FCPS Appeals decision are out

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Competition for whites and Asians to get into MWES is not at all stiff. Generally, a 120-ish Cogat and decent but not great GBRS is all you need. The center is overflowing with mediocre white and Asian kids.

Most of the weakest kids at MWES are from Providence and Daniels Run. This supports the idea that Title I schools have more lenient standards for being accepted.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
We are all being speculative here and assuming the Hispanic or African American child who gained entry to AAP LIV is the one who is behind in reading level or can't advance quickly enough in math. I'm sure there are plenty of White and Asian kids who have the same issue. Will the White or Asian child who scores 150+ on the WISC have the same issue? Who knows! The child could still be bored out of their mind and completely disengaged. That child would really not benefit in FCPS's LIV AAP program, but that's not being discussed here at all. In certain countries, gifted/talented programs are stratified. Grades are sectioned with the most advanced kids in a particular section, the next tier of kids in a separate section and so on. Elementary schools have 4 sections generally per grade, from A (highest achievers/most gifted) to D (GenEd). And larger schools may have two of the same section to accommodate the student in the right section. There are many ways to really address the issue. I think FCPS picked one, which for the folks who are left out seems quite unfair. For the parents whose kids scored 150+, you really should investigate other modes of learning for your children. FCPS's AAP program is certainly not meant for your children. I would go further and say that you are stifling your child's potential by keeping them in AAP and thinking that will meet their needs.

I'm not assuming that Hispanic or AA kids who get accepted into AAP are definitely behind in reading or math. A few PPs have suggested that kids of target racial groups who are behind in math or language arts should still get pushed into AAP in the name of diversity. I think due to the nature of AAP, kids should have to be above grade in both math and language arts to be admitted.

Regarding the bolded, I completely agree! AAP is not going to be a good fit for kids with an IQ above 140 who are several grade levels ahead. I wonder if part of the reason some are being rejected is that the kid is too advanced to be a good fit in AAP, and that the kid would be better served with homeschooling or private school. If AAP has a limited number of spots available, in a weird way, it almost makes sense to give the spot to a less advanced kid who might benefit from the program than a kid too advanced to really benefit.

Completely agree with this!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:TJ and AAP aren't analogous here. Kids who have the aptitude to handle TJ but aren't accepted into TJ will still have a full load of AP/IB classes available at their base schools and will still have excellent college prospects.

Kids who have the aptitude for AAP but aren't accepted will not be given a good education in gen ed at most FCPS schools. They will be bored, unchallenged, and largely ignored by the teacher throughout elementary school.

Says someone without a high schooler. In middle school there are honors classes and there is no AAP math, only honors math. By high school there are just as many nonAAP kids taking AP classes as there are former AAP kids. All the kids listed on this thread who were rejected will be just as prepared as the AAP kids.

100 percent. Again parents making more out of AAP than what it’s worth. It’s somehow more about their ability to say “my kid is in level iv aap” than anything tangible.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Competition for whites and Asians to get into MWES is not at all stiff. Generally, a 120-ish Cogat and decent but not great GBRS is all you need. The center is overflowing with mediocre white and Asian kids.

Most of the weakest kids at MWES are from Providence and Daniels Run. This supports the idea that Title I schools have more lenient standards for being accepted.

We are at Daniels Run and both my Asian kids have had CogAT and WISC scores above 134 - both were not accepted into AAP. Have been trying to get them in, but keep getting rejected. Stuck in gen ed where they are incredibly bored.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Competition for whites and Asians to get into MWES is not at all stiff. Generally, a 120-ish Cogat and decent but not great GBRS is all you need. The center is overflowing with mediocre white and Asian kids.

Most of the weakest kids at MWES are from Providence and Daniels Run. This supports the idea that Title I schools have more lenient standards for being accepted.

We are at Daniels Run and both my Asian kids have had CogAT and WISC scores above 134 - both were not accepted into AAP. Have been trying to get them in, but keep getting rejected. Stuck in gen ed where they are incredibly bored.

