Robert Frost beats Takoma Park in Mathcounts

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don’t get all the posters who are “concerned for the magnets.” Don’t the magnets exist to serve kids, not the other way around? It seems totally reasonable to me to use the magnets to serve kids who couldn’t otherwise be served by their home schools.

Imagine it was possible to evaluate the scores - on whatever metric - for the combined group of kids who were admitted to TPMS under the new admission criteria as well as those who would have been admitted under the old process. Wouldn’t you call it a success if that combined group did better now, even if the TPMS part of that group scored marginally lower?

They exist to serve the best and brightest in the county since it' a county(lower) wide manget, but peer cohort doesn't do that. What they should've done is open a magnet on the western part of the county and have two regional MS magnets (lower MoCo, I know upper county has RC magnet).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t get all the posters who are “concerned for the magnets.” Don’t the magnets exist to serve kids, not the other way around? It seems totally reasonable to me to use the magnets to serve kids who couldn’t otherwise be served by their home schools.

Imagine it was possible to evaluate the scores - on whatever metric - for the combined group of kids who were admitted to TPMS under the new admission criteria as well as those who would have been admitted under the old process. Wouldn’t you call it a success if that combined group did better now, even if the TPMS part of that group scored marginally lower?

They exist to serve the best and brightest in the county since it' a county(lower) wide manget, but peer cohort doesn't do that. What they should've done is open a magnet on the western part of the county and have two regional MS magnets (lower MoCo, I know upper county has RC magnet).

It has never been MCPS's stated primary goal for the magnets to "serve the best and brightest" in the county. Many parents, especially those of admitted students/alumni would like to think that that is the goal, but it's not now and never has been. They were designed to meet the unique needs of highly gifted students and to help maintain diversity and avoid racial isolation.

The peer cohort criteria has just refined this to serving highly gifted students who do not have a peer group in their local school.

"Magnet programs were first developed in the 1970s as part of the implementation of Board of Education Policy ACD, Quality Integrated Education, to maintain diversity and avoid racial isolation. The original magnets have evolved into three types of programs?language immersion programs at the elementary and middle school levels that tap into families’ interests in second language acquisition for their children, elementary centers for highly gifted students, and magnet and application programs at the middle and high school levels that are designed to suit the unique academic needs of highly gifted students, and regional consortia."
source: Metis Study: Executive Summary and District Level Findings- https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/uploadedFiles/info/choice/Executive-Summary.pdf

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Oh my goodness. Have you listened to yourself? What utter bald faced snobbery. I guess as a soon to be TPMS magnet parent from the East side of the county who works for a non profit my child is evidence that this magnet program is dumbed down. No matter that my kid has been an outlier since the age of three, that he’s several grade levels above his peers, that he scores 99th percentile on everything, that he’s miserable and unchallenged at school and this magnet program seems to be just what he needs. This program seems designed for a kid who was working on algebra in 3rd grade and who taught himself to read at 3. But his parents work for non profits and he never prepped for the test and doesn’t do expensive math enrichment programs (none of which I’ve ever heard of btw before this thread) so I guess he’s not worthy of the program like your Bethesda born children with all the advantages. I can’t imagine him being interested in math competitions either because he’s not obnoxiously competitive.

Welcome, fellow soon-to-be-TPMS-magnet-parent. If it makes you feel better, I work for a nonprofit AND my 'magnet kid' is being raised in a single parent home. I hope your child loves the program at TPMS, and maybe we'll meet at a back to school event and give each other a secret high sign as fellow nonprofit idiots who don't value our kids' educations.

I’ll look out for you! Hopefully the rest of the magnet parents will be like us and not like the bitter snobs on this thread who are likely slamming the program because their kids didn’t make the cut.

eh.. some of us aren't bitter snobs, but just concerned about the direction of magnets. My kid didn't bother applying to MS magnet 4 years ago, so before the peer cohort criteria. Too far. And I don't live in a W cluster.

In that case why do you care? The kid who get in are all deserving of their places and all highly gifted. There is no change in “direction”.

You need some better reading comprehension skills. I bolded "why do I care" for you. Of course there is a change in direction if the students who are being admitted on not the best and brightest in the district, but rather just in their home schools.

