The medians of the pool did not indicate that the scores were terribly skewed upward here in Lake WhateverisPCPostKeillorscandal. If 5% of the 4000 kids tested scored in the 99%ile, that's 200 kids - spread over 20 Middle Schools.

So, wise and savvy teacher poster (I'm being totally sincere, I thought your analysis was spot on), do you think that the principals can do anything to prevent this from happening, or will they have to go along with one last class at least, given that MCPS central seems to have ordained it? The problem you describe is not going to happen just at the really high performing schools. My kid is at a school with a 50% FARMS rate, but the school is apparently high performing enough to have at least several rejected 99 percenters and whatever their cohort is. There will certainly be students shut out of this class who want to get in, and that means turmoil.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At my child’s school the entire grade is taking “Honors English” and “Honors Social Studies” and in MCPS whenever they pull this and the next step will be allow all students due to pressure by parents and balancing diversity, which turned into the entire grade(yes, this is true) taking honors. So Honors is no longer truely Honors, but rather above/on grade level. I can see the same thing happening here.

1. you need to learn how to use punctuation.

2. you don’t have evidence that will happen here. past events do not always predict future events.

MCPS has the data. There will be some kids who are close calls, but let MCPS have the cojones to say, "I'm sorry, your child does not meet the required criteria for this course."

yup. and if they don’t, then you all can complain.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At my child’s school the entire grade is taking “Honors English” and “Honors Social Studies” and in MCPS whenever they pull this and the next step will be allow all students due to pressure by parents and balancing diversity, which turned into the entire grade(yes, this is true) taking honors. So Honors is no longer truely Honors, but rather above/on grade level. I can see the same thing happening here.

1. you need to learn how to use punctuation.

2. you don’t have evidence that will happen here. past events do not always predict future events.

MCPS has the data. There will be some kids who are close calls, but let MCPS have the cojones to say, "I'm sorry, your child does not meet the required criteria for this course."

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At my child’s school the entire grade is taking “Honors English” and “Honors Social Studies” and in MCPS whenever they pull this and the next step will be allow all students due to pressure by parents and balancing diversity, which turned into the entire grade(yes, this is true) taking honors. So Honors is no longer truely Honors, but rather above/on grade level. I can see the same thing happening here.

1. you need to learn how to use punctuation.

2. you don’t have evidence that will happen here. past events do not always predict future events.

History doesn’t repeat itself but it often rhymes -- Mark Twain

no need to attribute it ... we’re all aware of a massively famous quote

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At my child’s school the entire grade is taking “Honors English” and “Honors Social Studies” and in MCPS whenever they pull this and the next step will be allow all students due to pressure by parents and balancing diversity, which turned into the entire grade(yes, this is true) taking honors. So Honors is no longer truely Honors, but rather above/on grade level. I can see the same thing happening here.

1. you need to learn how to use punctuation.

2. you don’t have evidence that will happen here. past events do not always predict future events.

History doesn’t repeat itself but it often rhymes -- Mark Twain

Anonymous wrote:At my child’s school the entire grade is taking “Honors English” and “Honors Social Studies” and in MCPS whenever they pull this and the next step will be allow all students due to pressure by parents and balancing diversity, which turned into the entire grade(yes, this is true) taking honors. So Honors is no longer truely Honors, but rather above/on grade level. I can see the same thing happening here.

1. you need to learn how to use punctuation.

2. you don’t have evidence that will happen here. past events do not always predict future events.

Anonymous wrote:At my child’s school the entire grade is taking “Honors English” and “Honors Social Studies” and in MCPS whenever they pull this and the next step will be allow all students due to pressure by parents and balancing diversity, which turned into the entire grade(yes, this is true) taking honors. So Honors is no longer truely Honors, but rather above/on grade level. I can see the same thing happening here.

This is the exact point made by a teacher who previously commented.

At my child’s school the entire grade is taking “Honors English” and “Honors Social Studies” and in MCPS whenever they pull this and the next step will be allow all students due to pressure by parents and balancing diversity, which turned into the entire grade(yes, this is true) taking honors. So Honors is no longer truely Honors, but rather above/on grade level. I can see the same thing happening here.

Did MCPS ever mention how the "field study" will be evaluated of being a success or a failure? I couldn't find the goal anywhere. I wonder if the outcome of the "field study" is not as expected, will it be rolled back like the ES PENIS grading system?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

+1 Particularly since the home school enrichment is not in science/technology. They'll throw a little enrichment into the existing CM curriculum and call it a day. How is this a comparable curriculum?

I think it's interesting that all of the endless complaining about "my kid was unjustly denied admittance to the magnet program" is about TPMS. Not about Eastern. Just TPMS.

Not true. A strong humanities course could conceivably offer something at least sort of comparable to Eastern, but a math course in no way compares with the STEM program at TPMS. Had the second course been described as a STEM course, this would be a different conversation.

I thought that the M in STEM stood for math? Certainly one of the 3 classes in the math/sci magnet is math.

For me, the issue is that there is compacted math offering already. Yes, I hear that the TPMS math goes "deeper" but given that there is already compacted math, it seems like a better approach to focus on the other letters in STEM.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

+1 Particularly since the home school enrichment is not in science/technology. They'll throw a little enrichment into the existing CM curriculum and call it a day. How is this a comparable curriculum?

I think it's interesting that all of the endless complaining about "my kid was unjustly denied admittance to the magnet program" is about TPMS. Not about Eastern. Just TPMS.

Not true. A strong humanities course could conceivably offer something at least sort of comparable to Eastern, but a math course in no way compares with the STEM program at TPMS. Had the second course been described as a STEM course, this would be a different conversation.

I am highly doubtful that a single humanities elective would come close to the rigor of the Eastern magnet curriculum. And for certain, I doubt that a single math elective could parallel to anywhere close to the 3 offerings of STEM at TPMS. Agree that it would have made sense had MCPS had approached it as a STEM course rather than "math".

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

+1 Particularly since the home school enrichment is not in science/technology. They'll throw a little enrichment into the existing CM curriculum and call it a day. How is this a comparable curriculum?

I think it's interesting that all of the endless complaining about "my kid was unjustly denied admittance to the magnet program" is about TPMS. Not about Eastern. Just TPMS.

Not true. A strong humanities course could conceivably offer something at least sort of comparable to Eastern, but a math course in no way compares with the STEM program at TPMS. Had the second course been described as a STEM course, this would be a different conversation.

?????

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

+1 Particularly since the home school enrichment is not in science/technology. They'll throw a little enrichment into the existing CM curriculum and call it a day. How is this a comparable curriculum?

I think it's interesting that all of the endless complaining about "my kid was unjustly denied admittance to the magnet program" is about TPMS. Not about Eastern. Just TPMS.

Not true. A strong humanities course could conceivably offer something at least sort of comparable to Eastern, but a math course in no way compares with the STEM program at TPMS. Had the second course been described as a STEM course, this would be a different conversation.

I thought that the M in STEM stood for math? Certainly one of the 3 classes in the math/sci magnet is math.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

+1 Particularly since the home school enrichment is not in science/technology. They'll throw a little enrichment into the existing CM curriculum and call it a day. How is this a comparable curriculum?

I think it's interesting that all of the endless complaining about "my kid was unjustly denied admittance to the magnet program" is about TPMS. Not about Eastern. Just TPMS.

Not true. A strong humanities course could conceivably offer something at least sort of comparable to Eastern, but a math course in no way compares with the STEM program at TPMS. Had the second course been described as a STEM course, this would be a different conversation.