Magnet MS results - Takoma Park & Eastern - anyone heard today?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If I were to guess, MCPS had various test minimums they were looking for, but they didn't give much extra weight to an applicant based on how high in the 99th percentile a score might be. After that, they consider teacher recommendation, written response--subjective criterion--but, everyone in the pool is more than capable of attending the magnet. I'm doubting that zip was a big part of the process. But students who have been expecting admission based on an extra high test scores would find themselves in a much bigger pool. If those students really are clustered in a given zip code, well ... 40 page thread.

Why are you posting to this thread? There weren't even any teacher recs this year. And they already did say that the cohort of your home school was a consideration. Clearly the kids that got in from the Western county schools probably didn't have a peer at an Eastern county school, or not a peer that was as good a fit for the magnet, or the committee realized they had to accept someone from those schools or it would just look too bad. I'm in the DCC for the record, so I don't have a dog in that fight. My kid didn't get in, but our home middle school is in Silver Spring. The county just does not have enough enrichment and accleration opportunity at the middle school level. This whole thing is absolutely ridiculous. Screening 4000 kids for 200 spots? Pretending that only 200 kids need or deserve enrichment or acceleration? Leaving it up to parents to advocate with the home school principal for this? Come on. That's a joke.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The highest performing cohort on the magnet entrance exam from Cold Spring has been making the highest performing cohort in TPMA and Blair. This highest-performing cohort on one test also excels in MAP-M and MAP-R, PARCC, MSA for the past twenty and thirty years.
This cohort will be the scientists who find a cure for cancer and discover the reusable fuel to save the earth, the engineers who build new computers and smartphones. Some of the students from this cohort will your doctors, your lawyers, or your financial advisor.
They may become teachers or politicians.
Most of the students in this cohort are from middle-class families with taxpaying, working parents.
It is not fair for MCPS to deny their chance to join the MS magnets, just because of their zip code.

I am genuinely sorry that these 11 and 12 year old children suffered what may have been there first ever disappointment. However, their brilliant careers as researchers and medical doctors are not going to be derailed by the fact that they were not admitted to one program one time when they were a preteen. You also have no evidence that zip code was the issue here. I know it is easy to blame poor children and working class children for something that seems inexplicable but it is both untrue and unkind.

I'm not so optimistic?it might be the affirmative action that used to be limited from higher education and work force making its way to k-12?other races won't understand why it''s so sensitive to Asian parents.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If I were to guess, MCPS had various test minimums they were looking for, but they didn't give much extra weight to an applicant based on how high in the 99th percentile a score might be. After that, they consider teacher recommendation, written response--subjective criterion--but, everyone in the pool is more than capable of attending the magnet. I'm doubting that zip was a big part of the process. But students who have been expecting admission based on an extra high test scores would find themselves in a much bigger pool. If those students really are clustered in a given zip code, well ... 40 page thread.

Why are you posting to this thread? There weren't even any teacher recs this year. And they already did say that the cohort of your home school was a consideration. Clearly the kids that got in from the Western county schools probably didn't have a peer at an Eastern county school, or not a peer that was as good a fit for the magnet, or the committee realized they had to accept someone from those schools or it would just look too bad. I'm in the DCC for the record, so I don't have a dog in that fight. My kid didn't get in, but our home middle school is in Silver Spring. The county just does not have enough enrichment and accleration opportunity at the middle school level. This whole thing is absolutely ridiculous. Screening 4000 kids for 200 spots? Pretending that only 200 kids need or deserve enrichment or acceleration? Leaving it up to parents to advocate with the home school principal for this? Come on. That's a joke.

What does this mean? Not being snarky; I honestly don't understand this sentence.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The highest performing cohort on the magnet entrance exam from Cold Spring has been making the highest performing cohort in TPMA and Blair. This highest-performing cohort on one test also excels in MAP-M and MAP-R, PARCC, MSA for the past twenty and thirty years.
This cohort will be the scientists who find a cure for cancer and discover the reusable fuel to save the earth, the engineers who build new computers and smartphones. Some of the students from this cohort will your doctors, your lawyers, or your financial advisor.
They may become teachers or politicians.
Most of the students in this cohort are from middle-class families with taxpaying, working parents.
It is not fair for MCPS to deny their chance to join the MS magnets, just because of their zip code.