They weren't the "best and brightest" under the old system. They were the "bright and best-prepped and knew to apply" under the old system. That's different.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Oh my goodness. Have you listened to yourself? What utter bald faced snobbery. I guess as a soon to be TPMS magnet parent from the East side of the county who works for a non profit my child is evidence that this magnet program is dumbed down. No matter that my kid has been an outlier since the age of three, that he’s several grade levels above his peers, that he scores 99th percentile on everything, that he’s miserable and unchallenged at school and this magnet program seems to be just what he needs. This program seems designed for a kid who was working on algebra in 3rd grade and who taught himself to read at 3. But his parents work for non profits and he never prepped for the test and doesn’t do expensive math enrichment programs (none of which I’ve ever heard of btw before this thread) so I guess he’s not worthy of the program like your Bethesda born children with all the advantages. I can’t imagine him being interested in math competitions either because he’s not obnoxiously competitive.

Welcome, fellow soon-to-be-TPMS-magnet-parent. If it makes you feel better, I work for a nonprofit AND my 'magnet kid' is being raised in a single parent home. I hope your child loves the program at TPMS, and maybe we'll meet at a back to school event and give each other a secret high sign as fellow nonprofit idiots who don't value our kids' educations.

I’ll look out for you! Hopefully the rest of the magnet parents will be like us and not like the bitter snobs on this thread who are likely slamming the program because their kids didn’t make the cut.

eh.. some of us aren't bitter snobs, but just concerned about the direction of magnets. My kid didn't bother applying to MS magnet 4 years ago, so before the peer cohort criteria. Too far. And I don't live in a W cluster.

In that case why do you care? The kid who get in are all deserving of their places and all highly gifted. There is no change in “direction”.

You need some better reading comprehension skills. I bolded "why do I care" for you. Of course there is a change in direction if the students who are being admitted on not the best and brightest in the district, but rather just in their home schools.

THe best and brightest are being admitted since they are selected from applicant pool that is 10X larger than the old system.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This tread rivals the Sidwell v GDS tread on the private school forum.

+1

I feel sorry for the kids of these parents. I bet 90% of the posters on this thread are passive aggressive Prius drivers hogging up the left lane.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Oh my goodness. Have you listened to yourself? What utter bald faced snobbery. I guess as a soon to be TPMS magnet parent from the East side of the county who works for a non profit my child is evidence that this magnet program is dumbed down. No matter that my kid has been an outlier since the age of three, that he’s several grade levels above his peers, that he scores 99th percentile on everything, that he’s miserable and unchallenged at school and this magnet program seems to be just what he needs. This program seems designed for a kid who was working on algebra in 3rd grade and who taught himself to read at 3. But his parents work for non profits and he never prepped for the test and doesn’t do expensive math enrichment programs (none of which I’ve ever heard of btw before this thread) so I guess he’s not worthy of the program like your Bethesda born children with all the advantages. I can’t imagine him being interested in math competitions either because he’s not obnoxiously competitive.

Welcome, fellow soon-to-be-TPMS-magnet-parent. If it makes you feel better, I work for a nonprofit AND my 'magnet kid' is being raised in a single parent home. I hope your child loves the program at TPMS, and maybe we'll meet at a back to school event and give each other a secret high sign as fellow nonprofit idiots who don't value our kids' educations.

I’ll look out for you! Hopefully the rest of the magnet parents will be like us and not like the bitter snobs on this thread who are likely slamming the program because their kids didn’t make the cut.

eh.. some of us aren't bitter snobs, but just concerned about the direction of magnets. My kid didn't bother applying to MS magnet 4 years ago, so before the peer cohort criteria. Too far. And I don't live in a W cluster.

In that case why do you care? The kid who get in are all deserving of their places and all highly gifted. There is no change in “direction”.

You need some better reading comprehension skills. I bolded "why do I care" for you. Of course there is a change in direction if the students who are being admitted on not the best and brightest in the district, but rather just in their home schools.

My reading comprehension is fine, I’d suggest you look at your own. The fact that you are “concerned about the direction of the magnets” is what you are concerned about, not why. So I repeat my question, why do you care?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Oh my goodness. Have you listened to yourself? What utter bald faced snobbery. I guess as a soon to be TPMS magnet parent from the East side of the county who works for a non profit my child is evidence that this magnet program is dumbed down. No matter that my kid has been an outlier since the age of three, that he’s several grade levels above his peers, that he scores 99th percentile on everything, that he’s miserable and unchallenged at school and this magnet program seems to be just what he needs. This program seems designed for a kid who was working on algebra in 3rd grade and who taught himself to read at 3. But his parents work for non profits and he never prepped for the test and doesn’t do expensive math enrichment programs (none of which I’ve ever heard of btw before this thread) so I guess he’s not worthy of the program like your Bethesda born children with all the advantages. I can’t imagine him being interested in math competitions either because he’s not obnoxiously competitive.

