Anonymous
01/14/2025 00:49
Subject: 2024-25 CES
Anonymous wrote:Is locally norm fair?
How is a high FARM school kid scoring 85 percentile nationally beats a kid who scores 98 percentile in low FARM school?
Search the many other threads on MAP and the magnets -- there is plenty of talk about local norming among them. The upshot:
MCPS have been using MAP as a proxy for ability since the pandemic made other testing/measures, particularly those more specifically ability-oriented, pretty much impossible/unreliable in 2020-21, and cheaper/easier since.
MAP, a measure of learned content, provides scores that correlate highly with exposure. The presumption is that higher FARMS rates proxy both difficulty within the classroom in reliably providing reasonable levels of exposure to highly able students and improbability of accessing alternate means of exposure outside of the classroom by the same.
Local norming, then, helps to identify those highly able but not highly exposed -- something like, "Look what they were able to do given the circumstances."
-- and has, as a general approach, been backed by a reasonable amount of research for a variety of use cases. This line of thought also explains the adjusted threshold for those receiving services.
The MCPS paradigm is a blunt instrument. The locally normed 85th percentile was chosen instead of something considerably higher to be reasonably sure not to exclude any, or nearly any, of those who would have been offered a spot at a CES (previously HGC) under prior identification paradigms from the magnet lottery. Local schools can use their greater familiarity with their students to add to the enriched local classes guaranteed to those identified centrally/entered in the lottery, but can't put those additional students in the lottery for magnet seating, itself.
Finer tuning may provide greater fidelity to the intent. There have been minor adjustments since 2020-21 and MCPS says it will re-evaluate the paradigm at some point. That was supposed to have been done last year, but they didn't really get to it.
Anonymous
01/13/2025 23:50
Subject: 2024-25 CES
Mine came through my email via parentsquare around 2pm today and the title of the email was "Center for Enriched Studies". I just looked and it is not on Parentvue as of now.
The email said:
Your MCPS Grade 3 student will be part of a Central Review for literacy enrichment. New information videos will be available on the MCPS website on 1/21/25 at 6 pm (English) and 7 pm (Spanish). See the linked document below, in both English and Spanish, to learn more about the Central Review Process and Grade 4 literacy enrichment, including the Centers for Enriched Studies (CES).
How was this sent? I’m a third grade parent and I didn’t receive it in my email nor is it on ParentVue?
The email said:
Your MCPS Grade 3 student will be part of a Central Review for literacy enrichment. New information videos will be available on the MCPS website on 1/21/25 at 6 pm (English) and 7 pm (Spanish). See the linked document below, in both English and Spanish, to learn more about the Central Review Process and Grade 4 literacy enrichment, including the Centers for Enriched Studies (CES).
How was this sent? I’m a third grade parent and I didn’t receive it in my email nor is it on ParentVue?
Anonymous
01/13/2025 22:56
Subject: 2024-25 CES
How was this sent? I’m a third grade parent and I didn’t receive it in my email nor is it on ParentVue?
Anonymous
01/13/2025 22:53
Subject: 2024-25 CES
Anonymous wrote:Is locally norm fair?
How is a high FARM school kid scoring 85 percentile nationally beats a kid who scores 98 percentile in low FARM school?
It's not about "beating" because they're not trying to identify the very top scoring kids. The idea is to take roughly the top 15% smartest/highest scoring kids in each type of school, which is going to result in different cutoff scores for each type of school.
Anonymous
01/13/2025 21:57
Subject: 2024-25 CES
Is locally norm fair?
How is a high FARM school kid scoring 85 percentile nationally beats a kid who scores 98 percentile in low FARM school?
How is a high FARM school kid scoring 85 percentile nationally beats a kid who scores 98 percentile in low FARM school?
Anonymous
01/13/2025 20:59
Subject: 2024-25 CES
Anonymous wrote:What score is considered 85 percent of winter MAP R score?
The national norm 85th percentile MAP-R RIT score for winter of 3rd grade is 211. There should be a new set of norms for the next 5-year period.
That doesn't mean 211 is qualifying for the CES lottery. Local norms are used, grouping schools into 5 FARMS-rate bands and, essentially, identifying an 85th percentile among the students across the schools in each band. They haven't published these numbers in a few years, only doing so to answer an MPIA request by MCCPTA GEC, and they change from year to year based on the actual set of student scores that year. It may be that the locally normed 85th percentile in the low-FARMS grouping ends up being the same RIT score that would equate to a national percentile in the high 90s (somewhere north, perhaps well north, of 220).
