ok, i see that some of you are typing responses faster than the clock speed. so here is a request. whether you agree with GTA or not you are obviously very invested in the changes in GT education, so will you please go to http://www.gtamc.org/2012-gt-forum and provide your comment before 5pm today, even if you want to convey "GT in MCPS should only refer to magnet ready kids" or "GT is everyone above xyz %tile"... you can certainly qualify your statement with "I am not a member of GTA, but I care about GT" if you want.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
What I'm trying to get at is an answer to this question: if MoCo administers a test and says that any kid who scores in the 90th percentile or above is "GT", how do we end up with a situation where MoCo labels 40% of kids as being "GT"? By definition, the 90th pctile kid is in the top 10%, not in the top 40%. So there is a definitional problem somewhere. That's what I'm trying to pin down.

Anonymous wrote:
If you have read the thread you probably understand that MoCo does not have a cutoff %tile for GT identification. The 40% kids ending up identified as GT is anecdotal. No one has the real stat except MoCo, which they do not publish. So, there is no correlation of MCPS to national %tile in the discussion here.

The actual explanation is much more political than statistical. It has to do with race equity. It has to do with some politically motivated people feeling there are not enough people from certain race being identified as “GT “or “academically advanced”. There are two ways for a county to show progress to answer that concern; addressing the root cause of why %age of certain race in GT identification is lower than other race or lower the standard for GT identification. The first solution is extremely difficult to achieve within a school system, the second one easy. So, MCPS has taken the second path.

Do you really mean to suggest that 30% (more or less) of kids are identified as gifted because of their race? And about 10% of kids -- of all races -- are identified as gifted because they scored 90pctile or above on the test? Making the total of 40% (more or less) who are called gifted in MoCo.

This 30% is a huge number. It leads to unbelievable results. It would mean, for example, that the majority of minority race kids in my kids' magnets got there because of some political motivation, rather than test results. I find this impossible to believe.

There must be some other explanation!

There is another explanation. Because of parental pressure MCPS looks at students who come well prepared from the eastern and western parts and lumps them in with GT. It creates a huge group--especially in schools located in wealthy areas. These kids do get to take William and Mary and math at a higher level. Many of us on the eastern side agree with the MCEF that this is NOT right. The GTA says challenge every child--then why don't they support differentiated education?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I see that people are thoroughly confused about this GT forum MCPS (Superintendent) is conducting. So, I called their office. They confirmed that this meeting is about all kids identified by MCPS at 2nd grade as "GT". They also categorically stated it is not about the magnet programs or HGCs. It is about the students that need additional challenge beyond the on-grade level curriculum. If you want to clarify please call 301-279-3145 and learn for yourself. So, acceleration in local schools, homogeneous and ability grouping, not enough magnet programs, differentiations and any topic related to high ability students is fair game.

Just email the Public Info Office PIO@MCPSMD.ORG and get something in writing. According to this poster, MCPS "confirmed that this meeting is about all kids identified by MCPS at 2nd grade as "GT"." That must mean those who go to HGCs too. How can they categorically say it is not about the magnet programs or HGCs??? Something doesn't smell right.

Looks like someone is manipulating this forum.

Anonymous wrote:I see that people are thoroughly confused about this GT forum MCPS (Superintendent) is conducting. So, I called their office. They confirmed that this meeting is about all kids identified by MCPS at 2nd grade as "GT". They also categorically stated it is not about the magnet programs or HGCs. It is about the students that need additional challenge beyond the on-grade level curriculum. If you want to clarify please call 301-279-3145 and learn for yourself. So, acceleration in local schools, homogeneous and ability grouping, not enough magnet programs, differentiations and any topic related to high ability students is fair game.

Just email the Public Info Office PIO@MCPSMD.ORG and get something in writing. According to this poster, MCPS "confirmed that this meeting is about all kids identified by MCPS at 2nd grade as "GT"." That must mean those who go to HGCs too. How can they categorically say it is not about the magnet programs or HGCs??? Something doesn't smell right.

I see that people are thoroughly confused about this GT forum MCPS (Superintendent) is conducting. So, I called their office. They confirmed that this meeting is about all kids identified by MCPS at 2nd grade as "GT". They also categorically stated it is not about the magnet programs or HGCs. It is about the students that need additional challenge beyond the on-grade level curriculum. If you want to clarify please call 301-279-3145 and learn for yourself. So, acceleration in local schools, homogeneous and ability grouping, not enough magnet programs, differentiations and any topic related to high ability students is fair game.

