Magnet MS results - Takoma Park & Eastern - anyone heard today?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So, MCPS changed from selecting 200 magnet students out of 800 self-selected applicants to picking 200 magnet students from a pool of 4000 county IDed kids and the DCUM penut gallery is surprised that the results of selection are very different? Hmm ...

If this was indeed all that happened I would say bravo MCPS for expanding the pool, for encouraging more families to apply etc. If this result is because a greater number of highly qualified candidates are applying I would be very happy

if they changed the selection criteria so a top performing kid is rejected only because he/she is zoned for a W school that is discrimination. If they are using geography as a proxy for race that is discrimination

[Anonymous]

Obviously we they screened the ENTIRE student popultion they found some really smart kids with parents who aren't obsessive about their kids' educations. I love that they removed the parent component! It means access for all, not just the savvy. I'm eager to see what it means for CES!

However, there is an obvious need to make sure the high achieving kids who didn't get into a special program are having their academic needs met, and, as I think we all know, that means clustering. This is good for kids and for teachers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Obviously we they screened the ENTIRE student popultion they found some really smart kids with parents who aren't obsessive about their kids' educations. I love that they removed the parent component! It means access for all, not just the savvy. I'm eager to see what it means for CES!

However, there is an obvious need to make sure the high achieving kids who didn't get into a special program are having their academic needs met, and, as I think we all know, that means clustering. This is good for kids and for teachers.

Agreed. People need to recognize that their white, UMC snowflake child isn't going to get a leg up just because they want snowflake to feel special 24/7. Equitable access to these programs is a *good* thing.

- a white UMC mom

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Daughter got in to both and we have decided not to send her. She wasn't very interested in attending either program. She would miss her friends, commuting times would conflict with some of her sporting activities and we are in the "Ws" cluster so there are plenty of educational opportunities. We don't see it as a missed opportunity and it will allow a child who is more interested in the magnet program to attend.

As for my daughter's scores, I do not know them off the top of my head. She does very well on the testing. My spouse has a PhD in applied mathematics so there are some genetics in play.

I am a W parent with a kid at Whitman and another who went to TPMS and is now at Blair SMCS, and I can assure you that they do not compare. It is, beyond a shadow of a doubt, a missed opportunity.

But you keep telling yourself that a W school is the same thing.

I am from W cluster w/ kids who went to Eastern and TPMS, and I agree that nothing that Pyle, Westland, N. Bethesda, Tilden or any of the W school MS offerings compare in any way. At Eastern you are writing IDRP and getting very high level of reading and writing (many of same readings/analysis done in AP Lang). and in TPMS math you are getting more math than just 1 year above grade level - some Alg II concepts in Alg 1 and much more math reasoning and derivation overall.

DP: I don't think that poster (congratulations to your DD) is saying it is the same thing ...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ok starting to hear some acceptances. All from lower performing middle schools and not kids with straight 99s.

?? Not sure if you intended this as tongue in cheek, but I'm the PP who posted a little while ago that child was accepted to both with 99 reading and 99 math, and home school is Westland, which is hardly low-performing, LOL.

So it looks to me that answering the survey questions probably is the key to differentiate the result? You are honestly the first acceptance I’ve heard so far that is Asian and in W clusters. Congratulations to your DC. Is he/she currently in the home ES or in a HGC?

PP here--Home ES, and we're not Asian so confused as to why that assumption was made...

I think because another PP had same scores and was rejected and self-identified as Asian, so people got confused.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Or the teacher was genuinely angry on behalf of her kids and frustrated by the fact that she can count on very few of the kids she dedicates countless hours to getting into MS magnets from now on. She's human for heaven's sakes.

And magnet kids are easy to discuss these things with, so she did. I agree, she's human and was frustrated, and wanted to commisserate with the kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Obviously we they screened the ENTIRE student popultion they found some really smart kids with parents who aren't obsessive about their kids' educations. I love that they removed the parent component! It means access for all, not just the savvy. I'm eager to see what it means for CES!

However, there is an obvious need to make sure the high achieving kids who didn't get into a special program are having their academic needs met, and, as I think we all know, that means clustering. This is good for kids and for teachers.

Agreed. People need to recognize that their white, UMC snowflake child isn't going to get a leg up just because they want snowflake to feel special 24/7. Equitable access to these programs is a *good* thing.

- a white UMC mom

White UMC mother here; DH and I are both educated professionals. DC got accepted to MS magnet this year and had they not had universal screening we wouldn't have even applied, because while we consider our child to be very smart, it wouldn't have crossed our mind to presume that our child would necessarily be head and shoulders above the rest. (We're from the Midwest, so maybe it's Midwestern humbleness and "Please-you-go-ahead-of-us-ness"at play here ). When DC got accepted and I saw the scores, I was surprised. So if our family--white and UMC and education-oriented--wouldn't have even bothered applying, undoubtedly there are many, many other families out there who have highly able children but benefit from universal screening and removing the need for parental savvy and parental aspirations.

Ockham's razor: the simplest explanation is usually the best explanation. They screened lots more people this year so not a surprise that the traditional results were different. This is exactly what universal testing was designed to accomplish--finding the best candidates who otherwise wouldn't have tried/known.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In years past, what percentage of students from Cold Spring would be admitted to Takoma or Eastern magnets?

30-50% per cent depending on the year. Now 3%.

If 50% were to get in, that would mean 25 kids (if there are two 5th grade classes at Cold Spring) or even more (if there are three sections). They only admit 100, and it is simply not accurate that a third to half of the class at TPMS came from Cold Spring. (DC finished at TPMS last year and is not at Blair).

