Did MCPS do a sneaky thing for the magnet lotteries?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

What happened to the OCD poster who kept insisting this was all a "straight" lottery?

You mean the crazy person who was insisting it was a weighted lottery when they expressly said it was a lottery.

Agree that poster kept trying to pretend it was a weighted lottery without a shred of evidence because it made them feel better to believe this. It made no sense. Moco stated they used criteria to establish a pool and then ran a lottery The evidence also supports this. Even my 6th grader who's at RM was frankly very lucky. Many kids in their CES had much higher MAP scores. Further, the demographics also seem to reflect exactly what I'd imagine the top 15% looks like rather than the top 2% from years past.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

What happened to the OCD poster who kept insisting this was all a "straight" lottery?

You mean the crazy person who was insisting it was a weighted lottery when they expressly said it was a lottery.

Agree that poster kept trying to pretend it was a weighted lottery without a shred of evidence because it made them feel better to believe this. It made no sense. Moco stated they used criteria to establish a pool and then ran a lottery The evidence also supports this. Even my 6th grader who's at RM was frankly very lucky. Many kids in their CES had much higher MAP scores. Further, the demographics also seem to reflect exactly what I'd imagine the top 15% looks like rather than the top 2% from years past.

The weighted lottery conspiracy poster's implication is the county is secretly using race as the means by which the county is achieving its diversity goals. Of course, that would be crazy since they would be sued and lose.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

What happened to the OCD poster who kept insisting this was all a "straight" lottery?

You mean the crazy person who was insisting it was a weighted lottery when they expressly said it was a lottery.

Agree that poster kept trying to pretend it was a weighted lottery without a shred of evidence because it made them feel better to believe this. It made no sense. Moco stated they used criteria to establish a pool and then ran a lottery The evidence also supports this. Even my 6th grader who's at RM was frankly very lucky. Many kids in their CES had much higher MAP scores. Further, the demographics also seem to reflect exactly what I'd imagine the top 15% looks like rather than the top 2% from years past.

The weighted lottery conspiracy poster's implication is the county is secretly using race as the means by which the county is achieving its diversity goals. Of course, that would be crazy since they would be sued and lose.

MCPS has long admitted that they weight magnet admissions geographically so some kids from every school get into the magnet. This approach is 100% legal since it is not race-based even though it ends up being somewhat of a proxy for race.

People have to acknowledge that the top 2% from years past isn’t necessarily reflective of the truly brightest in the county. There are many factors of the previous admissions process that weigh in favor of privileged kids and against minorities, including test scores. Test scores are not privilege-neutral selectors.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It looks like they greatly expanded the "considered" pool for the lottery in order to get their desired demographics. For the CESes they considered 11,446 students. Isn't that almost every child in that grade? The same goes for middle schools where the "considered" pool was almost double what it was in previous years. Does anyone have an explanation for how this happened and why this was done in such secrecy?

https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/uploadedFiles/departments/schoolchoice/210818%20CES%20Secondary%20App%20Prog%20Admission%20Results.pdf

Oh, how terrible! MCPS considered more kids! Dreadful! Horrible!

Wait, what?

So crazy!!! They want to ensure a more diverse but equally bright group of kids get in.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't really know what people want from MCPS.

There is no world in which the district does a straight "top 100 test scorers" approach. There is always going to be some nuance in admissions, with the goal of admitting a group of kids who for whatever reason would not have their needs met at their home school.

If MCPS explains the exact formula, people will immediately work to subvert and cheat the system (which is what happened when folks found out the exact tests being used).

You keep repeating the same argument over and over again. No, people won't "cheat." What other districts have done and what is becoming the norm is that there is a formula that helps level the playing field. Test scores, grades all of that count but if you have ever been FARMS or ESOL you get extra points to make up for disadvantages in schooling, home life, broader societal discrimination. If you look at the data this has helped increase the percentage of minority students by a whole lot.

I support universal screening. I support giving an advantage to kids who have been disadvantaged. What I think is very wrong is the lack of public debate on the issue and the lack of transparency on the data. They have also failed to adequately address concerns from the Asian American community that what they are doing is discriminatory. I don't know enough to say it is or not but I think they owe the community more information. You can't just ignore a whole racial group like that.

I honestly don't think that public debate would be useful here. Look at what happened when MCPS tried to organize public debates on a boundary study - angry white dudes ended up screaming in the faces of children of color, and lots of folks stood up and said frankly racist things about kids who were in the room.

Parents are going to advocate for their own children, but MCPS is charged with looking out for the entire community, not an individual child or family. We elect the school board to hold MCPS accountable to that goal, and if we don't like the job they are doing, we can run for office or support someone with different ideals/values/politics. But what we can't and shouldn't do is foster a system whereby MCPS is forced to design policies only to service the loudest parents with the most free time.

