basic question about CES

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:CES no longer takes the top 2-3%. They take the kids who don't have a high scoring cohort at their home school. That means some 99% kids stay at their home school while some 92% kids at a different school get the CES invite. There are many threads discussing this, here just trying to get correct current info to OP.

There's no evidence to support this fringe theory. It is mostly embraced by people who resent changes like universal screening because it grew the application pool and made admission much more difficult.

This is not a fringe theory. This is how it works. You can disagree with this strategy for selection but it's ridiculous to deny this is happening. They have released data on CES acceptances and shockingly some CES kids who get in have very low national percentile scores.

The tin foil hat has apparently cut off the blood to your brain if you buy this crazytalk. The strategy is well documented and race blind. The cohort criteria mearely factors for differences in school quality which seems fair which accounts for small differences in some test scores. The real problem is people want to game the system and are angry that they can't easily do that anymore.

[Anonymous]

I don’t know what the criteria was like before the change but I do have first hand knowledge that a 99 percentile at our school did not get in this year while a 92 percentile did. I don’t know the Map scores but both children were in the same reading group. Grades and Map scores are misleadingly weighed the same or more than CoGat it seems.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don’t know what the criteria was like before the change but I do have first hand knowledge that a 99 percentile at our school did not get in this year while a 92 percentile did. I don’t know the Map scores but both children were in the same reading group. Grades and Map scores are misleadingly weighed the same or more than CoGat it seems.

It has never been just based on scores of any one test. There are multiple criteria.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think this was the report I was thinking of:

https://montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/sharedaccountability/reports/2019/Enriched%20and%20Accelerated%2028Jan2019%20FINAL.pdf

It says nothing about what scores were before the change in selection criteria, and I have no knowledge of what the scores were like under the prior selection criteria.

It does say nothing about what existed prior to the change in selection criteria, but certainly two things jump out. First, 715 students (excluding private) grade 3 students were invited during the 17-18 school year (i.e., for the past year's 4th grade), which is about 6% of all 3rd graders if you assume 12,000 3rd graders county wide (as the system has about 160K students total, but I don't know the grade breakdown). An even larger percentage if you looked at only the pool that took the Cogat exam (but I have no idea what that number is.) Even if you exclude the local centers, that's still far above the perceived size that people complain about when saying that the CES program should be expanded. That doesn't mean it shouldn't be expanded, but it's a larger program than I suspect most realize.

But the other thing that jumps out is that if look at the test scores of invited 3rd graders, although many (but not most in all cases) scored at the 95 percentile or higher nationally, a very significant group scored below that level when each test is viewed separately: 37% on the Cogat, 60% on MAP math, and 42% on MAP reading. The group within those percentages that scored below the 80 percentile, at least on the MAP test, is relatively minimal, but not zero. Obviously, any given student could have done great on one or two tests, and not as well on the others, and this data doesn't show that at all. It does indicate that the percentage of students classified as FARMS, special services and LEP (I assume a different measure of ESOL) is small.

Again, there is no comparison to what existed under the prior selection criteria, but perhaps the Metis report has those numbers and someone can fill those in. But the information published in this report clearly indicates that the program is not limited to students who score in the top 2-3% nationwide. Not even close. You can debate whether or not that should be the purpose of the program, but that's a different question.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:CES no longer takes the top 2-3%. They take the kids who don't have a high scoring cohort at their home school. That means some 99% kids stay at their home school while some 92% kids at a different school get the CES invite. There are many threads discussing this, here just trying to get correct current info to OP.

There's no evidence to support this fringe theory. It is mostly embraced by people who resent changes like universal screening because it grew the application pool and made admission much more difficult.

This is not a fringe theory. This is how it works. You can disagree with this strategy for selection but it's ridiculous to deny this is happening. They have released data on CES acceptances and shockingly some CES kids who get in have very low national percentile scores.

The tin foil hat has apparently cut off the blood to your brain if you buy this crazytalk. The strategy is well documented and race blind. The cohort criteria mearely factors for differences in school quality which seems fair which accounts for small differences in some test scores. The real problem is people want to game the system and are angry that they can't easily do that anymore.

The strategy may well be race blind, and I assume it is, but isn't it telling that the county seems very focused on looking at how the changed criteria changed the demographics (i.e., racial make-up) at the CES and middle school magnets? If the county didn't care about race, it might just look at the numbers of selected students by school.

