CES at Chevy Chase Elementary ?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Chevy Chase along with Cold Spring are the two most competitive CESes or they were before the lottery because of they were in the wealthy SES band where the scores were higher.

I know you like telling yourself this but the evidence doesn't support this theory.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Chevy Chase along with Cold Spring are the two most competitive CESes or they were before the lottery because of they were in the wealthy SES band where the scores were higher.

In 2016, cold spring had the highest quantitative and nonverbal scores of all of the centers and CCES had the highest verbal scores of all of the centers. This was the last year MCPS administered the full Cogat test.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:4th grade and 5th grade are completely different experiences and both good in many ways.

4th grade has minimal homework and instead is mostly in-class work. It trains the kids to be focused and productive.

5th grade is a whole different animal. Extremely demanding, but also rewarding.

The teachers are awesome. I don’t think that I’ve met a better and more dedicated group of teachers. I am truly in awe. Years later, DC still talks about the teachers because they had such a major impact.

DC attended prior to the change in selection policy and as a result has changed the dynamics.

DC who was pre-lottery felt both 4th/5th were no different - nearly all work could be done in class. Loved that there was little to no HW and that many of the assignments were pretty open ended meaning you could put as much or as little effort as you want depending on your interests and go in creative directions. The projects were fun and interesting and there was no busy work.

Middle school is the different animal. Tons of busy work, disorganized teachers, rigidity in grading. You could have a really amazing project but because you didn't see line 107 of the rubric the child may get a C whereas a totally crappy project might get an A because it checked all the boxes of a rubric that does not actually encourage learning. DC has had both of these things happen.

While it's been a few years, when my kid was in 4th and 5th, the teachers limited homework to keep parents from doing it. Lots of fun, in-class projects.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:4th grade and 5th grade are completely different experiences and both good in many ways.

4th grade has minimal homework and instead is mostly in-class work. It trains the kids to be focused and productive.

5th grade is a whole different animal. Extremely demanding, but also rewarding.

The teachers are awesome. I don’t think that I’ve met a better and more dedicated group of teachers. I am truly in awe. Years later, DC still talks about the teachers because they had such a major impact.

DC attended prior to the change in selection policy and as a result has changed the dynamics.

DC who was pre-lottery felt both 4th/5th were no different - nearly all work could be done in class. Loved that there was little to no HW and that many of the assignments were pretty open ended meaning you could put as much or as little effort as you want depending on your interests and go in creative directions. The projects were fun and interesting and there was no busy work.

Middle school is the different animal. Tons of busy work, disorganized teachers, rigidity in grading. You could have a really amazing project but because you didn't see line 107 of the rubric the child may get a C whereas a totally crappy project might get an A because it checked all the boxes of a rubric that does not actually encourage learning. DC has had both of these things happen.

While it's been a few years, when my kid was in 4th and 5th, the teachers limited homework to keep parents from doing it. Lots of fun, in-class projects.

That sounds great. At my kid's CES, the teacher gave them typically an hour a night, but sometimes this piled up to several. Despite the excessive homework, my kids did learn a lot that year so it was overall a positive experience. However, many parents complained about the volume of homework.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:4th grade and 5th grade are completely different experiences and both good in many ways.

4th grade has minimal homework and instead is mostly in-class work. It trains the kids to be focused and productive.

5th grade is a whole different animal. Extremely demanding, but also rewarding.

The teachers are awesome. I don’t think that I’ve met a better and more dedicated group of teachers. I am truly in awe. Years later, DC still talks about the teachers because they had such a major impact.

DC attended prior to the change in selection policy and as a result has changed the dynamics.

DC who was pre-lottery felt both 4th/5th were no different - nearly all work could be done in class. Loved that there was little to no HW and that many of the assignments were pretty open ended meaning you could put as much or as little effort as you want depending on your interests and go in creative directions. The projects were fun and interesting and there was no busy work.

Middle school is the different animal. Tons of busy work, disorganized teachers, rigidity in grading. You could have a really amazing project but because you didn't see line 107 of the rubric the child may get a C whereas a totally crappy project might get an A because it checked all the boxes of a rubric that does not actually encourage learning. DC has had both of these things happen.

While it's been a few years, when my kid was in 4th and 5th, the teachers limited homework to keep parents from doing it. Lots of fun, in-class projects.

