Are this year's CogAT scores age-adjusted or not?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes, I agree with all these concerns.

But if FCPS truly wants the best kids in the class, regardless of age, it takes the top 5%. It's just another way to look at it.

As it is currently in most FCPS starting from 1st grade, reading groups, math groups, and word study groups are all grouped according to performance on an assessment, not "potential". This is the same thing, just on a bigger scale.

What nonsense! Have you seen these tests? They have nothing to do with grade-level reading, word study etc. They are testing intelligence indicators which are totally affected by age and maturity, not knowledge. So the whole argument "if they cannot be among the 5%, they do not deserve AAP placement anyway" is totally rubbish. And FYI, many of the younger kids, who are doubly diadvantaged by this year's stupid decision not to age-adjust the test, are already in the pool based on their performance in last year's (age-adjusted) NNAT test. So it's not an issue of being in the pool or not, but whether it is even legitimate to administer and use a test like CogAT (which is totally affected by age) and leave the scores unadjusted...

+1000. We should all call/email the respective AARTs to make the point so that they can take it to the Central Screening committee.

[Anonymous]

So are the angry parents those whose summer bday kids missed the pool on both the nnat AND the cogat, or do they also include parents of children who qualified for the nnat, but whose scores were lower for the cogat?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes, I agree with all these concerns.

But if FCPS truly wants the best kids in the class, regardless of age, it takes the top 5%. It's just another way to look at it.

As it is currently in most FCPS starting from 1st grade, reading groups, math groups, and word study groups are all grouped according to performance on an assessment, not "potential". This is the same thing, just on a bigger scale.

What nonsense! Have you seen these tests? They have nothing to do with grade-level reading, word study etc. They are testing intelligence indicators which are totally affected by age and maturity, not knowledge. So the whole argument "if they cannot be among the 5%, they do not deserve AAP placement anyway" is totally rubbish. And FYI, many of the younger kids, who are doubly diadvantaged by this year's stupid decision not to age-adjust the test, are already in the pool based on their performance in last year's (age-adjusted) NNAT test. So it's not an issue of being in the pool or not, but whether it is even legitimate to administer and use a test like CogAT (which is totally affected by age) and leave the scores unadjusted...

+1000. We should all call/email the respective AARTs to make the point so that they can take it to the Central Screening committee.

+1000000. I am definitely calling our AART and will also email the county. Another parent, who is a lawyer, is talking about a class-action lawsuit, if indeed the scores are not normalized for age. And no, it's not because of AAP placement alone, it's because you cannot pick and chose whatever suits you when it comes to human testing, even if it's a school test. It has to be done right or it is invalid. There is a whole science behind tests like this - and for a good reason.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So are the angry parents those whose summer bday kids missed the pool on both the nnat AND the cogat, or do they also include parents of children who qualified for the nnat, but whose scores were lower for the cogat?

The angry parents, as far as I can tell, are those who do not believe that you can produce (and use) test scores without following the right specifications. Which in the case of tests like CogAT require age normalization. And because this unacceptable deviation affects mostly the younger kids, I expect that it's the parents of the younger kids, irrespectively of whether they made the pool or not, who would be most upset... I also suspect that it's those parents who, based on what they know about their kids and their strong performance at NNAT, expected a better performance at CogAT, only to discover that their kids might actually have had that strong performance, if the scores were age-adjusted.

[Anonymous]

You people are out of your mind if you think adding an extra 1 or 2 points turns an average performance into a strong performance on cogat. What do you people expect???That each month past October should add a point to where a kid born in august should get an extra 10 points. You have absolutely no idea how much the age adjustment would actually add to any kids score.
Good luck with your class actions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You people are out of your mind if you think adding an extra 1 or 2 points turns an average performance into a strong performance on cogat. What do you people expect???That each month past October should add a point to where a kid born in august should get an extra 10 points. You have absolutely no idea how much the age adjustment would actually add to any kids score.
Good luck with your class actions.

Thank you for accurately stating the argument that age-norming adds "1 or 2 points" to an "average performance." That's why age is factored into the nationally administered Cogat unlike the wing-it Ffx version.

I imagine your kid aced the reading comprehension portion of the NNAT.

