Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:enough with the stupid enrichment. the amount of free math resources, from kahn academy to phd level math and math olympiads, is enough for a lifetime.

the problem is not that exposure or enrichment, but that smart kids are wasting their time in school.

I don't disagree that there is a lot more that schools could be doing for smart kids. Part of that is a lack of focus on their needs when compared to the focus on needs of other groups of students. Finite resources dictate some of this, but I still find those needs underaddressed, even considering.

As far as enrichment being available, while it is much more so than in decades past, accessing and benefitting from self-directed learning is a much more difficult thing to ensure for some families than others, and a not insignificant portion of those others might be employing more effective adult-guided enrichment. Pointing a second-grader to Khan Academy is not going to result in the same adherence to a learning opportunity as dropping the same off at an after-school tutoring program.

In the end, if the main objective of these magnet programs is to meet the needs of the highly able, then a more equitable identification paradigm is required, along with expansion of magnet programming to better match the population demonstrating need. I simply would disagree with any who suggest that the greater objective, instead, and especially before high school, would be to serve those who have hit some level of learned content, though I think there should be room in the conversation for those, as well.

Actually, it's pretty much the same level of learning, which is determined by the child and not the amount of money parent paid for class. Smart kids who are interested in math will do khan etc for fun, and look for more. Similar kids, when enrolled in enrichment programs by their parents, will listen to the teacher and engage with material. Other kids, when pushed by their parents to do either will soon stop/not listen in class. Not everyone enrolled in AoPS or RSM comes out being good at math. My kids tell me every day stuff other kids don't know in enrichment classes and also MCPS fastest tracked math classes. Those are some very basic things. Those kids don't listen, don't care and/or already way behind despite appearing advanced on paper.

A good amount might correlate to a child's interest/ability. If you are suggesting that the outcomes would be similar, statistically across reasonably sized similar-ability populations from each group (casually pointed to Khan Academy vs. enrolled in an after-school tutoring program), I would suggest you are not correct.

Perhaps, but only insofar the mix of ability of those two groups of children is different. A lot of learning that kids do is self-directed. Many parents think if they pay for tutors or expensive programs, they are set. Then they discoverer their children know very little and don't understand why little Sammy is suddenly struggling in honors precalculus or whatever. The outcome for enrichment will not be that different from regular MCPS classes although you have better teachers and curriculum and approach that is more individualized, unless you also have better students.

You can't pay for learning. There is no literally no money that can make your child, say, fluent in Spanish. You can help them get there (and again, almost all resources to get there also exist for free), but you need a child who is willing to learn. Without that, you have nothing.

Kids who are good at math (or anything else) constantly reinforce that knowledge because they care. They remember what they learned because they care. They make connections on their own, because they care. They are asking questions because they care. You can't buy that. And you don't even need to. Again, that type of kid will take advantage of whatever meager resource is available and run with it.

I think this is the kind of magical thinking that resources make no difference that routinely has some noting individual cases of success from more modest backgrounds as indicative of parity of opportunity. It simply is not the case when comparing the relative likelihood of success in an endeavor of well-resourced cohorts to that of less-well-resourced cohorts across meaningful populations of similar underlying ability.

Again, I don't disregard the significant element of individual interest, but I would dispute the assertion that related outcomes are not meaningfully different. The system should not be setting up a paradigm that significantly reinforces resource-born opportunity, just as, at the same time, it should try not to discourage pursuit of such resource-born opportunities wholly outside the construct of the system.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:enough with the stupid enrichment. the amount of free math resources, from kahn academy to phd level math and math olympiads, is enough for a lifetime.

the problem is not that exposure or enrichment, but that smart kids are wasting their time in school.

I don't disagree that there is a lot more that schools could be doing for smart kids. Part of that is a lack of focus on their needs when compared to the focus on needs of other groups of students. Finite resources dictate some of this, but I still find those needs underaddressed, even considering.