Welcome, fellow soon-to-be-TPMS-magnet-parent. If it makes you feel better, I work for a nonprofit AND my 'magnet kid' is being raised in a single parent home. I hope your child loves the program at TPMS, and maybe we'll meet at a back to school event and give each other a secret high sign as fellow nonprofit idiots who don't value our kids' educations.

I’ll look out for you! Hopefully the rest of the magnet parents will be like us and not like the bitter snobs on this thread who are likely slamming the program because their kids didn’t make the cut.

eh.. some of us aren't bitter snobs, but just concerned about the direction of magnets. My kid didn't bother applying to MS magnet 4 years ago, so before the peer cohort criteria. Too far. And I don't live in a W cluster.

In that case why do you care? The kid who get in are all deserving of their places and all highly gifted. There is no change in “direction”.

You need some better reading comprehension skills. I bolded "why do I care" for you. Of course there is a change in direction if the students who are being admitted on not the best and brightest in the district, but rather just in their home schools.

THe best and brightest are being admitted since they are selected from applicant pool that is 10X larger than the old system.

I don't understand why some people supporting the new process - and I do support it - insist that it is finding the "best and brightest." I don't think it does, but I don't think the old system did, either. It just finds a [perhaps only slightly] different group of very bright kids, but from a wider range of circumstance, and that's why I support it. Both processes had inequities, but the county very clearly made a decision to focus the current process on equity based on SES (from the FAQ's on the MCPS website): "Gifted and talented experts recommend the use of local norms as an equitable approach to ensure equity and access in identification of students for program access....In establishing MCPS Percentiles [for the CoGAT scores], students in schools with minimal poverty were compared to one another, students in schools with moderate poverty were compared to each other, and students from schools highly impacted by poverty were compared to each other." Maybe you have the "best and brightest" within each band/locality, and together they are the "best and brightest" collectively based on the current process. But it is not the "best and brightest" based on an evenly-applied, county-wide, numeric metric - say, force-ranking raw CoGAT scores county-wide. And as much as I support the current process, it's not even clear that it's significantly helping the demographic that the county wants to target.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Oh my goodness. Have you listened to yourself? What utter bald faced snobbery. I guess as a soon to be TPMS magnet parent from the East side of the county who works for a non profit my child is evidence that this magnet program is dumbed down. No matter that my kid has been an outlier since the age of three, that he’s several grade levels above his peers, that he scores 99th percentile on everything, that he’s miserable and unchallenged at school and this magnet program seems to be just what he needs. This program seems designed for a kid who was working on algebra in 3rd grade and who taught himself to read at 3. But his parents work for non profits and he never prepped for the test and doesn’t do expensive math enrichment programs (none of which I’ve ever heard of btw before this thread) so I guess he’s not worthy of the program like your Bethesda born children with all the advantages. I can’t imagine him being interested in math competitions either because he’s not obnoxiously competitive.

Welcome, fellow soon-to-be-TPMS-magnet-parent. If it makes you feel better, I work for a nonprofit AND my 'magnet kid' is being raised in a single parent home. I hope your child loves the program at TPMS, and maybe we'll meet at a back to school event and give each other a secret high sign as fellow nonprofit idiots who don't value our kids' educations.

I’ll look out for you! Hopefully the rest of the magnet parents will be like us and not like the bitter snobs on this thread who are likely slamming the program because their kids didn’t make the cut.

eh.. some of us aren't bitter snobs, but just concerned about the direction of magnets. My kid didn't bother applying to MS magnet 4 years ago, so before the peer cohort criteria. Too far. And I don't live in a W cluster.

In that case why do you care? The kid who get in are all deserving of their places and all highly gifted. There is no change in “direction”.

You need some better reading comprehension skills. I bolded "why do I care" for you. Of course there is a change in direction if the students who are being admitted on not the best and brightest in the district, but rather just in their home schools.

THe best and brightest are being admitted since they are selected from applicant pool that is 10X larger than the old system.

