Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What about all the kids who had MAP-M scores that high and did NOT get in. Did they also not deserve to be there?

This is the heart of the complaint. That MCPS uses murky selection tools to select a certain profile from the pool of qualified students. IE, prioritizing students from lower-income areas in a bid to reduce specific ethnic gaps. Now whether that complaint will hold up as the cohorts are selected year after year, remains to be seen.

Oddly, nobody on DCUM ever asked that question when MCPS used the previous murky selection process. It only became a concern when affluent west-county parents became worried that their children were being passed over for those other children, over there, who must be less deserving.

First, there is nothing odd when parents are concerned about unfairness towards their own kids.
Also these questions arise only because the changes MCPS are making, are clearly aimed at selecting more students from certain groups. If people do not believe these certain groups were treated unfairly by MCPS in previous selection process, then increasing their share would certainly raise alarms.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What about all the kids who had MAP-M scores that high and did NOT get in. Did they also not deserve to be there?

This is the heart of the complaint. That MCPS uses murky selection tools to select a certain profile from the pool of qualified students. IE, prioritizing students from lower-income areas in a bid to reduce specific ethnic gaps. Now whether that complaint will hold up as the cohorts are selected year after year, remains to be seen.

Oddly, nobody on DCUM ever asked that question when MCPS used the previous murky selection process. It only became a concern when affluent west-county parents became worried that their children were being passed over for those other children, over there, who must be less deserving.

Anonymous wrote:What about all the kids who had MAP-M scores that high and did NOT get in. Did they also not deserve to be there?

This is the heart of the complaint. That MCPS uses murky selection tools to select a certain profile from the pool of qualified students. IE, prioritizing students from lower-income areas in a bid to reduce specific ethnic gaps. Now whether that complaint will hold up as the cohorts are selected year after year, remains to be seen.

Sad, but true. I am still friends with a magnet teacher at TPMS and they told me that the kids are not as gifted as they were before. They've been at the school for many years so I trust their assessment.

Greater diversity in ability of students and teachers have to change how they teach to provide more support and scaffolding. OK then. Nothing to see here

What is this from? This is really shocking. I was skeptical that the quality of the students was lower than in previous years but this seems to be an admission that that's true.

The wording here is also disturbing because the first sentence focuses on "ability." If it was kids with 99th percentile Cogat scores with a greater diversity in achievement (presumably due to less enrichment at home, mediocre teaching) I would understand but why do you need greater diversity in ability in a program designed for the best in science, math and computer science?

Also the idea that the teachers now have to provide more supports and scaffolding is very strange.

Anonymous wrote:Just to let all those parents know who criticized the magnet selection not being fair as many high performing kids from CES centers did not get selected, raw scores were requested, data were shared, and law suits were threatened, MAP- M scores of most of selected kids range from 250-294. Math counts try outs are competitive and still have high flyers from sixth grade though the selection criteria of these sixth graders was based on cogat and not traditional way, science class is serious business with lots of hands raised to answer teacher’s questions on a specific topic discussion. I don’t see these kids being any less smart (than those who did not make it to the magnet and parents cried foul).
Just sharing my observations as I see similar threads popping up about this year’s selection to middle school magnets.

OP, Here is something for your reading pleasure, where MCPS acknowledges the "greater diversity in ability" in the new cohort:

https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/uploadedFiles/curriculum/specialprograms/middle/Grade%205%20Parent%20FAQ's%20.pdf

And here is the excerpt:

Has the program itself changed as a result of the new screening process for the Science, math, computer science program?

We still have many top math students in our new sixth grade class, and we are seeing a greater diversity in ability. This is an important opportunity for highly-able students to be able to step up into a more rigorous curriculum. What has changed is not the rigor of the program or our expectations of students. What has changed is instruction and what the teachers need to do. Our teachers are expected to provide supports and scaffolding to help all magnet students attain the level of mastery of students working at a high level in mathematics.

Anonymous wrote:In my view, the majority of problems in AMC 8 and mathcount school or chapter level are one step or two steps of direct applications of math concepts. They require some speed but they don’t need special tricks. Extra prep can help improve speed. All past exams are online and free. I would expect any 8th grader who are good at math to be able to solve the majority without time limit without any special training.

Yeah, I don’t think so. Considering a student can supposedly score 18/25 and still be in the top 5%. Most of these 8th graders who are good at math are not getting the majority correct. While I do think a lot of the issue is time, I would say the majority of kids sitting the exam have prepared enough to learn the most common tricks. Time is definitely a huge component, and knowing the tricks gives a student time to figure out the harder questions. But he harder questions are still unanswerable to most kids with training, and certainly unanswerable to students without practice even with unlimited time. It’s the nature of the test.

