it's your first kid, you have very little knowledge about what kinds of classes are offered in middle school, which is why we are talking about 4th grade and not 6-8. How do we go about advocating for these things? (Not a snarky question - if people suggesting this have been though MS already, what do you suggest we do/ask for?) Thanks!

I'm the PP. Here's what I would strongly suggest this year's 3rd grade parents (and below) start fighting for. They can get in touch with the Gifted Education Committee of the Montgomery County PTA, which has recently rediscovered its sense of purpose. I'm going to start with some history so you understand why this is a reasonable ask.

The history: Back in the 2017-2018 school year, MCPS rolled out a new admissions process for the middle school magnets. Some of the changes were excellent and needed, such as getting rid of the teacher recommendations and at-home essays, which were prone to either racial bias or cheating respectively.

Some of those changes were probably objectively correct, but deeply unpopular, such as local norming of test scores and geographic balancing. This meant that the "top" students from a high SES school would get in, but so would the "top" students from a more economically integrated school even if the "top" students from the integrated school had lower test scores than some of the kids in the high SES school.

Imagine the pre-2017 system as a foot race, and the first kids past the finish line got in. The post-2017 system was like multiple different foot races, with participation determined by home school FARMS rates. This meant the incoming class was theoretically more diverse. It's kind of like the UT system where you get automatic admission if you are in the top 8% of your graduating class, no matter where in the great state of Texas you come from. As you can imagine, this was wildly unpopular even as it was probably the fairest way to approach admissions in a county where opportunity is not equally distributed.

Because it was so unpopular, MCPS made a very specific promise. If your kid had a "home school" cohort, they would get access to a similar education as the magnet. They could access AIM (Applied Integrated Math) for mathematics in 6th grade and HIGH (Historical Inquiry in Global Humanities) for social studies. The implicit pledge was that the eligible kids would be cohorted for those classes, just like they would have been at the magnet.

But the principals didn't play ball. Some immediately made HIGH available for everyone (Pyle) and others just refused to offer it (TPMS) for the first few years. As far as I've heard, none of them actually cohorted HIGH so that the kids who would have been eligible for the magnet were together.

At the same time, MCPS rolled out "Advanced English for All." So now you had HIGH for all and Advanced English for all, and in both cases the entire school population was just jumbled up in both classes. So kids who are just learning English (no shame!) were in Advanced English alongside kids who would have been in the Humanities magnet in earlier years. So now the kids who need extra help aren't getting it, and the kids who would benefit from accelerated instruction aren't getting it.

All of this is to say that parents need to ask for MCPS to make good on their earlier promises:

1) Cohort AIM and HIGH for kids who met the eligibility for magnet admission (now 85th percentile on MAP). Put those kids together so they can learn together.

2) Go back to offering both Regular English and Advanced English, reserving Advanced English again for kids in the top 15%.

That's all. But parents need to push push push.

Where I went to school, it was very simple: students choose between regular English and honors/AP English. People tended to choose what was appropriate to them. It sounds like 'Advanced English for All" combines regular and honors English together, which is not cool for the students who were hoping for something more vigorous. As with my school, I think all students should be able to try out honors/'advanced' classes if they'd like. If they find it too much they can switch to regular. I don't think it's necessary to prohibit the non-15% from advanced classes.

You know, this is not a bad idea. No one would complain if they got to choose what they felt was the appropriate placement. Mcps doesn’t actually need to invent arbitrary cut offs and act all gatekeeper-y.

I agree. I'm warning up to this idea more and more. I think most people will make the right choice. And because there's much less stigma to choosing (you chose to take an easier class, school admin didn't choose it for you), more kids are likely to choose Regular English.

I think the consideration here is that we're talking about MS aged kids. Do they have the sense to choose a class that fits their skills/strengths?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Agree with 19:07. Parents should try to get ELC in their local school/get more enrichment. But for middle school, there’s a much bigger gap and way fewer magnet seats than Center seats. People should be trying to bring back real Honors English and Science classes - or make the existing classes stronger!

Don't disagree with this, but if you have a third grader and it's your first kid, you have very little knowledge about what kinds of classes are offered in middle school, which is why we are talking about 4th grade and not 6-8. How do we go about advocating for these things? (Not a snarky question - if people suggesting this have been though MS already, what do you suggest we do/ask for?) Thanks!

