Reply to 2020 National Merit semifinalists in DC

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I see things differently and would be far less hard on DCPS simply because the threshold for semi-finalists is the HIGHEST IN THE ENTIRE COUNTRY.  The one-year of data in this discussion are simply too small of a sample size to make any valid conclusions about DCPS at this point. The cut off this past year was 223, meaning that that the semi-finalists probably got no more than one or perhaps two questions wrong.  They probably are in the 99.8% of all entrants.  Is a 99.8% threshold a good indicator to judge DCPS?  That seems like quite a high threshold to hold DCPS responsible for.  I'd like to know how many of the kids got in the, say, 50%, 75%, 90%, 95% threshold.  I have to wonder if DCPS is actually higher than other school districts.

I see other states have much lower cut off rates and higher semi-finalist acceptance rates (more than DC's 1%).  In the 2018-19 year, Sidwell has the most semi-finalists at 14; GDS had 11; and School without Walls had 7.

An important question is whether the methodology used by NMS has inherent biases against DC resident kids by employing the highest cut off in the country and by not accounting for DC having a disproportionately high number of highly selective, national-level private schools dominated by kids from outside of Washington, although most of the kids in the DC cohort are clearly DCPS resident kids.

Also, my apologies for the mistake of indicating there were 37 semi-finalists, when there were 39. The actual percentage would be 10.2%, rounded to 10%.

[/quote]
OK, genius, why was DCPS routinely turning out 7, 8 or 9 finalists just five years ago?  The threshold for semi-finalists was the same then, and our public schools were lower performing overall.  BASIS hadn't even produced a graduating class when the DC public semi-finalist "boom" was on.  What's happened is that we're seeing fewer finalists as the years go by.

Why be so sympathetic to DCPS, the school system that refuses to fund GT programs in the only jurisdiction in this Metro area with no law on gifted education.  MD and VA both mandated GT education for the qualified in the 90s, which Michelle Rhee liked to mention. The very same system that will not support academic tracking at the middle school level, other than for math and possibly ELA, and celebrates Honors for All at Wilson.

I see cause for DCPS and DCPCS not turning out dozens of semi-finalists, but four system-wide?  Inexcusable.[/quote]

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