Robert Frost beats Takoma Park in Mathcounts

[Anonymous]

This thread is insane. Seriously, 22 pp?!?!?! This just makes me really glad my kid isn't at Frost, and I don't have to deal with these nutty parents. Yikes!

TPMS is not in decline. The new process utilized some different metrics but also screened a lot more kids. We need more enrichment for kids who have potential to be the top but haven't had the enrichment that kids who made it in the old system (I can say this, I have 2 of them). Old magnet selection TPMS students are excellent. New selection students are also excellent. Frost seems to be a great school as well (albeit with some bat-****-crazy parents). Yay, for great schools and bright students.

Make the most of your school and stop trying to denigrate others. The end.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This thread is insane. Seriously, 22 pp?!?!?! This just makes me really glad my kid isn't at Frost, and I don't have to deal with these nutty parents. Yikes!

TPMS is not in decline. The new process utilized some different metrics but also screened a lot more kids. We need more enrichment for kids who have potential to be the top but haven't had the enrichment that kids who made it in the old system (I can say this, I have 2 of them). Old magnet selection TPMS students are excellent. New selection students are also excellent. Frost seems to be a great school as well (albeit with some bat-****-crazy parents). Yay, for great schools and bright students.

Make the most of your school and stop trying to denigrate others. The end.

Thank you!!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This thread is insane. Seriously, 22 pp?!?!?! This just makes me really glad my kid isn't at Frost, and I don't have to deal with these nutty parents. Yikes!

TPMS is not in decline. The new process utilized some different metrics but also screened a lot more kids. We need more enrichment for kids who have potential to be the top but haven't had the enrichment that kids who made it in the old system (I can say this, I have 2 of them). Old magnet selection TPMS students are excellent. New selection students are also excellent. Frost seems to be a great school as well (albeit with some bat-****-crazy parents). Yay, for great schools and bright students.

Make the most of your school and stop trying to denigrate others. The end.

I'm pretty sure not every parent who is posting is from Frost.

-signed a parent not from Frost

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This whole thread becomes more and more absurd. I suspect there are only a few persons posting trolling messages to pit people against each other.
DC went to the mathcounts event. It was a fun tournament just like chess or other sports competitions. Kids solve some math problem individually and in a team. And the winners recognized in the end. It is just that, an extracurricular activity, interests only to kids who are into it. Although the “winners” are well-known and well-admired by most contestants, I doubt students outside of the math club know or care at all. Also, like other tournaments, the results are quite predictable. Frost probably will win again in the state competition, but that doesn’t mean anything about magnet vs. non-magnet or Frost vs. TP. And the result most likely will change next year when different players come in.

Thanks for posting, PP. It's nice to read a sensible take on this.

Agree that next year will be different. TPMS will go downhill even further.

PP - You should be happy about that, were it come to pass, because your kid presumably is at a superior program, and you then get to gloat. But which begs the question, why do even care?

I am worried, actually. TP is deteriorating obviously (thank you, MCPS). The Frost teachers would have retired by the time DC is a middle schooler. Where could DD go?

It's stronger than ever. Since they started universal screening their drawing from a pool 10X larger than before. I wish these bitter parents would stop with the disinformation.

I teach at TPMS and my sense is the caliber of student has markedly improved in recent years because of the better screening methods.

Independent verifications (mathleague x 2 and Mathcounts) proves otherwise.

Do you mean independent verifications like the MAA, where in the latest AMC8 results, TPMS has 26 in honor roll while Frost has 5?
Where TPMS scores lead the state Maryland ?

http://amc-reg.maa.org/reports/generalreports.aspx

OMG. Now we are comparing the whole TPMS program with the whole Frost. Just BRILLIANT.

What were we comparing?

How about number of TPMS AMC8 honor roll kids *for each grade* over the past three years?

You can check it out on the link provided above

I am sure you have the data. Here is what I found for the 7th grade:

2018 TPMS has 9 7th grade honor rolls (not impacted by the new selection)
2019 TPMS has 4 7th grade honor rolls (impacted by the new selection)

You still want us to believe that the magnet program has got better?

Finally some objective data from outside of MCPS.

[Anonymous]

I am sure you have the data. Here is what I found for the 7th grade:

2018 TPMS has 9 7th grade honor rolls (not impacted by the new selection)
2019 TPMS has 4 7th grade honor rolls (impacted by the new selection)

You still want us to believe that the magnet program has got better?

