The "More" Child

People throw a lot of jargon, acronyms and educationalese around MCPS and the world of gifted education…all of which helps to obfuscate what’s actually being talked about and confuse even the best educated, wanting-to-be-involved parent.  Here’s some help.  Let me know if there are other terms/acronyms that should be listed.  A larger, not-Montgomery County specific list can be found here on Hoagiesgifted.org

NEW: Create your own education jargon!

• AEI – Accelerated and Enriched Instruction.  An office in the MCPS Office of Curriculum and Instructional Programs.
• AP – Advanced Placement
• Baldridge – “Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence is a framework for continuous improvement aimed at getting the results that are important to an organization.”  Crazy-making.
• BCR – Brief Constructed Response…aka a paragraph.
• BOE – MCPS Board of Education
• Center – Elementary Center Program for the Highly Gifted.  “Provides a learning environment for Grade 4 and Grade 5 students that
  enriches, accelerates, and extends the MCPS curriculum. Designed
  to meet the needs of highly gifted learners whose needs cannot be met in the home school.”
• CTY – Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth.  Provides testing, online learning and summer enrichment programs to gifted students.
• DCC – Down County Consortium. Includes five MCPS high schools and their feeder middle and elementary schools—Blair, Einstein, Kennedy, Northwood, and Wheaton.
• EII – Enriched and Innovative Instruction.   What AEI used to be called.
• EMT – Educational Team Meeting.  Now called something else…haven’t found it yet.
• EPGY – Education Program for Gifted Youth.  A distance learning program for highly gifted students offered by Stanford University.
• ES – Elementary School
• ESOL – English for Speakers of Other Languages.
• FARMs – Free And Reduced Meals. Often used as an indicator of the level of poverty in a school community.
• FOCUS TEACHER – Additional staffing for elementary schools that have above average levels of poverty.
• GT – “Gifted and Talented” aka “Accelerated and Enriched” aka “Highly Able Learner.”  See State of Maryland statute governing gifted education:  http://www.marylandpublicschools.org/MSDE/programs/giftedtalented/regulations.htm.
• GT/LD – Gifted and Talent/Learning Disabled.  Also known as Twice Exceptional or 2E.
• Green Zone – (see slide 3)  The areas in Montgomery Conty surrounding the Red Zone, and characterized by low FARMS rates, and smaller percentages of minority, ESOL and FARMS students.
• High Impact Schools.  See “Red Zone”
• HG – Highly Gifted
• HGC – Highly Gifted Center, Center Program.  See above, “Center.”
• HS – High School
• HSA – High School Assessments
• IB – International Baccalaureate
• IEP – Individualized Education Plan
• InView – Group cognitive abilities test, comprised of five subtests, of which MCPS only administers two as part of the 2nd grade global GT screening. From Hoagies: “‘InView does not measure all aspects of cognitive abilities. Since it is intended for use in schools, emphasis is placed on reasoning abilities that are important for success in an educational program.’  Elementary level InView is said to have hard ceiling of 141, where gifted is 127+.”
• Jacob’s Ladder -an elementary school language arts program developed by the Center for Gifted Education at the College of William and Mary.  The goal is to move students from low level comprehension to high level thinking and analysis of texts.
• Jr. Great Books – inquiry-based language arts program, developed by the College of William and Mary.
• Lake Wobegon Effect – A reference to the fictional community of Lake Wobegon, Minnesota, the regular setting of a segment of the pubic radio show “A Prairie Home Companion, where “all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average.”  The tendency to believe all members of a group are above average.
• LEP – Limited English Proficiency
• Lexile level – Tied to MAP-R testing (see below), lexile level refers to the complexity of a text, with the intention of matching a student’s reading ability to the appropriate level of book. See here for grade conversion chart.
• MAP-R – Measures of Academic Progress – Reading.  A computerized adaptive assessment program that provides teachers, students,
  and parents with an accurate assessment of students’ progress in mastering basic reading skills. When administered at regular intervals over time, it is possible to find out whether an individual student, or an entire grade level, is making satisfactory progress in basic skill areas. Teachers can use the assessment results for instructional planning for individual students or an entire class.  I’m a MAP-R fan.
• MCEF – Montgomery County Education Forum.  Community group incubated by the MCEA, opposed to gifted education.  See their platform here.
• MCPS – Montgomery County Public Schools
• MCCPTA – Montgomery County Council of Parent Teacher Associations
• MS – Middle School
• MSA – Maryland School Assessments
• MSDE – Maryland State Department of Education
• MSMC – Middle School Magnet Consortium.  The Middle School Magnet Consortium (MSMC) is made up of three schools — Argyle, Loiederman, and Parkland middle schools. Admission is based upon a lotter process open to all Montgomery County students who are currently in Grade 5.
• MYP or MYPIB – Middle Years Program of the International Baccalaureate Organization.
  
• NAGC – National Association for Gifted Children
• NCLB – No Child Left Behind
• NEC – Northeast Consortium. The Northeast Consortium serves students in the “base areas” of Blake, Paint Branch, and Springbrook high schools. Each campus offers a comprehensive high school curriculum plus a distinctive ‘Signature Program.’
• PG – Profoundly Gifted
• PIA – Pain In the Ass.  Term introduced into the MCPS lexicon by Board of Education member Patricia O’Neill on April 28, 2009.  Describes parents who need not be included on school improvement teams and/or can be ignored.
• Policy IOA – Policy governing gifted and talented education in Montgomery County.  Currently under review.
• PYP or PYPIB – Primary Years Program of the International Baccalaureate Organization.
• Ravens – Short for Ravens Standard Progressive Matrices.  Test administered as part of the 2nd grade global GT screening.  MCPS uses a cut-off of the 75th percentile, normed to Montgomery County.
• Red Zone – (see slide 3) A corridor stretching from the DC border through the center of Montgomery County (Takoma, Silver Spring, Wheaton, Rockville, Gaithersburg) that is “highly impacted” by poverty and other challenges, namely it has high numbers of minorities, and high ESOL and FARMS rates.
• RLA or R/LA – Reading Language Arts
• Seven Keys to College Readiness – A major MCPS PR/parent engagement initiative, rolled out in April 2009.
• SAT – Scholastic Aptitude Test, a national college admission and placement examination.  Also administered to middle school students as part of the Talent Search process.
• SCAT- Test administered by MCPS for admission to the Center and Magnet programs.  Developed by CTY.
• SD – Standard Deviation
• SES – Socio Economic Status
• SIP – School Improvement Plan.  Part of the Baldridge process.  A yearly plan to improve each school based on the input of parents, students, teachers, and staff.
• SIT – School Improvement Team.  The group of people working on developing the SIP.  Unless you’re a PIA (see above).
• W&M – William and Mary.  Curriculum units for gifted students developed by the College of Education at William and Mary College.
• WISC – Standardized test of intelligence designed by David Wechsler, for use with children and adults.  Administered individually, by PhD-level degree in Psychology or Education only.