CES to Criteria-Based Middle School Magnet

[Anonymous]

Does anyone know how many kids from the CES program at Chevy Chase were admitted to MS magnet? If it is still only a handful of kids from all of Chevy Chase, including the CES, plus a handful of kids from the feeder, it doesn't seem like the kids from CES are actually considered as part of their home school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It doesn’t make any difference. Your kid has as much chance if they meet the criteria if they do it don’t attend the CES. My own kid was in a CES and now in the TPMS magnet. He’s stronger in STEM so the TPMS magnet is a better fit than the CES.

It makes no difference unless you count having a different type of education that might prepare them better to make the lottery. But for most kids it matters not at all.
It mattered for 1-2 years a while ago when MCPS chose based not on lottery and they wanted to spread out the acceptances among different elementary schools but it does not matter now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Does anyone know how many kids from the CES program at Chevy Chase were admitted to MS magnet? If it is still only a handful of kids from all of Chevy Chase, including the CES, plus a handful of kids from the feeder, it doesn't seem like the kids from CES are actually considered as part of their home school.

I don't think they are trying for representation from all the elementary schools anymore. I think they assume the lottery which is random will take care of that and the math will work out to have representation from everywhere so it should not matter.
Before universal screening it was a lot.
After universal screening it dropped down to 5-6 or lower.
After the lottery I think it was about the same or a little higher.

[Anonymous]

Sure, here's a revised version of your text with corrected grammar:

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DC attended one of the CES schools when it was not based on a lottery system. This meant that only the top 1 percent of students were able to attend CES. When DC applied to middle school, the system changed to a lottery. I found out that only 4 or 5 children out of about 90 from DC's CES school chose to attend the TPMS magnet. My friend's child, who was not in CES, was also selected for TPMS but declined due to the distance. DC was selected in the 3rd round and decided to attend TPMS despite the distance. To sum up, the process is now a lottery, so it is completely random.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sure, here's a revised version of your text with corrected grammar:

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DC attended one of the CES schools when it was not based on a lottery system. This meant that only the top 1 percent of students were able to attend CES. When DC applied to middle school, the system changed to a lottery. I found out that only 4 or 5 children out of about 90 from DC's CES school chose to attend the TPMS magnet. My friend's child, who was not in CES, was also selected for TPMS but declined due to the distance. DC was selected in the 3rd round and decided to attend TPMS despite the distance. To sum up, the process is now a lottery, so it is completely random.

A lot more than 1 percent made it into the CES before the lottery. At some schools with a local CES it was 20 percent

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sure, here's a revised version of your text with corrected grammar:

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DC attended one of the CES schools when it was not based on a lottery system. This meant that only the top 1 percent of students were able to attend CES. When DC applied to middle school, the system changed to a lottery. I found out that only 4 or 5 children out of about 90 from DC's CES school chose to attend the TPMS magnet. My friend's child, who was not in CES, was also selected for TPMS but declined due to the distance. DC was selected in the 3rd round and decided to attend TPMS despite the distance. To sum up, the process is now a lottery, so it is completely random.

You sound unhinged.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Does anyone know how many kids from the CES program at Chevy Chase were admitted to MS magnet? If it is still only a handful of kids from all of Chevy Chase, including the CES, plus a handful of kids from the feeder, it doesn't seem like the kids from CES are actually considered as part of their home school.

I don't think it matters right now because I don't think they are trying to look at representation by sending school, but in the past they have done it many different ways.
I think one year they were considered part of the elementary school they attended but that was unfair to the non-CES kids at the schools hosting the CESes. Then they changed it to CES kids being part of their own home elementary school and not CCES as in your example or Cold Spring or Barnesly and so on unless they were already in-bounds for that CES.
MCPS is a mess when it comes to these things and they change the criteria all the time to try to pull their desired demographics.

[Anonymous]

Our child was in CES last year (5th). After multiple rounds of acceptances, about seven of his friends from his CES school are going to TPMS and Eastern.

The year before, however, there were about 7 kids that got into TPMS and about the same that got into Eastern, in one 27-student class. I don't know why, maybe they changed how they do it this year?