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Based on the very limited data given, we do know that 75% of the Magnet MS slots went to non-CES kids. 75%, really? That means the bulk of new MS magnet students did not take the advanced CES curriculum. Just ONE Cold Spring CES child (the highest testing CES in the county) was admitted to TPMS. None were admitted on appeal, despite a number scoring straight 99s on COGAT and in the 270s and 280s on MAP-M, well above OP's child's scores. Standards necessarily were, and will be, lowered. It is social engineering, pure and simple. [/quote]

The CES curriculum is humanities based, nothing to do with STEM/ TPMS program. Plenty of non-CES kids are in the same compacted math as CES kids. [/quote]

[b]OP here, my W school DC had fifth gradeMAP M scores also in 270s [/b]and also scored all 99s in the Cogat, the raw sores were all on the higher end, and being from W school, just to let you know 4 kids got selected in the TPMS magnet from this ES. A couple decided to stay with home school. Do not compare M scores of sixth grade with fifth grade. FYI, talking to w home middle school friends, the M score of those who could not make to TPMS magnet is also in 250s.thise kids are no less smart than the ones in the TPMS.

I agree that county selected less numbers from the CES and probably somewhere applies the outlier rule also, my whole point of this post, and I say again, that in my belief, based on my attending the school one day, hearing about M scores for lots of new magnet sixth graders, the students selected are no dumbos, or seem to be any less intelligent ( e.g. a kid from DCC ES with high FARM and now in TPMS scored in 250s in MAP M- same as many others from W ES School with less or no FARM). There was less gaming of the system this year by certain class of parents, and I am happy about it as those kids who were taking summer classes to get in to the magnet program, yes, were extreme end on AMC and math count but were they also as good overall, there are three non magnet subjects too. They were mostly the students who had tears on getting a Grade C on certain assignments perhaps because the parents can not tolerate to see lower grades on their magnet kids report card. I feel this is better selection criteria and hopefully there will be overall good performance across different subjects rather than AMC and math count only. Yes my DC was lucky, and may not be lucky for HS testing, but it would not mean that HS students who will get selected from non magnet schools will be any less than mine.
I totally agree that a few more such programs in the county is the need of the hour. [/quote]

OP, in an earlier post you said your child's MAP-M score was 265, and dropped to 255 this fall. So which is the truth? (never mind, we know)
[/quote][b]

[b]OP, in an earlier post you said your child's MAP-M score was 265, and dropped to 255 this fall. So which is the truth? (never mind, we know)[/b]
That’s such a rational comment, bravo ?? 270 and 265 are not too different- FYI, Fifth grade Fall was 265 which was used for magnet selection and spring was 272. Do you really think 265 and 272 are too diffferent. When you can’t make a wise comment that can add something to discussion, you have the option to keep quiet.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What about all the kids who had MAP-M scores that high and did NOT get in. Did they also not deserve to be there?

There are limited slots. Some kids who “deserve to be there” will not get in. Harvard could probably fill its class at least 5 times over with kids who would be successful there. They don’t all get in. This is life.

Five times? Try 5000 times. There are a lot of smart people in the world, and nearly all of them are not at Harvard. I spent 8 years there, and it’s a great opportunity for people, with all its resources. The opportunity it provides is better than most places. But the students and faculty aren’t so different from any good university anywhere in the world.

What's your point? PP's point was not everyone can be accepted everywhere and that is life. Not sure what your point is except to say that you got accepted to Harvard and Harvard could fill its class 5000 times over.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What about all the kids who had MAP-M scores that high and did NOT get in. Did they also not deserve to be there?

There are limited slots. Some kids who “deserve to be there” will not get in. Harvard could probably fill its class at least 5 times over with kids who would be successful there. They don’t all get in. This is life.

Five times? Try 5000 times. There are a lot of smart people in the world, and nearly all of them are not at Harvard. I spent 8 years there, and it’s a great opportunity for people, with all its resources. The opportunity it provides is better than most places. But the students and faculty aren’t so different from any good university anywhere in the world.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Could be an aberration we'll see for that class and the current 5th graders. Remember the 4th graders this year are the first full class to go through universal screening.

It could be the "right" or top candidates weren't being identified for the CESes in the past.

More likely, there just aren't enough spots in the CES or in the MS Magnet to accept all the kids. The Wait List for our CES was something like 80 kids? Probably all of those kids should have been offered an accelerated curriculum, but they were not. Such a ridiculous system where we ignore the needs of SO MANY high performing, motivated students for 2 years in ES.

What do you propose?

In my view, the majority of problems in AMC 8 and mathcount school or chapter level are one step or two steps of direct applications of math concepts. They require some speed but they don’t need special tricks. Extra prep can help improve speed. All past exams are online and free. I would expect any 8th grader who are good at math to be able to solve the majority without time limit without any special training.

