Anyone know what the Middle School Magnet Process will be like this year?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Does cohort at the local MS matter as it used to? Or are they basically taking everyone who gets As in Math or English plus 85% on the appropriate MAP test and putting their names in a hat?

Last year, cohort was not considered. We don't know what will happen this year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Thanks to the PP for posting that admissions data; I hadn't seen it before.

The "considered" number appears to be the entire population (11,466 3rd graders for CES, ~12,000 5th graders between the upcounty and downcounty magnets).

What really strikes me is how few middle school magnet spots there are, which I knew but hadn't seen spelled out quite this way before. 6% of 3rd graders were placed in the CES, but only ~3% in the middle school magnets (~1.5% each at the math and humanities magnets in each part of the county). Those spots were filled through a lottery of the top 15% (roughly) at each magnet, meaning that only 1 out of 10 kids that the school system identified as qualified through their process this year were placed in a given magnet. If the county says that the other 9 out of 10 kids can be served at their local schools, why even bother having the magnet for that small percentage of kids?

I agree with you, and I think these magnet programs will die on the vine (and that is what MCPS wants). I've never understood why there weren't enough spots in the MS magnets to accommodate all kids in the ES magnets. For whatever reason, the MS magnet spots have always been treated as a scarce resource. When they did the pilot for universal testing, they found that even more kids qualified for enrichment than previously thought. They decided to expand enrichment at individual schools, rather than expand spots at Eastern/Takoma/Clemente/MLK. It is likely both because of space and equity issues.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Thanks to the PP for posting that admissions data; I hadn't seen it before.

The "considered" number appears to be the entire population (11,466 3rd graders for CES, ~12,000 5th graders between the upcounty and downcounty magnets).

What really strikes me is how few middle school magnet spots there are, which I knew but hadn't seen spelled out quite this way before. 6% of 3rd graders were placed in the CES, but only ~3% in the middle school magnets (~1.5% each at the math and humanities magnets in each part of the county). Those spots were filled through a lottery of the top 15% (roughly) at each magnet, meaning that only 1 out of 10 kids that the school system identified as qualified through their process this year were placed in a given magnet. If the county says that the other 9 out of 10 kids can be served at their local schools, why even bother having the magnet for that small percentage of kids?

I agree with you, and I think these magnet programs will die on the vine (and that is what MCPS wants). I've never understood why there weren't enough spots in the MS magnets to accommodate all kids in the ES magnets. For whatever reason, the MS magnet spots have always been treated as a scarce resource. When they did the pilot for universal testing, they found that even more kids qualified for enrichment than previously thought. They decided to expand enrichment at individual schools, rather than expand spots at Eastern/Takoma/Clemente/MLK. It is likely both because of space and equity issues.

There are some middle schools that do not have enough cohort to consistently provide the home school magnet classes. I cannot believe MCPS wouldn’t take students headed to those schools into account for the decision process.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

There are some middle schools that do not have enough cohort to consistently provide the home school magnet classes. I cannot believe MCPS wouldn’t take students headed to those schools into account for the decision process.

Yes, if the magnets continue, I hope they do look at cohorts, but I wonder if they can encourage the home schools to adapt even with a smaller cohort. Our home middle school has a pretty small "highly capable" cohort. My older kid (currently in 8th) was invited to both TPMS and Eastern when they considered cohort as part of the process. My current 6th grader (with higher test scores than the older kid) did not get a spot at either last year, although they were in the lottery for both. Younger kid is at home school now, where there is one HIGH class with ~20 kids, and I believe their AIM class includes some 7th graders in IM. I'm being cautiously optimistic that the home school can be sufficient, even with a smaller cohort and some challenges (e.g., kid can't continue their instrument this year because it conflicts with the scheduling of the HIGH class) and that the trade-off of a much shorter bus ride and local friends will help offset the loss of the magnet opportunity.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The considered numbers for previous years were the "highly able" students who were reviewed for admission as part of the applicant pool although you didn't actually have to apply.

I don't think that's true. The considered numbers for 2019 and 2020 are more than 50 percent of 2021. For instance, Takoma:
2019: 4446
2020: 4890
2021: 7747

The 7747 number probably means the number of all 6th graders in downcounty and therefore considered in the universal review. The question is why similar numbers weren't considered in 2019 and 2020 when universal review was also supposed to be taking place.
Also, 4446 is too high a number to be considered "highly able." That's like saying more than 50% of the student population is highly able.

