Why is FCPS trying to keep high performing students out of AAP?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The in pool scores for higher SES school is significantly higher than lower SES schools. It seems like FCPS is trying to keep students from wealthier schools from accessing AAP. Students scoring in the 99th percentile are not “in pool” at some elementary schools. I can understand lowering the “in pool” requirement for schools that traditionally have less AAP students; but it makes absolutely no sense to try to keep students scoring in the 98th/99th percentile from accessing A
The Advanced Academic Program.

FCPS is trying to “dumb down” the higher performing high schools by lowering the academics for students starting in 3rd grade. Less kids in AAP will mean lower I-ready/SOL scores, less kids taking advanced math in middle school, overall less prepared students for AP/DE classes in high school.

I think you are looking at it from the wrong end of the of the telescope.
There is a cutoff (it's usually the 98th percentile or higher on both tests, if you didn't make the cutoff with one score in the 99th percentile, it's probably because you were below the 98th percentile on one of the tests) that is objectively applied to everyone.
But there are some schools where there aren't enough kids making the cutoff to fill even one class so to fill those spaces, they lower the cutoff for those schools.
They aren't applying a higher standard to your kid. They are applying a lower standard to kids from crappy schools.

The cutoff at the richest school in the county is not higher than the cutoff at Greenbriar west with a 20% FARM rate. But the cutoff starts to drop when you have a school where half the kids are ESL and 2/3rds are FARM students.

If you want that lower cutoff, you have to attend a crappier school.

Or you can just do a parent referral.

PP, can you share where the info in bold comes from? Because unless there is misinformation in the "in pool" thread: that parent's kid in Lake Braddock pyramid reported the child had 138 on NNAT and 136 on CogAT and didn't make the pool. Both these scores are in the 99th percentile.

I think it was on this site years ago.
Are any of the cogat subelement scores below 133?

I don't know the sub scores because they weren't posted (maybe the original poster Lake Braddock will be following and can fill in), but the overall score of 136 on CogAT is in the 99th percentile. It makes no sense that a kid whose scores are in the 99th percentile wouldn't even be in the pool to be evaluated.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The in pool scores for higher SES school is significantly higher than lower SES schools. It seems like FCPS is trying to keep students from wealthier schools from accessing AAP. Students scoring in the 99th percentile are not “in pool” at some elementary schools. I can understand lowering the “in pool” requirement for schools that traditionally have less AAP students; but it makes absolutely no sense to try to keep students scoring in the 98th/99th percentile from accessing A
The Advanced Academic Program.

FCPS is trying to “dumb down” the higher performing high schools by lowering the academics for students starting in 3rd grade. Less kids in AAP will mean lower I-ready/SOL scores, less kids taking advanced math in middle school, overall less prepared students for AP/DE classes in high school.

I think you are looking at it from the wrong end of the of the telescope.
There is a cutoff (it's usually the 98th percentile or higher on both tests, if you didn't make the cutoff with one score in the 99th percentile, it's probably because you were below the 98th percentile on one of the tests) that is objectively applied to everyone.
But there are some schools where there aren't enough kids making the cutoff to fill even one class so to fill those spaces, they lower the cutoff for those schools.
They aren't applying a higher standard to your kid. They are applying a lower standard to kids from crappy schools.

The cutoff at the richest school in the county is not higher than the cutoff at Greenbriar west with a 20% FARM rate. But the cutoff starts to drop when you have a school where half the kids are ESL and 2/3rds are FARM students.

If you want that lower cutoff, you have to attend a crappier school.

Or you can just do a parent referral.

PP, can you share where the info in bold comes from? Because unless there is misinformation in the "in pool" thread: that parent's kid in Lake Braddock pyramid reported the child had 138 on NNAT and 136 on CogAT and didn't make the pool. Both these scores are in the 99th percentile.

I don’t think the info in bold is consistent with the top 10% criteria. I know a kid last year with close to 140 cogat who didn’t make it to pool in our base school. For Braddock, Sangster is really competitive so it’s likely that the PP’s kid goes there

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The in pool scores for higher SES school is significantly higher than lower SES schools. It seems like FCPS is trying to keep students from wealthier schools from accessing AAP. Students scoring in the 99th percentile are not “in pool” at some elementary schools. I can understand lowering the “in pool” requirement for schools that traditionally have less AAP students; but it makes absolutely no sense to try to keep students scoring in the 98th/99th percentile from accessing A
The Advanced Academic Program.