I'm the PP. Here's what I would strongly suggest this year's 3rd grade parents (and below) start fighting for. They can get in touch with the Gifted Education Committee of the Montgomery County PTA, which has recently rediscovered its sense of purpose. I'm going to start with some history so you understand why this is a reasonable ask.

The history: Back in the 2017-2018 school year, MCPS rolled out a new admissions process for the middle school magnets. Some of the changes were excellent and needed, such as getting rid of the teacher recommendations and at-home essays, which were prone to either racial bias or cheating respectively.

Some of those changes were probably objectively correct, but deeply unpopular, such as local norming of test scores and geographic balancing. This meant that the "top" students from a high SES school would get in, but so would the "top" students from a more economically integrated school even if the "top" students from the integrated school had lower test scores than some of the kids in the high SES school.

Imagine the pre-2017 system as a foot race, and the first kids past the finish line got in. The post-2017 system was like multiple different foot races, with participation determined by home school FARMS rates. This meant the incoming class was theoretically more diverse. It's kind of like the UT system where you get automatic admission if you are in the top 8% of your graduating class, no matter where in the great state of Texas you come from. As you can imagine, this was wildly unpopular even as it was probably the fairest way to approach admissions in a county where opportunity is not equally distributed.

Because it was so unpopular, MCPS made a very specific promise. If your kid had a "home school" cohort, they would get access to a similar education as the magnet. They could access AIM (Applied Integrated Math) for mathematics in 6th grade and HIGH (Historical Inquiry in Global Humanities) for social studies. The implicit pledge was that the eligible kids would be cohorted for those classes, just like they would have been at the magnet.

But the principals didn't play ball. Some immediately made HIGH available for everyone (Pyle) and others just refused to offer it (TPMS) for the first few years. As far as I've heard, none of them actually cohorted HIGH so that the kids who would have been eligible for the magnet were together.

At the same time, MCPS rolled out "Advanced English for All." So now you had HIGH for all and Advanced English for all, and in both cases the entire school population was just jumbled up in both classes. So kids who are just learning English (no shame!) were in Advanced English alongside kids who would have been in the Humanities magnet in earlier years. So now the kids who need extra help aren't getting it, and the kids who would benefit from accelerated instruction aren't getting it.

All of this is to say that parents need to ask for MCPS to make good on their earlier promises:

1) Cohort AIM and HIGH for kids who met the eligibility for magnet admission (now 85th percentile on MAP). Put those kids together so they can learn together.

2) Go back to offering both Regular English and Advanced English, reserving Advanced English again for kids in the top 15%.

That's all. But parents need to push push push.

Where I went to school, it was very simple: students choose between regular English and honors/AP English. People tended to choose what was appropriate to them. It sounds like 'Advanced English for All" combines regular and honors English together, which is not cool for the students who were hoping for something more vigorous. As with my school, I think all students should be able to try out honors/'advanced' classes if they'd like. If they find it too much they can switch to regular. I don't think it's necessary to prohibit the non-15% from advanced classes.

You know, this is not a bad idea. No one would complain if they got to choose what they felt was the appropriate placement. Mcps doesn’t actually need to invent arbitrary cut offs and act all gatekeeper-y.

I agree. I'm warning up to this idea more and more. I think most people will make the right choice. And because there's much less stigma to choosing (you chose to take an easier class, school admin didn't choose it for you), more kids are likely to choose Regular English.

I think the consideration here is that we're talking about MS aged kids. Do they have the sense to choose a class that fits their skills/strengths?

I think you’d be surprised how many students have a good sense of their strengths and areas that could use improvement. But no, you don’t just have children that age pick their course independent of teacher input, scores, data and without parents signing off.

[Anonymous]

I know we're just talking hypothetically, but I think it would be a bad idea to have MS school students take the lead on deciding whether they're able to take advanced courses or not. I actually don't think kids, or people in general, universally have a good sense of their strengths and weaknesses -- look up the Dunning-Kruger effect, for example.

Also, kids, more than more mature people, can be greatly influenced by their peers. None of their friends taking advanced English? Well, maybe they shouldn't take it either. I actually think it's more likely that kids who probably could succeed in advanced classes may be more likely to shy away from the out of fear of being perceived as being out of step with their peers.

