Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:MCPS uses geographic location as a proxy for race and exercises racial modeling. Basically too many Asians were taking up spots in the magnets. MCPS has been clear that to them this is a problem. In the 90s, they lost court cases when they tried to use race as a criteria to balance racial demographics for transfer requests (per the Metis report). MCPS is now trying to use geographic location and "cohort" to achieve racial modeling.

If you live in a area with a large asian population/high performing then its very unlikely that your kids will get in. Your kid can get a 99% and be rejected while a kid (even a white kid) in a low performing school can get a 96% and get in. Your kids will get to take a class with an enriched label but it isn't the same curriculum as the magnet and not much different than the courses in the home school before. Welcome to MCPS!

Maybe the folks who fought so hard not to allow MCPS to consider race should have considered downstream effects?

DP... are you saying MCPS should allow for race-based admission? Wow.

This is exactly what they are doing now. It's actually quite ingenious how they got around the law. I pulled this from an old thread.....

Administrator #1: "Wow, look at those SAT scores over there at Blair. It's really amazing isn't it? We need to send out a press release!"
Administrator #2: "Definitely! Hold on a second, all these names of Intel Scholars sound Asian. Let me see the full list of Magnet students. All these names sound Asian and White."
Administrator #1: "Yea, they've been gaming the system for years. Sending their kids to tutors, supplementing education, and actually filling out the application"
Administrator #2: "Oh no, we can't have that! That isn't fair"
Administrator #1: "I know. We send parents information and leave phone mail message constantly in both English and Spanish but Hispanics and African Americans don't apply"
Administrator #2: "It sounds like we need try and make the application easier."
Administrator #1: "I've got a better idea! Lets get rid of the application all together. Test everyone."
Administrator #2: "Brilliant! But what about the fact that Black and Hispanics test lower across the board on all standardized tests, how do we overcome that?"
Administrator #1: "We should just set up quotas by race."
Administrator #2: "I wish. They passed a stupid law against quotas."
Administrator #1: "Let's think, how can we get around the law. Most Whites and Asians like to live in the same snobby rich areas, right?"
Administrator #2: "Right... God I hate those Whites and Asians!"
Administrator #1: "Then lets say that if you live in an area where your home school has other really smart kids then you get penalized in the admissions process."
Administrator #2: "Great Idea! That way, we can say that we aren't giving preference to race, we can disguise it as preference by opportunity."
Administrator #1: "Wait, but won't that make the SAT scores at Blair go down? Won't that make us look bad?"
Administrator #2: "Of course it will but we are doing it for the greater good. Plus, we work for the Government. What are they going to do fire us?"
Administrator #1: "Ha ha ha ha ha ha!"
Administrator #2: "Ha ha ha ha he he ha ha!"

I was reading through this whole thread but had to stop here and post. This had me laughing and crying at the same time. It's sad how on point this is likely to be.

It is pretty funny and frankly I'd imagine the SAT scores at Blair will be about the same since there's no evidence to suggest that privileged kids will benefit more than others.

I suppose we will see in 4-5 years or so when this all plays out. The trouble is, these feel-good, social engineering experiments are often a failure for unforeseen reasons. Just look at Curriculum 2.0.

Anonymous wrote:
Agree with the last poster. A student is unlikely to succeed at Eastern or TP or RM or Blair without significant parental support.

If that were true, then we should get rid of the programs altogether. It's my kid's magnet program, not mine.

But actually it's not true, in my experience.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What it clearly shows is how heavily people were self selecting for the magnets before universal screening. In 2016, 299 Asian students applied for Takoma, in 2018, 689 were screened--about a 60% increase. By comparison only only 241 white students applied in 2016, while 1230 were identified for screening in 2018--a five fold increase. Of course Asian numbers went down, they had a disproportionate interest in the program and they're applications from viable candidates were probably beyond saturation. Anything that causes more students to apply, is going to disadvantage such a group. URMs are still under represented but the numbers identified are up substantially. Meanwhile Asians are still represented at twice their population, whites at 25% their population--so in no way has anyone been shut out or a quota been instituted.

I just don't see how it can be argued that screening more applicants is a bad thing. Sure it means more people may not accept an offer, but that's better than having people who didn't even know their child should be in the program.

It's a bad thing for parents who had gotten used to gaming the system to their child's advantage, but a good thing since changes like universal screening and cohort ensure more children benefit.

