Robert Frost beats Takoma Park in Mathcounts

[Anonymous]

Takoma Park has AMC 8 (Nov 2019) score of 74 out of 75.

Robert Frost is placed 3rd in Montgomery county (after Takoma Park and Roberto Clemente) at 68 out of 75.

What is OP talking about?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

You probably do not know much about the real situation. Category A students in your definition were rejected as well. First, MAP 190+ is not a high score. Second, I knew kids with 99.99% score in cogAt were rejected as MCPS just label them as 99%. Third, there are more than 20 kids taking AIM in fifth grade and only 11 were admitted to TP.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Takoma Park has AMC 8 (Nov 2019) score of 74 out of 75.

Robert Frost is placed 3rd in Montgomery county (after Takoma Park and Roberto Clemente) at 68 out of 75.

What is OP talking about?

The OP is saying that because Takoma had a bad day or possibly Frost had a good day at one particular math contest, it means the magnets are in decline because of the new selection which considers 10X the number of candidates and puts less emphasis on prep. It's like a dog with a bone. Some parents felt entitled to all the magnet slots. They miss the old system because it was easily gamed and look for every possible opportunity to trash the kids who are currently in the MS magnets especially TPMS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Takoma Park has AMC 8 (Nov 2019) score of 74 out of 75.

Robert Frost is placed 3rd in Montgomery county (after Takoma Park and Roberto Clemente) at 68 out of 75.

What is OP talking about?

Please don't pay attention to facts like this! Our narrative about magnets in decline will fall apart!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Very well stated, PP. I think this is a good take on the issue, though I assume you meant to write “290+” for the MAP number in your A above?

[Anonymous]

I'm the PP who typed 190 but obviously meant 290. Apologies. I clearly should have finished my coffee.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

You probably do not know much about the real situation. Category A students in your definition were rejected as well. First, MAP 190+ is not a high score. Second, I knew kids with 99.99% score in cogAt were rejected as MCPS just label them as 99%. Third, there are more than 20 kids taking AIM in fifth grade and only 11 were admitted to TP.

+1

Current admissions process makes it more difficult to differentiate between A and B. (And, according to a friend whose child was in this situation and spoke with DCCAPS, a student taking IM/AIM in grade 5 will have no bearing on MS magnet admissions.)

[Anonymous]

Second, I knew kids with 99.99% score in cogAt were rejected as MCPS just label them as 99%.

There is no way that you could possibly know this. The data on what is 99.99 is simply not available. Your kid didn’t make the cut because he or she didn’t meet the criteria whichever way you cut it. At my kid’s school the kids who really are outlier got through ergo it worked.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Second, I knew kids with 99.99% score in cogAt were rejected as MCPS just label them as 99%.

There is no way that you could possibly know this. The data on what is 99.99 is simply not available. Your kid didn’t make the cut because he or she didn’t meet the criteria whichever way you cut it. At my kid’s school the kids who really are outlier got through ergo it worked.

Good luck to the kids who got in. Yes, you cannot get that from MCPS. But you can look up the SAS score based on your raw score and age of testing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm the PP who typed 190 but obviously meant 290. Apologies. I clearly should have finished my coffee.

Got your point. 290 is a very high cutoff for Elementary Map Test. The max RIT score is 300. I don’t personally know anyone with 290+ on MAP-M. I knew kids who got 280+ and received a rejection to Magnet. The highest MAP-R score I heard is much lower. I am actually curious to know if any kid got above 290. That’s truly outlier of the outlier. They should absolutely be admitted.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm the PP who typed 190 but obviously meant 290. Apologies. I clearly should have finished my coffee.

Got your point. 290 is a very high cutoff for Elementary Map Test. The max RIT score is 300. I don’t personally know anyone with 290+ on MAP-M. I knew kids who got 280+ and received a rejection to Magnet. The highest MAP-R score I heard is much lower. I am actually curious to know if any kid got above 290. That’s truly outlier of the outlier. They should absolutely be admitted.

MAP-M 290+ parent here. And I personally know two other 5th grader kids also achieved 290+ map-m scores as well. All three are admitted to TP, together with a bunch of 280+ map-m kids (I know at least two, considering there should be more after the appealing process). Let's wait and see what the mathcounts result gonna look like next year

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm the PP who typed 190 but obviously meant 290. Apologies. I clearly should have finished my coffee.

Got your point. 290 is a very high cutoff for Elementary Map Test. The max RIT score is 300. I don’t personally know anyone with 290+ on MAP-M. I knew kids who got 280+ and received a rejection to Magnet. The highest MAP-R score I heard is much lower. I am actually curious to know if any kid got above 290. That’s truly outlier of the outlier. They should absolutely be admitted.

MAP-M 290+ parent here. And I personally know two other 5th grader kids also achieved 290+ map-m scores as well. All three are admitted to TP, together with a bunch of 280+ map-m kids (I know at least two, considering there should be more after the appealing process). Let's wait and see what the mathcounts result gonna look like next year

Your suspicions seem correct especially when you consider the 11/19 AMC8 score for TPMS was 74/75 whreas Frost was 68/75. This nonsense is all because Frost one ONE single math contest which doesn't substantiate these inane theories about magnets in decline. The new admission process seems vastly superior to the old one by virtue of the fact it considers far more kids many of which would have never even applied with the old system.

[Anonymous]

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

No spin. How do they game the system? By making sure their kids are "prepared"? Are you going to "prepare" your kids to take the SATs?

Even MCPS stated that they are using peer cohort criteria which means student A who is a higher performer than Student B would not get in since student A has a peer cohort, and student B does not.

[Anonymous]

Isn’t it fascinating how no one ever starts a discussion like this about Eastern? I know there’s more math prep available than humanities prep, but still ...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Second, I knew kids with 99.99% score in cogAt were rejected as MCPS just label them as 99%.

There is no way that you could possibly know this. The data on what is 99.99 is simply not available. Your kid didn’t make the cut because he or she didn’t meet the criteria whichever way you cut it. At my kid’s school the kids who really are outlier got through ergo it worked.

The difference between 99% and 99.9% according to the makers of the test isn't a reliable or meaningful difference so the county is acting in good faith. Also the CogAT is one of many factors. I'm pretty sure there are children with 99% on the CogAT who also perform poorly on other key metrics and that is why they're rejected.