Parents making "pact not to pursue CES & get more enrichment @ home school...anyone pulled this off?

[Anonymous]

The race that is totally complicit against Asians are Whites.

Blacks and Hispanics are not there in sufficient numbers to displace Asian-Americans.

Asian-Americans are taking the seats of White students through their merit.

Unfortunately, in the guise of blaming affirmative action, White Republicans are playing the 'divide and rule' game to create a divide among minorities.

Anyhow, the stupidity of MCPS can be blamed on two groups of people - White Republicans and Black progressives in position of power (BOE, Council, MCPS).

Asian-Americans are quite aware of it and one way or the other will not be getting involved and look out for their own kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm 99% sure I know what school you are talking about and they do have ELC. The school is already offering the maximum availalbe outside the CES, and MCPS is going to identify some number of kids from that school no matter what you say or do.

So, by all means hold your child out of the lottery if you feel doing so is a better fit for your values, but you will not get any more enrichment as a result because it's already at the maximum setting possible.

How would you know the school from OP’s description? Could be a lot of schools, and she said they still use benchmark, so sounds like enriched benchmark and not ELC

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm 99% sure I know what school you are talking about and they do have ELC. The school is already offering the maximum availalbe outside the CES, and MCPS is going to identify some number of kids from that school no matter what you say or do.

So, by all means hold your child out of the lottery if you feel doing so is a better fit for your values, but you will not get any more enrichment as a result because it's already at the maximum setting possible.

How would you know the school from OP’s description? Could be a lot of schools, and she said they still use benchmark, so sounds like enriched benchmark and not ELC

There are only a handful of schools with only about 75 kids per grade. Of those, even fewer are Focus Schools. Of THOSE, not that many have a swathe of genuinely high earning families. I have two kids at the school in question, one of whom went thorugh the ELC program during the second year that it was offered.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:LOL! The reality is that the largest group that will be shat upon by MCPS in the magnet selection will be Asian-Americans. They have the most to lose because college and jobs are stacked against their children. Magnet or enriched education is a necessity for them for college admissions, not just a "good to have". If the magnet education is not available to their children, they will do their best to enrich by themselves because they are not lacking in education themselves. They are also likely to spend on education by cutting corners on every other aspect of their life because it is a swim or sink scenario for them. They are also likely to have least amount of faith on MCPS or any talk of "equity" because they know that they are targeted. So, it is hard to get them to "speak up" against the administration as they don't want any retaliatory action against their kids. They have learned to bite their tongue and just work harder. Anyways, it is nice of OP to think of the whole community and I wish her best of luck.

Also, "brain drain" is a lot better than "brain in the drain".

I'm Asian, and this is all true. It's weird that after spending my childhood in a European country, and never ever feeling targeted in any way, I come here to what I supposed was an even more enlightened country, and feel that our last names and looks shunt my children from the yes pile to the maybe pile. My husband was assaulted by a screaming woman in our neighborhood, who threw her dog poo bag at him and called him names. In Bethesda.

So weird.

I can't tell what you mean by "yes pile" or "maybe pile." Are you talking about magnet admissions? Or college admissions? Because the thing working against you in magnet admissions isn't your race, it's your zip code. It's harder to get in from the highest income parts of the county.

I'm sorry you faced anti-Asian violence in your Bethesda community. That's truly awful. I hope your husband and kids are able to feel safe.

Oh, that’s not true at all.

It has been well-documented that Asians are discriminated against in college admissions. And in the workplace. Try getting out of your bubble.

Yes, you are right. But not magnet admissions- those are race blind at the moment.

[Anonymous]

I am curious does kid with disabilities (like autism or like with above grade score) get a little bit more consideration for magnet or CES or whatever program due to their disabilities?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am curious does kid with disabilities (like autism or like with above grade score) get a little bit more consideration for magnet or CES or whatever program due to their disabilities?

