Confused about the HCG testing process

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01/13/2014 21:39

Subject: Re:Confused about the HCG testing process

quote

Anonymous

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

No. My guess is that they fill the seats with those kids who are top scorers in all three sections. And that is the reason that some schools (like Coldspring ES) where competition is higher and kids are more prepared...the cut-off is higher than other HGCs.

In my DC's home school - the principal, asst. principal, counselors, 2nd and 3rd grade teachers sat together and discussed the files of each child. My DC's home room teacher had told me to make DC apply for HGC because she said she will advocate for DC, as she thought DC would be a perfect fit. I did rely on her input because we all think that our kids are special, but the teachers who are seeing hundreds of children in their classrooms have a better idea of who would be a good fit.

This function may play much more of a role in the selection process than the objective HGC test you'll are bellyaching over in a number of cases. This is easily masked by presenting only the median score so one can't easily figure this out...beyond half scored higher than and half score lower than. How many high scorers were rejected vs how many low scorers were accepted?

I see where the posters are coming from, they have a point and I have not heard them disagree or object to the process...simply informing.

Who's masking? MCPS explicitly says that teacher recommendations are one of the criteria.

I am the PP who wrote about my DC's teacher advocating for him. He was the youngest kid in the class (early entrance), and his scores on Raven, Inview and TN2 - were off the charts. However, I did not proceed until the conversation with the homeroom teacher, because how do I know how he is interacting on a day to day basis with others in the class room? He could be smart but a misfit in a situation that needed collaborative work?

Sometimes a very bright kid may need the normalcy of a home school instead of the structure that an HGC offers. I know parents whose kids got in but they were not inclined to send their kids to the HGC. We all are trying to do what we think is the best for our children. Teachers are interacting with your kid everyday and are a valuable resource in getting a sense of how well they would suit in an HGC or Magnet. You need to be willing to listen to what they are saying without getting defensive. They have no axe to grind in this issue.

Your teacher "should" advocate for your child and I would hope that in most cases, the teachers are advocating based on the needs of the children in their class. I think the combination of teacher and test is a good one and that blurry lines are acceptable because we are assessing children with varying and sometimes complex needs.

However, there will always be some families that won't want to "accept" the outcome for their child, despite the fact that they shouldn't have made the cut and those families may think it was all favoritism or having an axe to grind.

Alternatively, just like the rest of the world, not all teachers are above behaving unprofessionally and having their input driven by factors that shouldn't matter - whether that be because they don't like a child or their parents or are persuaded by influence of others. They are also not all going to be highly effective and you may have bad luck in getting one that doesn't have the right skills to make this sort of decision.

I'd like to believe that these sorts of teachers are in the minority and that most recommendations come from their true assessment of the students.