Is there official data from MCPS showing the racial makeup of the middle school magnet classes for the upcoming school year?

I feel that releasing test scores when that's just one of many criteria would serve to make matters worse. Medians are especially unhelpful

I love that MCPS expanded their pool of applicants this year. Fantastic idea. I love that they are offering enriched courses in select middle schools. This was much needed after the middle school "reform" from several years ago did away with the gifted track and left schools with on level and above level classes. In many schools the vast majority of students are in above level classes and there isn't much differentiation for the top 10%. The enriched classes will offer these schools to offer such students a strong peer group and an enriched curriculum. It is disingenuous however to suggest that the students who are offered an enriched Social studies classes will get an experience comparable to what they might have received at Eastern magnet where they would have three to four linked and synergistic classes with a peer group drawn from the entire county. The same point can be made about the experience students in an enriched Math class would have compared to what they might experience at Takoma magnet.

I am not sure what the solution is if MCPS is trying to husband its resources but I do know that the current process seems to discriminate students who live in certain school clusters. If you look just at the Cogat composite scores you can see that the schools with the most number of qualified students wrt Cogat C were Hoover (63), Frost (62), Pyle (62), Silver Spring International (57) and Sligo (53). The average for the 16 schools reporting Cogat C scores was 40 students. What we know anecdotally (including from reputable sources such as MCCPTA) is that the schools with the largest numbers of qualified applicants saw the biggest drop in acceptances. If I remember correctly only a couple of Frost students were admitted compared to 25 in previous years. Similar results were noted in CESs such as Oakview and Pinecrest which have students zoned for SSIMs and Sligo.
https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/uploadedFiles/schools/msmagnet/about/MS%20Magnet%20Field%20Test%20Data%20by%20Sending%20MS.pdf

The argument MCPS is making is that the high performing clusters offer gifted children a large peer group. True but they are not offering these students a magnet program they are offering them one stand alone enriched class in the humanities and one stand alone enriched class in math.

MCPS has released some data but they have not released the median test scores by middle school cluster. Until they do, many parents will continue to suspect that the peer cohort consideration resulted in large numbers of highly qualified students getting the short end of the stick.

There are a lot of inequities in a large and diverse county like ours. I hope MCPS will be more transparent about the test scores and I also hope they will give more thought to how they can help students who might not get enough support at home without penalizing other students.

I personally think that they should have expanded the CES at the elementary school level and not messed with the middle school magnet application process. If more students from low performing elementary schools attend a CES, they will get an elementary school education that better prepares them for a highly rigorous middle school magnet program and it will help the county to identify more gifted AND qualified students.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
I find it really hard to believe that there isn't a gifted academic "co-hort" of at least 20 students in any school outside Bethesda/Potomac/Rockville/North Potomac. Are these schools so academically superior that the ALL the other middle schools in the county can't come up with at least 20 students to form a co-hort?

Why are you suggesting that's an issue? Many middle schools outside those areas are getting the new enriched math and humanities classes this year, so they do have cohorts of at least 20

So then why would these students not also be ineligible for the magnet program? By MCPS's own logic, they should have been shut out too.

Or those schools don't have 20 kids at the same level and the new enriched classes in those schools will be less rigorous challenging because the peer cohort isn't as strong.

You clearly do not understand the process. The kids that got selected to go to the magnet our outliers in each of the middle school cohorts that were identified using the MAP, CogAt, PARCC based on the data link a previous poster provided. My child has at least 20 peers in his DCC middle school that will receive the new enriched classes. However, 3 kids in his class that were always the outliers are going to the TPMS magnet. What MCPS did was pick kids from a wider geographic area instead of 60% of the incoming magnet class coming from 2 or 3 middle school clusters.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m honestly thrilled my kid gets enriched classes without the bus ride. The cohort change this past year is awesome because far more students benefit. Hoping the county does more things like this.

Eceryone likes it when more kids benefit especially without spending more on bussing.

#winning

Anonymous wrote:
I find it really hard to believe that there isn't a gifted academic "co-hort" of at least 20 students in any school outside Bethesda/Potomac/Rockville/North Potomac. Are these schools so academically superior that the ALL the other middle schools in the county can't come up with at least 20 students to form a co-hort?

Why are you suggesting that's an issue? Many middle schools outside those areas are getting the new enriched math and humanities classes this year, so they do have cohorts of at least 20

So then why would these students not also be ineligible for the magnet program? By MCPS's own logic, they should have been shut out too.

Or those schools don't have 20 kids at the same level and the new enriched classes in those schools will be less rigorous challenging because the peer cohort isn't as strong.

Anonymous wrote:I find it really hard to believe that there isn't a gifted academic "co-hort" of at least 20 students in any school outside Bethesda/Potomac/Rockville/North Potomac. Are these schools so academically superior that the ALL the other middle schools in the county can't come up with at least 20 students to form a co-hort?