And students can also be influenced by subtle cues from educators about whether they're really "ready" for certain challenges.

https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/investigations/bs-md-school-segregation-series-howard-20170325-story.html

It's possible to pick holes in every method we have of selecting kids for advanced course work. Nothing is perfect. But some methods have more potential problems than others.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Agree with 19:07. Parents should try to get ELC in their local school/get more enrichment. But for middle school, there’s a much bigger gap and way fewer magnet seats than Center seats. People should be trying to bring back real Honors English and Science classes - or make the existing classes stronger!

Don't disagree with this, but if you have a third grader and it's your first kid, you have very little knowledge about what kinds of classes are offered in middle school, which is why we are talking about 4th grade and not 6-8. How do we go about advocating for these things? (Not a snarky question - if people suggesting this have been though MS already, what do you suggest we do/ask for?) Thanks!

I'm the PP. Here's what I would strongly suggest this year's 3rd grade parents (and below) start fighting for. They can get in touch with the Gifted Education Committee of the Montgomery County PTA, which has recently rediscovered its sense of purpose. I'm going to start with some history so you understand why this is a reasonable ask.

The history: Back in the 2017-2018 school year, MCPS rolled out a new admissions process for the middle school magnets. Some of the changes were excellent and needed, such as getting rid of the teacher recommendations and at-home essays, which were prone to either racial bias or cheating respectively.

Some of those changes were probably objectively correct, but deeply unpopular, such as local norming of test scores and geographic balancing. This meant that the "top" students from a high SES school would get in, but so would the "top" students from a more economically integrated school even if the "top" students from the integrated school had lower test scores than some of the kids in the high SES school.

Imagine the pre-2017 system as a foot race, and the first kids past the finish line got in. The post-2017 system was like multiple different foot races, with participation determined by home school FARMS rates. This meant the incoming class was theoretically more diverse. It's kind of like the UT system where you get automatic admission if you are in the top 8% of your graduating class, no matter where in the great state of Texas you come from. As you can imagine, this was wildly unpopular even as it was probably the fairest way to approach admissions in a county where opportunity is not equally distributed.

Because it was so unpopular, MCPS made a very specific promise. If your kid had a "home school" cohort, they would get access to a similar education as the magnet. They could access AIM (Applied Integrated Math) for mathematics in 6th grade and HIGH (Historical Inquiry in Global Humanities) for social studies. The implicit pledge was that the eligible kids would be cohorted for those classes, just like they would have been at the magnet.

But the principals didn't play ball. Some immediately made HIGH available for everyone (Pyle) and others just refused to offer it (TPMS) for the first few years. As far as I've heard, none of them actually cohorted HIGH so that the kids who would have been eligible for the magnet were together.

At the same time, MCPS rolled out "Advanced English for All." So now you had HIGH for all and Advanced English for all, and in both cases the entire school population was just jumbled up in both classes. So kids who are just learning English (no shame!) were in Advanced English alongside kids who would have been in the Humanities magnet in earlier years. So now the kids who need extra help aren't getting it, and the kids who would benefit from accelerated instruction aren't getting it.

All of this is to say that parents need to ask for MCPS to make good on their earlier promises:

1) Cohort AIM and HIGH for kids who met the eligibility for magnet admission (now 85th percentile on MAP). Put those kids together so they can learn together.

2) Go back to offering both Regular English and Advanced English, reserving Advanced English again for kids in the top 15%.

That's all. But parents need to push push push.

Let's brainstorm how this push could happen. Petitions are one option, but I'm afraid they're too easy to ignore. What about a letter writing campaign perhaps loosely organized by the Gifted Education Committee (GEC) of the Montgomery County PTA, but executed by the each school's PTA representatives to the MC PTA or the MC GEC? The school PTA reps are likely to take an interest in these issues and presumably are better able to energize the base.

Very minor point: It's the Montgomery County Council of PTAs, so MCCPTA. They are much stronger this year, but will have a strong opinion about how to approach MCPS. Find your GT liasion to the MCCPTA through your elementary school - they are on the MCCPTA gifted committee listserve (or should be).

I agree with mostly all of this, except I’d add :
1) Find your AP and Principal since they get to determine whats offers in your school