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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I am curious if are they 100% lottery based? Do they put student info. into computer system, and selected are picked randomly from AI? I have been wondering if someone's parents are active school volunteer, teacher recommendation, kids are really struggling with boring curriculum or really gifted (>130 from some outside testing) or other such other factors may increase the chances under lottery system?[/quote]
The parent of one of the students who got selected for our CES is very involved in PTA and school volunteering. That child is definitely not top 2% and I am suspicious there was favoritism. I know CES and other magnet programs are not only for the top 2% (though they should be) but I find it interesting why that child got picked. I don’t think it is a random lottery.[/quote]

The only way we'd know is if they laid it all on the table for us to review, both detailed criteria/pool heuristic/lottery mechanism and detailed but de-identified student profile results of the lottery process (whole pop, pool pop, offered pop, admitted pop).  MCPS doesn't do that even for the BOE to review.  Lynne Harris had campaigned on open data, but either got distracted or found too much resistance from the rest.

As far as MCPS says, it's a straight computer-based lottery from the identified pool.  Identification for the pool is where there's a bit of wiggle -- local norms for MAP cutoffs among schools with similar FARMS rates and additional adjustments for students receiving srevices (individual FARMS status, 504, IEP, EML).  Aside from MAP, they've got grades and reading level.  No teacher recommendations or outside testing (except for those coming from private or home school).  One wonders if they have the computer lottery algorithm do things like geographical or gender smoothing so that there aren't far-from-expected-value results (e.g., far greater percentage of one gender selected vs. what the pool has).[/quote]

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