Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
My question is in what U.S. State is it acceptable to choose children's admissions into Magnet programs by rolling dice?

Why isn't the news picking up on this issue? These people are completely incompetent as educators and at best this is classic Waste Fraud and Abuse.

Um, Fairfax County, Virginia?
New York City
San Francisco
Boston Public

I’m sure there are others - those are just the ones I see in the news regularly.

Some states don’t require any gifted services at all, and many districts don’t offer them. Lots of the elite gifted programs nationwide are looking at ways to diversify their student bodies.

Nashville too. Lottery among the qualified candidates. Probably lots of other cities.

This is where we are going.

http://www.tnellen.com/cybereng/harrison.html

HARRISON BERGERON
by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
French Translation from Avice Robitaille.
Hindi Translation by Ashwin.
Urdu Translation by RealMS
Russian translation
THE YEAR WAS 2081, and everybody was finally equal. They weren't only equal before God and the law. They were equal every which way. Nobody was smarter than anybody else. Nobody was better looking than anybody else. Nobody was stronger or quicker than anybody else. All this equality was due to the 211th, 212th, and 213th Amendments to the Constitution, and to the unceasing vigilance of agents of the United States Handicapper General.

Some things about living still weren't quite right, though. April for instance, still drove people crazy by not being springtime. And it was in that clammy month that the H-G men took George and Hazel Bergeron's fourteen-year-old son, Harrison, away.

It was tragic, all right, but George and Hazel couldn't think about it very hard. Hazel had a perfectly average intelligence, which meant she couldn't think about anything except in short bursts. And George, while his intelligence was way above normal, had a little mental handicap radio in his ear. He was required by law to wear it at all times. It was tuned to a government transmitter. Every twenty seconds or so, the transmitter would send out some sharp noise to keep people like George from taking unfair advantage of their brains.

Great short story. Should be required reading in these times.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
My question is in what U.S. State is it acceptable to choose children's admissions into Magnet programs by rolling dice?

Why isn't the news picking up on this issue? These people are completely incompetent as educators and at best this is classic Waste Fraud and Abuse.

Um, Fairfax County, Virginia?
New York City
San Francisco
Boston Public

I’m sure there are others - those are just the ones I see in the news regularly.

Some states don’t require any gifted services at all, and many districts don’t offer them. Lots of the elite gifted programs nationwide are looking at ways to diversify their student bodies.

Nashville too. Lottery among the qualified candidates. Probably lots of other cities.

This is where we are going.

http://www.tnellen.com/cybereng/harrison.html

HARRISON BERGERON
by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
French Translation from Avice Robitaille.
Hindi Translation by Ashwin.
Urdu Translation by RealMS
Russian translation
THE YEAR WAS 2081, and everybody was finally equal. They weren't only equal before God and the law. They were equal every which way. Nobody was smarter than anybody else. Nobody was better looking than anybody else. Nobody was stronger or quicker than anybody else. All this equality was due to the 211th, 212th, and 213th Amendments to the Constitution, and to the unceasing vigilance of agents of the United States Handicapper General.

Some things about living still weren't quite right, though. April for instance, still drove people crazy by not being springtime. And it was in that clammy month that the H-G men took George and Hazel Bergeron's fourteen-year-old son, Harrison, away.

It was tragic, all right, but George and Hazel couldn't think about it very hard. Hazel had a perfectly average intelligence, which meant she couldn't think about anything except in short bursts. And George, while his intelligence was way above normal, had a little mental handicap radio in his ear. He was required by law to wear it at all times. It was tuned to a government transmitter. Every twenty seconds or so, the transmitter would send out some sharp noise to keep people like George from taking unfair advantage of their brains.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
My question is in what U.S. State is it acceptable to choose children's admissions into Magnet programs by rolling dice?

Why isn't the news picking up on this issue? These people are completely incompetent as educators and at best this is classic Waste Fraud and Abuse.

Um, Fairfax County, Virginia?
New York City
San Francisco
Boston Public

I’m sure there are others - those are just the ones I see in the news regularly.

Some states don’t require any gifted services at all, and many districts don’t offer them. Lots of the elite gifted programs nationwide are looking at ways to diversify their student bodies.