As far as enrichment being available, while it is much more so than in decades past, accessing and benefitting from self-directed learning is a much more difficult thing to ensure for some families than others, and a not insignificant portion of those others might be employing more effective adult-guided enrichment. Pointing a second-grader to Khan Academy is not going to result in the same adherence to a learning opportunity as dropping the same off at an after-school tutoring program.

In the end, if the main objective of these magnet programs is to meet the needs of the highly able, then a more equitable identification paradigm is required, along with expansion of magnet programming to better match the population demonstrating need. I simply would disagree with any who suggest that the greater objective, instead, and especially before high school, would be to serve those who have hit some level of learned content, though I think there should be room in the conversation for those, as well.

Actually, it's pretty much the same level of learning, which is determined by the child and not the amount of money parent paid for class. Smart kids who are interested in math will do khan etc for fun, and look for more. Similar kids, when enrolled in enrichment programs by their parents, will listen to the teacher and engage with material. Other kids, when pushed by their parents to do either will soon stop/not listen in class. Not everyone enrolled in AoPS or RSM comes out being good at math. My kids tell me every day stuff other kids don't know in enrichment classes and also MCPS fastest tracked math classes. Those are some very basic things. Those kids don't listen, don't care and/or already way behind despite appearing advanced on paper.

A good amount might correlate to a child's interest/ability. If you are suggesting that the outcomes would be similar, statistically across reasonably sized similar-ability populations from each group (casually pointed to Khan Academy vs. enrolled in an after-school tutoring program), I would suggest you are not correct.

Perhaps, but only insofar the mix of ability of those two groups of children is different. A lot of learning that kids do is self-directed. Many parents think if they pay for tutors or expensive programs, they are set. Then they discoverer their children know very little and don't understand why little Sammy is suddenly struggling in honors precalculus or whatever. The outcome for enrichment will not be that different from regular MCPS classes although you have better teachers and curriculum and approach that is more individualized, unless you also have better students.

You can't pay for learning. There is no literally no money that can make your child, say, fluent in Spanish. You can help them get there (and again, almost all resources to get there also exist for free), but you need a child who is willing to learn. Without that, you have nothing.

Kids who are good at math (or anything else) constantly reinforce that knowledge because they care. They remember what they learned because they care. They make connections on their own, because they care. They are asking questions because they care. You can't buy that. And you don't even need to. Again, that type of kid will take advantage of whatever meager resource is available and run with it.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

A problem arises from a school system using an exposure-based score as a main criterion for placement in accelerated/enriched programming, particularly in earlier grades.

This is only true for limited programs that accept the top students by score instead of inclusive programs that accept all students with a score showing readiness.

MCPS at all levels (Compacted math, CES, MS and HS magnet) uses the latter -- a soft or hard minimum score for readiness qualification, not a cutoff based on how many seats are available.

Not so. MCPS has only a fraction of seats available compared to the numbers qualifying for the lottery -- it does not accept all qualifying students to the magnet programs, and local programming is not close to magnet level implementation in most, if not all, circumstances, both due to curriculum and due to cohort. Ask parents in TP/Silver Spring with children at Piney Branch, Oak View or Pincecrest CES what is studied and how much time is given to enrichment and compare that to the local implementations of ELC at the feeder schools (PBES being its own feeder, of course, but noted due to the awareness within the surrounding communities). There is not reasonable equivalence.

With that as background, it is incumbent on MCPS to ensure the qualification paradigm it adopted in the first year of the pandemic, then adjusted to make more stict (removing the any-of-these-criteria heuristic to make qualification on each criterion a requirement), results in an equitable identification of all those with high ability, and, then, reasonably equivalent likelihood of identification/selection for all such students.

Further, the CES and MS lottery placement paradigms (possibly the CM identification paradigm, too) utilize hard minimum MAP cutoffs -- there is no heuristic that allows a lower score than the minimum to qualify based on greater indicators from other criteria. Unless one counts appeals, that is, which are sparingly few and cumbersome enough to present a significantly greater barrier to those with limited means.