Based on their definition more than 50% of MCPS is highly able. This was discussed when they first did universal screening. There were a huge number of criteria like
Most As and Bs OR high MAP-R OR high MAP-M or high PARCC or high Cogat, any subscores. Their definition of high scores was not that high. It was 4 for PARCC.

These were the students that MCPS suggest take the Cogat plus some of those who were opt-in for the Cogat which was not a high number.

That group is the group that people assumed were in the lottery pool. It looks like MCPS decided to change their criteria again and expand that lottery pool and from those charts it looks like everyone was in the lottery pool. If they weren't they would have used a different number for considered.

2019 and 2020 had universal screening meaning everyone was actually "considered" too in the same way they should have been considered in 2021 if we're playing that game.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

There are some middle schools that do not have enough cohort to consistently provide the home school magnet classes. I cannot believe MCPS wouldn’t take students headed to those schools into account for the decision process.

Yes, if the magnets continue, I hope they do look at cohorts, but I wonder if they can encourage the home schools to adapt even with a smaller cohort. Our home middle school has a pretty small "highly capable" cohort. My older kid (currently in 8th) was invited to both TPMS and Eastern when they considered cohort as part of the process. My current 6th grader (with higher test scores than the older kid) did not get a spot at either last year, although they were in the lottery for both. Younger kid is at home school now, where there is one HIGH class with ~20 kids, and I believe their AIM class includes some 7th graders in IM. I'm being cautiously optimistic that the home school can be sufficient, even with a smaller cohort and some challenges (e.g., kid can't continue their instrument this year because it conflicts with the scheduling of the HIGH class) and that the trade-off of a much shorter bus ride and local friends will help offset the loss of the magnet opportunity.

If MCPS did what they did with the lottery and put everyone or most everyone in the lottery and your child is at a strong local MS he or she is not missing much. The peer group is important in the magnet and your child has a great one already.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Thanks to the PP for posting that admissions data; I hadn't seen it before.

The "considered" number appears to be the entire population (11,466 3rd graders for CES, ~12,000 5th graders between the upcounty and downcounty magnets).

What really strikes me is how few middle school magnet spots there are, which I knew but hadn't seen spelled out quite this way before. 6% of 3rd graders were placed in the CES, but only ~3% in the middle school magnets (~1.5% each at the math and humanities magnets in each part of the county). Those spots were filled through a lottery of the top 15% (roughly) at each magnet, meaning that only 1 out of 10 kids that the school system identified as qualified through their process this year were placed in a given magnet. If the county says that the other 9 out of 10 kids can be served at their local schools, why even bother having the magnet for that small percentage of kids?

I agree with you, and I think these magnet programs will die on the vine (and that is what MCPS wants). I've never understood why there weren't enough spots in the MS magnets to accommodate all kids in the ES magnets. For whatever reason, the MS magnet spots have always been treated as a scarce resource. When they did the pilot for universal testing, they found that even more kids qualified for enrichment than previously thought. They decided to expand enrichment at individual schools, rather than expand spots at Eastern/Takoma/Clemente/MLK. It is likely both because of space and equity issues.

There are some middle schools that do not have enough cohort to consistently provide the home school magnet classes. I cannot believe MCPS wouldn’t take students headed to those schools into account for the decision process.

Based on data after the universal screening pilot was done, I believe there were very few schools that did not have a cohort at all. If your kid is found to qualify for enrichment, then MCPS can bus them to another school. Sweeten the pie a bit more for families, you can choose any school if you are willing to drive them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

There are some middle schools that do not have enough cohort to consistently provide the home school magnet classes. I cannot believe MCPS wouldn’t take students headed to those schools into account for the decision process.

Yes, if the magnets continue, I hope they do look at cohorts, but I wonder if they can encourage the home schools to adapt even with a smaller cohort. Our home middle school has a pretty small "highly capable" cohort. My older kid (currently in 8th) was invited to both TPMS and Eastern when they considered cohort as part of the process. My current 6th grader (with higher test scores than the older kid) did not get a spot at either last year, although they were in the lottery for both. Younger kid is at home school now, where there is one HIGH class with ~20 kids, and I believe their AIM class includes some 7th graders in IM. I'm being cautiously optimistic that the home school can be sufficient, even with a smaller cohort and some challenges (e.g., kid can't continue their instrument this year because it conflicts with the scheduling of the HIGH class) and that the trade-off of a much shorter bus ride and local friends will help offset the loss of the magnet opportunity.

