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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Wow, STEM magnet with a 60th percentile score. I can see giving some boost for higher FARM rates, but this seems excessive.  60th national percentile might actually be below average in MCPS.[/quote]

I'm going to ask a dumb question.  If a child is in 60th percentile and another child is in the 92% percentile, aren't' the 2 children at different levels?  How does attending the magnet program help either student?   [/quote]

They are, but the theory MCPS is working with here is that the MS magnets aren't just for kids who are already high achievers, but also for those who have the potential to excel and would not have a peer group at their home MS. The eight elementary schools with that low threshold are also *incredibly* high needs. Unlike some of the moderate FARMS schools, there really are very few MS kids in those eight schools. They exist, but these are schools with 90+ percent of kids receiving FARMS. So, there's a good chance that any random kid you pull out of that pool is experiencing real poverty, may be an English Language Learner, and has parents who may not speak English and may not have the resources to push in extensive prep.

So, the MCPS theory is that a kid hitting 60% with those disadvantages might have the same potential as a kid hitting 95% with every advantage in the world.

Of course, it's not a perfect system because it's based on averages. Not every single kid at Arcola is poor, and not every single kid at Bethesda is getting test prep on the weekends, but MCPS is looking at averages. [/quote]
What I am curious about are three things. First, whether MCPS has any data on the educational impact of FARMS students moving from high FARMS to low FARMS schools? Second, I would like to understand how they consider this scenario: a non-FARMS student in a high FARMs school receiving advantage in selection than a FARMS student in a low FARMS school. Perhaps that is the goal? Third, what is the appropriate level of education to meet the needs of the high performing kids that are not selected?[/quote]

I think right now they're just letting in more mediocre non-farm students from high farm schools into the programs. It's a penalty for farm students living in non-farm school neighborhood. It would be interesting to see current 6th and 7th grade magnet program MAP profile side by side comparison with all other individual MS MAP profile. I suspect some schools in low farm area may even outperform magnet programs. MCPS need to address the needs for high performing students that are not selected through lottery. [/quote]

DP but no, they really don’t.  High-performing students, especially those from wealthier areas, do not need another leg up.  They do not need extra public resources when SO many kids are behind and do need that help.  I’m happy for my tax dollars to go towards boosting up the kids who live in poverty - not so much for them to go towards giving already advantaged kids still more advantage.

MCPS’s system is imperfect, but I appreciate what they’re trying to do.  I have little sympathy for parents who deliberately sequester themselves in wealthy areas and then whine that their kids aren’t receiving still more enrichment from the *public* school system.[/quote]

We can agree to disagree. I think the public school system is designed to provide a free and appropriate public education to all students. I don’t think it needs to be an either/or, that if they need to give extra resources to needier students that they cannot also meet the needs of gifted learners. It actually isn’t very expensive in terms of dollars to offer accelerated/enriched courses. The 6th graders still need to take English no matter their level. I don’t think it would cost more to have them study books at the appropriate depth rather than re-read at grade level books they read in 4th grade. [/quote]

If it were solely about the tangible resources you describe, e.g., books, this wouldn’t be an issue.  But it’s not - it’s about staffing, it’s about having distinct cohorts of kids, as in the kind the magnet schools provide.

I also think “appropriate” is debatable in this context.  I think the resources MCPS provides are mostly very appropriate (I used to work in educational research, so I have a better sense of how MCPS fits into the big picture than many people).  But look at how many wealthy parents lost their minds when the current framework was implemented; to them, “appropriate” means something very different than it does to less entitled individuals.  At some point, too, parents need to think about what they’re on the hook for providing to their kids, and this is where disadvantaged children can really suffer disproportionately, because their parents and surroundings don’t offer the kind of enrichment they do for wealthier kids.  If my DD doesn’t get into the TPMS magnet, we can find other ways to teach her coding.  It’s not the same, but pretending like the wealthy lack for options isn’t useful.[/quote]

I’m sorry. You are conflating a whole lot of things. This isn’t about wealth or entitlement or whether you can sign your daughter up for a coding course. It is about the fact that MCPS identifies a certain number of students as needing accelerated/enriched instruction (puts them in the lottery pool) and then fails to provide it, placing them in grade level courses while plucking a small subset of students and placing them in a magnet with the curriculum everyone in that pool should have access to. Lack of staffing is an excuse. At many mcps schools, there is a perfectly large enough cohort to accomplish this. For ones that don’t, the issue is not insurmountable. It isn’t about whether wealthy people lack options. It is about mcps just deciding that meeting the needs of gifted learners is optional for them in spite of their commitment to do so in all of their communications. [/quote]

Are you paying attention to this thread?  Or others that have protested the varying percentiles based on FARMS?

Further, I don’t see the lottery as identifying kids who NEED accelerated instruction, but kids who could possibly benefit from it.  The criteria they use are far too broad to identify the actual needs of individual students.  In reality, the vast majority of “gifted” kids could receive accelerated coursework in their home schools.  Very few kids would benefit from a magnet program *so much* that it’s worth the associated trade-offs.[/quote]

The thing that makes me absolutely bananas is that you are right. MCPS has created this false scarcity in part due to their allergy to differentiated instruction. So if I want my child to read actual books in English, or to receive instruction appropriate to their level, my choice is private school or roll the dice on the lottery into the one magnet MS for half the county.

If they just did what they said they would do [b](advanced classes with a cohort of kids 85th percentile or above),[/b] the vaaaaasst majority of kids would be just fine. We could even reserve the magnets for kids whose schools don't have enough 85th percentile kids to make a class.

But instead we get this cage match nonsense. [/quote]

I think they did try this, but the the 85th percentile normed by the banded schools - so the top 15% of students in that group- but at some schools parents got mad, so to quiet them, some schools did some interesting things with those classes.  I read a lot of comments from people who have had great experiences with AIM and HIGH, and then some that describe some very different experiences.  It seems like some schools are really doing a great job with it, while others are not. Also seems like there are a lot of people who think their kid "deserves" to be in the classes even when they don't meet the criteria.  Like it or not, agree with it or not, MCPS has identified and shared clear criteria for being in the lottery for the magnets and in the courses.[/quote]

Yeah, like at our MS, they just got rid of AIM (only have AMC6+ and AMC7+ for 6th graders) and put everyone in Advanced English and HIGH...[/quote]

AIM is supposed to be offered to all students who are centrally identified. If your home school isn't offering it, you should definitely take it up the chain and involve MCPS AEI.

HIGH also should be cohorted. If they are truly offering it to everyone, then again that's an issue to be brought up the chain.

Advanced English is on-level English. There is no enriched English offerings outside the humanities magnets. It's ridiculous to call it advanced.[/quote]

AIM was from the Curriculum 2.0 era, so they are eliminating it in favor of AMC 7+, which uses the new MS math curriculum.[/quote]

No. They still have AIM. They do not have IM offered to 7th graders — that is what has been eliminated. [/quote]

One of my kids had AIM in 6th last year. It was a surprisingly good class and they felt that compacted was a waste of 2 years.[/quote]

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