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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I wish we would be accurate.  It's not MCPS percentile - as you can see from reviewing above where at the same National percentile you have vastly different (basically zip code driven) local SES percentile.  I suppose this will be shot down, it's dcum, but could we call it what it is, "local SES percentile"?[/quote]

Interesting theory but sadly you don't really have the details to make that assessment unless you work for the county and wish to share that info [/quote]

Actually MCPS just published yesterday on their website that they calculated MCPS scores differently * [b][u]according to poverty levels at the home school[/u][/b] * :
"    What do the MCPS percentiles mean? How are MCPS percentiles determined?
    The socioeconomic status of elementary schools was used to determine the locally normed score on
    the CogAT® (MCPS Percentiles). In establishing MCPS Percentiles, students in schools with
    minimal poverty were compared to one another, students in schools with moderate poverty were
    compared to each other, and students from schools highly impacted by poverty were compared to
    each other.

Why did MCPS use local norms? How were local norms created?
    Based on guidance from the National Association for Gifted Children, the use of local norms was
    undertaken to ensure equity and access in identification of students for program access..."

From there to concluding that they give higher MCPS scores to students in high-poverty schools, and lower MCPS scores to students in low-poverty schools, is not even a stretch.

Then you have to understand that at the 99th percentile (national), there is a wide range in abilities between the student who gets 99.0 and the one who gets 99.9, because it's the end of the bell curve. Those decimals matter for selection to a gifted program, and parents don't know them.

So a student who scores 99% for both MCPS and National, is either: highly gifted, because his National (and possibly MCPS) score is actually in the higher decimals of the 99th percentile; or in a high-poverty school, where his MCPS score has been bumped up, and his National score isn't necessarily stratospheric. No way to know which is which with the information currently available to parents.

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