This doesn't feel like an apples to apples comparison, because the 2018 data has 1800 more students and goes down to a score of 15. The 2019 data only goes down to a score of 19.

But even if we look at these two sets of data, something interesting emerges. Even if we find that this year's 7th graders are not placing as high as last year's 7th graders in this math competition, this year's 6th graders are doing better.

So, what if this isn't about TPMS "declining" but rather about whether this one year had some natural flux in kids who were motivated by competition math, and now that number is back up for normal reasons like "kids are different, and different batches of kids will be interested in different things."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

I am sure you have the data. Here is what I found for the 7th grade:

2018 TPMS has 9 7th grade honor rolls (not impacted by the new selection)
2019 TPMS has 4 7th grade honor rolls (impacted by the new selection)

You still want us to believe that the magnet program has got better?

This doesn't feel like an apples to apples comparison, because the 2018 data has 1800 more students and goes down to a score of 15. The 2019 data only goes down to a score of 19.

But even if we look at these two sets of data, something interesting emerges. Even if we find that this year's 7th graders are not placing as high as last year's 7th graders in this math competition, this year's 6th graders are doing better.

So, what if this isn't about TPMS "declining" but rather about whether this one year had some natural flux in kids who were motivated by competition math, and now that number is back up for normal reasons like "kids are different, and different batches of kids will be interested in different things."

The honor roll threshold is decided by the lowest score of the top 5%. More contestants in a year can not explain away the fact that the relative decline of the magnet program. Your defense of the “ever stronger” TPMS magnet program has not been supported by any hard data.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I am sure you have the data. Here is what I found for the 7th grade:

2018 TPMS has 9 7th grade honor rolls (not impacted by the new selection)
2019 TPMS has 4 7th grade honor rolls (impacted by the new selection)

You still want us to believe that the magnet program has got better?

This doesn't feel like an apples to apples comparison, because the 2018 data has 1800 more students and goes down to a score of 15. The 2019 data only goes down to a score of 19.

But even if we look at these two sets of data, something interesting emerges. Even if we find that this year's 7th graders are not placing as high as last year's 7th graders in this math competition, this year's 6th graders are doing better.

So, what if this isn't about TPMS "declining" but rather about whether this one year had some natural flux in kids who were motivated by competition math, and now that number is back up for normal reasons like "kids are different, and different batches of kids will be interested in different things."

The honor roll threshold is decided by the lowest score of the top 5%. More contestants in a year can not explain away the fact that the relative decline of the magnet program. Your defense of the “ever stronger” TPMS magnet program has not been supported by any hard data.

You cannot base a judgement of "relative decline" on a single year of data. This year's 6th graders did better in the same test than last year's 6th graders. Does this denote that TPMS is improving? Or does it denote that there will be natural fluctuations in performance depending on a wide variety of factors?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This whole thread becomes more and more absurd. I suspect there are only a few persons posting trolling messages to pit people against each other.
DC went to the mathcounts event. It was a fun tournament just like chess or other sports competitions. Kids solve some math problem individually and in a team. And the winners recognized in the end. It is just that, an extracurricular activity, interests only to kids who are into it. Although the “winners” are well-known and well-admired by most contestants, I doubt students outside of the math club know or care at all. Also, like other tournaments, the results are quite predictable. Frost probably will win again in the state competition, but that doesn’t mean anything about magnet vs. non-magnet or Frost vs. TP. And the result most likely will change next year when different players come in.

Thanks for posting, PP. It's nice to read a sensible take on this.

Agree that next year will be different. TPMS will go downhill even further.

PP - You should be happy about that, were it come to pass, because your kid presumably is at a superior program, and you then get to gloat. But which begs the question, why do even care?

I am worried, actually. TP is deteriorating obviously (thank you, MCPS). The Frost teachers would have retired by the time DC is a middle schooler. Where could DD go?

It's stronger than ever. Since they started universal screening their drawing from a pool 10X larger than before. I wish these bitter parents would stop with the disinformation.

I teach at TPMS and my sense is the caliber of student has markedly improved in recent years because of the better screening methods.

