Is CogAT gone forever?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The lottery brought in a lot of undeserving kids into the middle school magnet programs at the expense of kids who were at the 99th percentile in MAP. Kids who would have presumably also done very well in COGAT. The lottery has diluted the quality of the magnet under the guise of diversity. Bring COGAT or some other objective testing method back.

Not necessarily. MAP tests content knowledge, not intelligence.

Same with CogAT. Very easy to prep for like SATs.

Who in their right mind preps for COGAT? We didn't even know what it is.

All I know is a third of TJ's class a few years back came from one single prep center and in years past, there were several well-known tutors locally for CogAT. I think the going rate was $150/hour. I know just taking a few practice tests helped my child improve their score by over 20%.

I looked, but couldn't find that news article? If you're not lying, please provide the link.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The lottery brought in a lot of undeserving kids into the middle school magnet programs at the expense of kids who were at the 99th percentile in MAP. Kids who would have presumably also done very well in COGAT. The lottery has diluted the quality of the magnet under the guise of diversity. Bring COGAT or some other objective testing method back.

Not necessarily. MAP tests content knowledge, not intelligence.

Same with CogAT. Very easy to prep for like SATs.

If it's so easy to prep for SAT's, why aren't the kids all 1500+?

I would think MCPS would do that themselves to get parents off their backs and give graduates a better chance at college?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The lottery brought in a lot of undeserving kids into the middle school magnet programs at the expense of kids who were at the 99th percentile in MAP. Kids who would have presumably also done very well in COGAT. The lottery has diluted the quality of the magnet under the guise of diversity. Bring COGAT or some other objective testing method back.

Not necessarily. MAP tests content knowledge, not intelligence.

Same with CogAT. Very easy to prep for like SATs.

If it's so easy to prep for SAT's, why aren't the kids all 1500+?

I would think MCPS would do that themselves to get parents off their backs and give graduates a better chance at college?

It's in fact not hard to prep for SATs; just get a few prep books and do the practice tests.

However, you must remember that 35.79% of MCPS's high school students are chronically absent. They do not cut schools to prep for SATs.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rd8Gst_V-f5Wv8823R2jienupYqW0rYC/view

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The lottery brought in a lot of undeserving kids into the middle school magnet programs at the expense of kids who were at the 99th percentile in MAP. Kids who would have presumably also done very well in COGAT. The lottery has diluted the quality of the magnet under the guise of diversity. Bring COGAT or some other objective testing method back.

Not necessarily. MAP tests content knowledge, not intelligence.

Same with CogAT. Very easy to prep for like SATs.

If it's so easy to prep for SAT's, why aren't the kids all 1500+?

I would think MCPS would do that themselves to get parents off their backs and give graduates a better chance at college?

This. MCPS can close the achievement gap by offering SAT prep to all kids and declare success!

Guess what? It's not that easy. Not everyone even wants to put in the time and effort needed.

[Anonymous]

Love the tongue-in-cheek, above.

It's easy for families with considerable means to encourage/require their children to prep for SATs. It's not a guarantee, but you do see plenty of 1400+, if not 1500+, among families that do so.

As with many things, it's possible for families not of considerable means to do so, but it is considerably more difficult, and the family focus on education isn't always there to make such pursuit at all likely.

Does this mean outside enrichment/prep is bad? No, far from it. It just means that we shouldn't be taking scores on more preppable tests as clear indicators of a student's ability (especially in the absence of or to the diminishment of other factors), but, rather, as indicators of achievement and exposure. And that's not to say that no students of high ability would score highly on achievement/exposure-dominant testing; just not all high ability kids would, and we don't want to leave those kids with their needs unaddressed.

I'd argue that such indicators are better suited to decisions about acceleration, while less preppable/"gameable" indicators are better suited to decisions about enrichment programs. It's almost certain that blended heuristics utilizing both measures of capability and measures of achievement/exposure would be best, perhaps even using different heuristics for the different approaches. This would be more likely to meet actual student needs, and I hope it would better identify those needs across varying populations.

That gatekeeping comment from before sticks with me. While whichever selection paradigm is chosen becomes a de facto gate, it occurs to me that overreliance on more gameable metrics in MCPS decisions introduces a gate effectively managed, to a great extent, by those with means, even if not in a particularly organized/cabalistic [non-religious/culturally specific definition, there] fashion.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Love the tongue-in-cheek, above.