Wow. My kid is at Mosby Woods, and almost all of the duds in my DC's class are from Providence and Daniels Run. I personally know a bunch of Providence kids who got in with less than stellar test scores. If it makes you feel any better, your kids would probably be incredibly bored at MWES.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
We are at Daniels Run and both my Asian kids have had CogAT and WISC scores above 134 - both were not accepted into AAP. Have been trying to get them in, but keep getting rejected. Stuck in gen ed where they are incredibly bored.

Did your kids get placed in the LLIV class?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
We are at Daniels Run and both my Asian kids have had CogAT and WISC scores above 134 - both were not accepted into AAP. Have been trying to get them in, but keep getting rejected. Stuck in gen ed where they are incredibly bored.

Did your kids get placed in the LLIV class?

Yes - but it’s not that challenging.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
We are at Daniels Run and both my Asian kids have had CogAT and WISC scores above 134 - both were not accepted into AAP. Have been trying to get them in, but keep getting rejected. Stuck in gen ed where they are incredibly bored.

Did your kids get placed in the LLIV class?

Yes - but it’s not that challenging.

But neither is AAP at MWES. Your kids are probably getting the exact same level of challenge in the LLIV that they would have received at the center.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
We are at Daniels Run and both my Asian kids have had CogAT and WISC scores above 134 - both were not accepted into AAP. Have been trying to get them in, but keep getting rejected. Stuck in gen ed where they are incredibly bored.

Did your kids get placed in the LLIV class?

Yes - but it’s not that challenging.

But neither is AAP at MWES. Your kids are probably getting the exact same level of challenge in the LLIV that they would have received at the center.

That right there is what most parents don’t understand. LIV AAP is pretty abysmal.

[Anonymous]

Really? Calling children “duds”?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Really? Calling children “duds”?

Quoting my kid who has been shackled to too many low performers for too many group projects. My kid has had anxiety over whether she was allowed to fix her partners’ poor grammar, misspellings, and poor content on their slides. Some partners will just screw around and try to distract everyone rather than doing their work. Trust me, the kids know who the bottom performers are in each class.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:TJ and AAP aren't analogous here. Kids who have the aptitude to handle TJ but aren't accepted into TJ will still have a full load of AP/IB classes available at their base schools and will still have excellent college prospects.

Kids who have the aptitude for AAP but aren't accepted will not be given a good education in gen ed at most FCPS schools. They will be bored, unchallenged, and largely ignored by the teacher throughout elementary school.

Says someone without a high schooler. In middle school there are honors classes and there is no AAP math, only honors math. By high school there are just as many nonAAP kids taking AP classes as there are former AAP kids. All the kids listed on this thread who were rejected will be just as prepared as the AAP kids.

100 percent. Again parents making more out of AAP than what it’s worth. It’s somehow more about their ability to say “my kid is in level iv aap” than anything tangible.

Pretty presumptuous of you to assume you know what parents are thinking. Some people actually want the best for their kids. Even if lvl IV isn't all it's cracked up to be, it's still a step above gen ed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Why does closing the achievement gap mean RAISING the achievement gap for one group and lowering it for another? Isn't that taking it even further apart?? LOWER it for the URM. But don't RAISE it for Asian Americans!

You're not actually raising the threshold for the Asian or White child. You're creating a bell curve for White population and Asian population, and certain White or Asian children may be 'screened out' based on a peer comparison because they are on the very high end +2SD or into +3SD (as a WISC score of 150+ suggests) or didn't receive as good of an overall rating as compared to the other White or Asians against which they were compared. For the +3SD, the parents should really be looking elsewhere as some posters have noted here. FCPS is not the right setting to serve these children and hopefully the parents have some understanding of this. The reason for the screening out the high end of the curve is to serve the White, Asian, Hispanic and AA population that are relatively comparable. Though even in this scenario, the population of White and Asian accepted into the program score much higher than Hispanic and Asian.