Sure, the former two employ local norming and adjustment for receipt of services, but it is still a hard floor based on percentile, there. One might suggest that this should include all who are highly able. However, it fails in many edge cases. For example, a non-FARMS student from a situation that would tend to limit outside enrichment opportunities who attends a low-FARMS school (lots of these, not just in the overwhelmingly wealthy areas) may still need to score above 95 %ile nationally to be placed in a lottery. One might see that as OK, but then those with outside enrichment opportunities, highly able or no, are simply more likely than their ability-peers without to qualify based on the exposure-related MAP score criterion.

1. Lottery is random. It's not a cutoff.

2. Low FARMS schools offer as good as or better opportunities as magnet middle school (skipping into Algebra in 6th! Foundations of Computer Science; and more room in math/science ECs) for that middling smart 94th percentile student who failed to get into lottery. The littery cutoff percentile is much lower than the old non-lottery cutoff on the old tests.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:enough with the stupid enrichment. the amount of free math resources, from kahn academy to phd level math and math olympiads, is enough for a lifetime.

the problem is not that exposure or enrichment, but that smart kids are wasting their time in school.

I don't disagree that there is a lot more that schools could be doing for smart kids. Part of that is a lack of focus on their needs when compared to the focus on needs of other groups of students. Finite resources dictate some of this, but I still find those needs underaddressed, even considering.

As far as enrichment being available, while it is much more so than in decades past, accessing and benefitting from self-directed learning is a much more difficult thing to ensure for some families than others, and a not insignificant portion of those others might be employing more effective adult-guided enrichment. Pointing a second-grader to Khan Academy is not going to result in the same adherence to a learning opportunity as dropping the same off at an after-school tutoring program.

In the end, if the main objective of these magnet programs is to meet the needs of the highly able, then a more equitable identification paradigm is required, along with expansion of magnet programming to better match the population demonstrating need. I simply would disagree with any who suggest that the greater objective, instead, and especially before high school, would be to serve those who have hit some level of learned content, though I think there should be room in the conversation for those, as well.

Actually, it's pretty much the same level of learning, which is determined by the child and not the amount of money parent paid for class. Smart kids who are interested in math will do khan etc for fun, and look for more. Similar kids, when enrolled in enrichment programs by their parents, will listen to the teacher and engage with material. Other kids, when pushed by their parents to do either will soon stop/not listen in class. Not everyone enrolled in AoPS or RSM comes out being good at math. My kids tell me every day stuff other kids don't know in enrichment classes and also MCPS fastest tracked math classes. Those are some very basic things. Those kids don't listen, don't care and/or already way behind despite appearing advanced on paper.

A good amount might correlate to a child's interest/ability. If you are suggesting that the outcomes would be similar, statistically across reasonably sized similar-ability populations from each group (casually pointed to Khan Academy vs. enrolled in an after-school tutoring program), I would suggest you are not correct.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:enough with the stupid enrichment. the amount of free math resources, from kahn academy to phd level math and math olympiads, is enough for a lifetime.

the problem is not that exposure or enrichment, but that smart kids are wasting their time in school.

I don't disagree that there is a lot more that schools could be doing for smart kids. Part of that is a lack of focus on their needs when compared to the focus on needs of other groups of students. Finite resources dictate some of this, but I still find those needs underaddressed, even considering.

As far as enrichment being available, while it is much more so than in decades past, accessing and benefitting from self-directed learning is a much more difficult thing to ensure for some families than others, and a not insignificant portion of those others might be employing more effective adult-guided enrichment. Pointing a second-grader to Khan Academy is not going to result in the same adherence to a learning opportunity as dropping the same off at an after-school tutoring program.

In the end, if the main objective of these magnet programs is to meet the needs of the highly able, then a more equitable identification paradigm is required, along with expansion of magnet programming to better match the population demonstrating need. I simply would disagree with any who suggest that the greater objective, instead, and especially before high school, would be to serve those who have hit some level of learned content, though I think there should be room in the conversation for those, as well.