It's easy for families with considerable means to encourage/require their children to prep for SATs. It's not a guarantee, but you do see plenty of 1400+, if not 1500+, among families that do so.

As with many things, it's possible for families not of considerable means to do so, but it is considerably more difficult, and the family focus on education isn't always there to make such pursuit at all likely.

Does this mean outside enrichment/prep is bad? No, far from it. It just means that we shouldn't be taking scores on more preppable tests as clear indicators of a student's ability (especially in the absence of or to the diminishment of other factors), but, rather, as indicators of achievement and exposure. And that's not to say that no students of high ability would score highly on achievement/exposure-dominant testing; just not all high ability kids would, and we don't want to leave those kids with their needs unaddressed.

I'd argue that such indicators are better suited to decisions about acceleration, while less preppable/"gameable" indicators are better suited to decisions about enrichment programs. It's almost certain that blended heuristics utilizing both measures of capability and measures of achievement/exposure would be best, perhaps even using different heuristics for the different approaches. This would be more likely to meet actual student needs, and I hope it would better identify those needs across varying populations.

That gatekeeping comment from before sticks with me. While whichever selection paradigm is chosen becomes a de facto gate, it occurs to me that overreliance on more gameable metrics in MCPS decisions introduces a gate effectively managed, to a great extent, by those with means, even if not in a particularly organized/cabalistic [non-religious/culturally specific definition, there] fashion.

A large number of MCPS students are chronically absent. They don't care about their education. They don't care a bit about preparing for whatever tests you have in mind.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The lottery brought in a lot of undeserving kids into the middle school magnet programs at the expense of kids who were at the 99th percentile in MAP. Kids who would have presumably also done very well in COGAT. The lottery has diluted the quality of the magnet under the guise of diversity. Bring COGAT or some other objective testing method back.

Not necessarily. MAP tests content knowledge, not intelligence.

Same with CogAT. Very easy to prep for like SATs.

Who in their right mind preps for COGAT? We didn't even know what it is.

All I know is a third of TJ's class a few years back came from one single prep center and in years past, there were several well-known tutors locally for CogAT. I think the going rate was $150/hour. I know just taking a few practice tests helped my child improve their score by over 20%.

I looked, but couldn't find that news article? If you're not lying, please provide the link.

Curie took an ad out in the paper listing the names of their students who were accepted a few years ago. It was around 30% of the entering class. This has been well covered.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Love the tongue-in-cheek, above.

It's easy for families with considerable means to encourage/require their children to prep for SATs. It's not a guarantee, but you do see plenty of 1400+, if not 1500+, among families that do so.

As with many things, it's possible for families not of considerable means to do so, but it is considerably more difficult, and the family focus on education isn't always there to make such pursuit at all likely.

Does this mean outside enrichment/prep is bad? No, far from it. It just means that we shouldn't be taking scores on more preppable tests as clear indicators of a student's ability (especially in the absence of or to the diminishment of other factors), but, rather, as indicators of achievement and exposure. And that's not to say that no students of high ability would score highly on achievement/exposure-dominant testing; just not all high ability kids would, and we don't want to leave those kids with their needs unaddressed.

I'd argue that such indicators are better suited to decisions about acceleration, while less preppable/"gameable" indicators are better suited to decisions about enrichment programs. It's almost certain that blended heuristics utilizing both measures of capability and measures of achievement/exposure would be best, perhaps even using different heuristics for the different approaches. This would be more likely to meet actual student needs, and I hope it would better identify those needs across varying populations.

That gatekeeping comment from before sticks with me. While whichever selection paradigm is chosen becomes a de facto gate, it occurs to me that overreliance on more gameable metrics in MCPS decisions introduces a gate effectively managed, to a great extent, by those with means, even if not in a particularly organized/cabalistic [non-religious/culturally specific definition, there] fashion.

+1 Just because you can prep for gatekeeper tests like cogat, sat, etc, doesn't mean people know how to do it well. UMCs are more likely to know how to test prep well and will push their kids hard to do so. Then they will try to hoard acceleration/enrichment opportunities, while trying to close the gate to URMs, labeling them as "unworthy" because their scores were not as high. I think the lottery as it stands seems reasonable, though they should double the number of seats available.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Love the tongue-in-cheek, above.

It's easy for families with considerable means to encourage/require their children to prep for SATs. It's not a guarantee, but you do see plenty of 1400+, if not 1500+, among families that do so.

As with many things, it's possible for families not of considerable means to do so, but it is considerably more difficult, and the family focus on education isn't always there to make such pursuit at all likely.