All of this is also largely predicated on demographics of the school, both for feeder and center schools. If you're in Colvin Run or Churchill territory, you're looking at Hispanic/AA population at approx 5% and 10%, respectively, for the center schools and the feeder schools. Think about that! We are talking combined ethnicities. You have a very small pool of Hispanic or African Americans who will be considered for AAP. Compare that to Mosby Woods and the feeder schools for MW, where the range of Hispanic/AA go from 20% to 35% (sometimes equivalent to the number of Asians). Is it possible that FCPS screened out more Asian or White kids in Mosby Woods center based LIV program compared to that of Colvin Run or Churchill? It's most likely what occurred. As an Asian or White in the MW center/feeder schools, your competition is also a lot stiffer. You're competing for a seat that is being challenged by not only more Hispanic/AA representation (since FCPS won't be able to meet their quotas in schools like Colvin Run or Churchill or other few), but also a stiffer White and Asian population. Your Asian kid might have gotten a 140 CoGAT and 2F. The other Asian child received a 136 on CoGAT but a 4Cs. My bet is that the latter Asian child getting through but the former getting rejected. You may follow up with the WISC, but if most of the spots are already gone at the center, it makes it hard for the appeals process to work in your favor. Even with a high WISC score. I think that's why when FCPS says they look at AAP admissions "holistically," we really should think much bigger picture than an individual's packet. Their holistic approach is noting some much larger.

So now people are arguing that some Asians should be denied AAP due to being overqualified? As if they would be better off in Gen Ed? Or should they leave FCPS? They cannot be served in AAP because AAP needs to be watered down in order to accomodate other populations. Or as someone else noted earlier, excluding these applicants is the easy solution to closing the score gap of accepted students by race.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Why does closing the achievement gap mean RAISING the achievement gap for one group and lowering it for another? Isn't that taking it even further apart?? LOWER it for the URM. But don't RAISE it for Asian Americans!

You're not actually raising the threshold for the Asian or White child. You're creating a bell curve for White population and Asian population, and certain White or Asian children may be 'screened out' based on a peer comparison because they are on the very high end +2SD or into +3SD (as a WISC score of 150+ suggests) or didn't receive as good of an overall rating as compared to the other White or Asians against which they were compared. For the +3SD, the parents should really be looking elsewhere as some posters have noted here. FCPS is not the right setting to serve these children and hopefully the parents have some understanding of this. The reason for the screening out the high end of the curve is to serve the White, Asian, Hispanic and AA population that are relatively comparable. Though even in this scenario, the population of White and Asian accepted into the program score much higher than Hispanic and Asian.

All of this is also largely predicated on demographics of the school, both for feeder and center schools. If you're in Colvin Run or Churchill territory, you're looking at Hispanic/AA population at approx 5% and 10%, respectively, for the center schools and the feeder schools. Think about that! We are talking combined ethnicities. You have a very small pool of Hispanic or African Americans who will be considered for AAP. Compare that to Mosby Woods and the feeder schools for MW, where the range of Hispanic/AA go from 20% to 35% (sometimes equivalent to the number of Asians). Is it possible that FCPS screened out more Asian or White kids in Mosby Woods center based LIV program compared to that of Colvin Run or Churchill? It's most likely what occurred. As an Asian or White in the MW center/feeder schools, your competition is also a lot stiffer. You're competing for a seat that is being challenged by not only more Hispanic/AA representation (since FCPS won't be able to meet their quotas in schools like Colvin Run or Churchill or other few), but also a stiffer White and Asian population. Your Asian kid might have gotten a 140 CoGAT and 2F. The other Asian child received a 136 on CoGAT but a 4Cs. My bet is that the latter Asian child getting through but the former getting rejected. You may follow up with the WISC, but if most of the spots are already gone at the center, it makes it hard for the appeals process to work in your favor. Even with a high WISC score. I think that's why when FCPS says they look at AAP admissions "holistically," we really should think much bigger picture than an individual's packet. Their holistic approach is noting some much larger.

So now people are arguing that some Asians should be denied AAP due to being overqualified? As if they would be better off in Gen Ed? Or should they leave FCPS? They cannot be served in AAP because AAP needs to be watered down in order to accomodate other populations. Or as someone else noted earlier, excluding these applicants is the easy solution to closing the score gap of accepted students by race.