That said, we received a spot at Eastern the first week of school but turned it down. At that point, it sounded like several spots were still open and they were having trouble filling the spots. More people tend to turn Eastern down than TPMS. There was not much movement on the TPMS front after the first round was chosen.

I will say, while they bill the merit-based lottery as totally random, I don't really believe it. Of the four siblings we knew who currently were in the TPMS magnet, all four of their younger siblings got in this year. It's very statistically improbable. And frustrating, as having a sibling currently in the program should not matter in the slightest but the merit of each individual child.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Our child was in CES last year (5th). After multiple rounds of acceptances, about seven of his friends from his CES school are going to TPMS and Eastern.

The year before, however, there were about 7 kids that got into TPMS and about the same that got into Eastern, in one 27-student class. I don't know why, maybe they changed how they do it this year?

That said, we received a spot at Eastern the first week of school but turned it down. At that point, it sounded like several spots were still open and they were having trouble filling the spots. More people tend to turn Eastern down than TPMS. There was not much movement on the TPMS front after the first round was chosen.

I will say, while they bill the merit-based lottery as totally random, I don't really believe it. Of the four siblings we knew who currently were in the TPMS magnet, all four of their younger siblings got in this year. It's very statistically improbable. And frustrating, as having a sibling currently in the program should not matter in the slightest but the merit of each individual child.

DP - just chiming in to say I agree completely with you on the bolded. I know a few too many kids who got in who are the true outliers in terms of goodness of fit. As you said, PP, it's very statistically improbable that these half dozen or whatever kids were *all* selected in a given year. I suspect they might do a partial lottery for other kids, but some of them seem hand-picked. That they're taking sibling preference into account is disappointing, if unsurprising.

[Anonymous]

I also don't believe that it is totally random. I know many kids who got spots at both. To me, it seems to indicate that these kids are the truly "gifted" ones and are being identified from within the lottery pool.

There are just too many cases where a kid was in pool for CES and both magnets and got into all three, and another kid was also in the lottery for all three and didn't get into any. I don't think it's as simple as one kid is lucky and one is unlucky. I think it means the lottery pool is indeed big -- which allows them to pick and choose kids from certain schools or demographics for balance -- however they are hand-picking kids from the pool to fill the spots.

[Anonymous]

Before the lottery quite a few from our local CES ended up at TPMS but once the lottery started barely any.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I also don't believe that it is totally random. I know many kids who got spots at both. To me, it seems to indicate that these kids are the truly "gifted" ones and are being identified from within the lottery pool.

There are just too many cases where a kid was in pool for CES and both magnets and got into all three, and another kid was also in the lottery for all three and didn't get into any. I don't think it's as simple as one kid is lucky and one is unlucky. I think it means the lottery pool is indeed big -- which allows them to pick and choose kids from certain schools or demographics for balance -- however they are hand-picking kids from the pool to fill the spots.

The lottery is random. In fact, that's how lotteries work.

[Anonymous]

That's how they say it works, but there is no transparency at all and knowing MCPS it is not a stretch to think that the "lottery" is not really a true lottery. You are naive if you think that just because they call it a lottery, that means it must be completely random.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:That's how they say it works, but there is no transparency at all and knowing MCPS it is not a stretch to think that the "lottery" is not really a true lottery. You are naive if you think that just because they call it a lottery, that means it must be completely random.

I heard they sacrifice a frog and an evil dragon chooses which souls to reap for the magnet.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I also don't believe that it is totally random. I know many kids who got spots at both. To me, it seems to indicate that these kids are the truly "gifted" ones and are being identified from within the lottery pool.

There are just too many cases where a kid was in pool for CES and both magnets and got into all three, and another kid was also in the lottery for all three and didn't get into any. I don't think it's as simple as one kid is lucky and one is unlucky. I think it means the lottery pool is indeed big -- which allows them to pick and choose kids from certain schools or demographics for balance -- however they are hand-picking kids from the pool to fill the spots.

How many cases is "too many"?