There is an adjusted/lower qualifying locally normed percentile (70th has been suggested from a prior MCPS presentation to the BOE, but that could have changed) for students receiving services (IEP, 504, ELD & individual FARMS status). All qualifying students must have As in reading and in either writing or social studies, and an "on" or "above" reading level on their 2nd quarter report card, per the FAQ.
There's a huge number of posts on the topic. Please search for those if there is any further detail desired about the lottery qualification paradigm.
Anonymous
01/13/2025 20:51
Subject: 2024-25 CES
Anonymous wrote:What score is considered 85 percent of winter MAP R score?
Depends on how high FARMS your school is. For schools with middling levels of FARMS kida, it's in the ballpark of the 85th percentile nationally, but for richer schools it's a bunch higher and for poorer schools it's a good bit lower.
Anonymous
01/13/2025 20:26
Subject: 2024-25 CES
What score is considered 85 percent of winter MAP R score?
Anonymous
01/13/2025 14:10
Subject: 2024-25 CES
Anonymous
01/10/2025 23:36
Subject: 2024-25 CES
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Is this the same as in past years? It looks like it is saying you can't get the school's permission to take ELC if you're not included in the central review lottery program-- was that always the case?
It appears to signal that they are going to get rid of ELC.
That's doesn't make sense. They stated ELC to take the pressure of off CES
ELC will be phased out after this year. Most schools are either finishing their 5th graders out with ELC OR have gotten rid of it completely by switching to CKLA.
Really? So most schools don't have any 4th graders in ELC this year?
DP — some do I think. But many have opted for the CKLA enrichment pilot, which uses the base curriculum and adds enrichment. There are some real problems with ELC — it is an MCPS cobbled-together curriculum and not necessarily standards-based. CKLA Is very strong and can be supplemented for those who need more.
Anonymous
01/10/2025 14:25
Subject: 2024-25 CES
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Is this the same as in past years? It looks like it is saying you can't get the school's permission to take ELC if you're not included in the central review lottery program-- was that always the case?
It appears to signal that they are going to get rid of ELC.
That's doesn't make sense. They stated ELC to take the pressure of off CES
ELC will be phased out after this year. Most schools are either finishing their 5th graders out with ELC OR have gotten rid of it completely by switching to CKLA.
Really? So most schools don't have any 4th graders in ELC this year?
Anonymous
01/10/2025 12:03
Subject: 2024-25 CES
Anonymous wrote:If you want to use CoGAT, please find some experts that can substantiate the claim that "Gifted and talented experts recommend the use of [CoGAT] scores as an equitable approach to ensure equity and access in identification of students for programs."
(1) not just expert but "Gifted and talented experts"
(2) MCPS is using local norm MAP score because "Gifted and talented experts recommend the use of local norms of assessment scores as an equitable approach to ensure equity and access in identification of students for programs.
Quoted directly from the google doc in DP response.
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:It is now a lottery system based on primarily map scores and grades. COGAT testing will not be an indicator for the 25-26 school year.
Did MCPS explain why they won't use it other than it would not result in the desired demographics? Seems like a really critical data point. the CESes are basically the only point at which you can capture highly intelligent kids who may not be challenged and as a result not motivated due to being in the wrong setting. By the time they are in MS and HS it's kind of too late and many of those kids who were unmotivated may have checked out.
It does seem like a flawed system since the kids who need this the most aren't typically selected. I'm not sure gatekeeping with CogAT is the real answer, either. Maybe make these offerings available to all students without dumbing them down. If kids are up for the rigor they do well if not they drop out. Easy....
CoGAT is the perfect way. You can’t offer these things to all students without watering it down.
Given that research sources on the NWEA site recommend not using MAP as the primary testing measure for GT placement, but, rather, as a companion assessment tool to go along with a more ability-focused test, it seems that MCPS should be following that (whether via CogAT or other) in addition to the use of local norms.
Anonymous
01/10/2025 08:44
Subject: 2024-25 CES
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Is this the same as in past years? It looks like it is saying you can't get the school's permission to take ELC if you're not included in the central review lottery program-- was that always the case?
It appears to signal that they are going to get rid of ELC.
That's doesn't make sense. They stated ELC to take the pressure of off CES
ELC will be phased out after this year. Most schools are either finishing their 5th graders out with ELC OR have gotten rid of it completely by switching to CKLA.