Nashville too. Lottery among the qualified candidates. Probably lots of other cities.

Anonymous wrote:I justed wasted 5 minutes doing a search and replace in Word. I swapped out the word EQUITY for its full definition.

Several of these posts don't actually make any sense...

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
My question is in what U.S. State is it acceptable to choose children's admissions into Magnet programs by rolling dice?

Why isn't the news picking up on this issue? These people are completely incompetent as educators and at best this is classic Waste Fraud and Abuse.

Um, Fairfax County, Virginia?
New York City
San Francisco
Boston Public

I’m sure there are others - those are just the ones I see in the news regularly.

Some states don’t require any gifted services at all, and many districts don’t offer them. Lots of the elite gifted programs nationwide are looking at ways to diversify their student bodies.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
My question is in what U.S. State is it acceptable to choose children's admissions into Magnet programs by rolling dice?

Why isn't the news picking up on this issue? These people are completely incompetent as educators and at best this is classic Waste Fraud and Abuse.

Um, Fairfax County, Virginia?
New York City
San Francisco
Boston Public

I’m sure there are others - those are just the ones I see in the news regularly.

Some states don’t require any gifted services at all, and many districts don’t offer them. Lots of the elite gifted programs nationwide are looking at ways to diversify their student bodies.

Anonymous wrote:MCPS makes things clear as mud, to be sure.

Local norms for us mean that the percentile score is based on the population of same-grade sutdents in the system from schools with somewhat similar demographic characteristics (FARMS or ever-FARMS, language learners, etc.). For elementary, I think there may be 3 such tranches of schools, and I don't think it's cluster-based, though one might expect some similarities within a cluster that would see elementaries tend to fall into the same local norming tranche.

The basic idea is that a naturally GT kid from a high-FARMS/high-ELL area may not have the circumstances (presence of cohort, access to tutoring, etc.) at their school to facilitate exposure to material that would positively influence raw test scores in the same way that a GT kid from a low-FARMS/low-ELL area might. Presuming that the objective is to identify the innate ability (not the achievement level) when determining who might benefit most from magnet placement, local norming can make sense.

It can also be taken too far, if driven by another agenda. Making the specifics of MCPS's local norming practice public would go a long way towards silencing the critics -- as long as the specifics don't indicate that another agenda is in play.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
My question is in what U.S. State is it acceptable to choose children's admissions into Magnet programs by rolling dice?

Why isn't the news picking up on this issue? These people are completely incompetent as educators and at best this is classic Waste Fraud and Abuse.

Um, Fairfax County, Virginia?
New York City
San Francisco
Boston Public

I’m sure there are others - those are just the ones I see in the news regularly.

Some states don’t require any gifted services at all, and many districts don’t offer them. Lots of the elite gifted programs nationwide are looking at ways to diversify their student bodies.

Anonymous wrote:
My question is in what U.S. State is it acceptable to choose children's admissions into Magnet programs by rolling dice?

Why isn't the news picking up on this issue? These people are completely incompetent as educators and at best this is classic Waste Fraud and Abuse.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:MCPS makes things clear as mud, to be sure.

Local norms for us mean that the percentile score is based on the population of same-grade sutdents in the system from schools with somewhat similar demographic characteristics (FARMS or ever-FARMS, language learners, etc.). For elementary, I think there may be 3 such tranches of schools, and I don't think it's cluster-based, though one might expect some similarities within a cluster that would see elementaries tend to fall into the same local norming tranche.

The basic idea is that a naturally GT kid from a high-FARMS/high-ELL area may not have the circumstances (presence of cohort, access to tutoring, etc.) at their school to facilitate exposure to material that would positively influence raw test scores in the same way that a GT kid from a low-FARMS/low-ELL area might. Presuming that the objective is to identify the innate ability (not the achievement level) when determining who might benefit most from magnet placement, local norming can make sense.

It can also be taken too far, if driven by another agenda. Making the specifics of MCPS's local norming practice public would go a long way towards silencing the critics -- as long as the specifics don't indicate that another agenda is in play.

+1 Transparency is critical so that we all understand what the goals are and what the process is. Unfortunately, some drags the race into the conversation and divert the whole thing to the point the discussion becomes unproductive

A lot of culture warriors on DCUM.