Does this mean outside enrichment/prep is bad? No, far from it. It just means that we shouldn't be taking scores on more preppable tests as clear indicators of a student's ability (especially in the absence of or to the diminishment of other factors), but, rather, as indicators of achievement and exposure. And that's not to say that no students of high ability would score highly on achievement/exposure-dominant testing; just not all high ability kids would, and we don't want to leave those kids with their needs unaddressed.

I'd argue that such indicators are better suited to decisions about acceleration, while less preppable/"gameable" indicators are better suited to decisions about enrichment programs. It's almost certain that blended heuristics utilizing both measures of capability and measures of achievement/exposure would be best, perhaps even using different heuristics for the different approaches. This would be more likely to meet actual student needs, and I hope it would better identify those needs across varying populations.

That gatekeeping comment from before sticks with me. While whichever selection paradigm is chosen becomes a de facto gate, it occurs to me that overreliance on more gameable metrics in MCPS decisions introduces a gate effectively managed, to a great extent, by those with means, even if not in a particularly organized/cabalistic [non-religious/culturally specific definition, there] fashion.

+1 Just because you can prep for gatekeeper tests like cogat, sat, etc, doesn't mean people know how to do it well. UMCs are more likely to know how to test prep well and will push their kids hard to do so. Then they will try to hoard acceleration/enrichment opportunities, while trying to close the gate to URMs, labeling them as "unworthy" because their scores were not as high. I think the lottery as it stands seems reasonable, though they should double the number of seats available.

Yes, many kids could easily do magnet-level work. It's more about who is interested than anything. The artificial scarcity they have currently is bizarre and unfortunate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Love the tongue-in-cheek, above.

It's easy for families with considerable means to encourage/require their children to prep for SATs. It's not a guarantee, but you do see plenty of 1400+, if not 1500+, among families that do so.

As with many things, it's possible for families not of considerable means to do so, but it is considerably more difficult, and the family focus on education isn't always there to make such pursuit at all likely.

Does this mean outside enrichment/prep is bad? No, far from it. It just means that we shouldn't be taking scores on more preppable tests as clear indicators of a student's ability (especially in the absence of or to the diminishment of other factors), but, rather, as indicators of achievement and exposure. And that's not to say that no students of high ability would score highly on achievement/exposure-dominant testing; just not all high ability kids would, and we don't want to leave those kids with their needs unaddressed.

I'd argue that such indicators are better suited to decisions about acceleration, while less preppable/"gameable" indicators are better suited to decisions about enrichment programs. It's almost certain that blended heuristics utilizing both measures of capability and measures of achievement/exposure would be best, perhaps even using different heuristics for the different approaches. This would be more likely to meet actual student needs, and I hope it would better identify those needs across varying populations.

That gatekeeping comment from before sticks with me. While whichever selection paradigm is chosen becomes a de facto gate, it occurs to me that overreliance on more gameable metrics in MCPS decisions introduces a gate effectively managed, to a great extent, by those with means, even if not in a particularly organized/cabalistic [non-religious/culturally specific definition, there] fashion.

+1 Just because you can prep for gatekeeper tests like cogat, sat, etc, doesn't mean people know how to do it well. UMCs are more likely to know how to test prep well and will push their kids hard to do so. Then they will try to hoard acceleration/enrichment opportunities, while trying to close the gate to URMs, labeling them as "unworthy" because their scores were not as high. I think the lottery as it stands seems reasonable, though they should double the number of seats available.

Yes, many kids could easily do magnet-level work. It's more about who is interested than anything. The artificial scarcity they have currently is bizarre and unfortunate.

+1. Also, it is not the UMCs trying to hoard/close the gate on URMs. I’d love to see data on URMs who were offered spots from the lottery and turned the opportunity down. I suspect the number is high. You can’t tell people what to want or value, or whether switching schools or adding a commute is worth it. At the end of the day, they literally identify all the students who “need enrichment” in this process. So then why not meet their identified needs at all the local schools?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The lottery brought in a lot of undeserving kids into the middle school magnet programs at the expense of kids who were at the 99th percentile in MAP. Kids who would have presumably also done very well in COGAT. The lottery has diluted the quality of the magnet under the guise of diversity. Bring COGAT or some other objective testing method back.

Not necessarily. MAP tests content knowledge, not intelligence.

Same with CogAT. Very easy to prep for like SATs.

