You're absolutely right. But there are some really anxious parents here that are suddenly concerned that their 2nd grader is "falling behind" and this means that they no longer have a chance at an Ivy and it's a total injustice. It's a tough pill for these parents to swallow, finding out that their DD might be less than extraordinary. |
| The biggest surprise for DS (which I didn't show him) is that his Teacher Survey was below threshold. His teacher this year loves him and was downright effusive the few times we have run into each other coming and going. I'm surprised the survey wasn't at least at threshold. He's your average 9 yo with no behavior issues. Now I'm second guessing everything. |
Did you look at the report cards to see where DS might not have done as well as you thought? Did anything trend in the wrong direction? |
Same with my child. Met all the testing metrics no problem, straight As, but no teacher rec. |
Same here. But we had a long term sub during the screening process which I think is unfair.
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I think what drives parents crazy is that the GT screening is not actually screening children for giftedness. There is no cognitive abilities testing done in mcps. They used to use inview. Then cogat. Now nothing. It’s bizarre that they plucked a couple random unit tests and used those to determine GT status. If GT status is indeed meaningless then why torture parents/teachers/staff with these letters the last week of school?! |
What a load of bs. It must be you who is worried about your 2nd grader not getting into an Ivy based on the gt letters. Other concerned parents are just confounded by the gt identification criteria especially in our case where part of the data is missing data. |
| Either my 2nd grader is a not-very-good test taker (which is totally possible), or DC doesn't know how to take standardized tests or understand why doing well on them is useful. In either case, the scores are very different from DC's actual work both inside and outside of school. |
"Gifted and Talented designation is not a consideration or requirement for participation in the CES lottery process." [directly from the MCPS CES page] In the past (recent past, anyway) GT identification and CES placement have been decoupled. GT identification checks the box for MCPS, showing that they are following the COMAR regulation (how well or to whose satisfaction clearly is debatable). MCPS GT programs like CES (formerly HGC) predated the state regulation, and placement has been a separate process, perhaps as an artifact of this predating or perhaps because crossing the streams, as it were, would be "bad"; this past year, inclusion in the CES lottery was based on grades, reading level and MAP-R scores. That may change this year, as it has many times in the past -- either to tweak the criteria (e.g., 90th %ile cutoffs instead of 85th, adjusting for SES factors) or make more significant changes (e.g., consideration of local cohort, use or abandonment of CogAT, unweighted lottery instead of rank-ordered selection, etc.). I don't see it as at all likely that past GT identification, itself, would become one of the CES criteria, but there are similar criteria for each, and you never know what changes might be made. Also remember that CES is not a Math program -- placement into Math 4/5 is, itself, a separate process, though most CES students end up qualifying for Math acceleration, too. Further, the MCPS paradigm for elementary Math enrichment is supposed to be based on a module-by-module evaluation of each student's uptake, with three tiers of enrichment available to be employed prior to consideration for grade-skipping (very rarely employed). This is the reason the GT letters don't say "On grade level with enrichment" for Math as they do for Literacy, only "On grade level" -- enrichment options are baked into the Math curriculum, so there isn't a separate call-out (the sentence below that in the letter tries to explain that, but I doubt it's clear for anyone not intimately familiar with the curriculum). Your child should continue to receive Math enrichment next year. As for EOL scores, they were off this year due to the lingering effects of pandemic instruction and related curricular omissions employed to manage shortened instructional time. Why they then chose to utilize them for GT identification under these circumstances is beyond me. Bottom line -- don't worry too much about it, but be willing to advocate if you ever find that any opportunities are left off the table. |
Definitely GT designation is unconnected to CES placement. Or compact math placement either for that matter. |
Btw, everyone does “advanced” English in sixth grade. |
Similar situation for us. |
PP here. Totally agree and see it with sports too. If a kid doesn’t make a travel team their chances at an NCAA scholarship are gone forever. My hope/expectation is that my kids are nice people and can be contributing members of society. There is very little chance that my sons GT identification will get him any further in life than my daughter who wasn’t ID’d. |
Good to know! Yet another meaningless designation! |
The danger here is conflating being gifted with being a good, nice, polite, hard-working kids. Your kid could be all of the latter without being the former, and that's FINE. In fact, a lot of gifted kids do have behavioral challenges, as just another thing in the "basket" of giftedness. Be happy you have a good kid, and check in to see what actual skills he is missing before the next school year. |