Reply to Does MAP-M go up to 350?

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Reply to "Does MAP-M go up to 350?"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]My son with 268 in 8th grade non magnet says he has the lowest score in his math class apparently kids share scores with each other. We are new to MCPS this year and he is really upset.  He is in the Hon Algebra 2 cohort with 10 other kids. How are people prepping for MAP M? Isn’t it an adaptive test where questions change from person to person? [/quote]

Yes, it is an adaptive test. It increasingly becomes harder as you give correct answers.

You study by basically doing higher level Math of at least two grades higher or more.  A number of MS kids are  studying  Algebra 2 or  Precalc outside of their school day, so they are already far more advanced than their peers. Then they study for the MathCounts, AMC and other Math competitions.  So the way to succeed is be very advanced and get outside enrichment and acceleration. [/quote]
Those kids sound like perfect candidates for an enriched program like the magnets.[/quote]

They [i]might[/i] be, but so might many others who do not have similar opportunity to engage in outside enrichment.  Allocation decisions about public education primarily should be about meeting need, and doing so equitably across the population served (my take on equity being a bit different from that adopted within MCPS, but not so far off and with, I'd hope, a similar underlying ideal).  As noted many times, there are many options beside or in addition to MAP scores  for identifying need for enrichment, and most of those suggested would do so more equitably.

Despite the continual push by those with power of one kind or another to make it otherwise, this country's foundation and continued social contract was and is based, in part, on a rejection of inherited entitlement.  Social mobility drives a generally virtuois cycle that tends to benefit a great majority, if not all.  A paradigm that tends to reserve opportunity to those with means is antithetical to this ideal.  Magnet selection criteria that disfavor children with equivalent abilities but lower exposure would be a sterling example of such.

That said, folks tend to rise to conflict over scarce resources, and MCPS has made proper enrichment (that which would meet the spirit of MD law and MCPS policy) artificially scarce with the management priorities of the last 20 years.  At the same time, if those with means would be less tight fisted with taxpayer funding of areas such as public education (in relation to need when compared with other areas, such as defense), the scarcity might better be addressed.[/quote]

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