Anonymous wrote:I will point out (so much for reading a eating popcorn) that, unlike a lot of the less developed world, performing poorly on one test when 7 does not lead one to a life of flipping burgers.


America is the country of second chances. There are open admission community colleges; transfer to a major state university; grad school at a top school in the country.

I am an internationally known scientist. My IQ is somewhere around 150-160 (most of the scientists that I work with refer to me as the smartest person in the field). I graduated in the bottom half of my FCPS class. Did not do well on the english SAT's. I was rejected by Va Tech, James Madison, and ODU. I went to NOVA for 2 years, transferred to Tech, graduated, when to a top graduate school, received my PhD, and here I am now, 50 years old, world renowned. I basically blew off my life before 18 and did fine.

I am happy for your success. Yes, there are rare cases like yours. That does not change the fact that early success and opportunity builds future success and continued opportunity. I am sure there are many who blew off their lives before 18 like you, who would have much better lives and success now had they not. In fact, I bet there are more in that category than in yours. Siting an "outlier" is only confusing the the real facts that govern the expected majority of outcomes.

Anonymous wrote:I will point out (so much for reading a eating popcorn) that, unlike a lot of the less developed world, performing poorly on one test when 7 does not lead one to a life of flipping burgers.


America is the country of second chances. There are open admission community colleges; transfer to a major state university; grad school at a top school in the country.

I am an internationally known scientist. My IQ is somewhere around 150-160 (most of the scientists that I work with refer to me as the smartest person in the field). I graduated in the bottom half of my FCPS class. Did not do well on the english SAT's. I was rejected by Va Tech, James Madison, and ODU. I went to NOVA for 2 years, transferred to Tech, graduated, when to a top graduate school, received my PhD, and here I am now, 50 years old, world renowned. I basically blew off my life before 18 and did fine.

so you think this is a model others should follow? Just blow off your life before 18 and expect to do "fine?"

I will point out (so much for reading a eating popcorn) that, unlike a lot of the less developed world, performing poorly on one test when 7 does not lead one to a life of flipping burgers.


America is the country of second chances. There are open admission community colleges; transfer to a major state university; grad school at a top school in the country.

I am an internationally known scientist. My IQ is somewhere around 150-160 (most of the scientists that I work with refer to me as the smartest person in the field). I graduated in the bottom half of my FCPS class. Did not do well on the english SAT's. I was rejected by Va Tech, James Madison, and ODU. I went to NOVA for 2 years, transferred to Tech, graduated, when to a top graduate school, received my PhD, and here I am now, 50 years old, world renowned. I basically blew off my life before 18 and did fine.

This thread goes well with popcorn.

I'm glad that you are only listing the highlights. I kind of dozed off there in the middle of your post.

Ummm, I'll take a crack at one of your questions however. We go to public schools because there are truancy laws forcing us to send our kids to some school and with government taking more and more of our taxes most of us in the new immigrant and proletariat categories cannot afford private schools. Hey, if we could afford it we would consider it --- but not everyone has bags of money lying around you know.

As far as AAP and prepping go, we did it 3 years ago my son got in and he has been doing great and I have yet to see any of those stressed out, morally wreaked AAP prepped kids that posters keep mentioning. I do see a very large number of Asian and Indian kids at my son's AAP center school though. His center school is really a very happy place and much more eclectic and diverse than the lily white non-AAP school that he transferred from.

Let's review.

Second graders take a test that that reflects certain characteristics of their learning abilities and styles, so that the school can teach them in the way that is best suited to each individual. The test results are the most reliable when the question are seen for the first time on test day.

Some adults want their children to have a different result on this test, so they show them questions like those on the test and work out the answers ahead of time. They spend time practicing the questions and how to arrive at the answers.

The test results are most valid when the students have seen the questions for the first time on test day.

The school puts out a statement indicating that it is aware that some students have seen the test question form ahead of test day. and thus, they have changed the test.

Adults proclaim that they can't understand certain words in the statement and that it is okay to show children the questions ahead of time because the school system is unfair, the test is unfair, the test should be a different kind of test anyway because the test makers don't know how to make tests, parents should be able to show children the questions ahead of time because all that matters is that their children get what the parents want their children to have (you know, "I'm out for number one"). Oh, and by the way, everyone involved with the test is racist and classist. And there is a big conspiracy to keep their kids from getting a good education.