As for concerns from Asian American families, I'm sympathetic to the charge that MCPS is changing the rules just as those families had become successful within the system. However, the metrics on the old system were really bad, with white and Asian students absolutely dominating the magnet process in a district that is majority Black and Hispanic. In 2021, that's just not acceptable anymore. More to the point, the old system left a lot of talent on the table, because it was bad at identifying gifted students of color.

MCPS is majority hispanic/latino and white-non-hispanic. Give it a few years, and demographics will be even more pronounced with an even larger percentage of hispanic students.

This is like the dumb arguments that say that elite schools should have classes with the same proportion of each race as the population. But that fails to recognize that the racial demographics of college-ready teenagers skews heavily toward Whites and Asians. And in Montgomery County, the academic achievement of Hispanics has lagged because many of the children counted in this population are "English Language Learners" who are not qualified to participate in a rigorous magnet program in English.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

MCPS has long admitted that they weight magnet admissions geographically so some kids from every school get into the magnet. This approach is 100% legal since it is not race-based even though it ends up being somewhat of a proxy for race.

People have to acknowledge that the top 2% from years past isn’t necessarily reflective of the truly brightest in the county. There are many factors of the previous admissions process that weigh in favor of privileged kids and against minorities, including test scores. Test scores are not privilege-neutral selectors.

People evidently do not have to acknowledge this, at least judging from the large number of posts over the last few years that have insisted the contrary.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If all those kids thrive in the magnet program, that will be a clear indication that MCPS can and should expand the offering to have more seats for more kids. Ridiculous to keep so many students away from a wonderful program that could give them a more suitable education.

But it is important to remember that there are some highly able students who are desperate for the pace and content of the magnets, and they should probably be considered priority if there are limited seats - the programs are supposed to be about providing enrichment to kids who are slowly going bananas in regular classrooms.

This. If everyone is gifted, nobody is gifted.

I know that's an exaggeration, but we should probably actually reduce the number of spots in these programs to a very select few.

They should just create two levels. One for the off the charts kids and one for the rest.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

MCPS has long admitted that they weight magnet admissions geographically so some kids from every school get into the magnet. This approach is 100% legal since it is not race-based even though it ends up being somewhat of a proxy for race.

People have to acknowledge that the top 2% from years past isn’t necessarily reflective of the truly brightest in the county. There are many factors of the previous admissions process that weigh in favor of privileged kids and against minorities, including test scores. Test scores are not privilege-neutral selectors.

People evidently do not have to acknowledge this, at least judging from the large number of posts over the last few years that have insisted the contrary.

This is not exactly the process that they use so I’m not sure why the knowing, snotty comment. And last year they devised a whole new process. So your insistence to expertise here is actually what’s bizarre.

[Anonymous]

The "sneaky" is probably lurking in the words "locally normed" below. Likely they divided the schools into three groups based on FARMS percentiles. Now they are looking at the top 15% from each of those three groupings. The top 15% scores at a 80-90% FARMS school are likely different from those at a 10% FARMS school. This approach would pretty much explain the changes year over year. I support it, btw. No desire to return to parent initiated process.

"Multiple academic measures were used to identify students. Given the impact of COVID-19 school-building closures, both measures from the 2019-2020 and 2020-2021 school years were included. To be placed in the humanities and communication lottery pool, an A in both reading and writing and an indication of above reading grade level on the report card from Grade 4, and a locally normed minimum of 85th percentile on either last year (winter) or this year’s (fall) MAP-R. For math, science or computer science, an A in both math and science and an indication of on level or higher for reading on the report card from Grade 4 and a locally normed minimum of 85th percentile on either last year (winter) or this year’s (fall) MAP-M."
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[Anonymous]

Wow. Almost 60 out of 85 Poolesville SMCS admits we’re Asian with <10 of every other group. Talk about diversity.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

What happened to the OCD poster who kept insisting this was all a "straight" lottery?

You mean the crazy person who was insisting it was a weighted lottery when they expressly said it was a lottery.

Agree that poster kept trying to pretend it was a weighted lottery without a shred of evidence because it made them feel better to believe this. It made no sense. Moco stated they used criteria to establish a pool and then ran a lottery The evidence also supports this. Even my 6th grader who's at RM was frankly very lucky. Many kids in their CES had much higher MAP scores. Further, the demographics also seem to reflect exactly what I'd imagine the top 15% looks like rather than the top 2% from years past.

The weighted lottery conspiracy poster's implication is the county is secretly using race as the means by which the county is achieving its diversity goals. Of course, that would be crazy since they would be sued and lose.

