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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]The peer cohort thing is ridiculous. Peer cohorts don't teach children -- teachers teach children, and children are taught what's in the curriculum. The idea that talented students will have their educational needs met s[b]imply because they're grouped with other talented children[/b] makes a mockery of the fundamental premise that teachers and curricula are critical to education.[/quote]

Nobody's saying that. Once they've been grouped together as a cohort, that can enable the group to be given the enriched or applied courses, i.e. teachers and curricula.

[/quote]

Actually, that's exactly what MCPS said last year, when they didn't roll out the enriched classes at all middle schools. So those kids who were rejected from the magnet middle schools on cohort grounds but didn't go to one of the home MS where they piloted either or both of the 6th grade enriched courses got nothing. And as far as I have heard so far, no one has identified that, going forward from 6th grade, the kid will receive enriched/applied courses in 7th, whether or not they received the piloted classes in 6th grade. (I'd be happy if someone showed me evidence otherwise).

Nor are they offering the enriched/applied across the board in all subjects -- only a couple. So a kid rejected from Eastern for peer cohort reasons may get the enriched social studies, for whatever that's worth, but won't get enriched/advanced English. Ditto for the kid rejected from TP for peer cohort reasons who will get the same science as everyone else.

The peer cohort was the rationale that MCPS came up with last year for redoing the system to get the results they wanted. They did not have the enriched/applied courses in mind ahead of time -- that was demonstrably cobbled together in response to parent uproar. Further, at the meeting that I attended where MCPS attempted to explain the new system (after implementing it), an MCPS staffer plainly and explicitly said that students would *not* be homogeneously grouped for all subjects. In other words, kids will not be tracked throughout to advanced level classes comprising advanced level kids, but will continue to be grouped in heterogeneous classes for at least some subjects. That is explicitly a social engineering policy, not one designed to meet the educational needs of advanced learners.

The peer cohort rationale was not one designed to identify and meet the needs of all advanced learners, wherever they are located. The new information about the CoGAT percentile comparison being made to similar SES levels demonstrates that clearly.[/quote]

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