Yes. This is true. My Barnsley kid now at Eastern was shocked that Cold Spring had so few acceptances - he noted that the kids from CS are generally thought of as some of the smartest in the class.

[Anonymous]

I don't understand why the CES/CHG parents are so shocked. Only a subset of the most savvy parents had their kids tested for CES/CHG. And in the past that same small subset applied for magnets.

Now that CES/CHG and magnets testing is on ALL students, the classrooms are going to look different.

My 99%er didn't even get into her HOME SCHOOL magnet with dedicated slots (TPMS)!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't understand why the CES/CHG parents are so shocked. Only a subset of the most savvy parents had their kids tested for CES/CHG. And in the past that same small subset applied for magnets.

Now that CES/CHG and magnets testing is on ALL students, the classrooms are going to look different.

My 99%er didn't even get into her HOME SCHOOL magnet with dedicated slots (TPMS)!

now that more kids are being tested, are the schools going to start taking steps to accommodate the 99%ers who didn't get into the CES?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't understand why the CES/CHG parents are so shocked. Only a subset of the most savvy parents had their kids tested for CES/CHG. And in the past that same small subset applied for magnets.

Now that CES/CHG and magnets testing is on ALL students, the classrooms are going to look different.

My 99%er didn't even get into her HOME SCHOOL magnet with dedicated slots (TPMS)!

now that more kids are being tested, are the schools going to start taking steps to accommodate the 99%ers who didn't get into the CES?

From what was posted above, apparently it's up to parents to somehow make that happen. So, in short, no.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For those that are shocked by difficulty in admission, doesn't this FAQ from MCPS cover a lot of it:

My child scores for the various criteria are in the 90+ percentiles, why did my child not get
selected?
This year, the process looked at all fifth grade elementary students in 80 elementary schools. This
changed our examination of student need for magnet programs to considering over 4,000 Grade 5
students – a sharp increase to the previous traditional parent application process which yielded a look
at fewer students, 700 to 800 applicants total.
This year’s process included looking at the Grade 5 report card, reading level, math enrichment access,
MAP-R and MAP-M, PARCC performance in reading and math, student questionnaire, student voice
and the outside assessment. An additional variable of looking at students through the lens of comparable
academic peer group within a school accessing enriched and acceleration instruction in core content
areas, was part of the process.
Your child, while high performing, has an academic peer group within her local school and doesn’t
present as an outlier within that group. We encourage you to work with your local middle school
principal for programming and grouping practices.

What a shame for the last sentence on this FAQ answer! It’s like it’s all your fault to be smart and work hard and can afford a W cluster house. Now wipe your own ass cos it’s none of my business any more. Shame on MCPS!

+1 That's really ridiculous.

+2. They encourage parents to 'work with middle school principal for grouping practices'? So now it's the parents' job to hound teachers to create 'programming and grouping' for their children?

That really doesn't make any sense whatsoever, especially given the fact that there is no clearly defined curriculum, very little information on existing grouping and programming, and, most importantly, no guarantees that anyone anywhere will take parents' suggestions seriously.

THIS - a million times this - I have NO CONTROL over whether there are "cohort" kids in his classes, whether the teachers are aware of his abilities, whether they provide additional opportunities. I DO know that there is NO "Advanced" Language Arts - they call the main Language Arts "Advanced English" and then there's 4 levels of ESOL and reading literacy below that. IF they really want to teach to a Cohort, they would have Advanced English I and II or Maybe just English, and Advanced English.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't understand why the CES/CHG parents are so shocked. Only a subset of the most savvy parents had their kids tested for CES/CHG. And in the past that same small subset applied for magnets.

Now that CES/CHG and magnets testing is on ALL students, the classrooms are going to look different.

My 99%er didn't even get into her HOME SCHOOL magnet with dedicated slots (TPMS)!

now that more kids are being tested, are the schools going to start taking steps to accommodate the 99%ers who didn't get into the CES?

Those kids have been there, at their home schools, all along. It's just that nobody knew, because they didn't apply/weren't tested.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The curriculum at the home middle schools is very different than at the magnets. I have a child currently in 8th at a magnet and one in 6th at our home middle school and the differences I see have little to do with the peer group and much to do with the expectations and curriculum in the magnet subjects.

This - my Eastern child is incensed by this - he says, and rightly so, that if there are that many qualified kids, then there should be more slots for them. He's also more than a little concerned that there were no essays this year - he says with all the writing at Eastern how do they know whether those kids are going to be up to the task, or are they going to water down the curriculum? I told him that the kids will self-select, and they are all more than capable of doing the work - in fact there are probably several hundred more kids that are more than capable of doing this work and being told that they are not going to get the opportunity.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't understand why the CES/CHG parents are so shocked. Only a subset of the most savvy parents had their kids tested for CES/CHG. And in the past that same small subset applied for magnets.

Now that CES/CHG and magnets testing is on ALL students, the classrooms are going to look different.

My 99%er didn't even get into her HOME SCHOOL magnet with dedicated slots (TPMS)!

now that more kids are being tested, are the schools going to start taking steps to accommodate the 99%ers who didn't get into the CES?

Those kids have been there, at their home schools, all along. It's just that nobody knew, because they didn't apply/weren't tested.

Do teachers have access to State test scores? I think administrators do, but use that info to SPLIT the advance kids, as opposed to cluster them, which is INSANE. In any case, I think the smart kids are all "known," but the only intervention is designed to help the low achieving kids, not the high achievers. Ouch.