Actually, it's pretty much the same level of learning, which is determined by the child and not the amount of money parent paid for class. Smart kids who are interested in math will do khan etc for fun, and look for more. Similar kids, when enrolled in enrichment programs by their parents, will listen to the teacher and engage with material. Other kids, when pushed by their parents to do either will soon stop/not listen in class. Not everyone enrolled in AoPS or RSM comes out being good at math. My kids tell me every day stuff other kids don't know in enrichment classes and also MCPS fastest tracked math classes. Those are some very basic things. Those kids don't listen, don't care and/or already way behind despite appearing advanced on paper.

stop with the equity BS this is what brought is here. stop searching for non-existent gems among poor families while actually brilliant kids waste years of their lives trapped in repetitive busywork.

Anonymous wrote:enough with the stupid enrichment. the amount of free math resources, from kahn academy to phd level math and math olympiads, is enough for a lifetime.

the problem is not that exposure or enrichment, but that smart kids are wasting their time in school.

I don't disagree that there is a lot more that schools could be doing for smart kids. Part of that is a lack of focus on their needs when compared to the focus on needs of other groups of students. Finite resources dictate some of this, but I still find those needs underaddressed, even considering.

As far as enrichment being available, while it is much more so than in decades past, accessing and benefitting from self-directed learning is a much more difficult thing to ensure for some families than others, and a not insignificant portion of those others might be employing more effective adult-guided enrichment. Pointing a second-grader to Khan Academy is not going to result in the same adherence to a learning opportunity as dropping the same off at an after-school tutoring program.

In the end, if the main objective of these magnet programs is to meet the needs of the highly able, then a more equitable identification paradigm is required, along with expansion of magnet programming to better match the population demonstrating need. I simply would disagree with any who suggest that the greater objective, instead, and especially before high school, would be to serve those who have hit some level of learned content, though I think there should be room in the conversation for those, as well.

enough with the stupid enrichment. the amount of free math resources, from kahn academy to phd level math and math olympiads, is enough for a lifetime.

the problem is not that exposure or enrichment, but that smart kids are wasting their time in school.

Anonymous wrote:

A problem arises from a school system using an exposure-based score as a main criterion for placement in accelerated/enriched programming, particularly in earlier grades.

This is only true for limited programs that accept the top students by score instead of inclusive programs that accept all students with a score showing readiness.

MCPS at all levels (Compacted math, CES, MS and HS magnet) uses the latter -- a soft or hard minimum score for readiness qualification, not a cutoff based on how many seats are available.

Not so. MCPS has only a fraction of seats available compared to the numbers qualifying for the lottery -- it does not accept all qualifying students to the magnet programs, and local programming is not close to magnet level implementation in most, if not all, circumstances, both due to curriculum and due to cohort. Ask parents in TP/Silver Spring with children at Piney Branch, Oak View or Pincecrest CES what is studied and how much time is given to enrichment and compare that to the local implementations of ELC at the feeder schools (PBES being its own feeder, of course, but noted due to the awareness within the surrounding communities). There is not reasonable equivalence.

With that as background, it is incumbent on MCPS to ensure the qualification paradigm it adopted in the first year of the pandemic, then adjusted to make more stict (removing the any-of-these-criteria heuristic to make qualification on each criterion a requirement), results in an equitable identification of all those with high ability, and, then, reasonably equivalent likelihood of identification/selection for all such students.

Further, the CES and MS lottery placement paradigms (possibly the CM identification paradigm, too) utilize hard minimum MAP cutoffs -- there is no heuristic that allows a lower score than the minimum to qualify based on greater indicators from other criteria. Unless one counts appeals, that is, which are sparingly few and cumbersome enough to present a significantly greater barrier to those with limited means.

Sure, the former two employ local norming and adjustment for receipt of services, but it is still a hard floor based on percentile, there. One might suggest that this should include all who are highly able. However, it fails in many edge cases. For example, a non-FARMS student from a situation that would tend to limit outside enrichment opportunities who attends a low-FARMS school (lots of these, not just in the overwhelmingly wealthy areas) may still need to score above 95 %ile nationally to be placed in a lottery. One might see that as OK, but then those with outside enrichment opportunities, highly able or no, are simply more likely than their ability-peers without to qualify based on the exposure-related MAP score criterion.

