Changes to the HGC for next year (and to middle/high school magnet application in the future)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

The data makes it seem like Asian parents were recommending students who may not have really been qualified but I think it just shows the clear bias in how the district manipulated the pilot programs against APAs. They put them in places where URMs were overrepresented and it's possible teachers and schools doing the recommending were told their goal is to increase URMs so there was a conscious or subconscious bias towards APAs.

Congratulations! You're the first poster to explicitly say that the results are only good about expanding the reach of the program because MCPS rigged the system.

They did rig the system. That was the whole point, to increase the number of URMs in the program. I don't think there's a secret conspiracy. They have been very open about it

Because the only way to get poor/black/Latino children into a gifted program is to rig the system, because poor/black/Latino children are too dumb to get in on their own merits.

I've heard that song before, and I'm really, really, really tired of it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Any bets on how long it will take for the first poster on DCUM to provide the alternate explanation that MCPS put a thumb on the scale, preferentially admitting Hispanic/Latino and FARMS students who are unqualified (by definition) over qualified DCUM-demographic students?

What they did wasn't that simple. The bias was in the selection or identification pool. IMO, it didn't work as well as they hoped. Those look like very large percentage increases but that's only because the number of Hispanic/Latino or FARMS kids were virtually not represented at all in the HGCs. I would have thought that because they were being identified in such higher numbers that even more would have qualified but they did not. That implies the problem is NOT where they thought it was which is that many Hispanic or FARMS families didn't know about the program or didn't have time to apply or didn't think their child would get in, etc. because they fixed that problem through a lot of time and expense and they did not get the huge bump in numbers you might have expected if that were the only or even the main issue.

Hypothesis: qualified Hispanic/Latino and FARMS kids aren't getting into the program because their parents aren't applying.
Pilot solution: have teachers recommend kids for the program.
Result: the number of Hispanic/Latino and FARMS kids who applied went way up, and the number of Hispanic/Latino and FARMS kids who got admitted also went way up.
Your interpretation of the result: the pilot solution wasn't very effective.

[Anonymous]

It has nothing to do with innate intelligence and no one said that. You seem to want to lash out at everyone who says something that is not perfectly PC.
It has to do with the cumulative effects of not having the exposure and enrichment that many middle-class or wealthy white people can give to their children and simply changing the admissions criteria for a program like this is not going to fix the problem. They need to completely blow up the program or start thinking in a more creative way about solutions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It has nothing to do with innate intelligence and no one said that. You seem to want to lash out at everyone who says something that is not perfectly PC.
It has to do with the cumulative effects of not having the exposure and enrichment that many middle-class or wealthy white people can give to their children and simply changing the admissions criteria for a program like this is not going to fix the problem. They need to completely blow up the program or start thinking in a more creative way about solutions.

What's the practical difference between "poor/black/Latino kids are innately too dumb to get into the magnet program" and "poor/black/Latino kids are too dumb to get into the magnet program due to their disadvantages"? Either way, you seem to believe that the only way to increase the number of poor/black/Latino kids is to admit kids who aren't qualified. Why do you believe this? Why don't you believe that there are bright kids out there who are poor/black/Latino?

If you consider this "lashing out" and "PC", well, ok. I can't do anything about that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Any bets on how long it will take for the first poster on DCUM to provide the alternate explanation that MCPS put a thumb on the scale, preferentially admitting Hispanic/Latino and FARMS students who are unqualified (by definition) over qualified DCUM-demographic students?

What they did wasn't that simple. The bias was in the selection or identification pool. IMO, it didn't work as well as they hoped. Those look like very large percentage increases but that's only because the number of Hispanic/Latino or FARMS kids were virtually not represented at all in the HGCs. I would have thought that because they were being identified in such higher numbers that even more would have qualified but they did not. That implies the problem is NOT where they thought it was which is that many Hispanic or FARMS families didn't know about the program or didn't have time to apply or didn't think their child would get in, etc. because they fixed that problem through a lot of time and expense and they did not get the huge bump in numbers you might have expected if that were the only or even the main issue.

Hypothesis: qualified Hispanic/Latino and FARMS kids aren't getting into the program because their parents aren't applying.
Pilot solution: have teachers recommend kids for the program.
Result: the number of Hispanic/Latino and FARMS kids who applied went way up, and the number of Hispanic/Latino and FARMS kids who got admitted also went way up.
Your interpretation of the result: the pilot solution wasn't very effective.

You seem pretty ignorant about numbers. The percentage increases look fantastic because they are starting from a low base, but if you look at the raw numbers they aren't very good. It's great the numbers went up and I'm sure this will make a big difference in the lives of those children who may not have been identified otherwise but I had hoped for more.


17 more Hispanic kids got in than last year.
14 more FARMS kids got in than last year.

45 more non-FARMS kids got in than last year.
39 more non-Hispanic kids got in than last year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It has nothing to do with innate intelligence and no one said that. You seem to want to lash out at everyone who says something that is not perfectly PC.
It has to do with the cumulative effects of not having the exposure and enrichment that many middle-class or wealthy white people can give to their children and simply changing the admissions criteria for a program like this is not going to fix the problem. They need to completely blow up the program or start thinking in a more creative way about solutions.

