Reply to Remind me how long until we get MAP results

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote]A problem arises from a school system using an exposure-based score as a main criterion for placement in accelerated/enriched programming, particularly in earlier grades. [/quote]

This is only true for limited programs that accept the top students by score instead of inclusive programs that accept all students with a score showing readiness.

MCPS at all levels (Compacted math, CES, MS and HS magnet) uses the latter -- a soft or hard minimum score for readiness qualification, not a cutoff based on how many seats are available. [/quote]

Not so.  MCPS has only a fraction of seats available compared to the numbers qualifying for the lottery -- it does not accept all qualifying students to the magnet programs, and local programming is not close to magnet level implementation in most, if not all, circumstances, both due to curriculum and due to cohort.  Ask parents in TP/Silver Spring with children at Piney Branch, Oak View or Pincecrest CES what is studied and how much time is given to enrichment and compare that to the local implementations of ELC at the feeder schools (PBES being its own feeder, of course, but noted due to the awareness within the surrounding communities).  There is not reasonable equivalence.

With that as background, it is incumbent on MCPS to ensure the qualification paradigm it adopted in the first year of the pandemic, then adjusted to make more stict (removing the any-of-these-criteria heuristic to make qualification on each criterion a requirement), results in an equitable identification of all those with high ability, and, then, reasonably equivalent likelihood of identification/selection for all such students.

Further, the CES and MS lottery placement paradigms (possibly the CM identification paradigm, too) utilize hard minimum MAP cutoffs -- there is no heuristic that allows a lower score than the minimum to qualify based on greater indicators from other criteria.  Unless one counts appeals, that is, which are sparingly few and cumbersome enough to present a significantly greater barrier to those with limited means.

Sure, the former two employ local norming and adjustment for receipt of services, but it is still a hard floor based on percentile, there.  One might suggest that this [i]should[/i] include all who are highly able.  However, it fails in many edge cases.  For example, a non-FARMS student from a situation that would tend to limit outside enrichment opportunities who attends a low-FARMS school (lots of these, not just in the overwhelmingly wealthy areas) may still need to score above 95 %ile nationally to be placed in a lottery.  One might see that as OK, but then those with outside enrichment opportunities, highly able or no, are simply more [i]likely[/i] than their ability-peers without to qualify based on the exposure-related MAP score criterion.[/quote]

1. Lottery is random. It's not a cutoff.

2. Low FARMS schools offer as good as or better opportunities as magnet middle school (skipping into Algebra in 6th! Foundations of Computer Science; and more room in math/science ECs) for that middling smart 94th percentile student who failed to get into lottery. The littery cutoff percentile is much lower than the old non-lottery cutoff on the old tests.
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