I don't understand why some people supporting the new process - and I do support it - insist that it is finding the "best and brightest." I don't think it does, but I don't think the old system did, either. It just finds a [perhaps only slightly] different group of very bright kids, but from a wider range of circumstance, and that's why I support it. Both processes had inequities, but the county very clearly made a decision to focus the current process on equity based on SES (from the FAQ's on the MCPS website): "Gifted and talented experts recommend the use of local norms as an equitable approach to ensure equity and access in identification of students for program access....In establishing MCPS Percentiles [for the CoGAT scores], students in schools with minimal poverty were compared to one another, students in schools with moderate poverty were compared to each other, and students from schools highly impacted by poverty were compared to each other." Maybe you have the "best and brightest" within each band/locality, and together they are the "best and brightest" collectively based on the current process. But it is not the "best and brightest" based on an evenly-applied, county-wide, numeric metric - say, force-ranking raw CoGAT scores county-wide. And as much as I support the current process, it's not even clear that it's significantly helping the demographic that the county wants to target.

I don't understand why anyone could believe it doesn't. All the facts indicate that it does idenitfy the best and brights which isn't the same as the most well prepped.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Oh my goodness. Have you listened to yourself? What utter bald faced snobbery. I guess as a soon to be TPMS magnet parent from the East side of the county who works for a non profit my child is evidence that this magnet program is dumbed down. No matter that my kid has been an outlier since the age of three, that he’s several grade levels above his peers, that he scores 99th percentile on everything, that he’s miserable and unchallenged at school and this magnet program seems to be just what he needs. This program seems designed for a kid who was working on algebra in 3rd grade and who taught himself to read at 3. But his parents work for non profits and he never prepped for the test and doesn’t do expensive math enrichment programs (none of which I’ve ever heard of btw before this thread) so I guess he’s not worthy of the program like your Bethesda born children with all the advantages. I can’t imagine him being interested in math competitions either because he’s not obnoxiously competitive.

Welcome, fellow soon-to-be-TPMS-magnet-parent. If it makes you feel better, I work for a nonprofit AND my 'magnet kid' is being raised in a single parent home. I hope your child loves the program at TPMS, and maybe we'll meet at a back to school event and give each other a secret high sign as fellow nonprofit idiots who don't value our kids' educations.

I’ll look out for you! Hopefully the rest of the magnet parents will be like us and not like the bitter snobs on this thread who are likely slamming the program because their kids didn’t make the cut.

eh.. some of us aren't bitter snobs, but just concerned about the direction of magnets. My kid didn't bother applying to MS magnet 4 years ago, so before the peer cohort criteria. Too far. And I don't live in a W cluster.

In that case why do you care? The kid who get in are all deserving of their places and all highly gifted. There is no change in “direction”.

You need some better reading comprehension skills. I bolded "why do I care" for you. Of course there is a change in direction if the students who are being admitted on not the best and brightest in the district, but rather just in their home schools.

THe best and brightest are being admitted since they are selected from applicant pool that is 10X larger than the old system.

I don't understand why some people supporting the new process - and I do support it - insist that it is finding the "best and brightest." I don't think it does, but I don't think the old system did, either. It just finds a [perhaps only slightly] different group of very bright kids, but from a wider range of circumstance, and that's why I support it. Both processes had inequities, but the county very clearly made a decision to focus the current process on equity based on SES (from the FAQ's on the MCPS website): "Gifted and talented experts recommend the use of local norms as an equitable approach to ensure equity and access in identification of students for program access....In establishing MCPS Percentiles [for the CoGAT scores], students in schools with minimal poverty were compared to one another, students in schools with moderate poverty were compared to each other, and students from schools highly impacted by poverty were compared to each other." Maybe you have the "best and brightest" within each band/locality, and together they are the "best and brightest" collectively based on the current process. But it is not the "best and brightest" based on an evenly-applied, county-wide, numeric metric - say, force-ranking raw CoGAT scores county-wide. And as much as I support the current process, it's not even clear that it's significantly helping the demographic that the county wants to target.

I don't understand why anyone could believe it doesn't. All the facts indicate that it does idenitfy the best and brights which isn't the same as the most well prepped.

What facts?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Oh my goodness. Have you listened to yourself? What utter bald faced snobbery. I guess as a soon to be TPMS magnet parent from the East side of the county who works for a non profit my child is evidence that this magnet program is dumbed down. No matter that my kid has been an outlier since the age of three, that he’s several grade levels above his peers, that he scores 99th percentile on everything, that he’s miserable and unchallenged at school and this magnet program seems to be just what he needs. This program seems designed for a kid who was working on algebra in 3rd grade and who taught himself to read at 3. But his parents work for non profits and he never prepped for the test and doesn’t do expensive math enrichment programs (none of which I’ve ever heard of btw before this thread) so I guess he’s not worthy of the program like your Bethesda born children with all the advantages. I can’t imagine him being interested in math competitions either because he’s not obnoxiously competitive.