OK...I am a Cold Spring parent, but this post made me laugh out loud. It is a bit melodramatic. I truly think something else was at play in this selection process. MCPS did cast a larger net and I think it is fantastic. Having said that, I do question the selection process when only 2 kids out of this entire cohort were offered admission. I do not know if these are kids who will one day find the cure to cancer or are future politicians or whatever else, but I do know they scored incredibly high on MAP tests, PARCC and whatever other they had to take as part of the magnet testing. I am sure there are a few kids who prep, but I also know there are plenty of them who did not. It is really terrible how some people cast such negative lights on these children. I, for one, did not even know who Dr. Li was until this board kept bring his/her name up. The kids at Cold Spring ES are truly bright, motivated, curious and incredibly hard-working. When you have a combination of smartness and eagerness (and I do not imply this for only at Cold Spring, but at other schools as well), these kids deserve an opportunity to be engaged with the proper curriculum. Given that MCPS has decided to change the selection process, I also think they should also be prepare with something for these kids as they return to their home middle schools. To not have a plan in place seems most irresponsible. The fifth graders at Cold Spring are learning material that I was not taught until I had reached 7th/8th grade. It would be ashamed to have them repeat for the next 2 years. That is not thriving and is not in the true interest of the students.

My kid does not wish to have the long bus ride to Takoma. I can't imagine any kid would prefer this. I do think that sometimes parents feel that they have very little choice because MCPS turns a blind eye to what these 99%-ers need, thus the overwhelming and hyperbolic emotions from some parents.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If I were to guess, MCPS had various test minimums they were looking for, but they didn't give much extra weight to an applicant based on how high in the 99th percentile a score might be. After that, they consider teacher recommendation, written response--subjective criterion--but, everyone in the pool is more than capable of attending the magnet. I'm doubting that zip was a big part of the process. But students who have been expecting admission based on an extra high test scores would find themselves in a much bigger pool. If those students really are clustered in a given zip code, well ... 40 page thread.

Why are you posting to this thread? There weren't even any teacher recs this year. And they already did say that the cohort of your home school was a consideration. Clearly the kids that got in from the Western county schools probably didn't have a peer at an Eastern county school, or not a peer that was as good a fit for the magnet, or the committee realized they had to accept someone from those schools or it would just look too bad. I'm in the DCC for the record, so I don't have a dog in that fight. My kid didn't get in, but our home middle school is in Silver Spring. The county just does not have enough enrichment and accleration opportunity at the middle school level. This whole thing is absolutely ridiculous. Screening 4000 kids for 200 spots? Pretending that only 200 kids need or deserve enrichment or acceleration? Leaving it up to parents to advocate with the home school principal for this? Come on. That's a joke.

I couldn't have said this better.

[Anonymous]

+1000

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If I were to guess, MCPS had various test minimums they were looking for, but they didn't give much extra weight to an applicant based on how high in the 99th percentile a score might be. After that, they consider teacher recommendation, written response--subjective criterion--but, everyone in the pool is more than capable of attending the magnet. I'm doubting that zip was a big part of the process. But students who have been expecting admission based on an extra high test scores would find themselves in a much bigger pool. If those students really are clustered in a given zip code, well ... 40 page thread.

Why are you posting to this thread? There weren't even any teacher recs this year. And they already did say that the cohort of your home school was a consideration. Clearly the kids that got in from the Western county schools probably didn't have a peer at an Eastern county school, or not a peer that was as good a fit for the magnet, or the committee realized they had to accept someone from those schools or it would just look too bad. I'm in the DCC for the record, so I don't have a dog in that fight. My kid didn't get in, but our home middle school is in Silver Spring. The county just does not have enough enrichment and accleration opportunity at the middle school level. This whole thing is absolutely ridiculous. Screening 4000 kids for 200 spots? Pretending that only 200 kids need or deserve enrichment or acceleration? Leaving it up to parents to advocate with the home school principal for this? Come on. That's a joke.

I couldn't have said this better.

+2

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

That's a little different than knowing they now have virtually no chance at admission despite being the highest-performing cohort in the county. You don't think that might take a little adjusting?

It's not like they're going to apply to the MS magnet program again next year. They knew, as did everybody, that you can apply, but you might not get in. And that's what happened. And now they're disappointed, just like every other kid who hasn't gotten in. Plenty of kids from Cold Spring apparently didn't get in last year. Did the principal give a speech to them?

No, since it wasn't 97% of them.

It was only 50% of them, right? (If ~25 kid got in, ~25 kids didn't.) The principal doesn't address disappointment until it's over 75%? Or something?

I think people are upset because it is likely that many of the children who were rejected might have been discriminated against by a new selection process that seems to place undue emphasis on geography.