That sounds great. At my kid's CES, the teacher gave them typically an hour a night, but sometimes this piled up to several. Despite the excessive homework, my kids did learn a lot that year so it was overall a positive experience. However, many parents complained about the volume of homework.

I wish all the CESes would have the approach of little to no homework. CCES CES did have a few longer term projects that students were supposed to do at home but if you were productive in class there wasn't that much left to do at home. There was also vocabulary homework but again it was very reasonable and I think many students if not most, including our DC, did it at school. There were a few kids who wanted to get 100% on the quizzes and put in a lot of hours at home to study but for the most did not according to DC and were happy with low As and high Bs based off of work they did at school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Can anyone share their experience who have a current 4th grader in the program? Do you feel your child benefited from this program? Thanks.

What we observed is that there is lack of motivation due to lowering standards. You see kids with extremely high performance and ordinary performance. Focus is more to get the ordinary performers to the level of high performers and high performers feel stuck at that level with very little progress that they make without any support

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Chevy Chase along with Cold Spring are the two most competitive CESes or they were before the lottery because of they were in the wealthy SES band where the scores were higher.

In 2016, cold spring had the highest quantitative and nonverbal scores of all of the centers and CCES had the highest verbal scores of all of the centers. This was the last year MCPS administered the full Cogat test.

Isn't Cold Spring the school that has an afterschool bus to Dr. Li's for test prep?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can anyone share their experience who have a current 4th grader in the program? Do you feel your child benefited from this program? Thanks.

What we observed is that there is lack of motivation due to lowering standards. You see kids with extremely high performance and ordinary performance. Focus is more to get the ordinary performers to the level of high performers and high performers feel stuck at that level with very little progress that they make without any support

We didn't have that problem at our CES. If some kids weren't able to keep up, they ended up with bad grades. Most of these 9 year olds were writing 5 page papers typed. I thought it was extraordinary that most rose to the challenge.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Chevy Chase along with Cold Spring are the two most competitive CESes or they were before the lottery because of they were in the wealthy SES band where the scores were higher.

In 2016, cold spring had the highest quantitative and nonverbal scores of all of the centers and CCES had the highest verbal scores of all of the centers. This was the last year MCPS administered the full Cogat test.

Isn't Cold Spring the school that has an afterschool bus to Dr. Li's for test prep?

[Anonymous]

My kid did fifth grade and really enjoyed it. Not much of a challenge but my kid has very high test scores, so not on the lower end of the test score range. Great program. But depends on your kid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can anyone share their experience who have a current 4th grader in the program? Do you feel your child benefited from this program? Thanks.

What we observed is that there is lack of motivation due to lowering standards. You see kids with extremely high performance and ordinary performance. Focus is more to get the ordinary performers to the level of high performers and high performers feel stuck at that level with very little progress that they make without any support

Fair enough. Good program but too many lower scoring kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can anyone share their experience who have a current 4th grader in the program? Do you feel your child benefited from this program? Thanks.

What we observed is that there is lack of motivation due to lowering standards. You see kids with extremely high performance and ordinary performance. Focus is more to get the ordinary performers to the level of high performers and high performers feel stuck at that level with very little progress that they make without any support

Fair enough. Good program but too many lower scoring kids.

IKR! They need to stay in their place.

[Anonymous]

It doesn't matter...CES kids not selected due to a lottery will still be receiving the same curriculum. I had a lot of kids know what centers meant and shoved it into their classmates faces..shoved it into the same kids who qualified for ELC just weren't chosen at random.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It doesn't matter...CES kids not selected due to a lottery will still be receiving the same curriculum. I had a lot of kids know what centers meant and shoved it into their classmates faces..shoved it into the same kids who qualified for ELC just weren't chosen at random.

This is just not true. Not every school has ELC and the curriculum will NOT be equitably administered for kids in the lottery at their home school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It doesn't matter...CES kids not selected due to a lottery will still be receiving the same curriculum. I had a lot of kids know what centers meant and shoved it into their classmates faces..shoved it into the same kids who qualified for ELC just weren't chosen at random.

This is just not true. Not every school has ELC and the curriculum will NOT be equitably administered for kids in the lottery at their home school.

Regarding "not equitably administered for kids," do you mean it's not equitable who gets EwLC at the home schools where it's offered (student equity issue), or that is not taught well (curriculum equity issue). If the latter, I imagine it will take some 2-3 years until teachers get up to speed teaching it. Even if it's never fully and equally well taught as at the CES, gifted students have a way of taking what they need from what's taught.