Reply to Is Cold Spring HGC the only HGC targeted by MCPS for denying entrance to MS magnet programs?

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Reply to "Is Cold Spring HGC the only HGC targeted by MCPS for denying entrance to MS magnet programs?"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Targeted, no. That's not what happened here. Many, many more students were screened. But something is going on that is curious. Because even with many more kids screened you'd still figure that more kids within a cohort of children that have already scored very high scores on the Cogat would be admitted. I have no doubt that the kids admitted are all very bright kids who will do very well, as bright as the kids in the HGC's. I'm not suggesting they aren't. But there may be reasons they were chosen over some of the kids in the HGC's and it might not be, always, because of higher test scores. Or, it could be that with so many children screened the differences came down to very small differences in scores, essentially meaningless differences when it comes down to it. It's just very hard to say exactly the algorithms that were used and why things shook out the way they did. [/quote]

Except most of the 4000 kids tested this time still would have had to self select two years ago for HGC testing, meaning we don't know how the current HGC kids would compare to the other 3500 if there has been universal testing then.  For all we know, there easily could have been tons of kids who should have been in HGCs but weren't because of the application process. [/quote]

[b]Some CS parents found out the hard way that with more applications  this year means the program is more competitive. With everyone talking about it on DCUM and other forums next year will be even more students applying[/b].[/quote]
If that is all that happened then I don't think you would CS parents would be upset.  Disappointed certainly if your kid does not get a spot but not upset.  In fact I think most fair minded people would welcome the tremendous increase in screening.  I think what people are upset by is that it sounds like MCPS might be using geography to decide who gets the limited spots in the magnet middle schools.  So a kid in a high performing school cluster with 99s across the board on the Cogat (and presumably commensurately high MAP scores) is rejected in favor of a student with lower test scores. 
We know that many students who were rejected scored higher than the median of accepted students.

We also know that after the Metis study, MCPS has been trying to improve diversity in the magnet programs.  This is a laudable goal as long as it is done in an honest and fair way.  If it is done by increasing community outreach and simplifying the application process, fantastic.  If it is done by lowering admission standards and taking spots away from more qualified children well then that is not ok.  Unfortunately, MCPS has a sorry track record in this area.  Many years ago they decided to focus on the achievement gap which is a real problem.  There is only so much a school system can do to solve a problem that has highly complex socioeconomic causes.  Despite throwing lots of resources to bring test scores up for groups that were lagging, the results were not improving enough and so MCPS has done things like reducing final exams in most high school classes (which causes grade inflation and makes it harder to differentiate between above average and high achievers), changing ES report cards so that nearly everyone is some variant of "proficient".  If the data is opaque it is hard to discern how big the achievement gap truly is.

I see their move to just give parents their child's percentiles on the Cogat score to be a similar attempt to obscure information that would tell the public what is actually happening.  The raw score for the 99th percentile of COGAT ranges from 135-160.  The Cogat mean is 100 and the standard deviation is 16 which means that a child with a score of 160 is more than one standard deviation away from a kid with a 135.  I wish there was some way to force MCPS to release the raw test scores of accepted and rejected students organized by home middle school.  Then we would see whether they have been able to increase geographic diversity in the magnet programs for a good reason (spreading a wider net) or for a bad reason (discrimination).  If it is the former, I will stand up and cheer.  If it is the latter, I am going to remain upset.
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Did the program have a 99%theshold for entrance ? There is likely a minimum score but once students are above that, all are qualified to attend, that is where other factors come into play for acceptance. [/quote]

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