Robert Frost beats Takoma Park in Mathcounts

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

agree

[Anonymous]

There is someone posting on the VA AAA thread that she is planning a move to Fairfax because MCPS is not going to offer anyone Algebra until 9th grade (because compact math is ending?). I have not heard that anywhere else but wonder how that would work at TP and Blair.

[Anonymous]

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.

The old system was opt-in, and included a take-home essay "by the child" as well as an essay by the parent. You don't see how that sytem could be gamed?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There is someone posting on the VA AAA thread that she is planning a move to Fairfax because MCPS is not going to offer anyone Algebra until 9th grade (because compact math is ending?). I have not heard that anywhere else but wonder how that would work at TP and Blair.

I think that person (and anyone else who is worried) should talk to some folks before putting their house on the market. I'm not a MCPS employee, and don't have any special insider information, but my understanding is as follows:

The new math curriculum didn't come with a compacted option, so MCPS is either developing one themselves or asking vendor to do it

Until that curriculum is complete, they are still using the old curriculum for compacted math

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

The old system was opt-in, and included a take-home essay "by the child" as well as an essay by the parent. You don't see how that sytem could be gamed?

I'm in favor of the new system, but I don't think it's fair or accurate to accuse any group of "gaming" the prior system. These programs weren't a secret; if people weren't applying, why is that the fault of the people who did? I also would expect the persons reading the student essays to have a pretty good idea which ones were written by the students, and which ones were heavily edited by parents or others. I think it's fair to question the influence of test prep centers that, very specifically and intensively, purported to prepare students for the 5th grade CoGAT test. That seems extreme, and the new process dealt with that, but posters complaining about parents gong to extremes ignore the fact that parents in this area go to extremes ALL THE TIME for their kids. Prepping for the CoGAT test is nothing compared to travel soccer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

The old system was opt-in, and included a take-home essay "by the child" as well as an essay by the parent. You don't see how that sytem could be gamed?

That's idiotic. MCPS put that application system in place, and the parents and students who applied followed that process, but you are saying they somehow gamed the system? Dumbest response to the argument.

I am completely for MCPS testing all kids and having the essay be written during testing time, like for the HS magnet; I am not for peer cohort criteria.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

This isn't true in our area (Cabin John/Hoover/Pyle) Lots of kids with high stats all around getting in the WP or even rejected. DC has a half-dozen friends in this situation and they are exceptional students. DC probably just got lucky and scored slightly better in one measure or something like that. Anecdotally, the scores for accepted CES kids were much higher than those for who got in from home schools.

[Anonymous]

Really, the push by the parents should move towards openings up more magnet middle schools. It is a travesty that good curriculum developed through a federal grant 20+ years ago and time-tested on generations of students is not being used in at least once classroom per middle school in the county.

County can take TPMS and keep it for the latest "underserved" group that it wants to please, whatever. If MCPS is not in the business of growing superhumans anymore, that's not my problem. The county has correctly pointed out that Frost and an number of other middle schools has perfectly good cohort that does not need to be bussed across the county. What I want is the magnet curriculum to be rolled out countywide, not the fake "advanced" curriculum that they are offering now. Our kids can handle it, and if they cannot, they will move onto the regular track.

If that does not happen, I wonder if parents can come together to open an affordable private middle school that uses TPMS curriculum. We have plenty of stay at home moms who can teach math, science, computer science. We might need to hire an English teacher outside since most of the students impacted by this latest round of political correctness in admission are first generation immigrants. If we pack large classes of well-disciplined students and get a church basement at a discount, I bet we can get away with 15K per year tuition.

No one has ever wanted to commute to Takoma Park. People only did it because there were no other options. Give us better options, and keep your Takoma Park. We don't need it.

[Anonymous]

^^This is a good post and very important. DD and her friends do not want to commute all the way to TPMS. They need to train teachers to teach that curriculum at schools with strong peer cohorts and they need to stop the policy of schools pretending that everyone is in the same "peer cohort."
I mean Pyle WTF. You can't just pretend all kids are at the same level.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Really, the push by the parents should move towards openings up more magnet middle schools. It is a travesty that good curriculum developed through a federal grant 20+ years ago and time-tested on generations of students is not being used in at least once classroom per middle school in the county.

County can take TPMS and keep it for the latest "underserved" group that it wants to please, whatever. If MCPS is not in the business of growing superhumans anymore, that's not my problem. The county has correctly pointed out that Frost and an number of other middle schools has perfectly good cohort that does not need to be bussed across the county. What I want is the magnet curriculum to be rolled out countywide, not the fake "advanced" curriculum that they are offering now. Our kids can handle it, and if they cannot, they will move onto the regular track.

If that does not happen, I wonder if parents can come together to open an affordable private middle school that uses TPMS curriculum. We have plenty of stay at home moms who can teach math, science, computer science. We might need to hire an English teacher outside since most of the students impacted by this latest round of political correctness in admission are first generation immigrants. If we pack large classes of well-disciplined students and get a church basement at a discount, I bet we can get away with 15K per year tuition.

No one has ever wanted to commute to Takoma Park. People only did it because there were no other options. Give us better options, and keep your Takoma Park. We don't need it.