If MCPS did what they did with the lottery and put everyone or most everyone in the lottery and your child is at a strong local MS he or she is not missing much. The peer group is important in the magnet and your child has a great one already.

Actually, our home school is pretty low performing score-wise and wouldn't normally be viewed as a "strong local MS" and the cohort size is pretty minimal. And yet, perhaps it is enough. I hope all the local schools are able to put together cohorts for the enriched classes. I am curious to see how my local kid fares compared to my magnet kid; I know there will be some differences in what they are offered/exposed to compared to what the magnets offer, but there are advantages to the local school, too.

[Anonymous]

Just announced:
https://connectdocs.blackboard.com/broadcasts/Docs/caf1a3dfb505ffed0d024130f58c5cfa/36ad00e6-f1e8-4cdf-87c1-d993c7f5ea4d.pdf?ticket=t_VvtAf85J&xythos-download=true

Lottery pool again this year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Just announced:
https://connectdocs.blackboard.com/broadcasts/Docs/caf1a3dfb505ffed0d024130f58c5cfa/36ad00e6-f1e8-4cdf-87c1-d993c7f5ea4d.pdf?ticket=t_VvtAf85J&xythos-download=true

Lottery pool again this year.

Yes it is. Wondering why no CoGAt inspite of schools functioning in person

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Just announced:
https://connectdocs.blackboard.com/broadcasts/Docs/caf1a3dfb505ffed0d024130f58c5cfa/36ad00e6-f1e8-4cdf-87c1-d993c7f5ea4d.pdf?ticket=t_VvtAf85J&xythos-download=true

Lottery pool again this year.

Will lottery be considered at each school ? As in is there a probability that not a single kid from a school gets into the magnet program ?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

There are some middle schools that do not have enough cohort to consistently provide the home school magnet classes. I cannot believe MCPS wouldn’t take students headed to those schools into account for the decision process.

Yes, if the magnets continue, I hope they do look at cohorts, but I wonder if they can encourage the home schools to adapt even with a smaller cohort. Our home middle school has a pretty small "highly capable" cohort. My older kid (currently in 8th) was invited to both TPMS and Eastern when they considered cohort as part of the process. My current 6th grader (with higher test scores than the older kid) did not get a spot at either last year, although they were in the lottery for both. Younger kid is at home school now, where there is one HIGH class with ~20 kids, and I believe their AIM class includes some 7th graders in IM. I'm being cautiously optimistic that the home school can be sufficient, even with a smaller cohort and some challenges (e.g., kid can't continue their instrument this year because it conflicts with the scheduling of the HIGH class) and that the trade-off of a much shorter bus ride and local friends will help offset the loss of the magnet opportunity.

If MCPS did what they did with the lottery and put everyone or most everyone in the lottery and your child is at a strong local MS he or she is not missing much. The peer group is important in the magnet and your child has a great one already.

Yup. Almost all of DCs peer group from CES opted out of magnet lottery because they were going to same MS which is already good.

[Anonymous]

Rest in Peace Middle School Magnets. What you once were you will be no longer. I think MCPS should change the description on the website now so it stops claiming it is for the highly able academic learners. If they want to change it and keep it like this - with no COGAT and an 85th percentile cutoff for MAP scores- then they need to change their claims of the magnet existing to meet the needs of MCPS highly gifted students who need more challenge and rigor.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just announced:
https://connectdocs.blackboard.com/broadcasts/Docs/caf1a3dfb505ffed0d024130f58c5cfa/36ad00e6-f1e8-4cdf-87c1-d993c7f5ea4d.pdf?ticket=t_VvtAf85J&xythos-download=true

Lottery pool again this year.

Yes it is. Wondering why no CoGAt inspite of schools functioning in person

Easier to manipulate the data without a pesky test to get in the way.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just announced:
https://connectdocs.blackboard.com/broadcasts/Docs/caf1a3dfb505ffed0d024130f58c5cfa/36ad00e6-f1e8-4cdf-87c1-d993c7f5ea4d.pdf?ticket=t_VvtAf85J&xythos-download=true

Lottery pool again this year.

Yes it is. Wondering why no CoGAt inspite of schools functioning in person

Easier to manipulate the data without a pesky test to get in the way.

Yep. You can easily have quotas to fit multiple criteria.