A problem arises from a school system using an exposure-based score as a main criterion for placement in accelerated/enriched programming, particularly in earlier grades.

This is only true for limited programs that accept the top students by score instead of inclusive programs that accept all students with a score showing readiness.

MCPS at all levels (Compacted math, CES, MS and HS magnet) uses the latter -- a soft or hard minimum score for readiness qualification, not a cutoff based on how many seats are available.

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Anonymous wrote:Some years it is in early Nov.

Why on earth does it take so long? The score literally pops up on the kids' screens instantly...

Umm...you are on this forum. Have you not picked up on the trend? It's mcps. folks are here because something is wrong, information is not clear, no one knows the actual answer. So, to answer your question: it would be too easy for mcps to do what you think (scores appearing right away). If your precious Larlo didn't jot down his score (and didnt make a mistake writing it down), or memorize it, you gotta wait until report comes. Or bug the teacher.

The score reports are delivered 2 weeks after testing ends. The report includes county averages, so they need everyone's scores before they publish any reports. Then some admin has to go push some buttons. Do you want to pay for GAFA engineers to make a super sophisticated instant system?

Chilll out, folks.

Well noted, but riddle me this, Batman:

If middle school criteria-based magnet lotteries utilize these Fall MAP scores from 5th graders as entry gates (albeit locally normed), and

If score reports are delivered 2 weeks after testing ends, and

If that means mid-/late October for the Fall MAPs, and

If some schools scheduled MAP in the first week+ of September, and

If MAP scores largely correlate with exposure to content, and

If a considerable amount of content is taught between early September and early October (e.g., Math 5/6 covering operations with fractions), then

What does that say about the expected relative MAP scores for students fortunate enough to be taking MAP at the end of the testing window, and the resulting likelihood of placement in a magnet lottery pool?

Perhaps those who know the import of the test from schools having administered it early in the window have a more difficult time keeping it cool over the extra month.

(Notes: The MCPS Fall MAP testing window was 9/3-10/4. The Winter window, where 3rd-grade MAP-R scores are similarly used for placement in the CES lottery pool, is 12/16-1/28. MCPS has not employed the weeks-of-instruction adjustment available from NWEA to normalize MAP scores when determining lottery candidacy, and NWEA recommends a maximum 3-week testing window to reduce improper comparison among students.)

Kids who test high enough to qualify for these pools do so because of the exposure to content they receive outside of school, not because they happened to learn how to do long division late in the first quarter of the school year

This is not true. There are those who do not engage in outside tutoring/enrichment, and there are concepts to which students are newly exposed during the first quarter, which notably includes operations with fractions in Math 5/6. From these, there are some who test high enough. There are some who test just at the border of high enough, as well, and that extra content exposure can make the difference as to the side of the border on which they end up.

The only cohort for whom this is true is kids at high FARMS schools who can qualify for the pool with scores in the 70th percentile due to locally normed scores. There’s no way a kid at a low FARMS school where the cutoff can be as high as the low 90s percentile can pass that hurdle just by being very good at the content they’ve been exposed to at school.

You'd be wrong, there. There are kids with mathematically inclined minds who absorb concepts from daily life or are able to deduce concepts, to a degree, when presented with a question, though mathematical vocabulary can be an impediment when comparing to those receiving more formal exposure (e.g., tutoring). They demonstrate that across multiple tests (i.e., not in a one-off manner that would suggest lucky guessing).

And the low FARMS MAP-M cutoff has been higher than national percentiles in the low 90s. The low 90s made public by MCPS was in response to an MPIA request from a couple of years back and they haven't publicized the actual numbers since (those change each year with the actual set of scores achieved among MCPS students). They have acknowledged that the scores in MCPS, particularly in the low-FARMS and moderate-low-FARMS groupings, (and, then, locally normed percentiles) had gone up in following years. Parent comparisons of scores for those making/not making the lottery have suggested mid- to high-90s national percentiles for MAP-M.

