Pyle vs Takoma Park Magnet

[Anonymous]

OP did you decide to take the spot?

[Anonymous]

The bus route is insane.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The bus route is insane.

Always wondered if they did that on purpose to prevent kids from this cluster from attending. There's no reason it should be that way. They tack on Whitman stops at the end of all the other buses so you might spend 1.5 hours weaving from Silver Spring before going to the Whitman area. If they just made one bus that goes to this area it would make it a lot more palatable. There's not a single stop in the entire cluster that isn't at the end of a route.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The bus route is insane.

Always wondered if they did that on purpose to prevent kids from this cluster from attending. There's no reason it should be that way. They tack on Whitman stops at the end of all the other buses so you might spend 1.5 hours weaving from Silver Spring before going to the Whitman area. If they just made one bus that goes to this area it would make it a lot more palatable. There's not a single stop in the entire cluster that isn't at the end of a route.

Do most families drive their kids?

[Anonymous]

Breaking news:

TPMS got 3rd place in Mathcounts.

Pyle got 2nd.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Breaking news:

TPMS got 3rd place in Mathcounts.

Pyle got 2nd.

I'm not surprised because of the lottery lots of high ability kids either don't get picked in the random draw or they decide it's not worth it to go to be with kids who might be scoring pretty average on standardized tests when they have plenty of 99th percentile kids in their own neighborhood school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I've had children in both and there is no comparison. TPMS is wonderful for math and science and if your child has aptitude in those areas, it will open doors that the regular middle school cannot.

+1. Same experience. DS did magnet the whole way through and by far the most important piece was TPMS. We had a commute and it was absolutely worth it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I've had children in both and there is no comparison. TPMS is wonderful for math and science and if your child has aptitude in those areas, it will open doors that the regular middle school cannot.

+1. Same experience. DS did magnet the whole way through and by far the most important piece was TPMS. We had a commute and it was absolutely worth it.

If your child started 6th grade before 2021-2022 school year, then the experience was very different from this year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I've had children in both and there is no comparison. TPMS is wonderful for math and science and if your child has aptitude in those areas, it will open doors that the regular middle school cannot.

+1. Same experience. DS did magnet the whole way through and by far the most important piece was TPMS. We had a commute and it was absolutely worth it.

If your child started 6th grade before 2021-2022 school year, then the experience was very different from this year.

That is correct! They don’t accept kids with the highest MAP scores. They accept kids that fall within a range. That range is very different depending upon which elementary school your child attends (high or low FARMs) school. Kids from high farms get into the pool at 230 MAP score in 5th or even lower, whereas higher MAP scores kids if even in the pool are not picked. So there will be a huge difference in kids ability with map scores of 230 and 250 but they are placed in the same program. So this is not the same cohort that it used be.

[Anonymous]

My DC went to CCES for CES right after covid and he didn’t think the kids there were super smart or gifted. He would actually say that the ‘kids are pretty dumb for being gifted’ I actually attended their TED talk presentation and there were some kids who couldn’t even read fluently. So that should give you some idea of how these programs are not for the ‘gifted’ or super smart kids anymore. Whether its CES or criteria based Middle school programs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My DC went to CCES for CES right after covid and he didn’t think the kids there were super smart or gifted. He would actually say that the ‘kids are pretty dumb for being gifted’ I actually attended their TED talk presentation and there were some kids who couldn’t even read fluently. So that should give you some idea of how these programs are not for the ‘gifted’ or super smart kids anymore. Whether its CES or criteria based Middle school programs.

You have no idea why someone isn’t reading fluently. My kid was in a CES - IQ135 + ADHD + language processing disorder. Similarly, a kid with dyslexia or who is not a native English speaker may not read fluently. Reading fluency is not necessarily related to intelligence.

Schools cannot discriminate on the basis of disability or language speaker status.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My DC went to CCES for CES right after covid and he didn’t think the kids there were super smart or gifted. He would actually say that the ‘kids are pretty dumb for being gifted’ I actually attended their TED talk presentation and there were some kids who couldn’t even read fluently. So that should give you some idea of how these programs are not for the ‘gifted’ or super smart kids anymore. Whether its CES or criteria based Middle school programs.

You have no idea why someone isn’t reading fluently. My kid was in a CES - IQ135 + ADHD + language processing disorder. Similarly, a kid with dyslexia or who is not a native English speaker may not read fluently. Reading fluency is not necessarily related to intelligence.

Schools cannot discriminate on the basis of disability or language speaker status.

CES is a literacy program, not an IQ program.

Parents who ignore that tend to have kids frustrated and unsatisfied in CES, and kids in that profile who who don't go are relieved when they see what their peers are doing in CES.

That said, as with other academic activities, the demands of CES are different in W cluster vs other clusters.

[Anonymous]

I hate, hate, hate our commute to TPMS. My child is beyond happy there though and has found her people. And she's one of the high-FARMS school dummies who was given a leg up, apparently, along with some of her other peers. They're all thriving. Sorry that we're dumbing the place down for some of you.

Anyway, OP, don't underestimate the awfulness of the commute. If your home school is amazing, stick with that. Ours is not so we make the sacrifice.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My DC went to CCES for CES right after covid and he didn’t think the kids there were super smart or gifted. He would actually say that the ‘kids are pretty dumb for being gifted’ I actually attended their TED talk presentation and there were some kids who couldn’t even read fluently. So that should give you some idea of how these programs are not for the ‘gifted’ or super smart kids anymore. Whether its CES or criteria based Middle school programs.

You have no idea why someone isn’t reading fluently. My kid was in a CES - IQ135 + ADHD + language processing disorder. Similarly, a kid with dyslexia or who is not a native English speaker may not read fluently. Reading fluency is not necessarily related to intelligence.

Schools cannot discriminate on the basis of disability or language speaker status.

The CES is a literary program. The kid was from a moderate FARMS school and had a lower MAP R score. It wasn’t just that he couldn’t read fluently. He was not doing well when it came to reading and writing. Since the lottery, the quality of students has gone down. The program is not run as it was before the lottery. Same is true for TpMS.

[Anonymous]

There's still the benefit of a self-selected group. Few kids who hate math and science are going to go to TPMS.

I think people also forget that MCPS only had a few years of universal selection for CES and middle schools meaning everyone was considered and they took the top performers. But even that process had its "flaws" in terms of selecting "the best" because they tried to limit the number from certain schools and they created tiers based on the FARMS status of schools. Before that you had to apply to be considered so a lot of smart kids were missed if they or their parents did not understand the process or did not have time to apply.