Anonymous wrote:Do you really mean to suggest that 30% (more or less) of kids are identified as gifted because of their race? And about 10% of kids -- of all races -- are identified as gifted because they scored 90pctile or above on the test? Making the total of 40% (more or less) who are called gifted in MoCo.
This 30% is a huge number. It leads to unbelievable results. It would mean, for example, that the majority of minority race kids in my kids' magnets got there because of some political motivation, rather than test results. I find this impossible to believe.
There must be some other explanation!

Did you not ask this question before and left the thread? Or that was another PP. In any case, where did you get the 30% and 10% breakdown? All I was trying to say was the percentage of kids identified as gifted is close to 40% or so in MCPS because of the push to identify more minority kids from low SES as advanced learners. If the standard of identification is lowered more kids of the minority category will be identified as GT or advanced learners. Before someone tries to accuse me of racism, let me clarify I believe minority kids deserve as much as any other kids to be intellectually highly gifted. However when politically motivated people see the data they, they want quick fix to social issues.

Magnet program is a different process though. Kids get selected based on a more rigorous selection process, even though I have been told race and gender balance is looked into. Because of this some (deserving) minority kids might be accepted into program with lower test results and class grades than other (deserving) kids with higher test results and class grades.

Anonymous wrote:
What I'm trying to get at is an answer to this question: if MoCo administers a test and says that any kid who scores in the 90th percentile or above is "GT", how do we end up with a situation where MoCo labels 40% of kids as being "GT"? By definition, the 90th pctile kid is in the top 10%, not in the top 40%. So there is a definitional problem somewhere. That's what I'm trying to pin down.

Anonymous wrote:
If you have read the thread you probably understand that MoCo does not have a cutoff %tile for GT identification. The 40% kids ending up identified as GT is anecdotal. No one has the real stat except MoCo, which they do not publish. So, there is no correlation of MCPS to national %tile in the discussion here.

The actual explanation is much more political than statistical. It has to do with race equity. It has to do with some politically motivated people feeling there are not enough people from certain race being identified as “GT “or “academically advanced”. There are two ways for a county to show progress to answer that concern; addressing the root cause of why %age of certain race in GT identification is lower than other race or lower the standard for GT identification. The first solution is extremely difficult to achieve within a school system, the second one easy. So, MCPS has taken the second path.

Do you really mean to suggest that 30% (more or less) of kids are identified as gifted because of their race? And about 10% of kids -- of all races -- are identified as gifted because they scored 90pctile or above on the test? Making the total of 40% (more or less) who are called gifted in MoCo.

This 30% is a huge number. It leads to unbelievable results. It would mean, for example, that the majority of minority race kids in my kids' magnets got there because of some political motivation, rather than test results. I find this impossible to believe.

There must be some other explanation!

http://nepc.colorado.edu/files/Epic-Epru_LB-UnivAcc-FINAL.pdf

Paper on the no Labels site that talks about the importanc of de-tracking. But it also makes th epoint that where this has been done well there were extra supplementary classes add at some other part of the day for slower/behind learners to avoid dumbing down the curriculum. Anyone know if this is what MCPS plans since even the very anti-grouping authors of that paper admit that w/o that the typical course of action is simply to water down the level of instruction to be able to teach to the middle more?

Anonymous wrote:"They are trying to keep accelerated education in MCPS local schools alive (this is extremely urgent) without having a bias that only Highly Gifted need accelerated education. "

This was my impression too. Also my impression that they are not so hung up on getting to call their kid "GT" as much as ensuring that their above grade level kids are getting the focused teaching they need for where they are at. I imagine this is a much much bigger deal for those on the Eastern side (where I live) and perhaps some of the people mystified by the sense of urgency by GTA live on the west where this is not such a problem since most of the class is at least at grade level so there are not such huge differences in most classes or at least the bulk of the kids in most classes are at/above grade level rather than below it.

Your impression is similar to mine. If people do their independent research about GTA instead of listening to biased comments, they will probably understand the organization better. However, again the organization should not be the main focus, the issues should be. Acceleration in loacl school is not a eastern side problem. I am from the western part of the county, but I see kids in my area suffer due to lack of homogeneous grouping, and focus on acceleration. Read the comments by various parents from various zipcode on GT forum and you will see the issue is universal.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
No, I didn't misunderstand the sentence. I do econometrics (i.e., lots and lots of stats) for a living. What I am asking is, what sample does the 90th pctile come from? Is this the 90th pctile (and above) for all kids in MoCo, or is it 90th pctile for all kids in the nation? I think your second sentence may be answering my question, but it's not clear you understand the issue here.

