Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes, it cheating. No, there’s no penalty if you cheat, except internal, but most ppl who cheat have no moral compass and aren’t phased by doing it.

99% of kids who get into these special programs had some form of test preparation at a minimum they became familiar with the test format and question types

Some will swear they didn't do this, but 99% are lying. Really.

The above is how cheaters rationalize cheating and try to make themselves feel better about it.

I do not think you can prep from a 110 score to 150+ score.

Agreed. You can maybe improve 10 points or so. But not much more even if you practice a lot. That’s the nature of IQ tests. Otherwise, a 150 IQ kid can appear to he an IQ 200 kid in a full scale IQ test after repeated practicing. That just doesn’t happen.

The pro-prep faction will often make the claim you can't prep for test XYZ, but they know you can. They simply want to return to a system that is easily gamed.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It won’t matter eventually - once every school has level 4 they will slowly move to clustering and no more centers. Then no more aap at middle school. I say 10 years.

I say we go retro and revert to "tracking" where all the LIV qualified kids are in the same class (or multiple classes if there are more than 20 per school). That would retain the neighborhood school concept but allow teachers to enhance and accelerate for the more advanced group. The current process is inefficient and unfair and gives too much weight to race components when that isn't necessarily a deterrent to high test scores.

Sweetie, this is the current model.

Not really. Currently not all ES have LLIV and a lot of LLIV schools spread the AAP kids into various classrooms, with the teachers having many different levels of instruction to deal with. Not great for the families who were told their kids would be getting AAP level work, or the teachers who are spread pretty thin.

Yes, every ES has or soon will have LLIV. Many of them are using the cluster model, but that's because they cannot make a class for 3-6 students who are eligible for Level IV. The center school concept is really really a better implementation. Maybe in 5-10 years, posters like you will realize it.

Our school had 26 kids stay for LLIV. They split them across 5 classrooms with 5 or 6 in each room. It could easily have been a separate class, but they didn’t want to use that method for whatever reason. Made it easy to decide on the center!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes, it cheating. No, there’s no penalty if you cheat, except internal, but most ppl who cheat have no moral compass and aren’t phased by doing it.

99% of kids who get into these special programs had some form of test preparation at a minimum they became familiar with the test format and question types

Some will swear they didn't do this, but 99% are lying. Really.

The above is how cheaters rationalize cheating and try to make themselves feel better about it.

I do not think you can prep from a 110 score to 150+ score.

Agreed. You can maybe improve 10 points or so. But not much more even if you practice a lot. That’s the nature of IQ tests. Otherwise, a 150 IQ kid can appear to he an IQ 200 kid in a full scale IQ test after repeated practicing. That just doesn’t happen.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Honestly, the ones who think prepping is cheating are the same ones who think their kids are genius. If their kids could not get in, it's because other lesser kids' prepping/cheating. If their kids got in, it's proven that the kids are genius due to non-prepping.

Nah, I know my kids score (135 on both the NNAT and CoGAT). He is smart but not a genius. And there is nothing wrong with that. He was accepted into AAP in the first round but we stayed at the base school because we thought it was a better fit for him. He loves his math enrichment class and finishes in the 95-99th percentile in the math competitions he participates in. He loves Advanced Math and LIII pull outs.

Maybe if more parents were more comfortable with the idea that their kids would be fine in school regardless of AAP or not then kids could score their natural 135 instead of their prepped 145.

I agree with you, in theory, but unfortunately, given the way FCPS is right now, many bright high-performing kids (who are *not* gifted) are actually NOT fine in school. In many cases, classrooms have a lot of kids struggling to comprehend the basics, and since things are taught to the lowest level and one teacher has to deal with 27-28 kids they aren't really able to differentiate instruction. So the kid is bored, perhaps also stuck in a classroom with kids who don't value education, perhaps even gets made fun of... the whole situation sucks. This is why so many families want their kids in AAP- it's not because they truly think they *need* AAP services, but because they want them in a classroom that is taught at a faster pace, among peers who also respect the classroom and teacher.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is cheating and it is one of the reasons FCPS relies so heavily on the GBRS and doesn’t just go by test scores.

Please! It’s no more cheating than having tutors and prepping for SATs. None are against the law!

No, not against the law. But now test scores don't matter, it's GBRS that will let your DC in or keep them out.

Test scores don't matter anymore because so many parents cheated. Oopsie.

Anonymous wrote:It is cheating and it is one of the reasons FCPS relies so heavily on the GBRS and doesn’t just go by test scores.

Please! It’s no more cheating than having tutors and prepping for SATs. None are against the law!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes, it cheating. No, there’s no penalty if you cheat, except internal, but most ppl who cheat have no moral compass and aren’t phased by doing it.

99% of kids who get into these special programs had some form of test preparation at a minimum they became familiar with the test format and question types

Some will swear they didn't do this, but 99% are lying. Really.

The above is how cheaters rationalize cheating and try to make themselves feel better about it.

I do not think you can prep from a 110 score to 150+ score.

Of course you can! Don't be silly.

It is cheating and it is one of the reasons FCPS relies so heavily on the GBRS and doesn’t just go by test scores.

