MCPS percentiles based on current school and not county or home school?
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Anonymous
The above comments were specifically in response to a PP arguing that it was good/right/intentional that MCPS admit UMC kids who attend high poverty schools to the magnet. And specifically saying that is not MCPS’s policy or desire. Whether this particular admission system will or won’t do so remains to be seen. It would appear based on its design as described in this thread that it might do so. But time will tell. |
Anonymous
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Last year, the new admission policy increased the percentage of white students in TPMS and Eastern MS magnet programs. MCPS didn’t release information on if the number of FARM students increased or not. This year, admission policy for all four MS magnet programs is guilded by this new policy, with the goal to limit Asian students admission by applying the cohort and differential percentages to most Asian immegrant families, who are concentrated in a few elementary and middle schools.
Asian immegrant families are easy target: they dont like to challenge authorities and are not familiar with laws in the US. MCPS needs to explain to the AA and Hispanic communities why white students benefitted the most from the reform. They could easily dismiss the protest from Asian American Families but they will have hard time to face AA and Hispanic communities. Magnet schools should be an opportunity for students who are true outliers, not social engineering. |
Anonymous
This is simply wrong, and in addition is inflammatory and claims that the county has intentions that it does not have. Top of page 4 states that invitations to attend application middle schools INCREASED this year to African Americans, Hispanics, and FARMS recipients. https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/uploadedFiles/departments/schoolchoice/Update%20Enrich%20Accelerate%20Prog%20Place%20Results.pdf You are spreading mean-spirited lies out of some kind of persecution complex. You don’t get to decide what a magnet “should be.” The entire county does. |
Anonymous
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Yeh, MCPS rules!
They make whatever rules to select whoever they want to select to reach their goal..
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Anonymous
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Check out Table B4 for TPMS
2016, 2017,2018 numbers of invited students White/37/48/53 Asian/67/53/43 Hispanic/<10/15/12 You decide whether "MCPS needs to explain to the AA and Hispanic communities why white students benefited the most from the reform." |
Anonymous
| The change in admission process was from 2017 to 2018. So the 67% to 53% change is not attributable to the change. That is just variation inherent in the prior process. With only 1 year of data, it’s impossible to tell what is a quirk of normal variation and what is a trend. Also the % of Asians in the “applicant pool” went down, suggesting that Asian students and families disproportionately applied to the programs in the past, so universal screening decreased their percentage of the total applicant pool. |
Anonymous
In my experience, white families tend to trust the schools and teachers and are terrified of getting labeled pushy. So if their child complains that school is slow, they just think, “Oh, well, school isn’t fun for anyone.” They see kids of academically focused parents go to the magnets and the soccer field conversation is about how they are these horrible pressure cookers with outrageous homework and how they would never do that and deny their children the fun of childhood. They place emphasis on sports and community. They are used to the system working for them and don’t have any reason to question if it is working for their child. This is in general, of course. But I see it all the time. The global application process is identifying many more white children because the kids are from relatively high SES, have all of those advantages, and are as a result performing well in school... but their parents didn’t apply before. But once they are accepted, the parents sometimes have a change of heart, go to the open house, and decide to try it. I really think that is a big reason why the accepted white population has soared under the new system. |
Anonymous
I always wonder what people mean, when they use this phrase. |
Anonymous
+1 I think I shared this in another of our many threads on the magnets, but I'm a highly educated professional, able to give my kids a lot of enrichment and support, and would likely not have applied under the previous system. Because I'm acutely aware of the ways in which my child might *appear* gifted but really just be lucky enough to have a stable home life, high quality preK, and ongoing enrichment, I would not have assumed my child was "HGC material." It was only after the InView tests in 2nd that I started to consider it, and then we were in a pilot zone for the elementary level magnet roll out last year. At any rate, what PP says here rings true for me based on my own experience as a parent, at least with the HGC/CES program. |
Anonymous
| To separate the impact of universal screening from local impact, let’s wait for one more year. The CES students are already selected under universal screening and get enriched classes. They technically should have significantly much higher chances to get into humanity magnet. |
Anonymous
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I completely agree with universal screening. Several parents have said that they didn't even know their kid was that smart, so they wouldn't have applied under the old system, and ESOL parents often did not understand or know about the process at all. However, the next step of instituting the "cohort" thing, where lower-level students may be chosen due to there being enough kids left over, is silly. Not to mention, the whole point of the CES was to give an enriched educational opportunity to the outliers at their home schools, so the cohort rules penalize them for doing so now that they've been homogenized within their CES classes to create new cohorts, leaving those who stayed behind, even though they had an objectively easier curriculum (the very basis of the CES) as being more likely to be selected as outliers for middle school. (Our 4th grade CES teacher specifically said that an "A" on the report card means meeting the CES-level advanced curriculum, and it is harder to get an A in the CES than in the regular classes. This is not taken into account in the magnet screening at all.)