Who in their right mind preps for COGAT? We didn't even know what it is.

All I know is a third of TJ's class a few years back came from one single prep center and in years past, there were several well-known tutors locally for CogAT. I think the going rate was $150/hour. I know just taking a few practice tests helped my child improve their score by over 20%.

I looked, but couldn't find that news article? If you're not lying, please provide the link.

Curie took an ad out in the paper listing the names of their students who were accepted a few years ago. It was around 30% of the entering class. This has been well covered.

I remember a werbsite from a few years ago that listed the names of the students they got over the hurdle. It was a big selling point. Dr. somebody?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Love the tongue-in-cheek, above.

It's easy for families with considerable means to encourage/require their children to prep for SATs. It's not a guarantee, but you do see plenty of 1400+, if not 1500+, among families that do so.

As with many things, it's possible for families not of considerable means to do so, but it is considerably more difficult, and the family focus on education isn't always there to make such pursuit at all likely.

Does this mean outside enrichment/prep is bad? No, far from it. It just means that we shouldn't be taking scores on more preppable tests as clear indicators of a student's ability (especially in the absence of or to the diminishment of other factors), but, rather, as indicators of achievement and exposure. And that's not to say that no students of high ability would score highly on achievement/exposure-dominant testing; just not all high ability kids would, and we don't want to leave those kids with their needs unaddressed.

I'd argue that such indicators are better suited to decisions about acceleration, while less preppable/"gameable" indicators are better suited to decisions about enrichment programs. It's almost certain that blended heuristics utilizing both measures of capability and measures of achievement/exposure would be best, perhaps even using different heuristics for the different approaches. This would be more likely to meet actual student needs, and I hope it would better identify those needs across varying populations.

That gatekeeping comment from before sticks with me. While whichever selection paradigm is chosen becomes a de facto gate, it occurs to me that overreliance on more gameable metrics in MCPS decisions introduces a gate effectively managed, to a great extent, by those with means, even if not in a particularly organized/cabalistic [non-religious/culturally specific definition, there] fashion.

+1 Just because you can prep for gatekeeper tests like cogat, sat, etc, doesn't mean people know how to do it well. UMCs are more likely to know how to test prep well and will push their kids hard to do so. Then they will try to hoard acceleration/enrichment opportunities, while trying to close the gate to URMs, labeling them as "unworthy" because their scores were not as high. I think the lottery as it stands seems reasonable, though they should double the number of seats available.

Yes, many kids could easily do magnet-level work. It's more about who is interested than anything. The artificial scarcity they've had since at least the 90s is bizarre and unfortunate.

Not that I thought you weren't meaning that, but fixed it for the benefit of others.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The lottery brought in a lot of undeserving kids into the middle school magnet programs at the expense of kids who were at the 99th percentile in MAP. Kids who would have presumably also done very well in COGAT. The lottery has diluted the quality of the magnet under the guise of diversity. Bring COGAT or some other objective testing method back.

Not necessarily. MAP tests content knowledge, not intelligence.

Same with CogAT. Very easy to prep for like SATs.

Who in their right mind preps for COGAT? We didn't even know what it is.

All I know is a third of TJ's class a few years back came from one single prep center and in years past, there were several well-known tutors locally for CogAT. I think the going rate was $150/hour. I know just taking a few practice tests helped my child improve their score by over 20%.

I looked, but couldn't find that news article? If you're not lying, please provide the link.

Curie took an ad out in the paper listing the names of their students who were accepted a few years ago. It was around 30% of the entering class. This has been well covered.

I remember a werbsite from a few years ago that listed the names of the students they got over the hurdle. It was a big selling point. Dr. somebody?

This discussion seems pretty whacky, because ...

TJ did not use CogAT - they had their own test.

Also, any process that includes CogAT is way better than a process that does not. Why? It is an aptitude test, that even if you prep for it, the improvement is at the margins. It is unlike tests like SAT that measure achievement, and can be prepped for. Years ago there was a controversy when SAT was advertised as an aptitude test, but after it was shown that it can be prepped for college board dropped that claim. You can look up yourself, but here is a sample page that talks about the history of SAT: https://blog.prepscholar.com/what-does-sat-stand-for

If you claim that CogAT can be prepped for and the effect is not just marginal, please provide a link to a study. I am sure there has been research into the topic of measuring innate ability.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Love the tongue-in-cheek, above.

It's easy for families with considerable means to encourage/require their children to prep for SATs. It's not a guarantee, but you do see plenty of 1400+, if not 1500+, among families that do so.