I haven't seen a lot of disagreement to universal screening. I think even the people who are upset their children didn't get in see the logic in universal screening. That is not the problem.
What people are up in arms about is that they are no longer picking the top scoring kids from the county. They argue that the reason MCPS isn't doing this is because if you took the top scoring kids from the county even WITH universal screening you would still get a disproportionate group of Asian American kids admitted.

So they made up this peer cohort criteria to get their desired results which is to increase the number of URMs. The argument is that if MCPS was able to increase the number of URMs by taking all the top scoring kids from the county they would get rid of the peer cohort criteria. Basically MCPS is making up whatever criteria serves their purpose which is to make the magnet programs more diverse and decrease the number of Asian American students and increase URM students. Some would call that discrimination while others would not. I'm not expressing an opinion about what whether it is good or bad, but this is what MCPS has done.

Well we don't have the data on how cohort is changing things, just anecdotes and even those seem to be largely last year when MCPS percentiles weren't reported and all kinds of people were seeing 99s and rightful angry. Asians are still being selected at twice their rate of application but with universal screening they are a smaller piece of the pool. So net seats are down, but percent representation with respect to their pool is up!

Regardless, I support cohort, it's a county wide program it should serve county wide need. If there is something extraordinary going on in one corner of the county, there is less need to remove students from that feeder or at least not more. And there is certainly no reason this should reduce access for students who never had access to this high performing school.

^^We are talking about 2 years ago.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would like to see a racial breakdown of students who would be admitted under different admission schemes.

I am certain MCPS ran those numbers (straight ranking of scores for the county with no peer cohort, peer cohort, and several other scenarios). This is why they never mentioned peer cohort before that first year of universal screening began and then suddenly when admissions results were out they were like, surprise, we changed the way we admit students.

Not true, it was mentioned and listed on the slide presentation during info sessions when they announced changes to the process last year.

They 100% did not mention this before the first universal screening rollout. This is why everyone is so upset.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What it clearly shows is how heavily people were self selecting for the magnets before universal screening. In 2016, 299 Asian students applied for Takoma, in 2018, 689 were screened--about a 60% increase. By comparison only only 241 white students applied in 2016, while 1230 were identified for screening in 2018--a five fold increase. Of course Asian numbers went down, they had a disproportionate interest in the program and they're applications from viable candidates were probably beyond saturation. Anything that causes more students to apply, is going to disadvantage such a group. URMs are still under represented but the numbers identified are up substantially. Meanwhile Asians are still represented at twice their population, whites at 25% their population--so in no way has anyone been shut out or a quota been instituted.

I just don't see how it can be argued that screening more applicants is a bad thing. Sure it means more people may not accept an offer, but that's better than having people who didn't even know their child should be in the program.

It's a bad thing for parents who had gotten used to gaming the system to their child's advantage, but a good thing since changes like universal screening and cohort ensure more children benefit.

Exactly, and no need to call it gaming the system, it was a system that benefited those in the know and worked by word of mouth. Yes, I know MCPS was contacting all parents and telling them they could apply, but I saw how it worked in my circle. Before my child was in ES, I met a parent who's kid was at an HGC, just knowing them and their experience made us more likely to apply later, my DC got in. Whenever I met a parent with younger kids I talked up the program. Twelve years on, I know a one block region of my neighborhood has been over represented in application programs. Now, maybe that's just a fluke and it would have worked out the same under universal screening, but I have my doubts. When you don't know anyone who's been involved in the magnets, parents are reluctant to pull their DC from the current school. It's much better to have parents make that decision after they know their child is eligible and they've had the opportunity to go to a selected students open house.

This line of reasoning is getting stale. Before they moved to the universal testing, there was no less than 2 phone calls per week for months (in both English and Spanish) explaining the magnet application process and the deadlines. This is on top of all the countless handouts and flyers that came home with the kids explaining the same thing. To simply say "I know MCPS was contacting all parents and telling them they could apply" is a huge understatement. It was overwhelming - so every parent was "in the know" unless they chose not to be. If you choose not to be involved in your child's education that child is likely not a good candidate for the Magnet program. I have a child at Blair and know that the only way to keep up with the rigors of the program is to have a strong support structure at home.