FCPS is trying to “dumb down” the higher performing high schools by lowering the academics for students starting in 3rd grade. Less kids in AAP will mean lower I-ready/SOL scores, less kids taking advanced math in middle school, overall less prepared students for AP/DE classes in high school.

I think you are looking at it from the wrong end of the of the telescope.
There is a cutoff (it's usually the 98th percentile or higher on both tests, if you didn't make the cutoff with one score in the 99th percentile, it's probably because you were below the 98th percentile on one of the tests) that is objectively applied to everyone.
But there are some schools where there aren't enough kids making the cutoff to fill even one class so to fill those spaces, they lower the cutoff for those schools.
They aren't applying a higher standard to your kid. They are applying a lower standard to kids from crappy schools.

The cutoff at the richest school in the county is not higher than the cutoff at Greenbriar west with a 20% FARM rate. But the cutoff starts to drop when you have a school where half the kids are ESL and 2/3rds are FARM students.

If you want that lower cutoff, you have to attend a crappier school.

Or you can just do a parent referral.

PP, can you share where the info in bold comes from? Because unless there is misinformation in the "in pool" thread: that parent's kid in Lake Braddock pyramid reported the child had 138 on NNAT and 136 on CogAT and didn't make the pool. Both these scores are in the 99th percentile.

I don’t think the info in bold is consistent with the top 10% criteria. I know a kid last year with close to 140 cogat who didn’t make it to pool in our base school. For Braddock, Sangster is really competitive so it’s likely that the PP’s kid goes there

Sangster is a center school. It does kinda suck to have your kid at a center school where they didn't make the cut w/ a 99th percentile score and kids/neighbors are attending AAP at your same school, but got in with lower scores because they came from a school (just 5 min away, but different boundary) with lower cutoff.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The in pool scores for higher SES school is significantly higher than lower SES schools. It seems like FCPS is trying to keep students from wealthier schools from accessing AAP. Students scoring in the 99th percentile are not “in pool” at some elementary schools. I can understand lowering the “in pool” requirement for schools that traditionally have less AAP students; but it makes absolutely no sense to try to keep students scoring in the 98th/99th percentile from accessing A
The Advanced Academic Program.

FCPS is trying to “dumb down” the higher performing high schools by lowering the academics for students starting in 3rd grade. Less kids in AAP will mean lower I-ready/SOL scores, less kids taking advanced math in middle school, overall less prepared students for AP/DE classes in high school.

I think you are looking at it from the wrong end of the of the telescope.
There is a cutoff (it's usually the 98th percentile or higher on both tests, if you didn't make the cutoff with one score in the 99th percentile, it's probably because you were below the 98th percentile on one of the tests) that is objectively applied to everyone.
But there are some schools where there aren't enough kids making the cutoff to fill even one class so to fill those spaces, they lower the cutoff for those schools.
They aren't applying a higher standard to your kid. They are applying a lower standard to kids from crappy schools.

The cutoff at the richest school in the county is not higher than the cutoff at Greenbriar west with a 20% FARM rate. But the cutoff starts to drop when you have a school where half the kids are ESL and 2/3rds are FARM students.

If you want that lower cutoff, you have to attend a crappier school.

Or you can just do a parent referral.

PP, can you share where the info in bold comes from? Because unless there is misinformation in the "in pool" thread: that parent's kid in Lake Braddock pyramid reported the child had 138 on NNAT and 136 on CogAT and didn't make the pool. Both these scores are in the 99th percentile.

I don’t think the info in bold is consistent with the top 10% criteria. I know a kid last year with close to 140 cogat who didn’t make it to pool in our base school. For Braddock, Sangster is really competitive so it’s likely that the PP’s kid goes there

Is Sangster that competitive at the K-2 level, though, or more particularly because of the large AAP cohort in 3-6? I'd be interested in how big the gap really is between the base community and the neighboring schools - my guess is it's not as significant as you think.

[Anonymous]

In pool =/= admitted.

I do think in pool could probably be a bit more nuanced. Something like 98th percentile, if that doesn't identify the top 10% school, take top 10 or something like that. It would mean that highly prepped schools don't miss top students who didn't prep and got 98th or 99th percentile (but not 150+). And ensure at least 10% of students are referred. Alternatively do top x% of each school who were not parent referred (making it truly just another mechanism rather than potential for complete overlap).