As with many things, it's possible for families not of considerable means to do so, but it is considerably more difficult, and the family focus on education isn't always there to make such pursuit at all likely.

Does this mean outside enrichment/prep is bad? No, far from it. It just means that we shouldn't be taking scores on more preppable tests as clear indicators of a student's ability (especially in the absence of or to the diminishment of other factors), but, rather, as indicators of achievement and exposure. And that's not to say that no students of high ability would score highly on achievement/exposure-dominant testing; just not all high ability kids would, and we don't want to leave those kids with their needs unaddressed.

I'd argue that such indicators are better suited to decisions about acceleration, while less preppable/"gameable" indicators are better suited to decisions about enrichment programs. It's almost certain that blended heuristics utilizing both measures of capability and measures of achievement/exposure would be best, perhaps even using different heuristics for the different approaches. This would be more likely to meet actual student needs, and I hope it would better identify those needs across varying populations.

That gatekeeping comment from before sticks with me. While whichever selection paradigm is chosen becomes a de facto gate, it occurs to me that overreliance on more gameable metrics in MCPS decisions introduces a gate effectively managed, to a great extent, by those with means, even if not in a particularly organized/cabalistic [non-religious/culturally specific definition, there] fashion.

+1 Just because you can prep for gatekeeper tests like cogat, sat, etc, doesn't mean people know how to do it well. UMCs are more likely to know how to test prep well and will push their kids hard to do so. Then they will try to hoard acceleration/enrichment opportunities, while trying to close the gate to URMs, labeling them as "unworthy" because their scores were not as high. I think the lottery as it stands seems reasonable, though they should double the number of seats available.

Yes, many kids could easily do magnet-level work. It's more about who is interested than anything. The artificial scarcity they have currently is bizarre and unfortunate.

+1. Also, it is not the UMCs trying to hoard/close the gate on URMs. I’d love to see data on URMs who were offered spots from the lottery and turned the opportunity down. I suspect the number is high. You can’t tell people what to want or value, or whether switching schools or adding a commute is worth it. At the end of the day, they literally identify all the students who “need enrichment” in this process. So then why not meet their identified needs at all the local schools?

Except that, in the face of scarcity, UMCs and other demographic groups do effectively hoard by gaming achievement/exposure metrics more prevalently. This simply means non-gamers, which URMs are more prone to be than UMCs, have a lower overall chance of selection at an equivalent level of ability, whether they accept or not.

The prior, brief paradigm of leaving those with local cohorts at their local schools had some promise, but would have to have faithfully mirrored the magnet experience, which I don't think they really envisioned, much less achieved.

Also, despite larger cohorts expected at some schools, local numbers identified would vary more greatly than magnet-catchment wide (law of large numbers). This could mean either periodic over-resourcing at schools with expected cohorts (another kind of inequity) or whiplash there-one-year-gone-the-next staffing for those enriched local classes. There needs to be some flexibility in the paradigm to avoid such managerial hurdles that likely also would be disfavored by the teaching staff involved.

MCPS has made some moves in the AEI space, but there seems to be institutional opposition, with rollouts too slow, programs too incomplete, local implementations too varied and identification/selection too poorly conceived. They have not put enough in place to meet the overall need with consistency and fidelity.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The lottery brought in a lot of undeserving kids into the middle school magnet programs at the expense of kids who were at the 99th percentile in MAP. Kids who would have presumably also done very well in COGAT. The lottery has diluted the quality of the magnet under the guise of diversity. Bring COGAT or some other objective testing method back.

Not necessarily. MAP tests content knowledge, not intelligence.

Same with CogAT. Very easy to prep for like SATs.

Who in their right mind preps for COGAT? We didn't even know what it is.

All I know is a third of TJ's class a few years back came from one single prep center and in years past, there were several well-known tutors locally for CogAT. I think the going rate was $150/hour. I know just taking a few practice tests helped my child improve their score by over 20%.

I looked, but couldn't find that news article? If you're not lying, please provide the link.

Curie took an ad out in the paper listing the names of their students who were accepted a few years ago. It was around 30% of the entering class. This has been well covered.

I remember a werbsite from a few years ago that listed the names of the students they got over the hurdle. It was a big selling point. Dr. somebody?

Yes. It was a very targeted racial micro-aggression blog against the asian community. Very racist thread! Whomever posted that sounded like they worked for MCPS.