Anonymous wrote:

So if Asians, Whites, Blacks and Latino kids performance is at par, are you saying that MCPS had a racist policy of selecting Asians and Whites kids over Blacks and Latino kids? Can you site any evidence of this?

MCPS is now on its third iteration of magnet admissions in my kids' time in the system and the first iteration (two iterations ago) really was pretty biased. It included a lot of elements that have been demonstrated to have racial or SES bias, including:

1) The MS admissions test was offered on a Saturday at only a select number of schools, so if your parents worked or were otherwise unavailable to drive you, too bad.

2) As might be suggested by #1, the test was not universal. You had to either be referred or opt in. This was a system that dramatically favored people who were "in the know" as well as those with extra time to track school goings on

3) Teacher recommendations are demonstrably problematic. At the ES level, most teachers are white women, and data shows that white women are terrible at identifying gifted kids of color. The things they are looking for (compliance, extroversion) are not present in ALL gifted kids

4) At-home essays were being written/heavily edited by parents, which gave a HUGE advantage to kids whose parents were highly educated native or near-native English speakers

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

So if Asians, Whites, Blacks and Latino kids performance is at par, are you saying that MCPS had a racist policy of selecting Asians and Whites kids over Blacks and Latino kids? Can you site any evidence of this?

MCPS is now on its third iteration of magnet admissions in my kids' time in the system and the first iteration (two iterations ago) really was pretty biased. It included a lot of elements that have been demonstrated to have racial or SES bias, including:

1) The MS admissions test was offered on a Saturday at only a select number of schools, so if your parents worked or were otherwise unavailable to drive you, too bad.

2) As might be suggested by #1, the test was not universal. You had to either be referred or opt in. This was a system that dramatically favored people who were "in the know" as well as those with extra time to track school goings on

3) Teacher recommendations are demonstrably problematic. At the ES level, most teachers are white women, and data shows that white women are terrible at identifying gifted kids of color. The things they are looking for (compliance, extroversion) are not present in ALL gifted kids

4) At-home essays were being written/heavily edited by parents, which gave a HUGE advantage to kids whose parents were highly educated native or near-native English speakers

So you want lottery as a solution to these problems you sited? Can you think of any other way to resolve these issues so that they can be addressed appropriately? a better way than a lottery?
Will you say the same about the sports and games team? Do you support MCPS to do a lottery for sports and games?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does anyone know what is the real reason MCPS BOE uses lottery for CES program?
Why can't it be the consistency of performance against benchmarks in elementary school? and/or likewise consistency of performance in middle school for highschool magnet program

Are they using Lottery for selection into sports and games teams as well instead of performance benchmarks? or is the lottery exclusive for academic programs?

I agree with you. If academic programs are lotteries. Why can't other competitive programs (like sports teams, student government positions, etc.) be lotteries. My kid didn't make the basketball team and is pretty down about it. In his opinion half the kids they took were a lot better than him. The other half were only marginally better, and he thought that if he had a week or so for the coach to see him play, that the coach would have picked him over at least 2 of the guys. Might as well move everything in mcps to a lottery since we are only concerned about equity.

Anonymous wrote:

So if Asians, Whites, Blacks and Latino kids performance is at par, are you saying that MCPS had a racist policy of selecting Asians and Whites kids over Blacks and Latino kids? Can you site any evidence of this?

MCPS is now on its third iteration of magnet admissions in my kids' time in the system and the first iteration (two iterations ago) really was pretty biased. It included a lot of elements that have been demonstrated to have racial or SES bias, including:

1) The MS admissions test was offered on a Saturday at only a select number of schools, so if your parents worked or were otherwise unavailable to drive you, too bad.

2) As might be suggested by #1, the test was not universal. You had to either be referred or opt in. This was a system that dramatically favored people who were "in the know" as well as those with extra time to track school goings on

3) Teacher recommendations are demonstrably problematic. At the ES level, most teachers are white women, and data shows that white women are terrible at identifying gifted kids of color. The things they are looking for (compliance, extroversion) are not present in ALL gifted kids

4) At-home essays were being written/heavily edited by parents, which gave a HUGE advantage to kids whose parents were highly educated native or near-native English speakers

Anonymous wrote:

So if Asians, Whites, Blacks and Latino kids performance is at par, are you saying that MCPS had a racist policy of selecting Asians and Whites kids over Blacks and Latino kids? Can you site any evidence of this?

