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[quote=Anonymous]The appeal [i]process[/i] may not need to be more robust.  However, hiding information applicable to that process serves only those who wish to keep it most manipulable by insiders, antithetical to an equitable framework.  That same mentality of obfuscation, ostensibly in the interests of efficient service to society, has propped up many an inequitable social paradigm.

To reduce the incidence of appeals while justly serving students, it would be far better to have criteria with robust heuristics, more flexible to heterogeneous conditions and the uncertainties inherent to many a single criterion, meanwhile making the information plainly known and easily accessible.  That would support appeals in the interests of those individual students whose edge cases may not be well represented in the chosen paradigm, and that's the kind of thing that promotes equity (not to mention improves community relations/perceptions).

Slippery slope arguments have also long plagued advocates of equitable outcomes.  That hard-grading 5th grade teacher?  Perhaps nobly seeking to instill appreciation for rigor and effort in a local student population that too often is disserved with low expectatIon?  That points out a flaw in MCPS's current inflexible criteria, one better addressed with heuristics designed to accommodate such apples-to-oranges situations with better fidelity to identification of ability.  Or, perhaps, it might encourage MCPS to promote relative uniformity in grading, which also would tend toward greater equitability.

The issue of different versions of MAP-M being administered among 5th graders was addressed, at least to some semblance of a reasonable degree.  Other well identified heterogeneous underlying conditions, more endemic and unalterable, likewise should see accomodation in the criteria.  That for those receiving services is the lone example we have, and it was monolothic.

Are all IEPs indicative of similar impediment to getting higher MAP RIT scores?  Does a 504 represent a similar impediment to an EML designation, and similarly in both Math and Reading?  Aren't IEPs and 504s more likely to be obtained by those with greater means?  Doesn't that, paired with FARMS and EML designations being predominant among those with much lower means, result in a barbell distribution of the criteria accommodation, presenting inflexible criteria cliffs that squeeze those in the middle who might have closely related situations (or in the case of IEP/504, those possibly more severe but unpursued due to lack of extensive means)?  Again, a more flexible identification paradigm, perhaps utilizing tools oft-cited as better representative of ability than achievement/exposure, perhaps not, would better serve equity goals.

Simply saying it's a slippery slope undercuts any effort to make appeals or pursue better paradigms even when the edge-case/difference-based arguments and related solutions might be fairly plain on their face.  That kind of ploy has been used by entrenched interests for centuries to keep others in their place.  Our children deserve better.[/quote]

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