Welcome, fellow soon-to-be-TPMS-magnet-parent. If it makes you feel better, I work for a nonprofit AND my 'magnet kid' is being raised in a single parent home. I hope your child loves the program at TPMS, and maybe we'll meet at a back to school event and give each other a secret high sign as fellow nonprofit idiots who don't value our kids' educations.

I’ll look out for you! Hopefully the rest of the magnet parents will be like us and not like the bitter snobs on this thread who are likely slamming the program because their kids didn’t make the cut.

eh.. some of us aren't bitter snobs, but just concerned about the direction of magnets. My kid didn't bother applying to MS magnet 4 years ago, so before the peer cohort criteria. Too far. And I don't live in a W cluster.

In that case why do you care? The kid who get in are all deserving of their places and all highly gifted. There is no change in “direction”.

You need some better reading comprehension skills. I bolded "why do I care" for you. Of course there is a change in direction if the students who are being admitted on not the best and brightest in the district, but rather just in their home schools.

THe best and brightest are being admitted since they are selected from applicant pool that is 10X larger than the old system.

I don't understand why some people supporting the new process - and I do support it - insist that it is finding the "best and brightest." I don't think it does, but I don't think the old system did, either. It just finds a [perhaps only slightly] different group of very bright kids, but from a wider range of circumstance, and that's why I support it. Both processes had inequities, but the county very clearly made a decision to focus the current process on equity based on SES (from the FAQ's on the MCPS website): "Gifted and talented experts recommend the use of local norms as an equitable approach to ensure equity and access in identification of students for program access....In establishing MCPS Percentiles [for the CoGAT scores], students in schools with minimal poverty were compared to one another, students in schools with moderate poverty were compared to each other, and students from schools highly impacted by poverty were compared to each other." Maybe you have the "best and brightest" within each band/locality, and together they are the "best and brightest" collectively based on the current process. But it is not the "best and brightest" based on an evenly-applied, county-wide, numeric metric - say, force-ranking raw CoGAT scores county-wide. And as much as I support the current process, it's not even clear that it's significantly helping the demographic that the county wants to target.

I don't understand why anyone could believe it doesn't. All the facts indicate that it does idenitfy the best and brights which isn't the same as the most well prepped.

• I also find it implausible that the best and brightest from the old system were overwhelmingly identified at a school where prep was so common that the Dr. Li bus picked kids up there for after school prep. The reality is people are people everywhere. There aren’t pockets of super-geniuses in one corner of the county. The brilliance of the new system is three-fold: it draws from a much larger pool, it doesn’t require parents in the know to nominate their children but evaluates everyone, and finally finds outliers which is a better indicator of talent. In some areas kids are just as smart but not as prepped. It’s really pretty easy to understand. However, if you want the most well prepped instead of the best and brightest the old system totally had that down.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Oh my goodness. Have you listened to yourself? What utter bald faced snobbery. I guess as a soon to be TPMS magnet parent from the East side of the county who works for a non profit my child is evidence that this magnet program is dumbed down. No matter that my kid has been an outlier since the age of three, that he’s several grade levels above his peers, that he scores 99th percentile on everything, that he’s miserable and unchallenged at school and this magnet program seems to be just what he needs. This program seems designed for a kid who was working on algebra in 3rd grade and who taught himself to read at 3. But his parents work for non profits and he never prepped for the test and doesn’t do expensive math enrichment programs (none of which I’ve ever heard of btw before this thread) so I guess he’s not worthy of the program like your Bethesda born children with all the advantages. I can’t imagine him being interested in math competitions either because he’s not obnoxiously competitive.

Welcome, fellow soon-to-be-TPMS-magnet-parent. If it makes you feel better, I work for a nonprofit AND my 'magnet kid' is being raised in a single parent home. I hope your child loves the program at TPMS, and maybe we'll meet at a back to school event and give each other a secret high sign as fellow nonprofit idiots who don't value our kids' educations.

I’ll look out for you! Hopefully the rest of the magnet parents will be like us and not like the bitter snobs on this thread who are likely slamming the program because their kids didn’t make the cut.

eh.. some of us aren't bitter snobs, but just concerned about the direction of magnets. My kid didn't bother applying to MS magnet 4 years ago, so before the peer cohort criteria. Too far. And I don't live in a W cluster.

In that case why do you care? The kid who get in are all deserving of their places and all highly gifted. There is no change in “direction”.

You need some better reading comprehension skills. I bolded "why do I care" for you. Of course there is a change in direction if the students who are being admitted on not the best and brightest in the district, but rather just in their home schools.