Agree with the last poster. A student is unlikely to succeed at Eastern or TP or RM or Blair without significant parental support. If you cannot be bothered to or are too busy to read and figure out the simple application, the program itself will be very challenging. Having said that, I support the universal screening and I don’t know anyone who is opposed to testing every child. What I and many people don’t like is the focus on race and the willingness to massage the testing criteria to change the racial makeup of the program. Since they cannot explicitly use race they used peer cohort which made it harder for students from high performing school clusters to “qualify “. This is not fair to the children who scored better than children from low performing schools and were still not invited to the magnet. It also means that the program no longer serves the best and the brightest in the county which will inevitably result in the dilution of curriculum and rigor. The lowering of standards has become the unofficial MCPS strategy for dealing with the stubborn and growing achievement gap. It doesn’t reduce the gap but it does mask the real problem
I wish MCPS would do universal screening , pick the best applicants regardless of location/race and have at least one enriched math and one enriched humanities class in every single middle school in the county
For the people who are convinced that Asian children only do well in the Magnet application process because they “prep” I would just say that while testing is popular I am not sure if it is entirely effective. DS and most of his friends (including Asians) who have been there in Magnet programs since elementary school did not prep. Many of the kids who go to prep centers do so because their parents think it is necessary but we the ones who get into the Magnet programs would most likely make it without prep. There is probably some self selection at play. Many of the kids who go are naturally bright and hardworking and are likely to do well on the test. What is really noteworthy about the demographics of the kids in the Magnet programs especially Blair and RM is that the parents are highly educated. I can’t think of a single parent I have met who doesn’t have a graduate degree and most have terminal degrees (Ph.Ds or law degrees).

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:come on over to the MS magnet thread, discussing getting rid of middle school magnets entirely in exchange for truly enriched classes at all the home MS schools.

I agree school's like TPMS should allocate all their magnet slots to inbound students.

Just to give some clarity to the process: At Takoma Park Elementary, there is a magnet for science that about half of local students get starting in first grade, with a few spots required to be left for out-of-boundary students, and it's highly competitive to get those spots. Those same magnet students continue to Piney Branch and are generally in the local CES there, which has up to about 27 students (if the numbers are the same as the other CES classes). (The out-of-boundary students can stay for 3rd grade, but they have to go to their home CES if they qualify, so they're left out of the running). Then, those same 27 students are the top runners for the local magnet spots at TMPS. (Yes, CES is not based on math, so there may be some math kids in the general PBES pool, but most high-achievers were in the CES.) Therefore, if a smart kid started at TPES and continued on track effectively has an enriched program through middle school.

Anonymous wrote:I would like to see a racial breakdown of students who would be admitted under different admission schemes.

I am certain MCPS ran those numbers (straight ranking of scores for the county with no peer cohort, peer cohort, and several other scenarios). This is why they never mentioned peer cohort before that first year of universal screening began and then suddenly when admissions results were out they were like, surprise, we changed the way we admit students.

Not true, it was mentioned and listed on the slide presentation during info sessions when they announced changes to the process last year.

I would imagine SAT scores going up on the whole.

I would like to see a racial breakdown of students who would be admitted under different admission schemes.

I am certain MCPS ran those numbers (straight ranking of scores for the county with no peer cohort, peer cohort, and several other scenarios). This is why they never mentioned peer cohort before that first year of universal screening began and then suddenly when admissions results were out they were like, surprise, we changed the way we admit students.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:MCPS uses geographic location as a proxy for race and exercises racial modeling. Basically too many Asians were taking up spots in the magnets. MCPS has been clear that to them this is a problem. In the 90s, they lost court cases when they tried to use race as a criteria to balance racial demographics for transfer requests (per the Metis report). MCPS is now trying to use geographic location and "cohort" to achieve racial modeling.

If you live in a area with a large asian population/high performing then its very unlikely that your kids will get in. Your kid can get a 99% and be rejected while a kid (even a white kid) in a low performing school can get a 96% and get in. Your kids will get to take a class with an enriched label but it isn't the same curriculum as the magnet and not much different than the courses in the home school before. Welcome to MCPS!

Maybe the folks who fought so hard not to allow MCPS to consider race should have considered downstream effects?

DP... are you saying MCPS should allow for race-based admission? Wow.

This is exactly what they are doing now. It's actually quite ingenious how they got around the law. I pulled this from an old thread.....