Why do you have to have to quote your job to make the point? I did not imply your misunderstanding is related to your knowledge in statistics at all. Let me explain again. The PP who mentioned about 90th %tile and above did not say “MCPS GT means students at 90th %tile and above”. What he/she said is “MCPS GT includes students at 90th %tile and above”. It seemed to me that your question originated from the assumption that the PP said the first thing quoted here.

What I'm trying to get at is an answer to this question: if MoCo administers a test and says that any kid who scores in the 90th percentile or above is "GT", how do we end up with a situation where MoCo labels 40% of kids as being "GT"? By definition, the 90th pctile kid is in the top 10%, not in the top 40%. So there is a definitional problem somewhere. from Wikipedia: "In statistics, a percentile (or centile) is the value of a variable below which a certain percent of observations fall. For example, the 20th percentile is the value (or score) below which 20 percent of the observations may be found." That's what I'm trying to pin down.

If you have read the thread you probably understand that MoCo does not have a cutoff %tile for GT identification. The 40% kids ending up identified as GT is anecdotal. No one has the real stat except MoCo, which they do not publish. So, there is no correlation of MCPS to national %tile in the discussion here.

It would make sense if MoCo kids were often above the national average, so that 40% of MoCo kids were in the top 10% nationally. But that was just one guess. Maybe there's another explanation.
(And BTW, I have to laugh at "I guess you miss understood the sentence." Can't we try a little, teensy bit harder to be nice to each other? I know some of you guys frequent the GTA forum, but really!)

The actual explanation is much more political than statistical. It has to do with race equity. It has to do with some politically motivated people feeling there are not enough people from certain race being identified as “GT “or “academically advanced”. There are two ways for a county to show progress to answer that concern; addressing the root cause of why %age of certain race in GT identification is lower than other race or lower the standard for GT identification. The first solution is extremely difficult to achieve within a school system, the second one easy. So, MCPS has taken the second path.

I am trying to be nice and answer your questions. May be you can stop assuming what others intentions are. I was in no way trying to insult your intelligence or knowledge. “Misunderstanding” is not lack of degree or ability.

Do you mean to say that 30% (thereabouts, although the 40% number is widely quoted) of MoCo kids are labelled "GT" for politically motivated reasons because they come from various targeted races? And only the 10% of kids are labelled GT because they scored at or above 90% pctile? I find this hard to believe, although not completely impossible to believe.

Whatever the answer, you're 100% occupied with scoring points and 0% concerned with being helpful. Smoke is coming off your most recent post, and your first post was vague and unhelpful. I'm done with this thread for the same reason I never participate on the GTA forum. Which member of the GTA are you?

"They are trying to keep accelerated education in MCPS local schools alive (this is extremely urgent) without having a bias that only Highly Gifted need accelerated education. "

This was my impression too. Also my impression that they are not so hung up on getting to call their kid "GT" as much as ensuring that their above grade level kids are getting the focused teaching they need for where they are at. I imagine this is a much much bigger deal for those on the Eastern side (where I live) and perhaps some of the people mystified by the sense of urgency by GTA live on the west where this is not such a problem since most of the class is at least at grade level so there are not such huge differences in most classes or at least the bulk of the kids in most classes are at/above grade level rather than below it.

Anonymous wrote:
I don't think anyone is anti-GTA. It is just that the organization doesn't seem to have a very transparent way of doing business. It seems to be using GT to get their average kids labeled as GT. Now I don't care one way or the other but it does mess up advocating for GT. Anyway has anyone attended a meeting of the GTA?

If you assume the worst of a set of people or a group that would see you are "anti" that organization. I am neither anti-GTA nor pro-GTA. I support their "Challenge Every Child" manifesto.

What I have understood so far is that the small group of people called GTA are stuck between rock and hard place; on one side is a political group which wants all acceleration in local school be converted to heterogeneous differentiated classes, on the other side are some very vocal parents who think their highly gifted students are the only one who should be called "gifted". I have read what GTA is advocating and it seems to me that they are trying to tackle some very difficult issues in MCPS. They are trying to keep accelerated education in MCPS local schools alive (this is extremely urgent) without having a bias that only Highly Gifted need accelerated education. Is that such a wrong thing to do. How do GTA folks demark the line of what should be "Gifted and Talented" in MCPS, when MCPS itself identifies that population?