Or just stop calling it a pool and use the mechanism as a way of doing teacher referrals and not announce it

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My child is one of those that got 99th percentile test scores at a high SES school who didn't get into AAP. Her friends at other schools with lower test scores got in. It's infuriating - is this FCPS way of encouraging young families to move to crappier parts of the county? I'm confident my child would have gotten in at a school with different peers.

That fact may be your child did not cut it against your child’s competition at their school. It makes sense the way they are doing it based on the school’s population. If you don’t like it move or go private.

It actually doesn’t make any sense when the AAP curriculum is determined at the county level and not the local elementary. A 99% student should have access to the advanced curriculum, especially in math, where that child is cut off from future educational opportunities that they’re fully qualified and capable of. It makes no sense that a 99% kid can’t get advanced math but a 92% kid does at another school.

If the local elementary schools want to start more widely offering AAP accelerated math to qualified students, then I might feel differently. At our high SES center school, I know a number of highly qualified GE kids who had to jump through hoops to get into AAP math every school year, oftentimes missing 4-6 weeks of classes before the testing was completed and they were allowed in, late and now behind on curriculum.

Adv Math should be offered at all ES. Is it not? We have Gen Ed kids who flex into Adv Math. We look at IReady Data and SOL scores.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My child is one of those that got 99th percentile test scores at a high SES school who didn't get into AAP. Her friends at other schools with lower test scores got in. It's infuriating - is this FCPS way of encouraging young families to move to crappier parts of the county? I'm confident my child would have gotten in at a school with different peers.

That fact may be your child did not cut it against your child’s competition at their school. It makes sense the way they are doing it based on the school’s population. If you don’t like it move or go private.

It actually doesn’t make any sense when the AAP curriculum is determined at the county level and not the local elementary. A 99% student should have access to the advanced curriculum, especially in math, where that child is cut off from future educational opportunities that they’re fully qualified and capable of. It makes no sense that a 99% kid can’t get advanced math but a 92% kid does at another school.

If the local elementary schools want to start more widely offering AAP accelerated math to qualified students, then I might feel differently. At our high SES center school, I know a number of highly qualified GE kids who had to jump through hoops to get into AAP math every school year, oftentimes missing 4-6 weeks of classes before the testing was completed and they were allowed in, late and now behind on curriculum.

Adv Math should be offered at all ES. Is it not? We have Gen Ed kids who flex into Adv Math. We look at IReady Data and SOL scores.

Our base school doesn't offer local full time AAP or advanced math until grade 5.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My child is one of those that got 99th percentile test scores at a high SES school who didn't get into AAP. Her friends at other schools with lower test scores got in. It's infuriating - is this FCPS way of encouraging young families to move to crappier parts of the county? I'm confident my child would have gotten in at a school with different peers.

That fact may be your child did not cut it against your child’s competition at their school. It makes sense the way they are doing it based on the school’s population. If you don’t like it move or go private.

It actually doesn’t make any sense when the AAP curriculum is determined at the county level and not the local elementary. A 99% student should have access to the advanced curriculum, especially in math, where that child is cut off from future educational opportunities that they’re fully qualified and capable of. It makes no sense that a 99% kid can’t get advanced math but a 92% kid does at another school.

If the local elementary schools want to start more widely offering AAP accelerated math to qualified students, then I might feel differently. At our high SES center school, I know a number of highly qualified GE kids who had to jump through hoops to get into AAP math every school year, oftentimes missing 4-6 weeks of classes before the testing was completed and they were allowed in, late and now behind on curriculum.

Adv Math should be offered at all ES. Is it not? We have Gen Ed kids who flex into Adv Math. We look at IReady Data and SOL scores.

Did you read the last paragraph of my post? At our center school it is offered, yes, but they make the students jump through hoops every year with the testing to get in and it isn’t approved for 1-2 months after school has started, so the students have a lot of catching up to do once they’re finally admitted in.

[Anonymous]

Adv math is offered at my elementary school in Vienna and kid was offered it for 4th (letter came home May of 3rd grade for our signature), and is now in 5th doing the two yr track to potentially do Algebra I in 7th. Again got notice in May of 4th grade for this year.