The public information says that IEPs are considered. I don't know what that means in practice, but it does appear that a child with some type of learning differences would have those considered as part of their entire package, to their benefit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DD (3rd grade) attends a small FOCUS ES that is SES diverse, but for all of the reasons we know, usually sends almost exclusively kids from $100k HHI+ families to the CES, when they make up <25% of our school’s student body. Because of all of these factors, our school's 4th and 5th grade tend to skew even poorer and less-resourced. This has been a little less true this year, thanks to the randomness of the lottery, which I think is good. It also means less of a “brain drain” from our school (ugh, so to speak).

Both my kid's MAP math and reading scores are slightly above the 99th percentile. At her ES, they've put her into a pull-out class for math, 3 days/week, for ~8-10 students out of the ~75 in the grade. She really likes it, and it’s awesome, because she’s otherwise starting to find school “boring” and I’d love for her to have more enrichment. Of course, I’d love that for all students, but I digress.

At least one of the parents of another 99th-percentile-ish kid would far prefer her kid to stay in our school, though that kid definitely needs enrichment as well. I am also close enough with two of the other families that have kids that will almost certainly be in the CES lottery pool, and probably would have been selected even in pre-COVID years. I think they would also lean towards keeping their kids out of the pool IF we had something more to offer them at our home school. Given the lottery standards, there are surely another 10 kids, if not more, that could be in the pool, too, and I know some of them as well. That means... there's a cohort here! So we should have more enrichment?

The question is… what can be negotiated with the principal? If I can get several families to commit to staying at our school (5 families would represent as many as half of the very highest scoring kids), would that provide us any leverage? E.g., we take our kids out of the running for CES, so you’ll keep our high-scoring students, and in return, you provide us with additional enrichment?

Our school already has compacted math, and some sort of enhanced literacy in 4th/5th, but I think it's still Benchmark-based and not what I am reading might be termed "ELC". Is even something like ELC possible to add on? I know this isn't a fully-answerable question, just trying to brainstorm. Principal is generally a flexible, open-minded person and might be willing to make something happen— IF it’s possible and IF there’s something in it for them.

Any thoughts? Anyone do anything like this, or know of someone who has? Thanks so much.

Every year some parents posts a scam like this to get people to drop out in the hope of increasing their kid's chances.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The race that is totally complicit against Asians are Whites.

Blacks and Hispanics are not there in sufficient numbers to displace Asian-Americans.

Asian-Americans are taking the seats of White students through their merit.

Unfortunately, in the guise of blaming affirmative action, White Republicans are playing the 'divide and rule' game to create a divide among minorities.

Anyhow, the stupidity of MCPS can be blamed on two groups of people - White Republicans and Black progressives in position of power (BOE, Council, MCPS).

Asian-Americans are quite aware of it and one way or the other will not be getting involved and look out for their own kids.

If by merit you mean test prep sure...

[Anonymous]

Every year some parents posts a scam like this to get people to drop out in the hope of increasing their kid's chances.

I don't think OP is scamming, but I do think she misunderstands what animates MCPS administrators and therefore overestimates her leverage.

Administrators come under fire when there are massive gaps in outcomes for kids in a school, particularly along race/ethnicity/income lines. So, a school like the one OP is describing, where race and income correlate very closely (UMC white/Asian families in SFHs, working class families of color in MFDs), is going to be a school where the administration is under fire to "close the gap" because the racial gap looks terrible, even if we know that the racial gap is also partially an income gap.

So, keeping that in mind, let's look at a thought experiment.

Let's say there are 75 kids in the grade. Of those, 10 would do well at the CES but only 5 are going to go. 5 of the kids are white/Asian and 5 are Black/Latino. All are great test takers, good study skills, etc.

If all of the white or Asian kids don't participate in the lottery, then the only kids going to the CES are going to be the Black or Latino kids. That's great for them, and great for the CES! It sucks for the elementary school administrator, who just lost the best test-taking kids of color in that entire grade, which is going to make the racial achievement gap look even worse on paper.

