Anonymous wrote:I do not have a kid tested this year. DD admitted to TMPS 3 yrs ago ~90% on test scores.
As far as I can tell, MCPS Magnet/HGC quality degraded year by year.
Probably with 3+ years water-down by BOE, you can see a HGC with FARM rate (or whatever they care) >50%. Good luck you are NOT being "selected".

Anonymous wrote:

Please let MCPS disclose the magic method they employed to suddenly identified many previously buried uncovered GT students. They should use the same method to close the achievement gap.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I do not have a kid tested this year. DD admitted to TMPS 3 yrs ago ~90% on test scores.
As far as I can tell, MCPS Magnet/HGC quality degraded year by year.
Probably with 3+ years water-down by BOE, you can see a HGC with FARM rate (or whatever they care) >50%. Good luck you are NOT being "selected".

Are you actually suggesting it would be a BAD thing if MCPS managed to identify a class of highly gifted students who represented the student body of the district? If MCPS manages to catch gifted kids, who also happen to be low income, why is that a bad thing?

I think you are seeing a lot of sour grapes today, which is understandable, and people are looking for a scapegoat. Given the climate, I'm not surprised that the first scapegoat people reach for is kids of color and low income kids. But that's not fair to your child, or to the many poor and working class kids, and kids of color, who it turns out were accepted on their own merit.

Anonymous wrote:I do not have a kid tested this year. DD admitted to TMPS 3 yrs ago ~90% on test scores.
As far as I can tell, MCPS Magnet/HGC quality degraded year by year.
Probably with 3+ years water-down by BOE, you can see a HGC with FARM rate (or whatever they care) >50%. Good luck you are NOT being "selected".

Anonymous wrote:

Yes, the smart kids will also be there, but the curriculum remains the same, slow and watered-down; And that is really a shame since so many kids are capable of doing so much more, but they aren't because there isn't enough spots in magnets and 'general ed' curriculum is geared towards middle-of-the-road performers.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:


I agree with this. From both a diversity perspective and a meeting-student-needs perspective, seems like the kids from good home schools aren't getting into the magnts. That's ok - IF the home schools are going to be ready to support them. Yes, they're maybe better than some of the other schools, but that doesnt mean that teachers are ready to add enrichment activities for all these kids in the 99% percentiles who normally would be shipped out to magnets.

I'm glad I live in a good school area (& that we chose wisely & paid for the privilege!) but want to be sure it's going to meet my kids needs.

Good school area or no good school area, the curriculum is the same, except for magnets. Hopefully, HS will bring some challenge, but, at middle school level, your kids will just have to slog through the regular classes with general ed children.

Plus all of the other smart kids who didn't get into the middle-school magnet (or did get in but chose not to go). It's not like it's going to be PP's child all alone in a roomful of dunces. It wasn't the case for my smart kid, and we don't live in a "good school area", we live in the Siberian hinterlands.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:


I agree with this. From both a diversity perspective and a meeting-student-needs perspective, seems like the kids from good home schools aren't getting into the magnts. That's ok - IF the home schools are going to be ready to support them. Yes, they're maybe better than some of the other schools, but that doesnt mean that teachers are ready to add enrichment activities for all these kids in the 99% percentiles who normally would be shipped out to magnets.

I'm glad I live in a good school area (& that we chose wisely & paid for the privilege!) but want to be sure it's going to meet my kids needs.

Good school area or no good school area, the curriculum is the same, except for magnets. Hopefully, HS will bring some challenge, but, at middle school level, your kids will just have to slog through the regular classes with general ed children.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think a conversation needed is how do the non magnet “home” schools accommodate these high achieving students. If they’ve identified a peer group. Will they group these students together (outside of IM & Advance English)

My child was not accepted. Straight As (at an HGC) MAP scores above 250, 5s on PARCC, 99% in all four areas. Asian. Non-w school.

Anyone know if grades at an HGC were weighted equally to non-HGC schools?

I agree with this. From both a diversity perspective and a meeting-student-needs perspective, seems like the kids from good home schools aren't getting into the magnts. That's ok - IF the home schools are going to be ready to support them. Yes, they're maybe better than some of the other schools, but that doesnt mean that teachers are ready to add enrichment activities for all these kids in the 99% percentiles who normally would be shipped out to magnets.

I'm glad I live in a good school area (& that we chose wisely & paid for the privilege!) but want to be sure it's going to meet my kids needs.

Anonymous wrote:I think a conversation needed is how do the non magnet “home” schools accommodate these high achieving students. If they’ve identified a peer group. Will they group these students together (outside of IM & Advance English)

My child was not accepted. Straight As (at an HGC) MAP scores above 250, 5s on PARCC, 99% in all four areas. Asian. Non-w school.

Anyone know if grades at an HGC were weighted equally to non-HGC schools?

Anonymous wrote:I expect that percentile scores are national. And it looks as if many kids with 99% scores were rejected. So all that this establishes is that MCPS gifted programs are looking for the top .1% to .5% or so, not the top 1%. Maybe they should extend the percentile scores one more decimal point so we can see the difference between a national percentile score of 99.0% and 99.9%.

I think this is a much more logical explanation than some people's suggestions here that their 99%-scoring student was rejected because of diversity or because of their home school.

Anonymous wrote:I expect that percentile scores are national. And it looks as if many kids with 99% scores were rejected. So all that this establishes is that MCPS gifted programs are looking for the top .1% to .5% or so, not the top 1%. Maybe they should extend the percentile scores one more decimal point so we can see the difference between a national percentile score of 99.0% and 99.9%.

I think this is a much more logical explanation than some people's suggestions here that their 99%-scoring student was rejected because of diversity or because of their home school.