Not doing level 4 AAP due to learning disabilities but very successful in adv math

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The in pool scores for higher SES school is significantly higher than lower SES schools. It seems like FCPS is trying to keep students from wealthier schools from accessing AAP. Students scoring in the 99th percentile are not “in pool” at some elementary schools. I can understand lowering the “in pool” requirement for schools that traditionally have less AAP students; but it makes absolutely no sense to try to keep students scoring in the 98th/99th percentile from accessing A
The Advanced Academic Program.

FCPS is trying to “dumb down” the higher performing high schools by lowering the academics for students starting in 3rd grade. Less kids in AAP will mean lower I-ready/SOL scores, less kids taking advanced math in middle school, overall less prepared students for AP/DE classes in high school.

My understanding is that AAP is supposed to ensure kids who have enrichment needs in their school are getting them.

However, my question is, if this is true, how did the old system work to ensure this? A school-specific in-pool cut off makes sense but a county-wide one does not, as the latter would surely lead to some schools being overrepresented in the review process, no?

Can someone who has been in FCPS for a while help me understand? Is it that the goal of AAP has changed overtime or is it that the approach was misaligned with the goal and has become more aligned? (or something else entirely?)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The in pool scores for higher SES school is significantly higher than lower SES schools. It seems like FCPS is trying to keep students from wealthier schools from accessing AAP. Students scoring in the 99th percentile are not “in pool” at some elementary schools. I can understand lowering the “in pool” requirement for schools that traditionally have less AAP students; but it makes absolutely no sense to try to keep students scoring in the 98th/99th percentile from accessing A
The Advanced Academic Program.

FCPS is trying to “dumb down” the higher performing high schools by lowering the academics for students starting in 3rd grade. Less kids in AAP will mean lower I-ready/SOL scores, less kids taking advanced math in middle school, overall less prepared students for AP/DE classes in high school.

My understanding is that AAP is supposed to ensure kids who have enrichment needs in their school are getting them.

However, my question is, if this is true, how did the old system work to ensure this? A school-specific in-pool cut off makes sense but a county-wide one does not, as the latter would surely lead to some schools being overrepresented in the review process, no?

Can someone who has been in FCPS for a while help me understand? Is it that the goal of AAP has changed overtime or is it that the approach was misaligned with the goal and has become more aligned? (or something else entirely?)

The original goal of the program was to serve gifted students (using the traditionally-understood definition of IQ above 98th percentile or IQ proxy above 98th percentile) by providing them a self-contained classroom with a sufficient cohort. Over the years, they have expanded the program to try to catch "undiscovered" gifted kids. For a long time, there has been a lot of hostility to the program because it is by definition not equitable, and people have tried to get rid of it for years. With the new change in pool selection, and the rollout of Local Level 4 at every elementary school, especially in cluster form, the program was supposed to go away. Parents like it, however, and continue to choose the center school option for their children. So it hasn't gone away yet.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My child is one of those that got 99th percentile test scores at a high SES school who didn't get into AAP. Her friends at other schools with lower test scores got in. It's infuriating - is this FCPS way of encouraging young families to move to crappier parts of the county? I'm confident my child would have gotten in at a school with different peers.

My kid had same experience, but eventually got in for 5th. But super frustrating process.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The in pool scores for higher SES school is significantly higher than lower SES schools. It seems like FCPS is trying to keep students from wealthier schools from accessing AAP. Students scoring in the 99th percentile are not “in pool” at some elementary schools. I can understand lowering the “in pool” requirement for schools that traditionally have less AAP students; but it makes absolutely no sense to try to keep students scoring in the 98th/99th percentile from accessing A
The Advanced Academic Program.

FCPS is trying to “dumb down” the higher performing high schools by lowering the academics for students starting in 3rd grade. Less kids in AAP will mean lower I-ready/SOL scores, less kids taking advanced math in middle school, overall less prepared students for AP/DE classes in high school.

I think you are looking at it from the wrong end of the of the telescope.
There is a cutoff (it's usually the 98th percentile or higher on both tests, if you didn't make the cutoff with one score in the 99th percentile, it's probably because you were below the 98th percentile on one of the tests) that is objectively applied to everyone.
But there are some schools where there aren't enough kids making the cutoff to fill even one class so to fill those spaces, they lower the cutoff for those schools.
They aren't applying a higher standard to your kid. They are applying a lower standard to kids from crappy schools.

The cutoff at the richest school in the county is not higher than the cutoff at Greenbriar west with a 20% FARM rate. But the cutoff starts to drop when you have a school where half the kids are ESL and 2/3rds are FARM students.