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Based on the very limited data given, we do know that 75% of the Magnet MS slots went to non-CES kids. 75%, really? That means the bulk of new MS magnet students did not take the advanced CES curriculum. Just ONE Cold Spring CES child (the highest testing CES in the county) was admitted to TPMS. None were admitted on appeal, despite a number scoring straight 99s on COGAT and in the 270s and 280s on MAP-M, well above OP's child's scores. Standards necessarily were, and will be, lowered. It is social engineering, pure and simple. [/quote]

The CES curriculum is humanities based, nothing to do with STEM/ TPMS program. Plenty of non-CES kids are in the same compacted math as CES kids. [/quote]

[b]OP here, my W school DC had fifth gradeMAP M scores also in 270s [/b]and also scored all 99s in the Cogat, the raw sores were all on the higher end, and being from W school, just to let you know 4 kids got selected in the TPMS magnet from this ES. A couple decided to stay with home school. Do not compare M scores of sixth grade with fifth grade. FYI, talking to w home middle school friends, the M score of those who could not make to TPMS magnet is also in 250s.thise kids are no less smart than the ones in the TPMS.

I agree that county selected less numbers from the CES and probably somewhere applies the outlier rule also, my whole point of this post, and I say again, that in my belief, based on my attending the school one day, hearing about M scores for lots of new magnet sixth graders, the students selected are no dumbos, or seem to be any less intelligent ( e.g. a kid from DCC ES with high FARM and now in TPMS scored in 250s in MAP M- same as many others from W ES School with less or no FARM). There was less gaming of the system this year by certain class of parents, and I am happy about it as those kids who were taking summer classes to get in to the magnet program, yes, were extreme end on AMC and math count but were they also as good overall, there are three non magnet subjects too. They were mostly the students who had tears on getting a Grade C on certain assignments perhaps because the parents can not tolerate to see lower grades on their magnet kids report card. I feel this is better selection criteria and hopefully there will be overall good performance across different subjects rather than AMC and math count only. Yes my DC was lucky, and may not be lucky for HS testing, but it would not mean that HS students who will get selected from non magnet schools will be any less than mine.
I totally agree that a few more such programs in the county is the need of the hour. [/quote]

[b]OP, in an earlier post you said your child's MAP-M score was 265 in 5th (spring, I presume), and dropped to 255 this fall. So which is the truth? (never mind, we know)[/b]
[/quote]

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Based on the very limited data given, we do know that 75% of the Magnet MS slots went to non-CES kids. 75%, really? That means the bulk of new MS magnet students did not take the advanced CES curriculum. Just ONE Cold Spring CES child (the highest testing CES in the county) was admitted to TPMS. None were admitted on appeal, despite a number scoring straight 99s on COGAT and in the 270s and 280s on MAP-M, well above OP's child's scores. Standards necessarily were, and will be, lowered. It is social engineering, pure and simple. [/quote]

The CES curriculum is humanities based, nothing to do with STEM/ TPMS program. Plenty of non-CES kids are in the same compacted math as CES kids. [/quote]

[b]OP here, my W school DC had fifth gradeMAP M scores also in 270s [/b]and also scored all 99s in the Cogat, the raw sores were all on the higher end, and being from W school, just to let you know 4 kids got selected in the TPMS magnet from this ES. A couple decided to stay with home school. Do not compare M scores of sixth grade with fifth grade. FYI, talking to w home middle school friends, the M score of those who could not make to TPMS magnet is also in 250s.thise kids are no less smart than the ones in the TPMS.

I agree that county selected less numbers from the CES and probably somewhere applies the outlier rule also, my whole point of this post, and I say again, that in my belief, based on my attending the school one day, hearing about M scores for lots of new magnet sixth graders, the students selected are no dumbos, or seem to be any less intelligent ( e.g. a kid from DCC ES with high FARM and now in TPMS scored in 250s in MAP M- same as many others from W ES School with less or no FARM). There was less gaming of the system this year by certain class of parents, and I am happy about it as those kids who were taking summer classes to get in to the magnet program, yes, were extreme end on AMC and math count but were they also as good overall, there are three non magnet subjects too. They were mostly the students who had tears on getting a Grade C on certain assignments perhaps because the parents can not tolerate to see lower grades on their magnet kids report card. I feel this is better selection criteria and hopefully there will be overall good performance across different subjects rather than AMC and math count only. Yes my DC was lucky, and may not be lucky for HS testing, but it would not mean that HS students who will get selected from non magnet schools will be any less than mine.
I totally agree that a few more such programs in the county is the need of the hour. [/quote]

OP, in an earlier post you said your child's MAP-M score was 265, and dropped to 255 this fall. So which is the truth? (never mind, we know)