Do I think GTA can improve, sure. However until I can find time out of my life to voluteer for GTA and be fully involved in their activities, I will not assume they have another agenda. I urge other people to take the same route to have open mind and support and oppose issues.

Anonymous wrote:
No, I didn't misunderstand the sentence. I do econometrics (i.e., lots and lots of stats) for a living. What I am asking is, what sample does the 90th pctile come from? Is this the 90th pctile (and above) for all kids in MoCo, or is it 90th pctile for all kids in the nation? I think your second sentence may be answering my question, but it's not clear you understand the issue here.

Why do you have to have to quote your job to make the point? I did not imply your misunderstanding is related to your knowledge in statistics at all. Let me explain again. The PP who mentioned about 90th %tile and above did not say “MCPS GT means students at 90th %tile and above”. What he/she said is “MCPS GT includes students at 90th %tile and above”. It seemed to me that your question originated from the assumption that the PP said the first thing quoted here.

What I'm trying to get at is an answer to this question: if MoCo administers a test and says that any kid who scores in the 90th percentile or above is "GT", how do we end up with a situation where MoCo labels 40% of kids as being "GT"? By definition, the 90th pctile kid is in the top 10%, not in the top 40%. So there is a definitional problem somewhere. from Wikipedia: "In statistics, a percentile (or centile) is the value of a variable below which a certain percent of observations fall. For example, the 20th percentile is the value (or score) below which 20 percent of the observations may be found." That's what I'm trying to pin down.

If you have read the thread you probably understand that MoCo does not have a cutoff %tile for GT identification. The 40% kids ending up identified as GT is anecdotal. No one has the real stat except MoCo, which they do not publish. So, there is no correlation of MCPS to national %tile in the discussion here.

It would make sense if MoCo kids were often above the national average, so that 40% of MoCo kids were in the top 10% nationally. But that was just one guess. Maybe there's another explanation.
(And BTW, I have to laugh at "I guess you miss understood the sentence." Can't we try a little, teensy bit harder to be nice to each other? I know some of you guys frequent the GTA forum, but really!)

The actual explanation is much more political than statistical. It has to do with race equity. It has to do with some politically motivated people feeling there are not enough people from certain race being identified as “GT “or “academically advanced”. There are two ways for a county to show progress to answer that concern; addressing the root cause of why %age of certain race in GT identification is lower than other race or lower the standard for GT identification. The first solution is extremely difficult to achieve within a school system, the second one easy. So, MCPS has taken the second path.

I am trying to be nice and answer your questions. May be you can stop assuming what others intentions are. I was in no way trying to insult your intelligence or knowledge. “Misunderstanding” is not lack of degree or ability.

Anonymous wrote:"how do we end up with a situation where MoCo labels 40% of kids as being "GT"? "

well because you have a section of the county that is very homogenous in terms of most kids' skill level at their school. Then you have the DCC area (where I live) where it's either very mixed or else it's the case that MOST of the schools' kids are not even at grade level. So to be able to capture those kids in DCC areas who are above grade level I think you end up also including tons of kids from the more solidly middle/upper class schools.

Honestly I have no idea why some PPs on this thread seem anti-GTA (which I have only just discovered through this list serve a few weeks ago). As someone else mentioned, they seem to be the only organized group worried about a huge problem facing many of us on the Eastern side at least which is the prospect of our child not getting an appropriate education just out of a philosophical belief some leaders apparently have in the county that makes them not like the fact that some children learn more quickly and/or start out further along than others.

I don't think anyone is anti-GTA. It is just that the organization doesn't seem to have a very transparent way of doing business. It seems to be using GT to get their average kids labeled as GT. Now I don't care one way or the other but it does mess up advocating for GT. Anyway has anyone attended a meeting of the GTA?

"how do we end up with a situation where MoCo labels 40% of kids as being "GT"? "

well because you have a section of the county that is very homogenous in terms of most kids' skill level at their school. Then you have the DCC area (where I live) where it's either very mixed or else it's the case that MOST of the schools' kids are not even at grade level. So to be able to capture those kids in DCC areas who are above grade level I think you end up also including tons of kids from the more solidly middle/upper class schools.

Honestly I have no idea why some PPs on this thread seem anti-GTA (which I have only just discovered through this list serve a few weeks ago). As someone else mentioned, they seem to be the only organized group worried about a huge problem facing many of us on the Eastern side at least which is the prospect of our child not getting an appropriate education just out of a philosophical belief some leaders apparently have in the county that makes them not like the fact that some children learn more quickly and/or start out further along than others.