Why even send kids to such a school system? No one requires us to send our kids to public school, so why send them to a school we can't seem to trust?
Why even argue about showing questions to kids ahead of time when we think so little of the school that give the test?

And I'm only listing the highlights here.

The strategy of perennial winners when they start losing is to change the rules of the game. History bears this out time and time again. Witness the recent voting behavior in the Presidential elections just a couple of months ago.

I will yield to your sheepish afterthought.

We are all immigrants - remote (centuries ago) or recent (within the last 50 years). Some of us (entitled) are offshoots of immigrant criminals and assorted misfits who wiped out 10 tens of millions of native Indians (a holocaust) by cheating, theft, rape and plunder. Other immigrants were forced and bound in chains, arranged like orderly sardines in the dungeons of boats traveling the high seas. The mission of this immigrant chattel was to do the dirty work for the entitled.

Today, the entitled are losing their grip on AAP and the like largely to children of recent immigrants. This is staggeringly pronounced in education.

This predicament fuels this rage. The entitled have forgotten what hard work is all about. And they are reluctant to make the sacrifices immigrants are accostomed to making.

The issue with form, format, real test or actual test questions, pretend or fake test questions is a diversion. It does not matter, the entitled are losing the education battle and they will continue to lose that battle regardless of any ruse or cover provided by FCPS.

Only preparation and hard work will start to close the gap.

Anonymous wrote:
No one really cares whether children have parents who are immigrants or not.

The CogAT is simply not a useful test when children have seen the questions and worked out the answers before test day. The scores for children whose parents have shown them the questions ahead of time show nothing about the child's learning style or ability. The school is trying to provide appropriate services to all the children who are sitting in their classrooms, without any regard for where they or their parents came from. The school does not care what any child's background is, they are just trying to provide the best education possible for each individual student.

This post does a great job of describing how most people feel. Just about everyone in America has immigrant background.

In a fit of paroxysmal emotional purging the hidden plain truth emerges. The entitled culture feels vulnerable and threatened by the new culture defined by preparation and hard work.

In every zip code in America the children of recent immigrants are outperforming children of the entitled culture. This has created an ever expanding performance and acheivement gap in education as the entitled culture witnesses in every zip code these children taking their self anointed spots in every AAP, gifted program, IB, AP and Honors program in the land.

This is the root cause of this furor. And the entitled culture will go to any unethical length to disrupt this trend -- including voter fraud and suppression.

Brillliant.

You have summed up untold years of increasingly unhinged ranting on this forum about the lumpenproletariat, immigrants and those nasty preppers in one paragraph. Bravo to you!

I took the time to read the thread. There is most definitely an undercurrent of jingoism. One only has to review the chauvinistic attribution of cheating to certain cultures: Asian, Nigerian and Indian by posters who have never taken a random walk down Wall or K Streets.

No one really cares whether children have parents who are immigrants or not.

The CogAT is simply not a useful test when children have seen the questions and worked out the answers before test day. The scores for children whose parents have shown them the questions ahead of time show nothing about the child's learning style or ability. The school is trying to provide appropriate services to all the children who are sitting in their classrooms, without any regard for where they or their parents came from. The school does not care what any child's background is, they are just trying to provide the best education possible for each individual student.

What were the results of the custom form of CoGAT this year?

The academic achievement and performance gap between children of recent immigrants and children of the entitled has even widened further.

Any one surprised?

Let's wait for the next theory FCPS will float. I only hope they can communicate in plain English.

FCPS put on their website a two page statement about this year's CogAT.

Here's the link:

http://www.fcps.edu/is/aap/pdfs/FAQre2012CustomizedCogAT.pdf

FCPS staff members chose to administer the custom form of the CogAT this year after it came to our attention that some students, in previous years, had prepared for the CogAT using the exact form of the CogAT being administered in FCPS.

All children should have continual access to a challenging curriculum and education and not condemned to a non challenging and second rate educational tract on the basis of a test in one point in time--particularly at the start of the formal journey.

The developing young brain,mind, and intelligence is plastic and changing and should not be pigeon-holed into arbitrary tracts based on worthless tests with poor predictive value.

We are talking about fertile and rapidly developing brains/minds not the demented old farts that dominate the discussion here.

+1
Very well said.