THe best and brightest are being admitted since they are selected from applicant pool that is 10X larger than the old system.

I don't understand why some people supporting the new process - and I do support it - insist that it is finding the "best and brightest." I don't think it does, but I don't think the old system did, either. It just finds a [perhaps only slightly] different group of very bright kids, but from a wider range of circumstance, and that's why I support it. Both processes had inequities, but the county very clearly made a decision to focus the current process on equity based on SES (from the FAQ's on the MCPS website): "Gifted and talented experts recommend the use of local norms as an equitable approach to ensure equity and access in identification of students for program access....In establishing MCPS Percentiles [for the CoGAT scores], students in schools with minimal poverty were compared to one another, students in schools with moderate poverty were compared to each other, and students from schools highly impacted by poverty were compared to each other." Maybe you have the "best and brightest" within each band/locality, and together they are the "best and brightest" collectively based on the current process. But it is not the "best and brightest" based on an evenly-applied, county-wide, numeric metric - say, force-ranking raw CoGAT scores county-wide. And as much as I support the current process, it's not even clear that it's significantly helping the demographic that the county wants to target.

I don't understand why anyone could believe it doesn't. All the facts indicate that it does idenitfy the best and brights which isn't the same as the most well prepped.

• I also find it implausible that the best and brightest from the old system were overwhelmingly identified at a school where prep was so common that the Dr. Li bus picked kids up there for after school prep. The reality is people are people everywhere. There aren’t pockets of super-geniuses in one corner of the county. The brilliance of the new system is three-fold: it draws from a much larger pool, it doesn’t require parents in the know to nominate their children but evaluates everyone, and finally finds outliers which is a better indicator of talent. In some areas kids are just as smart but not as prepped. It’s really pretty easy to understand. However, if you want the most well prepped instead of the best and brightest the old system totally had that down.

Agree - the old system favored kids whose affludent families invested thousands of $$$ into prep. I don't think that's a good indicator of intelligence; however, being an outlier seems more reliable particularly given the differences across these schools. Many parents on this board go on and on about the good and bad pyramids and are opposed to the boundary analysis because they believe some schools confer a distinct advantage over others which has nothing to do with ability or else they wouldn't object so strenuously to being assigned there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Oh my goodness. Have you listened to yourself? What utter bald faced snobbery. I guess as a soon to be TPMS magnet parent from the East side of the county who works for a non profit my child is evidence that this magnet program is dumbed down. No matter that my kid has been an outlier since the age of three, that he’s several grade levels above his peers, that he scores 99th percentile on everything, that he’s miserable and unchallenged at school and this magnet program seems to be just what he needs. This program seems designed for a kid who was working on algebra in 3rd grade and who taught himself to read at 3. But his parents work for non profits and he never prepped for the test and doesn’t do expensive math enrichment programs (none of which I’ve ever heard of btw before this thread) so I guess he’s not worthy of the program like your Bethesda born children with all the advantages. I can’t imagine him being interested in math competitions either because he’s not obnoxiously competitive.

Welcome, fellow soon-to-be-TPMS-magnet-parent. If it makes you feel better, I work for a nonprofit AND my 'magnet kid' is being raised in a single parent home. I hope your child loves the program at TPMS, and maybe we'll meet at a back to school event and give each other a secret high sign as fellow nonprofit idiots who don't value our kids' educations.

I’ll look out for you! Hopefully the rest of the magnet parents will be like us and not like the bitter snobs on this thread who are likely slamming the program because their kids didn’t make the cut.

eh.. some of us aren't bitter snobs, but just concerned about the direction of magnets. My kid didn't bother applying to MS magnet 4 years ago, so before the peer cohort criteria. Too far. And I don't live in a W cluster.

In that case why do you care? The kid who get in are all deserving of their places and all highly gifted. There is no change in “direction”.

You need some better reading comprehension skills. I bolded "why do I care" for you. Of course there is a change in direction if the students who are being admitted on not the best and brightest in the district, but rather just in their home schools.

THe best and brightest are being admitted since they are selected from applicant pool that is 10X larger than the old system.