I don't have an issue with the county's goals, and I think that the county has made them clear. Whether the changes have had as significant an effect as some argue is hard to know without data. Anecdotes aren't enough, and the county didn't just change the criteria, it greatly expanded the pool. You'd need somebody do a regression analysis or something similar to really understand the effects, and that would require access to a lot of data.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don’t know what the criteria was like before the change but I do have first hand knowledge that a 99 percentile at our school did not get in this year while a 92 percentile did. I don’t know the Map scores but both children were in the same reading group. Grades and Map scores are misleadingly weighed the same or more than CoGat it seems.

The cohort criteria applies at a school-wide level. So kids who are from the same home school for ES are in the same cohort and would not receive any kind of cohort adjustment relative to each other. I can't tell you why one student was chosen as opposed to another, but I can tell you that the "cohort" factor did not affect the choice between these two students who attended the same school during the evaluation year. For middle school, because there are elementary schools that split articulation between two different middle schools, the cohort analysis could affect two students from the same ES who are districted to different middle schools I believe.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t know what the criteria was like before the change but I do have first hand knowledge that a 99 percentile at our school did not get in this year while a 92 percentile did. I don’t know the Map scores but both children were in the same reading group. Grades and Map scores are misleadingly weighed the same or more than CoGat it seems.

The cohort criteria applies at a school-wide level. So kids who are from the same home school for ES are in the same cohort and would not receive any kind of cohort adjustment relative to each other. I can't tell you why one student was chosen as opposed to another, but I can tell you that the "cohort" factor did not affect the choice between these two students who attended the same school during the evaluation year. For middle school, because there are elementary schools that split articulation between two different middle schools, the cohort analysis could affect two students from the same ES who are districted to different middle schools I believe.

It seems a little ironic the same parents who believe there are clear advantages to sending their children to the wealthy schools and can't imagine sending them to a school with higher FARMS are the same who complain about the cohort criteria which only offsets this distinction of which they're well aware.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think this was the report I was thinking of:

https://montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/sharedaccountability/reports/2019/Enriched%20and%20Accelerated%2028Jan2019%20FINAL.pdf

It says nothing about what scores were before the change in selection criteria, and I have no knowledge of what the scores were like under the prior selection criteria.

It does say nothing about what existed prior to the change in selection criteria, but certainly two things jump out. First, 715 students (excluding private) grade 3 students were invited during the 17-18 school year (i.e., for the past year's 4th grade), which is about 6% of all 3rd graders if you assume 12,000 3rd graders county wide (as the system has about 160K students total, but I don't know the grade breakdown). An even larger percentage if you looked at only the pool that took the Cogat exam (but I have no idea what that number is.) Even if you exclude the local centers, that's still far above the perceived size that people complain about when saying that the CES program should be expanded. That doesn't mean it shouldn't be expanded, but it's a larger program than I suspect most realize.

But the other thing that jumps out is that if look at the test scores of invited 3rd graders, although many (but not most in all cases) scored at the 95 percentile or higher nationally, a very significant group scored below that level when each test is viewed separately: 37% on the Cogat, 60% on MAP math, and 42% on MAP reading. The group within those percentages that scored below the 80 percentile, at least on the MAP test, is relatively minimal, but not zero. Obviously, any given student could have done great on one or two tests, and not as well on the others, and this data doesn't show that at all. It does indicate that the percentage of students classified as FARMS, special services and LEP (I assume a different measure of ESOL) is small.

Again, there is no comparison to what existed under the prior selection criteria, but perhaps the Metis report has those numbers and someone can fill those in. But the information published in this report clearly indicates that the program is not limited to students who score in the top 2-3% nationwide. Not even close. You can debate whether or not that should be the purpose of the program, but that's a different question.

We received an invitation letter at the end of the 2016-17 year, which was the last year parents submitted applications to the CPHG, and also coincided with the field test of universal screening limited to two centers. The letter includes this paragraph:

"This year, as a result of enhanced efforts, record numbers of students have participated in the process for the Center Program for the Highly Gifted (CPHG). These efforts resulted in 6,200 Grade 3 students being evaluated for one of the 576 seats in the CPHG. MCPS is pleased to increase the number of seats available in the CPHG. The increase in seats for 2017-2018 for rising Grade 4 students is one of the areas in which Montgomery County Public Schools is addressing the needs of highly qualified students in the county."