So, OP's offer to "keep her kid in the school" doesn't actually align with the incentives for the administrator, and therefore isn't worth much in the way of leverage.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't understand the skepticism on this thread. I've seen good things happen when parents organize. It's easy to ignore one parent but more difficult to ignore a well organized group of parents of high achieving children especially if these same parents are active in the school.

NP

We have tried. A groups of parents worked hard to advocate at our ES a few years ago and got nothing. It’s incredibly frustrating.

So now I worry about my own kid and spend my time and energy and resources on her.

They only care about the gap and the only way to close it is to bring everyone else down.

OP's child is getting thrice-weekly pull out instruction in accelerated math in 3rd grade, and is at a school that offers a differentated ELC curriculum for 4th and 5th, That's not exactly ignoring the advanced/gifted kids. It may not be everything one would want, but it's not nothing.

That's far more than we go. We never got any pull outs or differentiation. We only got compacted math in 4/5 and that was slow.

[Anonymous]

OP, there are so many ways this could backfire. I don't think all the families in your "cohort" would necessarily stick to your plan. And I don't think the principal would think very highly of your bargain.

Worst, I'm pretty sure that your identification of a "cohort" is missing some kids. What a horrible feeling it would be to be the parent of an unidentified bright kid who accidentally found out that one parent had "rounded up" a bunch of smart kids who were agreeing to stay with the less-smart kids ... and her family wasn't included on your list.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:LOL! The reality is that the largest group that will be shat upon by MCPS in the magnet selection will be Asian-Americans. They have the most to lose because college and jobs are stacked against their children. Magnet or enriched education is a necessity for them for college admissions, not just a "good to have". If the magnet education is not available to their children, they will do their best to enrich by themselves because they are not lacking in education themselves. They are also likely to spend on education by cutting corners on every other aspect of their life because it is a swim or sink scenario for them. They are also likely to have least amount of faith on MCPS or any talk of "equity" because they know that they are targeted. So, it is hard to get them to "speak up" against the administration as they don't want any retaliatory action against their kids. They have learned to bite their tongue and just work harder. Anyways, it is nice of OP to think of the whole community and I wish her best of luck.

Also, "brain drain" is a lot better than "brain in the drain".

I'm Asian, and this is all true. It's weird that after spending my childhood in a European country, and never ever feeling targeted in any way, I come here to what I supposed was an even more enlightened country, and feel that our last names and looks shunt my children from the yes pile to the maybe pile. My husband was assaulted by a screaming woman in our neighborhood, who threw her dog poo bag at him and called him names. In Bethesda.

So weird.

I can't tell what you mean by "yes pile" or "maybe pile." Are you talking about magnet admissions? Or college admissions? Because the thing working against you in magnet admissions isn't your race, it's your zip code. It's harder to get in from the highest income parts of the county.

I'm sorry you faced anti-Asian violence in your Bethesda community. That's truly awful. I hope your husband and kids are able to feel safe.

Oh, that’s not true at all.

It has been well-documented that Asians are discriminated against in college admissions. And in the workplace. Try getting out of your bubble.

Yes, you are right. But not magnet admissions- those are race blind at the moment.

LOL. Creating the largest pool of candidates by lowering standards is a way to deny high achieving Asian-Americans spots in the magnet program.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm 99% sure I know what school you are talking about and they do have ELC. The school is already offering the maximum availalbe outside the CES, and MCPS is going to identify some number of kids from that school no matter what you say or do.

So, by all means hold your child out of the lottery if you feel doing so is a better fit for your values, but you will not get any more enrichment as a result because it's already at the maximum setting possible.

+1

[Anonymous]

I don't think your idea will work at all.

When parents want to be organized officially for something, you get a place on the table only if you come through PTA. PTA goals are for all students. The maximum you will be able to do is sit on the curriculum committees etc. Also, the Principal will show you all the enrichment that the district is already giving and so there is no need for further enrichment. No Principal will agree that there is anything lacking in the school offerings.

Finally, how do you determine who should be in your group? Top 3% of the school? Top 5% of the school? What makes you think that the other parents will agree to your categorization of who is worth to be in your "group"?

[Anonymous]