The hubris and arrogance of this statement is astounding.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

The old system was opt-in, and included a take-home essay "by the child" as well as an essay by the parent. You don't see how that sytem could be gamed?

That's idiotic. MCPS put that application system in place, and the parents and students who applied followed that process, but you are saying they somehow gamed the system? Dumbest response to the argument.

I am completely for MCPS testing all kids and having the essay be written during testing time, like for the HS magnet; I am not for peer cohort criteria.

The old system only looked at roughly 800 applicants whose parents nominated them. It involved teacher recommendations and parental essays. The new system uses objective metrics and considers all students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Really, the push by the parents should move towards openings up more magnet middle schools. It is a travesty that good curriculum developed through a federal grant 20+ years ago and time-tested on generations of students is not being used in at least once classroom per middle school in the county.

County can take TPMS and keep it for the latest "underserved" group that it wants to please, whatever. If MCPS is not in the business of growing superhumans anymore, that's not my problem. The county has correctly pointed out that Frost and an number of other middle schools has perfectly good cohort that does not need to be bussed across the county. What I want is the magnet curriculum to be rolled out countywide, not the fake "advanced" curriculum that they are offering now. Our kids can handle it, and if they cannot, they will move onto the regular track.

If that does not happen, I wonder if parents can come together to open an affordable private middle school that uses TPMS curriculum. We have plenty of stay at home moms who can teach math, science, computer science. We might need to hire an English teacher outside since most of the students impacted by this latest round of political correctness in admission are first generation immigrants. If we pack large classes of well-disciplined students and get a church basement at a discount, I bet we can get away with 15K per year tuition.

No one has ever wanted to commute to Takoma Park. People only did it because there were no other options. Give us better options, and keep your Takoma Park. We don't need it.

The hubris and arrogance of this statement is astounding.

If your kids were able to handle it they'd be in the magnet and if they provided a curriculum your kids could handle you'd complain so probably not worth the bother.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Really, the push by the parents should move towards openings up more magnet middle schools. It is a travesty that good curriculum developed through a federal grant 20+ years ago and time-tested on generations of students is not being used in at least once classroom per middle school in the county.

County can take TPMS and keep it for the latest "underserved" group that it wants to please, whatever. If MCPS is not in the business of growing superhumans anymore, that's not my problem. The county has correctly pointed out that Frost and an number of other middle schools has perfectly good cohort that does not need to be bussed across the county. What I want is the magnet curriculum to be rolled out countywide, not the fake "advanced" curriculum that they are offering now. Our kids can handle it, and if they cannot, they will move onto the regular track.

If that does not happen, I wonder if parents can come together to open an affordable private middle school that uses TPMS curriculum. We have plenty of stay at home moms who can teach math, science, computer science. We might need to hire an English teacher outside since most of the students impacted by this latest round of political correctness in admission are first generation immigrants. If we pack large classes of well-disciplined students and get a church basement at a discount, I bet we can get away with 15K per year tuition.

No one has ever wanted to commute to Takoma Park. People only did it because there were no other options. Give us better options, and keep your Takoma Park. We don't need it.

The hubris and arrogance of this statement is astounding.

If your kids were able to handle it they'd be in the magnet and if they provided a curriculum your kids could handle you'd complain so probably not worth the bother.

You are wrong.
Magnet parent.

[Anonymous]

(To extrapolate - the reason the magnets were able to completely change their algorithm and still get perfectly capable kids as far as the curriculum goes is because there are literally dozens of students in many, if not all, middle schools who can follow the curriculum. Maybe they will not get straight A's or some students may need to drop a class, but overall as a cohort they would thrive and benfit. It is a great, well-organized, excellent curriculum. It is a shame that is it not used widely in MCPS and possibly nationally. TPMS will naturally see a decline in competition placement because of the cohort approach, but that was to be expected)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Really, the push by the parents should move towards openings up more magnet middle schools. It is a travesty that good curriculum developed through a federal grant 20+ years ago and time-tested on generations of students is not being used in at least once classroom per middle school in the county.

County can take TPMS and keep it for the latest "underserved" group that it wants to please, whatever. If MCPS is not in the business of growing superhumans anymore, that's not my problem. The county has correctly pointed out that Frost and an number of other middle schools has perfectly good cohort that does not need to be bussed across the county. What I want is the magnet curriculum to be rolled out countywide, not the fake "advanced" curriculum that they are offering now. Our kids can handle it, and if they cannot, they will move onto the regular track.

If that does not happen, I wonder if parents can come together to open an affordable private middle school that uses TPMS curriculum. We have plenty of stay at home moms who can teach math, science, computer science. We might need to hire an English teacher outside since most of the students impacted by this latest round of political correctness in admission are first generation immigrants. If we pack large classes of well-disciplined students and get a church basement at a discount, I bet we can get away with 15K per year tuition.

No one has ever wanted to commute to Takoma Park. People only did it because there were no other options. Give us better options, and keep your Takoma Park. We don't need it.

The hubris and arrogance of this statement is astounding.

If your kids were able to handle it they'd be in the magnet and if they provided a curriculum your kids could handle you'd complain so probably not worth the bother.

You are wrong.
Magnet parent.

I have to disagree with you.
Magnet Teacher