I don't understand why some people supporting the new process - and I do support it - insist that it is finding the "best and brightest." I don't think it does, but I don't think the old system did, either. It just finds a [perhaps only slightly] different group of very bright kids, but from a wider range of circumstance, and that's why I support it. Both processes had inequities, but the county very clearly made a decision to focus the current process on equity based on SES (from the FAQ's on the MCPS website): "Gifted and talented experts recommend the use of local norms as an equitable approach to ensure equity and access in identification of students for program access....In establishing MCPS Percentiles [for the CoGAT scores], students in schools with minimal poverty were compared to one another, students in schools with moderate poverty were compared to each other, and students from schools highly impacted by poverty were compared to each other." Maybe you have the "best and brightest" within each band/locality, and together they are the "best and brightest" collectively based on the current process. But it is not the "best and brightest" based on an evenly-applied, county-wide, numeric metric - say, force-ranking raw CoGAT scores county-wide. And as much as I support the current process, it's not even clear that it's significantly helping the demographic that the county wants to target.

I don't understand why anyone could believe it doesn't. All the facts indicate that it does idenitfy the best and brights which isn't the same as the most well prepped.

• I also find it implausible that the best and brightest from the old system were overwhelmingly identified at a school where prep was so common that the Dr. Li bus picked kids up there for after school prep. The reality is people are people everywhere. There aren’t pockets of super-geniuses in one corner of the county. The brilliance of the new system is three-fold: it draws from a much larger pool, it doesn’t require parents in the know to nominate their children but evaluates everyone, and finally finds outliers which is a better indicator of talent. In some areas kids are just as smart but not as prepped. It’s really pretty easy to understand. However, if you want the most well prepped instead of the best and brightest the old system totally had that down.

Agree - the old system favored kids whose affludent families invested thousands of $$$ into prep. I don't think that's a good indicator of intelligence; however, being an outlier seems more reliable particularly given the differences across these schools. Many parents on this board go on and on about the good and bad pyramids and are opposed to the boundary analysis because they believe some schools confer a distinct advantage over others which has nothing to do with ability or else they wouldn't object so strenuously to being assigned there.

All you geniuses arguing on this thread, you do realize that IQ is a bunch of meaningless fluff, don't you? Do you really think the most "intelligent" kids should be picked to go to the magnet? What does that even mean? Are you that gullible to trust some "IQ" test that assigns one number? And don't you think that work effort and motivation play a huge role in success in the magnets? Has anyone on this thread even considered this? The kids that work the hardest are almost ALWAYS the ones that end up succeeding. Anyone with normal IQ (read: no disabilities) will mentally do just fine in a middle school magnet program such as Takoma. The kids that succeed the most are the ones that work the hardest, with few exceptions. You have no idea what it takes to win a difficult math competition; it takes a tremendous amount of training and work effort. You're calling many kids prepped because they attend various after school programs, but you're confusing prep with hard work. Many of those kids have a built in work ethic that rivals most high schoolers and many college students.

[Anonymous]

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Oh my goodness. Have you listened to yourself? What utter bald faced snobbery. I guess as a soon to be TPMS magnet parent from the East side of the county who works for a non profit my child is evidence that this magnet program is dumbed down. No matter that my kid has been an outlier since the age of three, that he’s several grade levels above his peers, that he scores 99th percentile on everything, that he’s miserable and unchallenged at school and this magnet program seems to be just what he needs. This program seems designed for a kid who was working on algebra in 3rd grade and who taught himself to read at 3. But his parents work for non profits and he never prepped for the test and doesn’t do expensive math enrichment programs (none of which I’ve ever heard of btw before this thread) so I guess he’s not worthy of the program like your Bethesda born children with all the advantages. I can’t imagine him being interested in math competitions either because he’s not obnoxiously competitive.

Welcome, fellow soon-to-be-TPMS-magnet-parent. If it makes you feel better, I work for a nonprofit AND my 'magnet kid' is being raised in a single parent home. I hope your child loves the program at TPMS, and maybe we'll meet at a back to school event and give each other a secret high sign as fellow nonprofit idiots who don't value our kids' educations.

I’ll look out for you! Hopefully the rest of the magnet parents will be like us and not like the bitter snobs on this thread who are likely slamming the program because their kids didn’t make the cut.

eh.. some of us aren't bitter snobs, but just concerned about the direction of magnets. My kid didn't bother applying to MS magnet 4 years ago, so before the peer cohort criteria. Too far. And I don't live in a W cluster.

In that case why do you care? The kid who get in are all deserving of their places and all highly gifted. There is no change in “direction”.

You need some better reading comprehension skills. I bolded "why do I care" for you. Of course there is a change in direction if the students who are being admitted on not the best and brightest in the district, but rather just in their home schools.

My reading comprehension is fine, I’d suggest you look at your own. The fact that you are “concerned about the direction of the magnets” is what you are concerned about, not why. So I repeat my question, why do you care?