I'd propose that, after the universal screening and CogAt, each ES can send X students to fill the TPMS and Eastern seats (the same for Clemente and MLK upcounty), the same X TPMS and Eastern local seats are reserved (not the 25 current seats reserved at TPMS or the 10 or so at Eastern). Those top X students (by local ES, not CES) are invited, the next 2 are waitlisted on a school-by-school basis (one kid at school declined, kid X+1 gets invited). That would encourage desegregation, as people who think their child may be just below the cutoff may move to areas they think would be less competitive. It would also pull the top talent from all over the county, which is similar to what they did with the current group of CES 5th graders this year, who were identified as high-performing outliers by their teachers. This proposal removes teacher bias (which was one of the county's objectives), still rewards the top students at each school, provides universal screening, pulls top talent from every area in the county regardless of SES (to presumably get a larger racial mix), and does not penalize those who attended a CES for 4th and 5th grades. It also does not overly reward those who are local to the magnet schools, as they still get to send their own top X students. In particular, PBES and ESS, which are both local TPMS schools, would have equal numbers entering TPMS, rather than the local class basically being just the PBES CES group, as it is this year now that the first PBES-local CES is going to middle school. |
Anonymous
The poster is a wackjob who thinks the county is out to get them. As you stated, there is no evidence that supports their claims. The county has made an effort to enrich more students than ever but especially ones who would benefit most with the changes to these systems. |
Anonymous
Agree. I think this is something that needs to be fixed. |
Anonymous
Can someone provide a link where it shows this? Sorry if it’s already been posted. Up until now it has been that children are compared based on home middle school, regardless of whether they went to a CES or not. I don’t see where it changed. |
Anonymous
https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/uploadedFiles/curriculum/specialprograms/middle/Magnet%20FAQs%202019(7).pdf See #3, which changed on January 23, after the initial FAQ had been posted before the letters were mailed over a week before that. "3. What do the MCPS percentiles mean? How are MCPS percentiles determined? National norms are designed to compare and rank test takers in relation to one another based on those who took the test nationally. Local norms are designed to compare and rank test takers in relation to one another based on those who took the test locally – within MCPS. Local norming provides information about students in relation to their academic peer groups in MCPS. MCPS CogAT percentiles are locally normed percentiles established based on the three sections of the CogAT. 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. Additionally, the current draft of Gifted and Talented Definitions from the Maryland State Department of Education includes the use of local norms as part of its gifted and talented identification process. The socioeconomic status of elementary schools was used to determine the locally normed score on the CogAT (MCPS Percentiles). In establishing MCPS Percentiles, 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." That strongly suggests that students were compared based on their current school, not home school. Also, it looks at the school's poverty impact, not whether an individual student's family is poor or not. When asked, the field office was unable to confirm which numbers were used, but also was unable to answer how much of a difference it would have made. However, if the weighting would make ANY difference (and it must, otherwise why bother), it creates inherent inequities in how CES vs. non-CES students are treated for any CES student attending a school in a different poverty band (minimal, moderate, high) than their home school. MCPS has made clear that their only way of determining schools "impacted by poverty" is the FARMS rate. A student at a local ES with an 80% FARMS rate would be weighted higher than a student from the same neighborhood attending a CES at a school that has a 50% FARMS rate. Similarly, a student at a local ES with an 50% FARMS rate would be weighted lower than a student from the same neighborhood attending a CES at a school that has a 80% FARMS rate. It cuts both ways, but it certainly cuts. |