MCPS has long admitted that they weight magnet admissions geographically so some kids from every school get into the magnet. This approach is 100% legal since it is not race-based even though it ends up being somewhat of a proxy for race.

People have to acknowledge that the top 2% from years past isn’t necessarily reflective of the truly brightest in the county. There are many factors of the previous admissions process that weigh in favor of privileged kids and against minorities, including test scores. Test scores are not privilege-neutral selectors.

That's actually false. Last year was very different. They admitted it was. a lottery which is a random draw by definition despite what the conspiracy poster wants to believe. However, the pool for the lottery was made up of students from the top 15% based on several criteria. This is perfectly clear and the data supports this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

MCPS has long admitted that they weight magnet admissions geographically so some kids from every school get into the magnet. This approach is 100% legal since it is not race-based even though it ends up being somewhat of a proxy for race.

People have to acknowledge that the top 2% from years past isn’t necessarily reflective of the truly brightest in the county. There are many factors of the previous admissions process that weigh in favor of privileged kids and against minorities, including test scores. Test scores are not privilege-neutral selectors.

People evidently do not have to acknowledge this, at least judging from the large number of posts over the last few years that have insisted the contrary.

This is not exactly the process that they use so I’m not sure why the knowing, snotty comment. And last year they devised a whole new process. So your insistence to expertise here is actually what’s bizarre.

DD was lucky enough to land at TPMS. She is strong at math but by no means an outlier. I think she scored in the high 240s on her MAP-M which probably wouldn't have made the cut in previous years. She's discussed tMAP-M scores with a number of her magnet classmates and according to her everyone, she's met fells between the low 230s to low 250s. Now I'm sure there are still a few outliers but with the random selection, it seems very rare this year based on her sample.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

What happened to the OCD poster who kept insisting this was all a "straight" lottery?

You mean the crazy person who was insisting it was a weighted lottery when they expressly said it was a lottery.

Agree that poster kept trying to pretend it was a weighted lottery without a shred of evidence because it made them feel better to believe this. It made no sense. Moco stated they used criteria to establish a pool and then ran a lottery The evidence also supports this. Even my 6th grader who's at RM was frankly very lucky. Many kids in their CES had much higher MAP scores. Further, the demographics also seem to reflect exactly what I'd imagine the top 15% looks like rather than the top 2% from years past.

The weighted lottery conspiracy poster's implication is the county is secretly using race as the means by which the county is achieving its diversity goals. Of course, that would be crazy since they would be sued and lose.

MCPS has long admitted that they weight magnet admissions geographically so some kids from every school get into the magnet. This approach is 100% legal since it is not race-based even though it ends up being somewhat of a proxy for race.

People have to acknowledge that the top 2% from years past isn’t necessarily reflective of the truly brightest in the county. There are many factors of the previous admissions process that weigh in favor of privileged kids and against minorities, including test scores. Test scores are not privilege-neutral selectors.

That's actually false. Last year was very different. They admitted it was. a lottery which is a random draw by definition despite what the conspiracy poster wants to believe. However, the pool for the lottery was made up of students from the top 15% based on several criteria. This is perfectly clear and the data supports this.

Yes in previous years they evaluated students based on the cohort criteria which they said wasn't used this past year. They had said the established the top 15% based on local norms though which is similar I guess but doesn't have anything to do with conducting a random lottery.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

MCPS has long admitted that they weight magnet admissions geographically so some kids from every school get into the magnet. This approach is 100% legal since it is not race-based even though it ends up being somewhat of a proxy for race.

People have to acknowledge that the top 2% from years past isn’t necessarily reflective of the truly brightest in the county. There are many factors of the previous admissions process that weigh in favor of privileged kids and against minorities, including test scores. Test scores are not privilege-neutral selectors.

People evidently do not have to acknowledge this, at least judging from the large number of posts over the last few years that have insisted the contrary.

This is not exactly the process that they use so I’m not sure why the knowing, snotty comment. And last year they devised a whole new process. So your insistence to expertise here is actually what’s bizarre.

DD was lucky enough to land at TPMS. She is strong at math but by no means an outlier. I think she scored in the high 240s on her MAP-M which probably wouldn't have made the cut in previous years. She's discussed tMAP-M scores with a number of her magnet classmates and according to her everyone, she's met fells between the low 230s to low 250s. Now I'm sure there are still a few outliers but with the random selection, it seems very rare this year based on her sample.

A few years ago they released some data that stated something like 90% of the students were above 95% on the MAP-M. This no longer seems to be the case at TPMS, but whether that matters isn't all that clear. I just feel badly for the kids who missed out on this opportunity. It's too bad advanced programming isn't more widely offered.

[Anonymous]

Someone keeps posting "DC is lucky to be in a magnet but others are more deserving..." C'mon, seriously. I don't believe you.