Why am I concerned about the direction of the magnet? Because it shows that MCPS only cares about closing the achievement gap and not meeting the needs of all the students, including the high performers in certain areas of the district. It shows that they don't seem to understand that part of why MCPS is (was) a draw for many parents of high performing students was because of the magnets (this is true for us). Now with "peer cohort", they are diluting the high performers in the magnets.

MCPS loves to tout the high test scores of its student body but doesn't seem to want to provide those very high performers the opportunity to be exposed to a magnet program. But they sure do like that they are super high performers on tests, though.

[Anonymous]

I don't understand why some people supporting the new process - and I do support it - insist that it is finding the "best and brightest." I don't think it does, but I don't think the old system did, either. It just finds a [perhaps only slightly] different group of very bright kids, but from a wider range of circumstance, and that's why I support it. Both processes had inequities, but the county very clearly made a decision to focus the current process on equity based on SES (from the FAQ's on the MCPS website): "Gifted and talented experts recommend the use of local norms as an equitable approach to ensure equity and access in identification of students for program access....In establishing MCPS Percentiles [for the CoGAT scores], students in schools with minimal poverty were compared to one another, students in schools with moderate poverty were compared to each other, and students from schools highly impacted by poverty were compared to each other." Maybe you have the "best and brightest" within each band/locality, and together they are the "best and brightest" collectively based on the current process. But it is not the "best and brightest" based on an evenly-applied, county-wide, numeric metric - say, force-ranking raw CoGAT scores county-wide. And as much as I support the current process, it's not even clear that it's significantly helping the demographic that the county wants to target.

I actually agree with this, especially the bolded. I've been defending the changes on DCUM (but am not the person who keeps insisting 'the facts' show the new system is working) because I think a system that moderately favors kids who have been systematically disadvantaged is better than one that moderately favors kids who have been given advantages.

I think the old system identified two groups of kids:

A) True outliers who would be outliers no matter where they were. These are the kids with near-perfect Cogat subtest scores and 190+ MAP scores, or the handful selected to do AIM in 5th grade.

B) Bright and hardworking kids who had also benefited from systematic privilege and enrichment opportunities


Ideally, the new system will identify the kids in Group A just as well as the old system. But instead of group B, it would identify:

C) Bright and hardworking kids who have not had access to significant enrichment, and/or whose education to date has been frustrated by enormous heterogeneity in the classroom that has not allowed the teacher to support their potential.

If MCPS is correct, there's no functional difference in the potential of kids in Group B and Group C, only a difference of opportunities before the age of 10.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Oh my goodness. Have you listened to yourself? What utter bald faced snobbery. I guess as a soon to be TPMS magnet parent from the East side of the county who works for a non profit my child is evidence that this magnet program is dumbed down. No matter that my kid has been an outlier since the age of three, that he’s several grade levels above his peers, that he scores 99th percentile on everything, that he’s miserable and unchallenged at school and this magnet program seems to be just what he needs. This program seems designed for a kid who was working on algebra in 3rd grade and who taught himself to read at 3. But his parents work for non profits and he never prepped for the test and doesn’t do expensive math enrichment programs (none of which I’ve ever heard of btw before this thread) so I guess he’s not worthy of the program like your Bethesda born children with all the advantages. I can’t imagine him being interested in math competitions either because he’s not obnoxiously competitive.

Welcome, fellow soon-to-be-TPMS-magnet-parent. If it makes you feel better, I work for a nonprofit AND my 'magnet kid' is being raised in a single parent home. I hope your child loves the program at TPMS, and maybe we'll meet at a back to school event and give each other a secret high sign as fellow nonprofit idiots who don't value our kids' educations.

I’ll look out for you! Hopefully the rest of the magnet parents will be like us and not like the bitter snobs on this thread who are likely slamming the program because their kids didn’t make the cut.

eh.. some of us aren't bitter snobs, but just concerned about the direction of magnets. My kid didn't bother applying to MS magnet 4 years ago, so before the peer cohort criteria. Too far. And I don't live in a W cluster.

In that case why do you care? The kid who get in are all deserving of their places and all highly gifted. There is no change in “direction”.

You need some better reading comprehension skills. I bolded "why do I care" for you. Of course there is a change in direction if the students who are being admitted on not the best and brightest in the district, but rather just in their home schools.

They weren't the "best and brightest" under the old system. They were the "bright and best-prepped and knew to apply" under the old system. That's different.

Exactly but the bitter parents who are no longer able to easily game admissions try to spin this