Thank you!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This whole thread becomes more and more absurd. I suspect there are only a few persons posting trolling messages to pit people against each other.
DC went to the mathcounts event. It was a fun tournament just like chess or other sports competitions. Kids solve some math problem individually and in a team. And the winners recognized in the end. It is just that, an extracurricular activity, interests only to kids who are into it. Although the “winners” are well-known and well-admired by most contestants, I doubt students outside of the math club know or care at all. Also, like other tournaments, the results are quite predictable. Frost probably will win again in the state competition, but that doesn’t mean anything about magnet vs. non-magnet or Frost vs. TP. And the result most likely will change next year when different players come in.

Thanks for posting, PP. It's nice to read a sensible take on this.

Agree that next year will be different. TPMS will go downhill even further.

PP - You should be happy about that, were it come to pass, because your kid presumably is at a superior program, and you then get to gloat. But which begs the question, why do even care?

I am worried, actually. TP is deteriorating obviously (thank you, MCPS). The Frost teachers would have retired by the time DC is a middle schooler. Where could DD go?

It's stronger than ever. Since they started universal screening their drawing from a pool 10X larger than before. I wish these bitter parents would stop with the disinformation.

I teach at TPMS and my sense is the caliber of student has markedly improved in recent years because of the better screening methods.

Thank you!

LOL.. .you realize this is ANONYMOUS forum, right?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I am worried, actually. TP is deteriorating obviously (thank you, MCPS). The Frost teachers would have retired by the time DC is a middle schooler. Where could DD go?

It's stronger than ever. Since they started universal screening their drawing from a pool 10X larger than before. I wish these bitter parents would stop with the disinformation.

I teach at TPMS and my sense is the caliber of student has markedly improved in recent years because of the better screening methods.

Thank you!

? You realize that if this is true, MCPS would be shouting this from the rooftops, and publishing the median test scores of accepted students, right? No.. I guess you don't realize that.

Instead, they are burying these results. They publish the stats on how the peer cohort and universal screening increased URM numbers, which is awesome, but they bury the stats on the test scores. Why do you suppose that is?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I am sure you have the data. Here is what I found for the 7th grade:

2018 TPMS has 9 7th grade honor rolls (not impacted by the new selection)
2019 TPMS has 4 7th grade honor rolls (impacted by the new selection)

You still want us to believe that the magnet program has got better?

This doesn't feel like an apples to apples comparison, because the 2018 data has 1800 more students and goes down to a score of 15. The 2019 data only goes down to a score of 19.

But even if we look at these two sets of data, something interesting emerges. Even if we find that this year's 7th graders are not placing as high as last year's 7th graders in this math competition, this year's 6th graders are doing better.

So, what if this isn't about TPMS "declining" but rather about whether this one year had some natural flux in kids who were motivated by competition math, and now that number is back up for normal reasons like "kids are different, and different batches of kids will be interested in different things."

The honor roll threshold is decided by the lowest score of the top 5%. More contestants in a year can not explain away the fact that the relative decline of the magnet program. Your defense of the “ever stronger” TPMS magnet program has not been supported by any hard data.

You cannot base a judgement of "relative decline" on a single year of data. This year's 6th graders did better in the same test than last year's 6th graders. Does this denote that TPMS is improving? Or does it denote that there will be natural fluctuations in performance depending on a wide variety of factors?

Of course there are natural fluctuations, but a sharp decrease of 5/9 = 56%? Spin it anyway you want. I don’t have access to all the data. Maybe we can compare the 6th graders selected by the new process with the old process. You have to go back three years and longer for that.

All I know is that recently frost defeated TPMS twice in a row in mathleague and now again in Mathcounts. you said there are x number of amc 8 honor rolls this year. Then it turns out TPMS amc 8 performance has obviously been negatively impacted by the “improved” selection process. I don’t think it convincing to call it natural fluctuations.

[Anonymous]

The best you can say is that Frost has a better math team than TPMS. That probably means that Frost has a handful of math students that are better than TPMS math students, but it's not definitive.

It doesn't really speak to the quality of the students overall or on average.

DC's good friend who got in to Takoma is very good at math puzzles or contest style questions. DC has tried to get said friend to join the elementary math team group with no luck. Betting it won't happen next year either.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I am sure you have the data. Here is what I found for the 7th grade:

2018 TPMS has 9 7th grade honor rolls (not impacted by the new selection)
2019 TPMS has 4 7th grade honor rolls (impacted by the new selection)

You still want us to believe that the magnet program has got better?