MCPS is now on its third iteration of magnet admissions in my kids' time in the system and the first iteration (two iterations ago) really was pretty biased. It included a lot of elements that have been demonstrated to have racial or SES bias, including:

1) The MS admissions test was offered on a Saturday at only a select number of schools, so if your parents worked or were otherwise unavailable to drive you, too bad.

2) As might be suggested by #1, the test was not universal. You had to either be referred or opt in. This was a system that dramatically favored people who were "in the know" as well as those with extra time to track school goings on

3) Teacher recommendations are demonstrably problematic. At the ES level, most teachers are white women, and data shows that white women are terrible at identifying gifted kids of color. The things they are looking for (compliance, extroversion) are not present in ALL gifted kids

4) At-home essays were being written/heavily edited by parents, which gave a HUGE advantage to kids whose parents were highly educated native or near-native English speakers

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does anyone know what is the real reason MCPS BOE uses lottery for CES program?
Why can't it be the consistency of performance against benchmarks in elementary school? and/or likewise consistency of performance in middle school for highschool magnet program

Are they using Lottery for selection into sports and games teams as well instead of performance benchmarks? or is the lottery exclusive for academic programs?

I agree with you. If academic programs are lotteries. Why can't other competitive programs (like sports teams, student government positions, etc.) be lotteries. My kid didn't make the basketball team and is pretty down about it. In his opinion half the kids they took were a lot better than him. The other half were only marginally better, and he thought that if he had a week or so for the coach to see him play, that the coach would have picked him over at least 2 of the guys. Might as well move everything in mcps to a lottery since we are only concerned about equity.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Too many Asian and white kids. Not “enough” black and Latino kids who can match Asian/white kids performance

Exactly:

https://bethesdamagazine.com/bethesda-beat/schools/mcps-files-to-dismiss-magnet-admissions-lawsuit/

MCPS didn't like the outcome of the existing process, so they changed it to a lottery to achieve an outcome they wanted.

+1 The lottery was to ensure MCPS could weasel out of pending lawsuits. I believe they were caught tampering with the admissions criteria of the 2020 class, which helped motivate moving towards a lottery system. Can't claim its discrimination if it's a completely random selection.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Define qualified...if you want to have a program for the top students, there is always a group at the top.

How to measure accurately, though? There's no "best" measure. Some kids test better. Some write better. Some speak better.

Didn't you just measure them by stating that "some write better, some speak and some tests better? Why can't MCPS do the same?

So if Asians, Whites, Blacks and Latino kids performance is at par, are you saying that MCPS had a racist policy of selecting Asians and Whites kids over Blacks and Latino kids? Can you site any evidence of this?

Anonymous wrote:Does anyone know what is the real reason MCPS BOE uses lottery for CES program?
Why can't it be the consistency of performance against benchmarks in elementary school? and/or likewise consistency of performance in middle school for highschool magnet program

Are they using Lottery for selection into sports and games teams as well instead of performance benchmarks? or is the lottery exclusive for academic programs?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Too many Asian and white kids. Not “enough” black and Latino kids who can match Asian/white kids performance

Exactly:

https://bethesdamagazine.com/bethesda-beat/schools/mcps-files-to-dismiss-magnet-admissions-lawsuit/

MCPS didn't like the outcome of the existing process, so they changed it to a lottery to achieve an outcome they wanted.

Anonymous wrote:They don’t want to get sued.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This region has astronomically more qualified kids than seats.

Not quite.

MCPS deliberately chose to limit the size and scope of the Magnet program. They could very easily designate more CES classrooms at local schools, use that additional capacity to offload the 97% percentile and under, then use the Magnet slots for those that are truly 98-99th as pull-outs.

The question you should be asking is why they didn't do that.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Too many Asian and white kids. Not “enough” black and Latino kids who can match Asian/white kids performance

Exactly:

https://bethesdamagazine.com/bethesda-beat/schools/mcps-files-to-dismiss-magnet-admissions-lawsuit/

MCPS didn't like the outcome of the existing process, so they changed it to a lottery to achieve an outcome they wanted.

Anonymous wrote:This region has astronomically more qualified kids than seats.