Now this is new. Late last week I came across a listserv announcement that such and such middle school is a “‘Top 10 School’ for the state of Maryland in the 2009 Johns Hopkins University Center for Talented Youth Talent Search.” The message went on to say:
It means your academic program is producing a high number of high-achieving students. It also indicates that you look out for your students’ best interests by recommending other resources (like CTY) for them and their families to investigate.
Curious, I clicked on the CTY link, where I found several other MCPS schools on the Top Ten list, as well as many others on the generic “Top Maryland Schools” list. (Have they done it for any other states? How many test takers does it take to make the list?)
I have to say, those CTY folks are damn clever, tapping into the collective status consciousness/ranking nuttiness of MoCo. (“Participating at high levels in the annual CTY Talent Search reflects upon the school’s academic quality, student abilities, and teacher talent. It also reflects upon the school leadership that encourages students to seek out educational challenges beyond traditional school walls. It’s a mark of quality for which your school can be justly proud.”) We eat this stuff up. No doubt it will help draw attention to the Talent Search–while at the same time highlighting which schools have the most clued-in and academically engaged families. Whether the kudos should accrue to the school is open to question.
What would be even more helpful if CTY released some statistics about the score distributions in the county. For example how many MoCo kids made SET each year? Could we figure out how many CTY honorees are in county GT programs? Does it inform placement and instruction? Now that would be interesting.
It would be interesting to learn how the academic programs at this school or any other school in Montgomery County, MD compares with curricula at schools around the country. I’d be specifically interested in CTY’s findings in diverse demographic areas.
Hmmm, can’t figure out if there are similar pages for other states.
Easy—just replace MD in the URL with the 2-letter state abbreviation for other states (probably only the states for which JHU-CTY runs the talent search). The list for CA does not seem to include some of the top schools—so I’d take JHU’s participation list as a marketing gimmick, not a quality measure.
My guess would be marketing ploy, and you will not get much of an idea about anything other than what families are interested in this. And whether some private schools push it to gain attention. Our schools use the SCAT to decide GT (but many kids who do not make the fairly low cut off can get in GT other ways like parental letters) but I don’t think they would consider CTY talent search outcome for placement…they didn’t consider my son’s >99.9th percentile for WJIII broad math for his placement, just his SCAT that they administered, not JHU.
We were encouraged to do the CTY talent search by JHU who did the other testing, but decided not to go further because math classes through them couldn’t be used as a replacement, we couldn’t get an IEP/504 for writing from the school at the time so he could do CTY in science that he really likes (they told us they didn’t believe in 2e children), and DS wouldn’t want to spend summer in school.
We did get a CTY brochure from his MS GT teacher but I don’t think any explanation came with it…not that he told us. So, yeah, a marketing ploy to tap into the collective nuttiness of the county.
“they told us they didn’t believe in 2e children”
Madison, who told you this? Oh, for crying out loud…
Hi, that was pretty much a quote from our elementary school’s psychologist when I tried to give her a paper about 2e at the end of a failed IEP request meeting. (at the time my child had scored the 3rd highest of his grade in the reading assessment but teacher advised against moving him to the above grade level group because of his writing issues–dysgraphia ADHD–and against accommodations because he just didn’t ‘want’ to write)
sad to say but it was true! Fortunately over the intervening years this person left, we somehow slipped in to get a 504, even though his teachers still believed it was an act of will, we did private OT and he is now in middle school. Middle school doesn’t have the time to play mind games with him. He has his extended time and some other accommodations and is fairly successful, but scarred from the elementary experience and the fact that I never pushed to accommodate his talents.
Oh, not Montgomery county…a neighboring one.
This is a great reference if you are selling summer camps or extracurricular activities. It’s probably a good/decent resource for the marketing director at my company (for test preparation, SAT, ACT, etc.). If it were on a larger scale, you could divide out the income/SES effect and get a view of which parents believe that academic talent correlates with success in lifetime goals (maybe).
Or maybe high-income places with low Talent Search participation need more marketing
.
Puh-lease! We have happily done CTY summer schools for 3 years now (well, our 4th grader has) and two online classes (writing and math).
The guidance counselor at our elementary school had no clue what it even was. This is the same one who assured tried to dissuade us from doing the center program.
I have little doubt that she wanted to keep high scorers at the local elementary school (where the only real enrichment is…wait for it….math. Oh, to be fair, she also got about two months of the WM and Mary reading program, at the end of 3rd grade.)
I do appreciate the CTY program, but wish it weren’t hitting the marketing so hard. We’re going to get priced out.
Did anyone ever find out what the criteria is to make the list? I just found out one of our schools made “the list”…and ours is designated a ‘school in need of improvement’ here in NH. I agree it’s got to be a marketing ploy.
In CTY’s defense, the 3 weeks of camp really aren’t the same as “school”. We did hear whining this summer about having homework (mind you, last summer we had her do 3 weeks of camp and then also really pushed her hard complete an online math course over the summer so she wouldn’t have been placed “back” a year (which is to say, on grade level b/c ALL the other kids are at least one year ahead in math at the Center program).
So last summer there really was a lot of homework; we only did CTY camp this summer. And of course, as predicted, on the last 3 days of camp she was really upset that it was ending, wanted another week of it.
[aside to CTY, if you're reading] please help parents help their kids plan the week by letting parents know the homework schedule ahead of time. And let parents know if they are expected to attend some class presentation or other and pick kids up early on the last day of camp–it’s a super-big pain for parents to have to juggle travel and work schedules at the last minute.
Interesting tidbit: after one year in MCPS elementary center program, Kid didn’t get the big ‘bang for the buck’ from CTY that she had in past years, when she had been bored out of her skull during the regular school year.
We started Home Schooling our son, Alex), at the conclusion of 4th Grade. Although his school was very accommodating (skipped 1st grade – had him learn math in 3rd grade on a computer – intro Algebra – 4th grade…sent him to learn Algebra 1 with the 8th graders – gave him advanced English texts)…they couldn’t teach him anymore. We have been using Plato online courses for all subjects except math…we now use Thinkwell math (he loves it).
He is advancing very well with these. If you have the capability to home school…I highly recommend doing so.
Both online courses are very reasonably priced…and highly effective.
Another great site is… Art of problem solving.
Alex is doing online Algebra competition through Alcumus on artofproblemsolving.com
Alex got a top in the country award through the JHU – CTY in third grade. He is also a young scholar through the Davidson’s Institute.
My wife is a stay at home mother and has been doing an exceptional job with our son. I shall be taking over some of the duties in 3 weeks (I retire).
I recommend looking into these great online resources for full time home schooling or educational supplementary training at home after school (as we did until we initiated home schooling full time).
Dittoing above. My daughter has graduated K-12 but I still check into gifted sites from time to time. I was a frequent contributor to FCAG as well.
I often wonder. All the energy expended on getting school systems to become aware…might not all that brilliance, collective energy and imagination be shifted instead towards homeschooling? Creating co-ops, informal schools?
I often feel we bang our heads against the wall. Too much effort expended for too little gain. There is just SO much out there for extremely gifted homeschoolers such as the commenter above, shouldn’t we all be putting our energies towards creating exceptional learning environments for our exceptional learners (exceptional doesn’t mean better. Just excepted from the norm)?
I realize not everyone can homeschool. But more can than think, it’s just a very well kept secret. We need to be more proactive in getting the information out. And I also believe that when school systems tell parents, we cannot meet your child’s needs, we should say fine. Then give us a tax break and allow us to spend the money on homeschooling. I got tired of paying so other children can learn.