I’m not buying it. A first grader who has never seen a division symbol isn’t going to know how to solve the problem regardless of how “mathematically inclined” their mind is. Same for a second grader who is asked to multiply fractions or find the area of a triangle. To score in the 95th, 96th percentile, a kid needs to have exposure to concepts grade levels beyond what they currently get. There’s no amount of “deducing concepts, to a degree” that will get there. I’m sure it helps in making educated guesses, but MAP-M is almost entirely a test of one’s mastery of content, not one’s math aptitude.

From what my kids told me, the questions require a fair amount of thinking. Some examples they gave me were pretty complex. These are not khan-academy questions - at least those the algorithm offers at later stages/harder. "Exposure" might be necessary, not sure about that, but it's for sure not sufficient to score well.

Yes it is the same content and question types as Khan, with minor differences.

Have you seen the questions? I don't think that it is. My kid scored 300+ in 8th and told me it's different.

DP. But as someone who had kids at home taking the test during Covid I saw most of the test. And yes, it’s Khan academy drill and kill type questions that test basic mastery of concepts.

The questions are not the same for everyone. DD got questions about trigonometry functions which she didn't know anything about but was able to solve using very rudimentary knowledge. "Mere exposure" is not doing it.

You just proved my point. Being able to answer questions with just rudimentary knowledge of the subject shows how superficial the questions generally are. Both of my kids scored in the 99th percentile, so presumably I would have seen the more difficult questions as they topped out, and they were very basic questions about material they hadn't covered yet. Sure, they were able to reason their way few a couple but it's far from a math aptitude test.

I don't think you understood what I told you - the kid was given a fairly complex question that involved trigonometic functions, but all my kid actually knows is what sin and cos are. Yet, by using this very rudimentary knowledge she was able to solve this much more advanced question. The difference between kids who can and can't do that is not one of "mere exposure" - only very few kids exposed to basic definitions can take them as far.

Furthermore, MAP-M is not supposed to be "a math aptitude test" - whatever that is and whatever strange reason there is for that thing to exist. The MAP-M tests math knowledge/skills. It is not my favorite test of those skills, but it is a decent test and not actually all that "prep able" unless knowing and understanding math is some kind of diabolical prep for you.

Finally, kids scoring at 99th percentile of MAP-M can have more than 50 point difference in actual scores. So, no, all 99th percentile kids don't get the same questions. Again, my kid told me some of the questions, and as a person who is very good at math, I concluded that these were not easy questions of the kahn academy sort.

It's completely "prep able". You have no idea what you're talking about.

If it's so prepable, why isn't every one scoring in the 300s. It's not for the lack of trying.

Umm. Because not everyone preps? I’d assume only a very small percentage do so.

Right. All these straights A students begging for retakes simply don't care about their MAP scores. That they talk about all the time. Makes sense.

My straight A student has never had to beg for a retake nor does she obsess over her MAP score. Perhaps the type of cohort you describe is laser focused on a MAP test but that’s not the norm or even close to enough kids to answer the original question of why every kid doesn’t get a 300 if it’s a test that one can prep for.

There are literally after school programs that prep for MAP and publish the list of their highest scores. And those scores are actually not that impressive. But I am sure if only your daughter prepped she would score so much higher - because nobody can be smarter than her, duh.

Wow, I never knew these programs were so popular that most students and MAP test takers participate in them. I always thought the ones who took the time to do these types of programs were the rare few who beg for retakes on tests at school and fixate on test scores with their friends.

Your daughter might not be one of those fixating on scores (you don't really know this - the way this usually works is that most good students talk about their scores until they meet someone with a higher score and the suddenly becomes not very important) but the kids fixating on scores and prepping are not less capable than your daughter. Still, they only get so far. After a certain point, you really can't prep for this test.

DP/"You'd be wrong there" poster from far back in this subthread.

A highly able student might be able to show a level of capability beyond formal exposure, with that above-grade performance almost always supported by informal exposure to associated vocabulary/concept definition that would allow some reasoning/educated guessing. However, many highly able students (and students, in general) do not end up with that informal exposure, performing well in relation to that to which they had been exposed, but hitting a ceiling, for the most part, when questions that cover concepts completely new to them are presented.

