RMIB and Blair criteria for HS program acceptance
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Anonymous
When I was there a few years ago the Blair program administrator stated the average MAP scores of students admitted the previous year. It was a little higher than what the PP listed, but there are plenty of kids admitted with lower scores. |
Anonymous
DP. Trying to thread the needle on this. Anything above the 99th percentile score is still in the 99th percentile. Stochastically, that can be the 99.99th percentile, but we never would call it the 100th percentile. Though one might utilize a known mean, standard deviation and assumed distribution independently to determine a percentile to tenths, hundredths, thousandths, etc., NWEA's MAP results only report whole-number percentiles vs. achieved RIT scores (the 272 suggested above, though that is off by a bit). Both PPs are correct, each in their own way. Our understanding is that the program teams evaluating applications are given only candidates' MAP percentiles, and not their raw scores. This would mean that there is no bump to admission chances based on being "above" the 99th percentile (achieving an RIT score above that at which the 99th percentile begins). NWEA has just published the 2025 norms, as they do every 5 years. Unsurprisingly, as these norms are drawn from a sampling of scores across the country achieved during the latter part of pandemic recovery, mean and 99th percentile RITs are down just a bit from the prior norms (2020, based on scores from similarly earlier years). From the NWEA primer: "NWEA® continually refines the methodologies used to generate our norms so they remain statistically rigorous as well as accurate and relevant. This 2025 update is essential to account for changes in US student demographics, postpandemic shifts in student performance, and the item-selection algorithm in the newly enhanced version of MAP® Growth™. Educators can utilize the MAP Growth norms in various ways, including: - Evaluating student and school achievement and growth - Individualizing instruction and setting goals with students - Supporting conversations about achievement and growth patterns The data used to produce the MAP Growth norms were sampled from 116 million scores of 13.8 million students across 30,000 schools spanning six testing terms from fall 2022 to spring 2024." (There is additional info about weeks of instruction prior to testing, but MCPS has not, to date, made associated adjustment; though the effect is small, a shift of, say, 1-2 RIT points based on having taken MAP early or late in the testing window can make a difference for some...) The new 8th grade fall means are 216 for MAP-R and 222 for MAP-M, with standard deviations of 17 & 18, respectively. These yield normal-distributuon (Bell curve) 99th percentile RIT scores beginning at 256 for MAP-R and 264 for MAP-M. (2020 norms had these at 258 | 269, with means of 218 | 225 and standard deviations of 17 | 19.) Detailed tables may show variation from these numbers if a higher-precision standard deviation (or alternate percentile methodology) is used than that available in/presumed from the published primer. As MCPS has seen RIT scores rise in excess of the national normative data, especially at low-FARMS schools, with now-greater time for pandemic recovery than the 2022-24 period from which the 2025 norms were drawn, DCCAPS and the evaluation teams for criteria-based programs may have a more difficult time due to an increased proportion of those MCPS program applicants hitting the national 99th percentile. Even the MCPS algorithm for local norming preserves any score at/above the 99th national as locally normed 99th. Perhaps the planned expansion of programs may help, but admission decisions for these will come a year further on, and they may not want to make any criteria change in the interim -- similar reasoning has been provided in the past for delaying possible adjustments. I could see their maintaining use of the 2020 norms, as inappropriate as that may be to proper reflection of the newer test, as a stop gap; attempting, for instance, to impute/utilize unpublished tenths of percentiles would create less manageable perception/communications/other problems that I think they would try to avoid. |
Anonymous
Indeed. However, you note only downside effects, and it is a mixed blessing. Math team and orchestra were available at TPMS -- it is not so at every school. TPMS has among the very highest number of available extracurriculars across MCPS middle schools, with a far greater preponderance of those geared toward the academically inclined without loss of activities for those less so. The demographic shift that sees potential loss of Title I-type funding follows a lower proportion of higher-need students. Without the magnet, expanded bounds would have been in play to fill seats, drawing from a considerably greater high-need population in the surrounding area. That magnet demographic shift also facilitates provision of certain electives not available at every MCPS middle school, and it results in the benefit of robust PTSA funding/participation. But perhaps the most compelling evidence of balance between positives and negatives, and the greater weight of the positives, is the behavior of the community when suggestions arise that the magnet be moved. The overwhelming response is a firm "NO." |
Anonymous
And student-response/essays. |
Anonymous
An often inequitable benefit. |
Anonymous
Incorrect. Again, there is nothing but fealty to that back-room deal and equally ancient arbitrary guidance of 100/class as an out-of-bounds magnet limit that would keep the program from offering all 125 seats to the general population. The personal anecdote is immaterial, though I am happy for your children. |
Anonymous
You truly have no idea of what you're talking about. Do you know how many times TPMS had floated the idea of not wanting to host the magnet? How do you think they got the set-aside seats? As a compromise for them to still host the magnet. Not every or principal wants to host magnet programs with the added burdens, difficulties and logistics. |
Anonymous
Honestly, 25 seats at TPMS is way more defensible than Potomac ES running a Chinese immersion program that only serves home school kids. At least some non-TPMS kids get the opportunity. As noted above, hosting a magnet program is not an unmitigated good thing, and having a critical mass of home school kids in the program eases that burden and helps to build bridges between the majority school population and the magnet. |
Anonymous
Well, MCPS did that on purpose to draw higher SES to RMHS when it was a dump in the 80s. And it worked. It's not possible to make all HS equal in terms of access to programs due to limited funding. If you are willing to pay more in taxes to provide that equity, then propose that to the city council. Oh wait, CC already hiked our taxes for MCPS budget shortfall even without the equity in programming. So, good luck to all of us in terms of taxes, especially those fed/fed adjacents who have lost their jobs. |
Anonymous
Yes, and this is partly why RM admins encourage in cluster students to join IB program in 11th. They don't want RMIB to be a separate school within a school. They want them to be integrated with the home school student body as much as possible. |
Anonymous
TPMS admin/staff trying to rid themselves of magnet burden (and there is that -- funding is not commensurate with need, as was demonstrated in part recently by the revolt against 6/2 class load, resulting in the abandonment of the block schedule to conform with a 5/2 load) is very different from the TKPK community wanting to be rid of it. Yet it is the community that reaps enormously disproportionate benefit from the set-aside. The admin/staff retain the burden. The set-aside predates any effort to be rid of the magnet. If the community hemmed & hawed about the program, it more likely was rhetorical positioning to preserve the set-aside against suggestion that that be eliminated. Those mixed-blessing benefits remain. |
Anonymous
Neither is defensible, but I'll readily grant that the boutique program afforded almost exclusively to Potomac residents is the more outrageous. I'll also grant that bridge building is not an MCPS forté. |
Anonymous
Yup. Excellence-equity-budget is its own triple constraint. But that doesn't mean we can claim equity in cases like these where the other two have been the more prevalent considerations. |
Anonymous
No, there were no set-aside for TPMS originally, in the beginning. The set-aside was a compromise. |
Anonymous
FYI this is very clearly cheating according to the application instructions. |