Reply to 7th Grade MAP Scores

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Reply to "7th Grade MAP Scores"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]This is exactly why the process isn’t transparent.  No one wants a 7th grader stressing and sad over a MAP exam.  Further, the cut score would need to be different each year depending on the scores of students in a given cycle.  And it’s only one factor in creating the classes.

Students should do their best on the exams and the same with the magnet applications and let the chips fall where they may.[/quote]

There is no “cut” score, but the median score for the past year admissions of available from the magnet coordinator. That helps provide some guidance on what may be high enough. The process is plenty transparent. Just attend the info sessions. [/quote]

Of we think The process would be transparent if it would allow a student/family to know why, precisely, that student did or did not get selected.  That should include:

- each criterion considered
- the weight given each criterion
- all systematic adjustments to those criteria (e.g., for FARMS status, and the algorithm/calculation used)
- for each criterion, the score/grade the student achieved on which a decision was based,
- for each adjustment, whether the student qualified for the adjustment
- for each criterion, the distribution of adjusted scores/grades for those selected/offered a seat 
- any additional considerations used in making selections (e.g., distribution across feeder schools, gender balance, etc.)

Limiting this transparency does nothing to keep a student sad & stressing.  It is largely the parents who make it so, and they will be doing that whether or not the exact criteria are known.  Transparency reduces doubt, though, and can give kids a break in doing so, with fewer thinking they are/were "close" (most of those stressing will consider themselves/their children close until shown otherwise.

The down side is really on the system, and only if it is not employing a good selection heuristic.  That level of transparency may provide detail that would support an appeal, but would, at the same time, both dissuade appeals (with more precise justification for non-selection well understood) and provide the ready-made argument against any appeal (with the same).  It [i]would[/i] allow much faster adjudication of just appeals where inaccurate information was used in the determination.[/quote]

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