Meanwhile, a student can get pretty far beyond their grade's typical exposure with outside prep, whether directly for MAP or through general subject tutoring. The concepts screened in Math, for example, do not approach Calculus, and are rather amenable to rote training. (Not implying that all such outside prep focuses on rote learning or that learning Calculus, itself, is not at all amemable to repetitive practice.) This is among the reasons that the progression of norms slows down, particularly in high school -- the concepts to which students newly are exposed start to go beyond that tested by MAP, though one sees a notable divergence in 12th grade scores.

Aside from, perhaps, ills associated with high levels of family pressure, there shouldn't be anything wrong with students' accessing such outside enrichment, especially if they show a natural inclination toward the subject. Interest-based enrichment should be celebrated, and caregiver support for learning should never be denigrated.

A problem arises from a school system using an exposure-based score as a main criterion for placement in accelerated/enriched programming, particularly in earlier grades. Those highly able students with the greater need for such programming are less likely to be identified without outside enrichment. Those accessing enrichment, more highly able or less, are more likely to be identified. While this may create what seems to be a virtuous cycle for families able to promote outside learning, it tends to reinforce lack of exposure & opportunity for those, individually and societally, for whom that is most important.

NWEA provides advice on this subject, suggesting not to use MAP as an exclusive testing criterion for advanced programs, but, at most, to use it within a heuristic thay includes measures that tend to evidence ability absent a heavy exposure component.

Anonymous wrote:So where can we see the test results within Parent Vue?

Under Documents (where PDFs of report cards are also posted.)

So where can we see the test results within Parent Vue?

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Anonymous wrote:Some years it is in early Nov.

Why on earth does it take so long? The score literally pops up on the kids' screens instantly...

Umm...you are on this forum. Have you not picked up on the trend? It's mcps. folks are here because something is wrong, information is not clear, no one knows the actual answer. So, to answer your question: it would be too easy for mcps to do what you think (scores appearing right away). If your precious Larlo didn't jot down his score (and didnt make a mistake writing it down), or memorize it, you gotta wait until report comes. Or bug the teacher.

The score reports are delivered 2 weeks after testing ends. The report includes county averages, so they need everyone's scores before they publish any reports. Then some admin has to go push some buttons. Do you want to pay for GAFA engineers to make a super sophisticated instant system?

Chilll out, folks.

Well noted, but riddle me this, Batman:

If middle school criteria-based magnet lotteries utilize these Fall MAP scores from 5th graders as entry gates (albeit locally normed), and

If score reports are delivered 2 weeks after testing ends, and

If that means mid-/late October for the Fall MAPs, and

If some schools scheduled MAP in the first week+ of September, and

If MAP scores largely correlate with exposure to content, and

If a considerable amount of content is taught between early September and early October (e.g., Math 5/6 covering operations with fractions), then

What does that say about the expected relative MAP scores for students fortunate enough to be taking MAP at the end of the testing window, and the resulting likelihood of placement in a magnet lottery pool?

Perhaps those who know the import of the test from schools having administered it early in the window have a more difficult time keeping it cool over the extra month.

(Notes: The MCPS Fall MAP testing window was 9/3-10/4. The Winter window, where 3rd-grade MAP-R scores are similarly used for placement in the CES lottery pool, is 12/16-1/28. MCPS has not employed the weeks-of-instruction adjustment available from NWEA to normalize MAP scores when determining lottery candidacy, and NWEA recommends a maximum 3-week testing window to reduce improper comparison among students.)

Kids who test high enough to qualify for these pools do so because of the exposure to content they receive outside of school, not because they happened to learn how to do long division late in the first quarter of the school year

This is not true. There are those who do not engage in outside tutoring/enrichment, and there are concepts to which students are newly exposed during the first quarter, which notably includes operations with fractions in Math 5/6. From these, there are some who test high enough. There are some who test just at the border of high enough, as well, and that extra content exposure can make the difference as to the side of the border on which they end up.