Anonymous wrote:Honestly, the ones who think prepping is cheating are the same ones who think their kids are genius. If their kids could not get in, it's because other lesser kids' prepping/cheating. If their kids got in, it's proven that the kids are genius due to non-prepping.

Nah, I know my kids score (135 on both the NNAT and CoGAT). He is smart but not a genius. And there is nothing wrong with that. He was accepted into AAP in the first round but we stayed at the base school because we thought it was a better fit for him. He loves his math enrichment class and finishes in the 95-99th percentile in the math competitions he participates in. He loves Advanced Math and LIII pull outs.

Maybe if more parents were more comfortable with the idea that their kids would be fine in school regardless of AAP or not then kids could score their natural 135 instead of their prepped 145.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It won’t matter eventually - once every school has level 4 they will slowly move to clustering and no more centers. Then no more aap at middle school. I say 10 years.

I say we go retro and revert to "tracking" where all the LIV qualified kids are in the same class (or multiple classes if there are more than 20 per school). That would retain the neighborhood school concept but allow teachers to enhance and accelerate for the more advanced group. The current process is inefficient and unfair and gives too much weight to race components when that isn't necessarily a deterrent to high test scores.

Sweetie, this is the current model.

Not really. Currently not all ES have LLIV and a lot of LLIV schools spread the AAP kids into various classrooms, with the teachers having many different levels of instruction to deal with. Not great for the families who were told their kids would be getting AAP level work, or the teachers who are spread pretty thin.

Yes, every ES has or soon will have LLIV. Many of them are using the cluster model, but that's because they cannot make a class for 3-6 students who are eligible for Level IV. The center school concept is really really a better implementation. Maybe in 5-10 years, posters like you will realize it.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It won’t matter eventually - once every school has level 4 they will slowly move to clustering and no more centers. Then no more aap at middle school. I say 10 years.

I say we go retro and revert to "tracking" where all the LIV qualified kids are in the same class (or multiple classes if there are more than 20 per school). That would retain the neighborhood school concept but allow teachers to enhance and accelerate for the more advanced group. The current process is inefficient and unfair and gives too much weight to race components when that isn't necessarily a deterrent to high test scores.

Sweetie, this is the current model.

Not really. Currently not all ES have LLIV and a lot of LLIV schools spread the AAP kids into various classrooms, with the teachers having many different levels of instruction to deal with. Not great for the families who were told their kids would be getting AAP level work, or the teachers who are spread pretty thin.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It won’t matter eventually - once every school has level 4 they will slowly move to clustering and no more centers. Then no more aap at middle school. I say 10 years.

I say we go retro and revert to "tracking" where all the LIV qualified kids are in the same class (or multiple classes if there are more than 20 per school). That would retain the neighborhood school concept but allow teachers to enhance and accelerate for the more advanced group. The current process is inefficient and unfair and gives too much weight to race components when that isn't necessarily a deterrent to high test scores.

Sweetie, this is the current model.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Everyone preps. I wish I had known that when my older child was taking these tests. I was completely clueless about AAP and the difference between AAP and General Ed. I thought it was a truly gifted program and if my child was gifted, she'd be chosen. Little did I know it's just a smart kid+prepped kid class.

+1 This

I am firmly anti-prep and older kid had no issues getting in first round w/o it. Younger kid also did not prep and had scores well above the old county-wide standards, but not high enough by the new prepped local standards. Moving forward, I’d prep my kids, despite knowing it IS cheating the test and does not accurately reflect ability. FCPS is only encouraging more prepping and rendering these tests worthless.

Great! You're one of the few, but there's nothing wrong with prep. At least 99% of the population feels this way or does it anyway.

Your kids compete against others who prep. This is our reality. The prep war is on whether you accept it or not.

That’s why there is an fcps norm. A norm amongst preppers, therefore a valid one.

But it's not FCPS wide, it's "local building" and no one knows the magical number and then they pull out the "holistic" card and it's a real crap shoot as to who gets in. Some families are seeing the younger, more advanced sibling rejected while the less advanced older kid got in before the new black box approach.

Local building is just about who is in pool. Your child is assessed for admission against everyone, you can parent refer if your kid doesn't get in pool.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes, it cheating. No, there’s no penalty if you cheat, except internal, but most ppl who cheat have no moral compass and aren’t phased by doing it.

99% of kids who get into these special programs had some form of test preparation at a minimum they became familiar with the test format and question types

Some will swear they didn't do this, but 99% are lying. Really.

The above is how cheaters rationalize cheating and try to make themselves feel better about it.

I do not think you can prep from a 110 score to 150+ score.

Dp
I would add that if you can prep from 110 to 150, either there is something wrong with the test, or an underlying cause with your child.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes, it cheating. No, there’s no penalty if you cheat, except internal, but most ppl who cheat have no moral compass and aren’t phased by doing it.

99% of kids who get into these special programs had some form of test preparation at a minimum they became familiar with the test format and question types

Some will swear they didn't do this, but 99% are lying. Really.

The above is how cheaters rationalize cheating and try to make themselves feel better about it.

I do not think you can prep from a 110 score to 150+ score.