Reply to I don't get it- very few CES kids get into magnet school?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I think it’s teally good that we were given the MCPS percentiles in addition to the national percentiles. It really paints the picture for me. I have twins. One scored in the 99th percentile nationally on a particular section of the CogAT, but only in the 93rd percentile for MCPS. The other scored in the 98th percentile nationally on that section, but only in the 85th percentile in MCPS. Another poster that their child scored in the 97th percentile nationally on that section, but in the 83rd percentile in MCPS. That tellls me that among the fifth graders in MCPS who took the CogAT this year, roughly 7-8% were in the 99th percentile nationally for that test section and another 7-8% were in the 98th% nationally. Two kids could both be in the 99th% on a MAP test but have scores that are 20 points apart. If 3% or less of MCPS fifth graders get accepted into the competitive magnets, then they can’t take all the students who have always been in the 99th% nationally on all tests because [b]there aren’t that many seats in the program. [/b]The selection committee had to try to determine what separated one 99th% from another. In the end, I’m sure there was a certain amount of luck involved because they were probably looking at very small differences in lots of cases. When you add in the consideration for home middle school cohort, well, it’s easy to see why many parents can’t understand why their very high performing child didn’t get in and it seems unfair to parents because the home cohort aspect is something they couldn’t control for and cannot understand because they don’t get to see the grades and test scores of other students. How do you ever really know how your child compares to other students if even the 99% kids aren’t all the same?[/quote]

I tried to make your point last year without the MCPS average data.  My 99% kid didn't get in and 2 of DC's classmates did.  They were also 99%, but I knew that they scored higher on MAP tests and their raw Cogat scores were higher.  My child's school was also listed as one with a high number of cohort kids. This process seems obvious to me!  I suspect some people of lying and using the National percentiles to explain the rejections OR their kids scored on the lower end of 99% for other measures such as MAP and PARCC. Is it possible that some kids were overlooked, yes; but I don't think it is a systemic issue because someone would have sued to make sure MCPS couldn't do the same thing 2 years in a row.[/quote]
So here's what I want to know: why there aren't "that many" seats in the program to accomodate every 99%? Why can't MCPS offer magnet curriculum to the top 5% other than the top 2%?
[/quote]

Because, by PP's summary, the number of students scoring 98-99 percentile nationally on any given test is already 85% of the students MCPS screened this year--that's close to 1000 kids.  If you start talking about being a 99 percentile on map or parcc or cogat, who knows how many that is.  If this is the ballpark figure, this need should be addressed at the home school.  But I don't blame the parents, they've been seeing high 90s year in year out and assumed that meant their kid was in the top 3% of the county, but it turns out to be more like top 15%.[/quote]

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