I get that some Asians and Whites are upset that their child tested as a high achiever or perhaps even truly gifted and didn't get into AAP LIV. That's life! It's no different than what your kid could experience applying to TJ and not getting in or applying to Harvard/Princeton/Yale and not getting in. It happens. And it happens a lot in life. Suck it up. Accept it. Understand that there is inherently limited space and that FCPS is looking at race (especially when the program is audited for equity gap). And, in a fully holistic review of what FCPS wants in its class of this year and what was in your child's package, something was triggered which left your child out of luck. You job now is to figure out how you can help your child to stay on their path of success. You would have had to do that anyway if your child is truly gifted. If you want to try again next year, go for it. FCPS allows you that ability. You may or may not be successful, but don't wallow in the rejection. It's moot. Figure out a different way to help your child. It's not that hard. (At least not at this stage. It will get much harder if your child continues on their gifted path so best to get started sooner rather than later.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Why does closing the achievement gap mean RAISING the achievement gap for one group and lowering it for another? Isn't that taking it even further apart?? LOWER it for the URM. But don't RAISE it for Asian Americans!

You're not actually raising the threshold for the Asian or White child. You're creating a bell curve for White population and Asian population, and certain White or Asian children may be 'screened out' based on a peer comparison because they are on the very high end +2SD or into +3SD (as a WISC score of 150+ suggests) or didn't receive as good of an overall rating as compared to the other White or Asians against which they were compared. For the +3SD, the parents should really be looking elsewhere as some posters have noted here. FCPS is not the right setting to serve these children and hopefully the parents have some understanding of this. The reason for the screening out the high end of the curve is to serve the White, Asian, Hispanic and AA population that are relatively comparable. Though even in this scenario, the population of White and Asian accepted into the program score much higher than Hispanic and Asian.

All of this is also largely predicated on demographics of the school, both for feeder and center schools. If you're in Colvin Run or Churchill territory, you're looking at Hispanic/AA population at approx 5% and 10%, respectively, for the center schools and the feeder schools. Think about that! We are talking combined ethnicities. You have a very small pool of Hispanic or African Americans who will be considered for AAP. Compare that to Mosby Woods and the feeder schools for MW, where the range of Hispanic/AA go from 20% to 35% (sometimes equivalent to the number of Asians). Is it possible that FCPS screened out more Asian or White kids in Mosby Woods center based LIV program compared to that of Colvin Run or Churchill? It's most likely what occurred. As an Asian or White in the MW center/feeder schools, your competition is also a lot stiffer. You're competing for a seat that is being challenged by not only more Hispanic/AA representation (since FCPS won't be able to meet their quotas in schools like Colvin Run or Churchill or other few), but also a stiffer White and Asian population. Your Asian kid might have gotten a 140 CoGAT and 2F. The other Asian child received a 136 on CoGAT but a 4Cs. My bet is that the latter Asian child getting through but the former getting rejected. You may follow up with the WISC, but if most of the spots are already gone at the center, it makes it hard for the appeals process to work in your favor. Even with a high WISC score. I think that's why when FCPS says they look at AAP admissions "holistically," we really should think much bigger picture than an individual's packet. Their holistic approach is noting some much larger.

So now people are arguing that some Asians should be denied AAP due to being overqualified? As if they would be better off in Gen Ed? Or should they leave FCPS? They cannot be served in AAP because AAP needs to be watered down in order to accomodate other populations. Or as someone else noted earlier, excluding these applicants is the easy solution to closing the score gap of accepted students by race.

I get that some Asians and Whites are upset that their child tested as a high achiever or perhaps even truly gifted and didn't get into AAP LIV. That's life! It's no different than what your kid could experience applying to TJ and not getting in or applying to Harvard/Princeton/Yale and not getting in. It happens. And it happens a lot in life. Suck it up. Accept it. Understand that there is inherently limited space and that FCPS is looking at race (especially when the program is audited for equity gap). And, in a fully holistic review of what FCPS wants in its class of this year and what was in your child's package, something was triggered which left your child out of luck. You job now is to figure out how you can help your child to stay on their path of success. You would have had to do that anyway if your child is truly gifted. If you want to try again next year, go for it. FCPS allows you that ability. You may or may not be successful, but don't wallow in the rejection. It's moot. Figure out a different way to help your child. It's not that hard. (At least not at this stage. It will get much harder if your child continues on their gifted path so best to get started sooner rather than later.)

That's right everyone. Throw your hands up in the air and forget about this completely unfair and ridiculous process. Forget about the fact that kids with 110 IQs are being shuttled into a "gifted" program for the sake of "equity." There's nothing you can do, so just lay down and take it! Thanks for the advice, PP.