The only cohort for whom this is true is kids at high FARMS schools who can qualify for the pool with scores in the 70th percentile due to locally normed scores. There’s no way a kid at a low FARMS school where the cutoff can be as high as the low 90s percentile can pass that hurdle just by being very good at the content they’ve been exposed to at school.

You'd be wrong, there. There are kids with mathematically inclined minds who absorb concepts from daily life or are able to deduce concepts, to a degree, when presented with a question, though mathematical vocabulary can be an impediment when comparing to those receiving more formal exposure (e.g., tutoring). They demonstrate that across multiple tests (i.e., not in a one-off manner that would suggest lucky guessing).

And the low FARMS MAP-M cutoff has been higher than national percentiles in the low 90s. The low 90s made public by MCPS was in response to an MPIA request from a couple of years back and they haven't publicized the actual numbers since (those change each year with the actual set of scores achieved among MCPS students). They have acknowledged that the scores in MCPS, particularly in the low-FARMS and moderate-low-FARMS groupings, (and, then, locally normed percentiles) had gone up in following years. Parent comparisons of scores for those making/not making the lottery have suggested mid- to high-90s national percentiles for MAP-M.

I’m not buying it. A first grader who has never seen a division symbol isn’t going to know how to solve the problem regardless of how “mathematically inclined” their mind is. Same for a second grader who is asked to multiply fractions or find the area of a triangle. To score in the 95th, 96th percentile, a kid needs to have exposure to concepts grade levels beyond what they currently get. There’s no amount of “deducing concepts, to a degree” that will get there. I’m sure it helps in making educated guesses, but MAP-M is almost entirely a test of one’s mastery of content, not one’s math aptitude.

From what my kids told me, the questions require a fair amount of thinking. Some examples they gave me were pretty complex. These are not khan-academy questions - at least those the algorithm offers at later stages/harder. "Exposure" might be necessary, not sure about that, but it's for sure not sufficient to score well.

Yes it is the same content and question types as Khan, with minor differences.

Have you seen the questions? I don't think that it is. My kid scored 300+ in 8th and told me it's different.

DP. But as someone who had kids at home taking the test during Covid I saw most of the test. And yes, it’s Khan academy drill and kill type questions that test basic mastery of concepts.

The questions are not the same for everyone. DD got questions about trigonometry functions which she didn't know anything about but was able to solve using very rudimentary knowledge. "Mere exposure" is not doing it.

You just proved my point. Being able to answer questions with just rudimentary knowledge of the subject shows how superficial the questions generally are. Both of my kids scored in the 99th percentile, so presumably I would have seen the more difficult questions as they topped out, and they were very basic questions about material they hadn't covered yet. Sure, they were able to reason their way few a couple but it's far from a math aptitude test.

I don't think you understood what I told you - the kid was given a fairly complex question that involved trigonometic functions, but all my kid actually knows is what sin and cos are. Yet, by using this very rudimentary knowledge she was able to solve this much more advanced question. The difference between kids who can and can't do that is not one of "mere exposure" - only very few kids exposed to basic definitions can take them as far.

Furthermore, MAP-M is not supposed to be "a math aptitude test" - whatever that is and whatever strange reason there is for that thing to exist. The MAP-M tests math knowledge/skills. It is not my favorite test of those skills, but it is a decent test and not actually all that "prep able" unless knowing and understanding math is some kind of diabolical prep for you.

Finally, kids scoring at 99th percentile of MAP-M can have more than 50 point difference in actual scores. So, no, all 99th percentile kids don't get the same questions. Again, my kid told me some of the questions, and as a person who is very good at math, I concluded that these were not easy questions of the kahn academy sort.

It's completely "prep able". You have no idea what you're talking about.

If it's so prepable, why isn't every one scoring in the 300s. It's not for the lack of trying.

Umm. Because not everyone preps? I’d assume only a very small percentage do so.

Right. All these straights A students begging for retakes simply don't care about their MAP scores. That they talk about all the time. Makes sense.

Get out of your little bubble

Kids don't prep specifically for the map test but a lot of kids do extra math outside of school which helps the kids score higher on the test.