Administrator #1: "Wow, look at those SAT scores over there at Blair. It's really amazing isn't it? We need to send out a press release!"
Administrator #2: "Definitely! Hold on a second, all these names of Intel Scholars sound Asian. Let me see the full list of Magnet students. All these names sound Asian and White."
Administrator #1: "Yea, they've been gaming the system for years. Sending their kids to tutors, supplementing education, and actually filling out the application"
Administrator #2: "Oh no, we can't have that! That isn't fair"
Administrator #1: "I know. We send parents information and leave phone mail message constantly in both English and Spanish but Hispanics and African Americans don't apply"
Administrator #2: "It sounds like we need try and make the application easier."
Administrator #1: "I've got a better idea! Lets get rid of the application all together. Test everyone."
Administrator #2: "Brilliant! But what about the fact that Black and Hispanics test lower across the board on all standardized tests, how do we overcome that?"
Administrator #1: "We should just set up quotas by race."
Administrator #2: "I wish. They passed a stupid law against quotas."
Administrator #1: "Let's think, how can we get around the law. Most Whites and Asians like to live in the same snobby rich areas, right?"
Administrator #2: "Right... God I hate those Whites and Asians!"
Administrator #1: "Then lets say that if you live in an area where your home school has other really smart kids then you get penalized in the admissions process."
Administrator #2: "Great Idea! That way, we can say that we aren't giving preference to race, we can disguise it as preference by opportunity."
Administrator #1: "Wait, but won't that make the SAT scores at Blair go down? Won't that make us look bad?"
Administrator #2: "Of course it will but we are doing it for the greater good. Plus, we work for the Government. What are they going to do fire us?"
Administrator #1: "Ha ha ha ha ha ha!"
Administrator #2: "Ha ha ha ha he he ha ha!"

I was reading through this whole thread but had to stop here and post. This had me laughing and crying at the same time. It's sad how on point this is likely to be.

It is pretty funny and frankly I'd imagine the SAT scores at Blair will be about the same since there's no evidence to suggest that privileged kids will benefit more than others.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What it clearly shows is how heavily people were self selecting for the magnets before universal screening. In 2016, 299 Asian students applied for Takoma, in 2018, 689 were screened--about a 60% increase. By comparison only only 241 white students applied in 2016, while 1230 were identified for screening in 2018--a five fold increase. Of course Asian numbers went down, they had a disproportionate interest in the program and they're applications from viable candidates were probably beyond saturation. Anything that causes more students to apply, is going to disadvantage such a group. URMs are still under represented but the numbers identified are up substantially. Meanwhile Asians are still represented at twice their population, whites at 25% their population--so in no way has anyone been shut out or a quota been instituted.

I just don't see how it can be argued that screening more applicants is a bad thing. Sure it means more people may not accept an offer, but that's better than having people who didn't even know their child should be in the program.

It's a bad thing for parents who had gotten used to gaming the system to their child's advantage, but a good thing since changes like universal screening and cohort ensure more children benefit.

I haven't seen a lot of disagreement to universal screening. I think even the people who are upset their children didn't get in see the logic in universal screening. That is not the problem.
What people are up in arms about is that they are no longer picking the top scoring kids from the county. They argue that the reason MCPS isn't doing this is because if you took the top scoring kids from the county even WITH universal screening you would still get a disproportionate group of Asian American kids admitted.

So they made up this peer cohort criteria to get their desired results which is to increase the number of URMs. The argument is that if MCPS was able to increase the number of URMs by taking all the top scoring kids from the county they would get rid of the peer cohort criteria. Basically MCPS is making up whatever criteria serves their purpose which is to make the magnet programs more diverse and decrease the number of Asian American students and increase URM students. Some would call that discrimination while others would not. I'm not expressing an opinion about what whether it is good or bad, but this is what MCPS has done.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What it clearly shows is how heavily people were self selecting for the magnets before universal screening. In 2016, 299 Asian students applied for Takoma, in 2018, 689 were screened--about a 60% increase. By comparison only only 241 white students applied in 2016, while 1230 were identified for screening in 2018--a five fold increase. Of course Asian numbers went down, they had a disproportionate interest in the program and they're applications from viable candidates were probably beyond saturation. Anything that causes more students to apply, is going to disadvantage such a group. URMs are still under represented but the numbers identified are up substantially. Meanwhile Asians are still represented at twice their population, whites at 25% their population--so in no way has anyone been shut out or a quota been instituted.

I just don't see how it can be argued that screening more applicants is a bad thing. Sure it means more people may not accept an offer, but that's better than having people who didn't even know their child should be in the program.

It's a bad thing for parents who had gotten used to gaming the system to their child's advantage, but a good thing since changes like universal screening and cohort ensure more children benefit.