I believe the four local centers had not yet been announced at the time, so that may explain the difference in the number of seats.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don’t know what the criteria was like before the change but I do have first hand knowledge that a 99 percentile at our school did not get in this year while a 92 percentile did. I don’t know the Map scores but both children were in the same reading group. Grades and Map scores are misleadingly weighed the same or more than CoGat it seems.

I have a child admitted in an earlier year who a person could have made this kind of comparison about, if you were only looking at the Cogat quantitative scores. What you couldn't see is the exceptionally high Cogat reading scores and high MAPs in both areas.

Also, I don't know why it would be "misleading" to weigh Cogat equally with grades and MAP scores. For a child to be successful in the HGC/CES, I would assume that both raw talent and some worth ethic are necessary.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t know what the criteria was like before the change but I do have first hand knowledge that a 99 percentile at our school did not get in this year while a 92 percentile did. I don’t know the Map scores but both children were in the same reading group. Grades and Map scores are misleadingly weighed the same or more than CoGat it seems.

I have a child admitted in an earlier year who a person could have made this kind of comparison about, if you were only looking at the Cogat quantitative scores. What you couldn't see is the exceptionally high Cogat reading scores and high MAPs in both areas.

Also, I don't know why it would be "misleading" to weigh Cogat equally with grades and MAP scores. For a child to be successful in the HGC/CES, I would assume that both raw talent and some worth ethic are necessary.

Posting anonymous anecdotes like I had a friend who had a friend whose kid got in with 92% isn't exactly helpful. The reality is five times as many students are considered for these programs now than in years past. Overall it's far more competitive than ever. Further, changes like the cohort criteria simply prioritize aptitude and ability over privilege conferred by attending one of the "good" schools.

[Anonymous]

I have no problem with the new criteria and live where it will only help my brilliant kid when he is old enough to apply. But there was a NYT article that some kids admitted to the CES were not on grade level - what that poster is saying is true. No need to deny it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:CES no longer takes the top 2-3%. They take the kids who don't have a high scoring cohort at their home school. That means some 99% kids stay at their home school while some 92% kids at a different school get the CES invite. There are many threads discussing this, here just trying to get correct current info to OP.

There's no evidence to support this fringe theory. It is mostly embraced by people who resent changes like universal screening because it grew the application pool and made admission much more difficult.

Oh, FFS. Were you actually AT the MS Magnet meetings? They specifically SAID that this was the case. They did this on purpose. Whether you agree with it or not, or think it's a good idea, is up for debate.

It is NOT up for debate that MCPS admitted lower percentile kids from lower performing kids, in order to give them a chance at a better/more challenging learning environment.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:CES no longer takes the top 2-3%. They take the kids who don't have a high scoring cohort at their home school. That means some 99% kids stay at their home school while some 92% kids at a different school get the CES invite. There are many threads discussing this, here just trying to get correct current info to OP.

There's no evidence to support this fringe theory. It is mostly embraced by people who resent changes like universal screening because it grew the application pool and made admission much more difficult.

Oh, FFS. Were you actually AT the MS Magnet meetings? They specifically SAID that this was the case. They did this on purpose. Whether you agree with it or not, or think it's a good idea, is up for debate.

It is NOT up for debate that MCPS admitted lower percentile kids from lower performing kids, in order to give them a chance at a better/more challenging learning environment.

Yes, I went to all of them, and nothing of this sort was stated. MPCS picked the most promising students based on the information they had end of story.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have no problem with the new criteria and live where it will only help my brilliant kid when he is old enough to apply. But there was a NYT article that some kids admitted to the CES were not on grade level - what that poster is saying is true. No need to deny it.

The NYT article my friend told me about said the exact opposite. Please share a link to this story. I'd like to see this for myself.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have no problem with the new criteria and live where it will only help my brilliant kid when he is old enough to apply. But there was a NYT article that some kids admitted to the CES were not on grade level - what that poster is saying is true. No need to deny it.

The NYT article my friend told me about said the exact opposite. Please share a link to this story. I'd like to see this for myself.

As I recall, the NYT article was kind of a mess, using information about both CES and MS magnet admissions, but not bothering to make clear which policies applied to which programs.