If you want that lower cutoff, you have to attend a crappier school.

Or you can just do a parent referral.

PP, can you share where the info in bold comes from? Because unless there is misinformation in the "in pool" thread: that parent's kid in Lake Braddock pyramid reported the child had 138 on NNAT and 136 on CogAT and didn't make the pool. Both these scores are in the 99th percentile.

I think it was on this site years ago.
Are any of the cogat subelement scores below 133?

I don't know the sub scores because they weren't posted (maybe the original poster Lake Braddock will be following and can fill in), but the overall score of 136 on CogAT is in the 99th percentile. It makes no sense that a kid whose scores are in the 99th percentile wouldn't even be in the pool to be evaluated.

I'm not sure the subelements matter either. I am grasping for explanations.
It seems weird that 99th percentile on both tests doesn't get into pool.

[Anonymous]

From the FCPS website:

Students receive a highly challenging instructional program in the four core subject areas

English Language Arts
Mathematics
Science
Social Studies
The highly challenging instructional program follows the FCPS Program of Studies. Differentiation in the depth, breadth, and pace of instruction places a strong emphasis on higher-level thinking skills.

The curriculum offers advanced learners an appropriate level of challenge through adaptations. There is a strong emphasis on:

Higher-level thinking
Problem-solving
Decision-making
Teachers create and implement units of study that lead to an understanding of the concepts, themes, and issues that are fundamental to the core subject areas and that lead to an appreciation for relationships within and among content.

Students pursue independent investigations and ongoing research appropriate to the disciplines. Students have ongoing opportunities for reflection and self-assessment. This allows for the characteristics, demands, and responsibilities of advanced intellectual development.

***This is 100% different from students with 99th percentile scores having other high level peers in their class. The changes to the cutoff for COGAT/nnat scores to local school scores was to limit the number of students from the AAP Program. It makes zero sense that students scoring in the 99th percentile don’t qualify for this highly challenging curriculum. The committee lowered scores to catch a wider pool of students from under-represented schools and ALSO limited the number of students that should actually qualify who have 98th/99th percentile scores at higher SES schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The in pool scores for higher SES school is significantly higher than lower SES schools. It seems like FCPS is trying to keep students from wealthier schools from accessing AAP. Students scoring in the 99th percentile are not “in pool” at some elementary schools. I can understand lowering the “in pool” requirement for schools that traditionally have less AAP students; but it makes absolutely no sense to try to keep students scoring in the 98th/99th percentile from accessing A
The Advanced Academic Program.

FCPS is trying to “dumb down” the higher performing high schools by lowering the academics for students starting in 3rd grade. Less kids in AAP will mean lower I-ready/SOL scores, less kids taking advanced math in middle school, overall less prepared students for AP/DE classes in high school.

I think you are looking at it from the wrong end of the of the telescope.
There is a cutoff (it's usually the 98th percentile or higher on both tests, if you didn't make the cutoff with one score in the 99th percentile, it's probably because you were below the 98th percentile on one of the tests) that is objectively applied to everyone.
But there are some schools where there aren't enough kids making the cutoff to fill even one class so to fill those spaces, they lower the cutoff for those schools.
They aren't applying a higher standard to your kid. They are applying a lower standard to kids from crappy schools.

The cutoff at the richest school in the county is not higher than the cutoff at Greenbriar west with a 20% FARM rate. But the cutoff starts to drop when you have a school where half the kids are ESL and 2/3rds are FARM students.

If you want that lower cutoff, you have to attend a crappier school.

Or you can just do a parent referral.

PP, can you share where the info in bold comes from? Because unless there is misinformation in the "in pool" thread: that parent's kid in Lake Braddock pyramid reported the child had 138 on NNAT and 136 on CogAT and didn't make the pool. Both these scores are in the 99th percentile.

I don’t think the info in bold is consistent with the top 10% criteria. I know a kid last year with close to 140 cogat who didn’t make it to pool in our base school. For Braddock, Sangster is really competitive so it’s likely that the PP’s kid goes there

Is Sangster that competitive at the K-2 level, though, or more particularly because of the large AAP cohort in 3-6? I'd be interested in how big the gap really is between the base community and the neighboring schools - my guess is it's not as significant as you think.

I know AAP kids in three different grades at Sangster and for those classes, at least when they started third grade, the majority of their classes come from Sangster. The same thing cannot be said about White Oaks, another center that in the Braddock pyramid.