Exactly, and no need to call it gaming the system, it was a system that benefited those in the know and worked by word of mouth. Yes, I know MCPS was contacting all parents and telling them they could apply, but I saw how it worked in my circle. Before my child was in ES, I met a parent who's kid was at an HGC, just knowing them and their experience made us more likely to apply later, my DC got in. Whenever I met a parent with younger kids I talked up the program. Twelve years on, I know a one block region of my neighborhood has been over represented in application programs. Now, maybe that's just a fluke and it would have worked out the same under universal screening, but I have my doubts. When you don't know anyone who's been involved in the magnets, parents are reluctant to pull their DC from the current school. It's much better to have parents make that decision after they know their child is eligible and they've had the opportunity to go to a selected students open house.

This line of reasoning is getting stale. Before they moved to the universal testing, there was no less than 2 phone calls per week for months (in both English and Spanish) explaining the magnet application process and the deadlines. This is on top of all the countless handouts and flyers that came home with the kids explaining the same thing. To simply say "I know MCPS was contacting all parents and telling them they could apply" is a huge understatement. It was overwhelming - so every parent was "in the know" unless they chose not to be. If you choose not to be involved in your child's education that child is likely not a good candidate for the Magnet program. I have a child at Blair and know that the only way to keep up with the rigors of the program is to have a strong support structure at home.

Look at the numbers! Universal screening is pulling a very different cross section than phone blast, this is not stale reasoning, it's now backed up by data.

Anonymous wrote:
This line of reasoning is getting stale. Before they moved to the universal testing, there was no less than 2 phone calls per week for months (in both English and Spanish) explaining the magnet application process and the deadlines. This is on top of all the countless handouts and flyers that came home with the kids explaining the same thing. To simply say "I know MCPS was contacting all parents and telling them they could apply" is a huge understatement. It was overwhelming - so every parent was "in the know" unless they chose not to be. If you choose not to be involved in your child's education that child is likely not a good candidate for the Magnet program. I have a child at Blair and know that the only way to keep up with the rigors of the program is to have a strong support structure at home.

There is a meaningful difference between "being notified" and "being in the know".

My older kid applied to the HGC (as it was then) because I knew somebody else whose kid had been in the HGC. When my kid got in, I called somebody whose kid was currently in the HGC, to learn more. That's being in the know. Receiving e-mails, flyers, and phone calls from MCPS is not. I've probably gotten a gazillion of those from MCPS about Edison, and the sum total of my knowledge about Edison is:

1. I know where it is
2. I'm pretty sure that it has a new building

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What it clearly shows is how heavily people were self selecting for the magnets before universal screening. In 2016, 299 Asian students applied for Takoma, in 2018, 689 were screened--about a 60% increase. By comparison only only 241 white students applied in 2016, while 1230 were identified for screening in 2018--a five fold increase. Of course Asian numbers went down, they had a disproportionate interest in the program and they're applications from viable candidates were probably beyond saturation. Anything that causes more students to apply, is going to disadvantage such a group. URMs are still under represented but the numbers identified are up substantially. Meanwhile Asians are still represented at twice their population, whites at 25% their population--so in no way has anyone been shut out or a quota been instituted.

I just don't see how it can be argued that screening more applicants is a bad thing. Sure it means more people may not accept an offer, but that's better than having people who didn't even know their child should be in the program.

It's a bad thing for parents who had gotten used to gaming the system to their child's advantage, but a good thing since changes like universal screening and cohort ensure more children benefit.

Exactly, and no need to call it gaming the system, it was a system that benefited those in the know and worked by word of mouth. Yes, I know MCPS was contacting all parents and telling them they could apply, but I saw how it worked in my circle. Before my child was in ES, I met a parent who's kid was at an HGC, just knowing them and their experience made us more likely to apply later, my DC got in. Whenever I met a parent with younger kids I talked up the program. Twelve years on, I know a one block region of my neighborhood has been over represented in application programs. Now, maybe that's just a fluke and it would have worked out the same under universal screening, but I have my doubts. When you don't know anyone who's been involved in the magnets, parents are reluctant to pull their DC from the current school. It's much better to have parents make that decision after they know their child is eligible and they've had the opportunity to go to a selected students open house.

YES! This is a great explanation of how families select in or out based on culture and who you know. I cannot believe people think that kids without a “family support structure” don’t deserve the same chances to apply to these programs as other kids.