Reply to Accelerated Education in MCPS

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]
No, I didn't misunderstand the sentence. I do econometrics (i.e., lots and lots of stats) for a living. What I am asking is, what sample does the 90th pctile come from? Is this the 90th pctile (and above) for all kids in MoCo, or is it 90th pctile for all kids in the nation?  I think your second sentence may be answering my question, but it's not clear you understand the issue here. 
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Why do you have to have to quote your job to make the point? I did not imply your misunderstanding is related to your knowledge in statistics at all. Let me explain again. The PP who mentioned about 90th %tile and above did not say “MCPS GT [b]means[/b] students at 90th %tile and above”. What he/she said is “MCPS GT [b]includes[/b] students at 90th %tile and above”. It seemed to me that your question originated from the assumption that the PP said the first thing quoted here. 
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What I'm trying to get at is an answer to this question: if MoCo administers a test and says that any kid who scores in the 90th percentile or above is "GT", how do we end up with a situation where MoCo labels 40% of kids as being "GT"? By definition, the 90th pctile kid is in the top 10%, not in the top 40%. So there is a definitional problem somewhere. from Wikipedia:  "In statistics, a percentile (or centile) is the value of a variable below which a certain percent of observations fall. For example, the 20th percentile is the value (or score) below which 20 percent of the observations may be found."  That's what I'm trying to pin down. 
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If you have read the thread you probably understand that MoCo does not have a cutoff %tile for GT identification. The 40% kids ending up identified as GT is anecdotal. No one has the real stat except MoCo, which they do not publish.  So, there is no correlation of MCPS to national %tile in the discussion here. 
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It would make sense if MoCo kids were often above the national average, so that 40% of MoCo kids were in the top 10% nationally. But that was just one guess. Maybe there's another explanation.
(And BTW, I have to laugh at "I guess you miss understood the sentence."  Can't we try a little, teensy bit harder to be nice to each other? I know some of you guys frequent the GTA forum, but really!)[/quote]
The actual explanation is much more political than statistical. It has to do with race equity. It has to do with some politically motivated people feeling there are not enough people from certain race being identified as “GT “or “academically advanced”. There are two ways for a county to show progress to answer that concern; addressing the root cause of why %age of certain race in GT identification is lower than other race or lower the standard for GT identification. The first solution is extremely difficult to achieve within a school system, the second one easy. So, MCPS has taken the second path.

I am trying to be nice and answer your questions. May be you can stop assuming what others intentions are. I was in no way trying to insult your intelligence or knowledge. “Misunderstanding” is not lack of degree or ability.
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