I fully expected the admission rates from the CES to decline as MCPS opened up the application pool. That was a great move by MCPS - make sure more families are aware of the programs and make it easier for more kids to apply.
The super low admission rate from Cold Spring implies something else is at play - that students from the ES with the highest test scores were only able to secure 2 spots indicates that MCPS was using other criteria for selecting candidates. If they are discriminating against students in W schools that is really unfair.
Also I don't know if it is one person or more than one person who keeps bringing up prepping. It is really annoying and unfair to the students. I am sure some did prep but it is not accurate to imply that Cold Spring results are high only or even mostly because students prepped.

I can't agree more. We need some actions against this kind of discrimination. To be transparent for MCPS is a joke.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If I were to guess, MCPS had various test minimums they were looking for, but they didn't give much extra weight to an applicant based on how high in the 99th percentile a score might be. After that, they consider teacher recommendation, written response--subjective criterion--but, everyone in the pool is more than capable of attending the magnet. I'm doubting that zip was a big part of the process. But students who have been expecting admission based on an extra high test scores would find themselves in a much bigger pool. If those students really are clustered in a given zip code, well ... 40 page thread.

Why are you posting to this thread? There weren't even any teacher recs this year. And they already did say that the cohort of your home school was a consideration. Clearly the kids that got in from the Western county schools probably didn't have a peer at an Eastern county school, or not a peer that was as good a fit for the magnet, or the committee realized they had to accept someone from those schools or it would just look too bad. I'm in the DCC for the record, so I don't have a dog in that fight. My kid didn't get in, but our home middle school is in Silver Spring. The county just does not have enough enrichment and accleration opportunity at the middle school level. This whole thing is absolutely ridiculous. Screening 4000 kids for 200 spots? Pretending that only 200 kids need or deserve enrichment or acceleration? Leaving it up to parents to advocate with the home school principal for this? Come on. That's a joke.

What does this mean? Not being snarky; I honestly don't understand this sentence.

Yes, this was confusing. What I meant was, perhaps the kids who got in from Western county schools scored so high they did not have an equivalently high scoring peer from a middle school someplace without a "cohort" to be placed in the spot instead, so they got the spot. Or another possibility is the committee understood that they did have to throw a few bones the way of schools in higher income areas and let some of those kids in, even though they have home middle schools with higher ability peers. I don't know. Who can say? It's not really possible that there are fewer kids from Cold Sprng just because they cast a wider net. I simply don't personally believe it. I still believe those kids would be some of the highest scoring kids in the whole county for a variety of reasons even with way more kids tested. The 700 kids tested before weren't some random selection of 700 kids. Yes, it was a smaller number of kids. But it was a self selected cohort of highly motivated kids willing to fill out a lengthy application and yes, with parents willing to support that. Of course within the 3300 additional kids screened you will have children who in the past have just not applied and this year did...but something else is going on.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Yes, this was confusing. What I meant was, perhaps the kids who got in from Western county schools scored so high they did not have an equivalently high scoring peer from a middle school someplace without a "cohort" to be placed in the spot instead, so they got the spot. Or another possibility is the committee understood that they did have to throw a few bones the way of schools in higher income areas and let some of those kids in, even though they have home middle schools with higher ability peers. I don't know. Who can say? It's not really possible that there are fewer kids from Cold Sprng just because they cast a wider net. I simply don't personally believe it. I still believe those kids would be some of the highest scoring kids in the whole county for a variety of reasons even with way more kids tested. The 700 kids tested before weren't some random selection of 700 kids. Yes, it was a smaller number of kids. But it was a self selected cohort of highly motivated kids willing to fill out a lengthy application and yes, with parents willing to support that. Of course within the 3300 additional kids screened you will have children who in the past have just not applied and this year did...but something else is going on.

No, it was a self-selected cohort of highly-motivated parents. Specifically, highly-motivated parents who were in the know.

[Anonymous]

It seems like Cold Spring has such a strong cohort the kids will do fine or better at their home school not to mention being spared a long commute.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Yes, this was confusing. What I meant was, perhaps the kids who got in from Western county schools scored so high they did not have an equivalently high scoring peer from a middle school someplace without a "cohort" to be placed in the spot instead, so they got the spot. Or another possibility is the committee understood that they did have to throw a few bones the way of schools in higher income areas and let some of those kids in, even though they have home middle schools with higher ability peers. I don't know. Who can say? It's not really possible that there are fewer kids from Cold Sprng just because they cast a wider net. I simply don't personally believe it. I still believe those kids would be some of the highest scoring kids in the whole county for a variety of reasons even with way more kids tested. The 700 kids tested before weren't some random selection of 700 kids. Yes, it was a smaller number of kids. But it was a self selected cohort of highly motivated kids willing to fill out a lengthy application and yes, with parents willing to support that. Of course within the 3300 additional kids screened you will have children who in the past have just not applied and this year did...but something else is going on.