What's the practical difference between "poor/black/Latino kids are innately too dumb to get into the magnet program" and "poor/black/Latino kids are too dumb to get into the magnet program due to their disadvantages"? Either way, you seem to believe that the only way to increase the number of poor/black/Latino kids is to admit kids who aren't qualified. Why do you believe this? Why don't you believe that there are bright kids out there who are poor/black/Latino?

If you consider this "lashing out" and "PC", well, ok. I can't do anything about that.

Whoa. How did you jump from a PP who was saying that more needs to be done to help increase the numbers to accusations that there is a belief that there are no bright kids who are poor/black/Latino.

[Anonymous]

PP who thinks the results are so amazing are you saying that we're done now? You're satisfied with the number of children admitted who are URMS? You think that now you've identified all the children qualified who are URMs?

Because I'm the person you're arguing with and I think we're still missing a lot of those bright kids. You seem like you started on this thread ready for an attack (maybe you're one of those angry people who sees discrimination everywhere) but I think we actually have more of the same perspective than you think.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

You seem pretty ignorant about numbers. The percentage increases look fantastic because they are starting from a low base, but if you look at the raw numbers they aren't very good. It's great the numbers went up and I'm sure this will make a big difference in the lives of those children who may not have been identified otherwise but I had hoped for more.


17 more Hispanic kids got in than last year.
14 more FARMS kids got in than last year.

45 more non-FARMS kids got in than last year.
39 more non-Hispanic kids got in than last year.

Let's look at the study, instead of just jumping to the "small numbers" explanation.

In 2015-2016, there were 707 applicants in the pool that the pilot study was done in, compared to 1,780 in 2016-2017. In 2015-2016, 12% and 21% of the applicants were Hispanic and FARMS, respectively. In 2016-2017, it was 20% and 32%. In 2015-2016, there were 115 selected candidates, compared to 174 in 2016-2017. In 2015-2016, 3% and 11% of the selected candidates were Hispanic and FARMS, respectively. In 2016-2017, it was 12% and 16%.

What about these results isn't good?

Will the pilot methods, by themselves, solve all problems? Of course not. But they're helping.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:PP who thinks the results are so amazing are you saying that we're done now? You're satisfied with the number of children admitted who are URMS? You think that now you've identified all the children qualified who are URMs?

Because I'm the person you're arguing with and I think we're still missing a lot of those bright kids. You seem like you started on this thread ready for an attack (maybe you're one of those angry people who sees discrimination everywhere) but I think we actually have more of the same perspective than you think.

I just responded. No, I don't think that we're done. I think that the results are good -- yay! -- but we shouldn't stop now.

[Anonymous]

Exactly what I think. But if you believes as I believe that there are equal %s of bright kids across all socioeconomic and racial backgrounds you would want to see a selection rate closer to the population of kids in the school system.

MCPS is now 30% Hispanic and 43% FARMS. The 12% and 16% selection rates are nowhere near where they should be if all things were equal. MCPS does have a high % of ESL students so that may be impacting the results but still surprised at the remaining gap.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Admissions rates by race

Before the changes 2015-16
White 22%
African American 12%
Hispanic 4.5%
Asian 21%

After the changes 2016-2017
White 10%
African American 7%
Hispanic 6%
Asian 16%

Was that in the report? It definitely confirms my observation that it was harder to get in this year. Are there similar numbers for middle school magnets?

This drop in admission rates is solely because the pool of applicants increased so drastically (from 707 kids in 2016 to 1780 in 2017). If you check the actual numbers of kids who got in, it went up in all cases:

31 white students were accepted in 2016 (27% of all selected students) and 42 in 2017 (24% of all selected students)
27 AA students were accepted in 2016 (23% of all selected students) and 39 in 2017 (22% of all selected students)
4 Hispanic students were accepted in 2016 (3% of all selected students) and 21 in 2017 (12% of all selected students)
7 multiracial students were accepted in 2016 (6% of all selected students) and 10 in 2017 (6% of all selected students)
45 Asian students were accepted in 2016 (39% of all selected students) and 62 in 2017 (36% of all selected students)
13 students on FARMS were accepted in 2016 (11% of all selected students) and 27 in 2017 (16% of all selected students)

Overall these seem like good improvements to the system. It may be slightly harder to get in, but only because more kids are applying that didn't before. And remember, this is all data from the pilot schools (Drew and Fox Chapel and feeders). We don't have this kind of data on the other Centers.

[Anonymous]

For reference, MCPS student population is
White: 29.3%
Hispanic/Latino: 30.1%
Black or African American: 21.3%
Asian: 14.3%
Two or more races: ? 5.0%

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My child went with 7 other kids from our neighborhood ES

It is based on numbers in each school. We were told 6 max (3 girs, 3 boys) in our ES with 100 kids in 4th grade. Schools have between 40-150 kids per 3rd grade. That grade had so many smarter girls too but it didn't matter.

This is not true.

In my child's grade, there were 5 kids admitted, 4 boys and 1 girl. There were over 100 kids in the grade.

[Anonymous]

comparing the racial fractions of the applicant pool vs. selected pool in the pilot schools 2016 datat: the teachers identified a lot more black students than Asian students as candidates, but more Asian students were selected. can we draw the conclusion that teacher identification is unreliable at all? Expanding the pilot model to all schools doesn't make sense. I say testing all students except for those opted out the way to go.

[Anonymous]

Is it just that those schools are have more black students?