This doesn't feel like an apples to apples comparison, because the 2018 data has 1800 more students and goes down to a score of 15. The 2019 data only goes down to a score of 19.

But even if we look at these two sets of data, something interesting emerges. Even if we find that this year's 7th graders are not placing as high as last year's 7th graders in this math competition, this year's 6th graders are doing better.

So, what if this isn't about TPMS "declining" but rather about whether this one year had some natural flux in kids who were motivated by competition math, and now that number is back up for normal reasons like "kids are different, and different batches of kids will be interested in different things."

The honor roll threshold is decided by the lowest score of the top 5%. More contestants in a year can not explain away the fact that the relative decline of the magnet program. Your defense of the “ever stronger” TPMS magnet program has not been supported by any hard data.

You cannot base a judgement of "relative decline" on a single year of data. This year's 6th graders did better in the same test than last year's 6th graders. Does this denote that TPMS is improving? Or does it denote that there will be natural fluctuations in performance depending on a wide variety of factors?

Of course there are natural fluctuations, but a sharp decrease of 5/9 = 56%? Spin it anyway you want. I don’t have access to all the data. Maybe we can compare the 6th graders selected by the new process with the old process. You have to go back three years and longer for that.

All I know is that recently frost defeated TPMS twice in a row in mathleague and now again in Mathcounts. you said there are x number of amc 8 honor rolls this year. Then it turns out TPMS amc 8 performance has obviously been negatively impacted by the “improved” selection process. I don’t think it convincing to call it natural fluctuations.

PP here. If you are a TPMS teacher I can understand your position, but please don’t insult us by calling it an “improved” selection process.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I am worried, actually. TP is deteriorating obviously (thank you, MCPS). The Frost teachers would have retired by the time DC is a middle schooler. Where could DD go?

It's stronger than ever. Since they started universal screening their drawing from a pool 10X larger than before. I wish these bitter parents would stop with the disinformation.

I teach at TPMS and my sense is the caliber of student has markedly improved in recent years because of the better screening methods.

Thank you!

? You realize that if this is true, MCPS would be shouting this from the rooftops, and publishing the median test scores of accepted students, right? No.. I guess you don't realize that.

Instead, they are burying these results. They publish the stats on how the peer cohort and universal screening increased URM numbers, which is awesome, but they bury the stats on the test scores. Why do you suppose that is?

They have been, but bitter parents only want to complain because their over prepped marginal kid won't get past the new process.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I am sure you have the data. Here is what I found for the 7th grade:

2018 TPMS has 9 7th grade honor rolls (not impacted by the new selection)
2019 TPMS has 4 7th grade honor rolls (impacted by the new selection)

You still want us to believe that the magnet program has got better?

This doesn't feel like an apples to apples comparison, because the 2018 data has 1800 more students and goes down to a score of 15. The 2019 data only goes down to a score of 19.

But even if we look at these two sets of data, something interesting emerges. Even if we find that this year's 7th graders are not placing as high as last year's 7th graders in this math competition, this year's 6th graders are doing better.

So, what if this isn't about TPMS "declining" but rather about whether this one year had some natural flux in kids who were motivated by competition math, and now that number is back up for normal reasons like "kids are different, and different batches of kids will be interested in different things."

The honor roll threshold is decided by the lowest score of the top 5%. More contestants in a year can not explain away the fact that the relative decline of the magnet program. Your defense of the “ever stronger” TPMS magnet program has not been supported by any hard data.

You cannot base a judgement of "relative decline" on a single year of data. This year's 6th graders did better in the same test than last year's 6th graders. Does this denote that TPMS is improving? Or does it denote that there will be natural fluctuations in performance depending on a wide variety of factors?

Of course there are natural fluctuations, but a sharp decrease of 5/9 = 56%? Spin it anyway you want. I don’t have access to all the data. Maybe we can compare the 6th graders selected by the new process with the old process. You have to go back three years and longer for that.

All I know is that recently frost defeated TPMS twice in a row in mathleague and now again in Mathcounts. you said there are x number of amc 8 honor rolls this year. Then it turns out TPMS amc 8 performance has obviously been negatively impacted by the “improved” selection process. I don’t think it convincing to call it natural fluctuations.

PP here. If you are a TPMS teacher I can understand your position, but please don’t insult us by calling it an “improved” selection process.

let's call it the fairer process that identifies gifted kids instead of the most prepped