[Anonymous]

To provide the parents with the "improvement" their kids can get with the age-norm score, I'm sharing the CogAT results my kid got from GMU. My kid is not in FCPS, so no flaming please.
CogAT took at 2nd grade, age 7y 10m. The national grade score percentile is 85/99/94/98, national age score percentile is 84/99/93/98.
So the 10 month age difference lowed two of the subset score 1 percentile.
On the other side, since the test was given in October, your Sept. kids probably can swing up 0.1 percentile, while the oldest kids of 7y 10m probably should swing down 1 percentile, even if the county didn't age-norm it and you want to put it in.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:To provide the parents with the "improvement" their kids can get with the age-norm score, I'm sharing the CogAT results my kid got from GMU. My kid is not in FCPS, so no flaming please.
CogAT took at 2nd grade, age 7y 10m. The national grade score percentile is 85/99/94/98, national age score percentile is 84/99/93/98.
So the 10 month age difference lowed two of the subset score 1 percentile.
On the other side, since the test was given in October, your Sept. kids probably can swing up 0.1 percentile, while the oldest kids of 7y 10m probably should swing down 1 percentile, even if the county didn't age-norm it and you want to put it in.

Oh yeah? How did you come up with .1 percentile? According to previous posts, a 45/48 NNAT raw score for a Nov. kid gave the same adjusted score as a 42/48 for a Sept. kid and the same percentile. Can you calculate the cumulative effect of such normalization on a composite score (CogAT) and the corresponding percentiles? No one said that a 60% would translate to an 80% but a 90% could go up to a 95% and that could make a difference for some kids...

[Anonymous]

Don't shoot the messenger!

If you truly believe that your child would have been in the pool if it were age scaled, then parent refer and put that information in as part of your packet.

[Anonymous]

My Sept DC easily made pool with high NNAT score, while CogAT percentile is not close to the cutoff. Only 1/2 up to 2/3 pool kids are eligible. The low CogAT makes a weak case. I believe the age factor will fade after 4th grade. But his placement G3-G8 will depends on the tests G1 & G2.

[Anonymous]

If you can afford the $380, get a WISC done this week and use it to parent refer by Friday Feb. 8th. That's what I'm doing for my young 2nd grader. Call GMU, they will get you the test results in time. The WISC is the gold standard, the county knows that, and it's age adjusted for sound reasons.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you can afford the $380, get a WISC done this week and use it to parent refer by Friday Feb. 8th. That's what I'm doing for my young 2nd grader. Call GMU, they will get you the test results in time. The WISC is the gold standard, the county knows that, and it's age adjusted for sound reasons.

You disappoint me. If you were a true Tiger AAP mom, you'd know that you would wait to submit that WISC score. Submit the parent referral by the 8th without a WISC. See if Snowflake gets in. If not, then appeal with the WISC score. If you submit the WISC now and Snowflake doesn't get in, then you won't have any "new" information to provide in an appeal. You can't appeal unless you have new data to provide.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you can afford the $380, get a WISC done this week and use it to parent refer by Friday Feb. 8th. That's what I'm doing for my young 2nd grader. Call GMU, they will get you the test results in time. The WISC is the gold standard, the county knows that, and it's age adjusted for sound reasons.

You disappoint me. If you were a true Tiger AAP mom, you'd know that you would wait to submit that WISC score. Submit the parent referral by the 8th without a WISC. See if Snowflake gets in. If not, then appeal with the WISC score. If you submit the WISC now and Snowflake doesn't get in, then you won't have any "new" information to provide in an appeal. You can't appeal unless you have new data to provide.

Because Snowflake cannot attend the Center orientation in May if Snowflake gets in on appeal, as the appeal deadline is May 31.

[Anonymous]

The poster can always go back and get a
Sanford Binet for the extra infuriating if snowflake doesn't get in. I agree, though, I'd save the WISC for appeal. The orientation doesn't matter, except for snowflake's mom's bragging rights so all her friends know snowflake got in without an appeal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you can afford the $380, get a WISC done this week and use it to parent refer by Friday Feb. 8th. That's what I'm doing for my young 2nd grader. Call GMU, they will get you the test results in time. The WISC is the gold standard, the county knows that, and it's age adjusted for sound reasons.

You disappoint me. If you were a true Tiger AAP mom, you'd know that you would wait to submit that WISC score. Submit the parent referral by the 8th without a WISC. See if Snowflake gets in. If not, then appeal with the WISC score. If you submit the WISC now and Snowflake doesn't get in, then you won't have any "new" information to provide in an appeal. You can't appeal unless you have new data to provide.

Because Snowflake cannot attend the Center orientation in May if Snowflake gets in on appeal, as the appeal deadline is May 31.

And if Snowflake misses an orientation in May...she'll fail miserably? Be scarred for life? Never fit in?

Okay.

Go forth and submit your WISC now. Please come back and let us know if she gets in on the first round. If not, then she misses the orientation AND you have nothing to submit on appeal. But clearly you know best. Good luck.