Reply to Pool size for TPMS and Eastern lotteries

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I have always been told that what is at stake is the 1st quarter grade of the 5th grade year.  DC's teacher just also said to us recently that it is the main grade in the subject that is considered (not the subgrades).  Has anyone else heard the same or different?[/quote]

That is what has been used for the past 3 years. Prior to that, they used grades from 4th grade. They didn’t notify anyone (students, teachers, parents) that they were changing the criteria until after they conducted the review and sent out lottery results after winter break that year. So those 5th graders did not know that quarter 1 was the quarter that mattered until it was way too late. All to say that they can change the criteria at any time, they have a history of being opaque, etc. and they don’t seem to feel the need to actually communicate to families what the review process will include until they’ve already completed it.

Also, certain years kids seem to get only one offer from one magnet with no one winning the lottery from both, and other years it seems as though the lottery is run so that kids get offers from both at the same time (if in pool) and can choose. It’s never been explained.

Oh and don’t forget there is a set aside for kids in bounds for the school. A big chunk of seats are reserved for students in the zone. [/quote]

That's the nature of lotteries. They're random.[/quote]

You'd think, yes.  And the PP should take heed that those differences year to year are natural results of probabilistic randomness across independent lotteries.

[b]Then again, the "lottery luck" of certain families across elementary Centers for Enriched Studies and criteria-based magnet middle schools, along with the then-higher likelihood of selection to HS magnet programs strains credulity.[/b] Not impossible, but...

DCCAPS uses a third party to conduct the lotteries.  One can hope that there are oversight mechanisms in place, but neither that nor transparency have been MCPS's strong suit to this point.[/quote]

DP - I agree with the bolded.  It's not credible to me that there's no direct input for getting certain kids into the various magnet programs, not knowing the kids we do who have consistently gotten in.  MCPS has done almost nothing to build trust in a fair process.  It's almost strange to me that people actually believe it's a true lottery.[/quote]

What are you suggesting? That there is a conspiracy to get “certain kids” in? (Who?!!) That they are too incompetent to run a lottery that genuinely gives everyone an equal chance of selection? Something else? [/quote]

Conspiracy?  No.  It's easy to allow elementary schools to identify a few kids who they strongly recommend for placement into one of the MS magnets.  And heck, maybe they do that and then a lottery for the rest of the kids.

Given MCPS' track record, it's deeply naive to think they care about making this process a "fair" one.[/quote]

Sure, but it's a lottery, so selections are name+race blind; names are picked randomly from the pool. That's the definition of a lottery.
[/quote]

Yeah it’s “race blind” after they recalculate everyone’s MAP score using FARMS and EML as proxies for race. [/quote]

DP/a prior poster.  Though race-based equity goals might have driven adoption of those particular adjustments, there are reasonable rationales that underlie them and research that backs them.  Still, some similar adjustments that might address other differential conditions have not been pursued.

If there is any foot-on-the-scale selection, I'd think it would be outside of the operation of the formal lottery mechanism, though I don't know of a particular mechanism.  The "lottery luck," as mentioned, could be well within expected statistical variation across a large enough population.  However, MCPS OSA doesn't audit results consistently or across enough variables (e.g., family connection, a more robust/granular set of demographics, etc.) to rule out favoritism.  Nor have they tracked whether those identified but not selected via lottery incur a likelihood, versus their identified-[i]and-selected[/i] peers, of lower performance (e.g., on standardized tests) or lower chance of later selection to a criteria-based program.

Given that magnet seats are among the scarcest and most sought resources (with the perception being not only that they provide greater enrichment, but also that the differential sequellae are as described), that is one place where the system really could gain trust with the community with the kind of openness that demonstrates their commitment to meeting the needs of all students in a reasonably equivalent manner.[/quote]

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