Declining a CES — why did you?
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Anonymous
Agree this is way more important |
Anonymous
Honestly, I live in a high SES area and sent my kids to magnets - CES and middle school magnets. We all - kids and I - agree that one of the biggest benefits of going to a magnet was the racially, culturally and economically diverse student body. It was far better than staying in our high SES school where a significant chunk of parents (not all) were racist, classist snobs like the top PP - the kind who always make an assumption that the minority and/or poor kids in a magnet are just there due to some kind of special lower standard for poor, minority or disabled kids. In fact, we find these kind of high SES people - the kind who are careful to never to associate with the "lesser" folk - to be only moderately smart, often succeeding professionally more due to their social network and privilege rather than deep intelligence, imagination and drive. I never met a kid in the magnet of any color or social background who didn't seem bright enough to be there. |
Anonymous
CES is through a lottery. Magnet programs are not. So yes while magnet kids are very bright, CES is a mixed bag. And that's OK. You sound like you have noblesse oblige symptom. You are the one who is saying poor, minority or disabled kids are lesser than you. Yet you deign to be among them. How magnanimous! |
Anonymous
Agree! |
Anonymous
+1 Why live there if everyone else is a classist snob? This reads like satire - surely one as deeply intelligent as the PP would have more self-awareness. |
Anonymous
Kids who get in with "lottery" are still scoring 90%-ish on MAP-R. You can attempt to act as if your 9-year-old kid is superior because they have a 96% but the difference between a 90 and a 96% is a kid having a bad day or being the youngest in the class whereas rich kids are more likely to be red-shirted. There are no low performers accepted at the CES. I would assume that a kid with a 90% from a low-income school is smarter than the 96% scoring kid at a high income school, because they reached the top with fewer resources. |
Anonymous
This is absolutely false. Check the data. CES scores can be as low as 70% for some. Not a reason to decline CES but know what you are getting into |
Anonymous
What are you talking about?! Kids from the same school, 85 percentile is picked over 99 percentile is not fair at all. |
Anonymous
| I don’t understand how being in an environment with “not so smart” kids, as defined by some parents here, would affect the way your own child can perform in the CES program. Can someone explain? |
Anonymous
I think the argument is that they don't want to deal with uprooting their kid from their neighborhood and friends for 2 years to be at school with a cohort that is similar or worse than their home school if they are from a top-performing school. In DD's school almost everyone made the lottery and there were many 99th p scoring kids who did not make it. What are the chances of a 99th p kid making it to a CES in the lottery? They are weighing that against the sure thing they have at their home school. |
Anonymous
Cohort might be the same at home school and CES, so that means it comes down to leaving friends and neighbors and having a longer commute in exchange for an enriched curriculum that goes deeper than the ELA enrichment at home school. The difference in curriculum may not be worth the commute if you’re really happy at home school. The choice is very unlikely to alter the course of your child’s life substantially. I really would recommend giving the middle school magnets a chance, however. Our experience was definitely worth the commute. |
Anonymous
| Anyone declined/is declining because they are not so confident if DC will do well in the CES program? DS is offered a spot but we are still contemplating. While he can read and spell like an adult and scores high in MAP/above reading level/straight As, but he lacks writing, comprehension and analytics skills, which seem to be the main focus of the CES program. We are worried DS might struggle in the program and need to drop out later (though DS personally really want to do the CES program). Any insights from families who went through the program but dropped out later because the program was not a good fit? |
Anonymous
My college-level reader/poor writer came out much stronger. The CES does a good job of focusing on writing skills and giving specific feedback. Before, they’d been ignored because their writing was technically “at grade level,” even though it was far below their reading level. I will also say that they were eventually diagnosed with ADHD and associated processing deficits. But the CES at least helped them catch up and prepared them for the Humanities magnet in middle school. |
Anonymous
| Have you all made the decision? |
Anonymous
The CES is great. Do not let your worries about that influence your decision! That's what the CES is there for, to build your child's writing skills. The only kids we know who struggled have a lot of anxiety or perfectionism tendencies or special needs and not the ones that came in as struggling writers. Grades don't matter so if your child is struggling the stakes are low. |