A lot of people on this board seem to believe this.

Anonymous wrote:I find it really hard to believe that there isn't a gifted academic "co-hort" of at least 20 students in any school outside Bethesda/Potomac/Rockville/North Potomac. Are these schools so academically superior that the ALL the other middle schools in the county can't come up with at least 20 students to form a co-hort?

Why are you suggesting that's an issue? Many middle schools outside those areas are getting the new enriched math and humanities classes this year, so they do have cohorts of at least 20.

Anonymous wrote:I find it really hard to believe that there isn't a gifted academic "co-hort" of at least 20 students in any school outside Bethesda/Potomac/Rockville/North Potomac. Are these schools so academically superior that the ALL the other middle schools in the county can't come up with at least 20 students to form a co-hort?

It is a pilot program.

I find it really hard to believe that there isn't a gifted academic "co-hort" of at least 20 students in any school outside Bethesda/Potomac/Rockville/North Potomac. Are these schools so academically superior that the ALL the other middle schools in the county can't come up with at least 20 students to form a co-hort?

Anonymous wrote:I’m honestly thrilled my kid gets enriched classes without the bus ride. The cohort change this past year is awesome because far more students benefit. Hoping the county does more things like this.

Eceryone likes it when more kids benefit especially without spending more on bussing.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^actually the first file does not seem to have raw scores. Maybe it is telling us how many students were in the top cohort?? Perhaps someone else can figure out what MCPS has shared. There is one report with historical data on the last few years of median test scores for accepted students but they don’t appear to disclose this data for this year

https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/uploadedFiles/schools/msmagnet/about/6-%20Year%20Summary%20Data%20of%20Invited%20Students%20to%20Takoma%20Park-%20Eastern%20MS%20with%20Median%20Test%20Scores.pdf

The data tells us how many students from each home middle school group where in the pool to be considered for the magnet by each criteria, MAP scores, CogNat, etc. You can see that some kids may have scored high in one area, e.g., PARCC but not MAP-M, by looking at the statistically significant difference in the number of kids in each pool. We don't know the cutoff scores to get in each pool nor do we know how much weight each criterion was given in their final decision.

Thanks. Hopefully they will release median scores for accepted students as they have in previous years

Based on the link, MCPS would have to release the media scores in MAP and CogAt as well as the average for PARCC to have any meaningful understanding of the selected kids' scores.

+1

I’m honestly thrilled my kid gets enriched classes without the bus ride. The cohort change this past year is awesome because far more students benefit. Hoping the county does more things like this.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^actually the first file does not seem to have raw scores. Maybe it is telling us how many students were in the top cohort?? Perhaps someone else can figure out what MCPS has shared. There is one report with historical data on the last few years of median test scores for accepted students but they don’t appear to disclose this data for this year

https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/uploadedFiles/schools/msmagnet/about/6-%20Year%20Summary%20Data%20of%20Invited%20Students%20to%20Takoma%20Park-%20Eastern%20MS%20with%20Median%20Test%20Scores.pdf

The data tells us how many students from each home middle school group where in the pool to be considered for the magnet by each criteria, MAP scores, CogNat, etc. You can see that some kids may have scored high in one area, e.g., PARCC but not MAP-M, by looking at the statistically significant difference in the number of kids in each pool. We don't know the cutoff scores to get in each pool nor do we know how much weight each criterion was given in their final decision.

Thanks. Hopefully they will release median scores for accepted students as they have in previous years

Based on the link, MCPS would have to release the media scores in MAP and CogAt as well as the average for PARCC to have any meaningful understanding of the selected kids' scores.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^actually the first file does not seem to have raw scores. Maybe it is telling us how many students were in the top cohort?? Perhaps someone else can figure out what MCPS has shared. There is one report with historical data on the last few years of median test scores for accepted students but they don’t appear to disclose this data for this year

https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/uploadedFiles/schools/msmagnet/about/6-%20Year%20Summary%20Data%20of%20Invited%20Students%20to%20Takoma%20Park-%20Eastern%20MS%20with%20Median%20Test%20Scores.pdf

The data tells us how many students from each home middle school group where in the pool to be considered for the magnet by each criteria, MAP scores, CogNat, etc. You can see that some kids may have scored high in one area, e.g., PARCC but not MAP-M, by looking at the statistically significant difference in the number of kids in each pool. We don't know the cutoff scores to get in each pool nor do we know how much weight each criterion was given in their final decision.

Thanks. Hopefully they will release median scores for accepted students as they have in previous years

Selection wasn’t decided on the basis of a single test but a broader range of criteria. The process and it’s outcome are both a matter of public record. Sure a couple tiger moms are unhappy that it’s harder to game the system and are spinning conspiracy theories with no basis in fact. Arguing with them is kind of pointless.