It's one or two paid astroturfers always stirring up trouble.

I'm becoming more and more certain that someone is paying money to keep this yarn spinning. It doesn't make sense otherwise. Must have something to do with the lawsuit(s). Here we are in the middle of a pandemic with some serious issues that trouble the entire school population. But an issue for a few hundred students (frankly a few dozen) is getting as much traffic as discussion around a pandemic that concern every single MCPS family. And this isn't even the first thread about middle school magnets!

This conversation IS IMPORTANT - but the fact that this thread gets this much traffic in this environment is odd

Haha...quite the conspiracy theory. Maybe it speaks to how people reach when specific groups of kids are being singled out and targeted.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:MCPS makes things clear as mud, to be sure.

Local norms for us mean that the percentile score is based on the population of same-grade sutdents in the system from schools with somewhat similar demographic characteristics (FARMS or ever-FARMS, language learners, etc.). For elementary, I think there may be 3 such tranches of schools, and I don't think it's cluster-based, though one might expect some similarities within a cluster that would see elementaries tend to fall into the same local norming tranche.

The basic idea is that a naturally GT kid from a high-FARMS/high-ELL area may not have the circumstances (presence of cohort, access to tutoring, etc.) at their school to facilitate exposure to material that would positively influence raw test scores in the same way that a GT kid from a low-FARMS/low-ELL area might. Presuming that the objective is to identify the innate ability (not the achievement level) when determining who might benefit most from magnet placement, local norming can make sense.

It can also be taken too far, if driven by another agenda. Making the specifics of MCPS's local norming practice public would go a long way towards silencing the critics -- as long as the specifics don't indicate that another agenda is in play.

+1 Transparency is critical so that we all understand what the goals are and what the process is. Unfortunately, some drags the race into the conversation and divert the whole thing to the point the discussion becomes unproductive

A lot of culture warriors on DCUM.

It's one or two paid astroturfers always stirring up trouble.

I'm becoming more and more certain that someone is paying money to keep this yarn spinning. It doesn't make sense otherwise. Must have something to do with the lawsuit(s). Here we are in the middle of a pandemic with some serious issues that trouble the entire school population. But an issue for a few hundred students (frankly a few dozen) is getting as much traffic as discussion around a pandemic that concern every single MCPS family. And this isn't even the first thread about middle school magnets!

This conversation IS IMPORTANT - but the fact that this thread gets this much traffic in this environment is odd

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does anyone know what is the real reason MCPS BOE uses lottery for CES program?
Why can't it be the consistency of performance against benchmarks in elementary school? and/or likewise consistency of performance in middle school for highschool magnet program

Are they using Lottery for selection into sports and games teams as well instead of performance benchmarks? or is the lottery exclusive for academic programs?

Seriously, the lottery should be held in a public setting instead of a lottery selection shrouded in mystery. Applicant submits application. Receives a raffle ticket. You put your ticket in the bowl (or elect to let them put the ticket in the bowl for you). They shake it up and let some kids pick it. Easy Peasy and everyone knows it is fair.

Lottery exclusively applied for academics so that certain groups can be reduced. You know those kids who work too hard and whose immigrant parents care too much about education. Screw those uppities. You won't replace us.

Please clarify, who is replacing who? But really, they should do it so that if you qualify academically, you get a raffle ticket and the raffle is held in the open.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does anyone know what is the real reason MCPS BOE uses lottery for CES program?
Why can't it be the consistency of performance against benchmarks in elementary school? and/or likewise consistency of performance in middle school for highschool magnet program

Are they using Lottery for selection into sports and games teams as well instead of performance benchmarks? or is the lottery exclusive for academic programs?

Seriously, the lottery should be held in a public setting instead of a lottery selection shrouded in mystery. Applicant submits application. Receives a raffle ticket. You put your ticket in the bowl (or elect to let them put the ticket in the bowl for you). They shake it up and let some kids pick it. Easy Peasy and everyone knows it is fair.

Lottery exclusively applied for academics so that certain groups can be reduced. You know those kids who work too hard and whose immigrant parents care too much about education. Screw those uppities. You won't replace us.