No, it was a self-selected cohort of highly-motivated parents. Specifically, highly-motivated parents who were in the know.

Every year (including this year for HS) we receive a notice from MCPS regarding the opportunity to the HS/MS Magnet or HGC. All parents of MCPS students are in the know on the same level ! We have three studnets at MCPS -- but only one applied for magnet and got in because we knew this one had a shot. MCPS gave ALL parents the opportunity to select their kids to compete, and we did.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It seems like Cold Spring has such a strong cohort the kids will do fine or better at their home school not to mention being spared a long commute.

The problem is, the three home schools they are returning to do not have a curriculum fits their need. And the office suggestion is “contact your own principal to make a tailored plan”. So now it’s 100% the highly-motivated parents’ responsibility to keep their highly-motivated and capable kids challenged and enriched, because under curriculum 2.0, even homeschool principal can not do much not alone they probably won’t want to make a hassle.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Yes, this was confusing. What I meant was, perhaps the kids who got in from Western county schools scored so high they did not have an equivalently high scoring peer from a middle school someplace without a "cohort" to be placed in the spot instead, so they got the spot. Or another possibility is the committee understood that they did have to throw a few bones the way of schools in higher income areas and let some of those kids in, even though they have home middle schools with higher ability peers. I don't know. Who can say? It's not really possible that there are fewer kids from Cold Sprng just because they cast a wider net. I simply don't personally believe it. I still believe those kids would be some of the highest scoring kids in the whole county for a variety of reasons even with way more kids tested. The 700 kids tested before weren't some random selection of 700 kids. Yes, it was a smaller number of kids. But it was a self selected cohort of highly motivated kids willing to fill out a lengthy application and yes, with parents willing to support that. Of course within the 3300 additional kids screened you will have children who in the past have just not applied and this year did...but something else is going on.

No, it was a self-selected cohort of highly-motivated parents. Specifically, highly-motivated parents who were in the know.

Every year (including this year for HS) we receive a notice from MCPS regarding the opportunity to the HS/MS Magnet or HGC. All parents of MCPS students are in the know on the same level ! We have three studnets at MCPS -- but only one applied for magnet and got in because we knew this one had a shot. MCPS gave ALL parents the opportunity to select their kids to compete, and we did.

Look at the posts in this thread from folks who wouldn't have thought to have their child tested, but were accepted. Those were self-identified white, English speaking, middle class families. Now imagine you are not all of the above. MCPS is casting a wider net because they did research and found that kids who could have done the work weren't even taking the test.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Yes, this was confusing. What I meant was, perhaps the kids who got in from Western county schools scored so high they did not have an equivalently high scoring peer from a middle school someplace without a "cohort" to be placed in the spot instead, so they got the spot. Or another possibility is the committee understood that they did have to throw a few bones the way of schools in higher income areas and let some of those kids in, even though they have home middle schools with higher ability peers. I don't know. Who can say? It's not really possible that there are fewer kids from Cold Sprng just because they cast a wider net. I simply don't personally believe it. I still believe those kids would be some of the highest scoring kids in the whole county for a variety of reasons even with way more kids tested. The 700 kids tested before weren't some random selection of 700 kids. Yes, it was a smaller number of kids. But it was a self selected cohort of highly motivated kids willing to fill out a lengthy application and yes, with parents willing to support that. Of course within the 3300 additional kids screened you will have children who in the past have just not applied and this year did...but something else is going on.

No, it was a self-selected cohort of highly-motivated parents. Specifically, highly-motivated parents who were in the know.

Every year (including this year for HS) we receive a notice from MCPS regarding the opportunity to the HS/MS Magnet or HGC. All parents of MCPS students are in the know on the same level ! We have three studnets at MCPS -- but only one applied for magnet and got in because we knew this one had a shot. MCPS gave ALL parents the opportunity to select their kids to compete, and we did.

Look at the posts in this thread from folks who wouldn't have thought to have their child tested, but were accepted. Those were self-identified white, English speaking, middle class families. Now imagine you are not all of the above. MCPS is casting a wider net because they did research and found that kids who could have done the work weren't even taking the test.

+ 1 I used to be someone who also thought like the PP quoted above--i.e., that all parents were notified, so why the angst? Then our family spent four years living in a different country with a very different educational system. Even after four years and speaking the local language pretty well and being employed there, DH and I just didn't have the same comprehension of what to do to direct our kids' educational path. We hadn't grown up with it, didn't know others who had grown up with it, and there were hoops to jump through, etc. I knew enough to get our children into school, but definitely not enough to take full advantage of everything. I'm not proud of the fact that it took a personal experience like that to give me some more empathy and a better grasp of the hurdles faced by some families, but there it is.