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Posts Tagged ‘Center for the Highly Gifted’

The Myth of “Optional”

Posted in Gifted, School, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on January 19, 2010 | 11 Comments »

Thanks to the Parents’ Coalition, a January 8, 2010 memorandum from Superintendent Weast to the Board of Education has come to light.  In the memo, Weast answers some questions from unidentified Board members about his proposed FY 2011 Budget cuts.

I’ll leave aside the point well made by the Parents Coalition,

Pants, gifted education...not the same thing.

that the cuts to academic intervention teachers and paraeducators are not justified one way or another based on any studies or data.  I’ll even leave aside the non-answer to the question: “Please break down how the special program teachers will be reduced by school and program. Describe the specific impact of these cuts on each special program and school.

No, I’m going to focus on Question 7 (page 4), which asks about the impact on “each optional regular education program and impacted school proposed for the elimination of transportation.”  The answer, in a nutshell, is that transportation costs $942 per student, and yes, fewer students would attend if transport were cut but they would still have the “opportunity” to attend.  They would just have to get themselves there.  Oh, and yes, cutting consortia transport was considered, “but the consortia are not optional programs.  The school the student selects is the assigned school and transportation must be provided.” [emphasis added]

Pardon me if I am slackjawed. Consortia programs absolutely are optional.  As a commenter posted a few days ago, what really is the difference between Entrepreneurship & Business Management (Blair) and Finance, Business Management, and Marketing (Einstein)?  And no matter what, students can always opt for their base schools–they’re assured a place there.  They call it the Division of Consortia Choice and Application Program Services for a reason.

So can we get something straight right now?  Magnets and Center Programs and yes, I’ll got out on a limb and say that even the RM IB, are not “optional.”  They are part of the much vaunted MCPS “continuum of gifted services.”  They are for “students whose needs cannot be met at the home school.”  They are not some frill, some “extra,” some “goodie.”  Here’s what Policy IOA says:

Children with special abilities and talents are part of the human mosaic in our schools and communities. They typically learn at a pace and depth that set them apart from the majority of their same-age peers. Because they have the potential to perform at high levels of accomplishment and have unique affective and learning style needs when compared with others of their age, they require instructional and curricular adjustments that can create a better match between their identified needs and the educational services they typically receive. [emphasis added] (Section B)

For students who require a markedly different programming, centers for highly
gifted and other special programs including magnet programs will continue to be provided, and new programs will be developed as needed. (Section C 3 c)

Finally there is this:

The superintendent shall direct implementation of this policy and specifically shall ensure that every school has a program that meets its requirements. Among the specific actions the superintendent will take are the following:

8. Prepare budget requests that provide adequate resources to implement the policy

Of course there is lots in Policy IOA that has never been carried out–that’s why they wanted to scrap it.  However the fact remains:  You take away transportation and you effectively kill the magnets, centers and immersion programs.

Don’t let it happen.  Sign the petitions here and here. (Who knows if they’ll have any impact.  At minimum the comments are inspiring.).  And be sure to come to the Board of Education hearing on Wednesday night, 7 p.m.

Here’s a notice that’s been floating around some school listservs…  Please repost.

TOMORROW: WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 20th at 7pm

BOE Meeting on Proposed MCPS Operating Budget

Carver Educational Services Center
850 Hungerford Drive
Rockville, MD 20850

Testimony will include Blair PTSA co-chair and others within our cluster. We need your presence. Students are especially encouraged to attend. This is Civics in action!

Wear yellow to protest cuts in transportation for special programs. Wear red to support Blair. Wear both if you can!

Whether you can make it to the meeting or not, please write to the Board to let them know that these cuts are unacceptable and damaging to the integrity of appropriate academic opportunity for all students. Then continue to write to the County Council and your representatives in Annapolis.

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GT Lives!

Posted in Gifted, School, tagged , , , , , , , , , on November 22, 2009 | Leave a Comment »

I have to say, I’d been having my doubts whether anyone in Montgomery County gave a fig about GT education, but a modicum of my faith was restored on Wednesday, when I was invited to participate on Gifted Centers/Magnet School Roundtable at the girls’ former elementary school.

Just to back up…  At the end of October a message was posted to the school listserv announcing that the Gifted and Talented Committee was looking for alumni parents and students to participate on a panel about the Centers and Magnets.  Be still my heart!  There was actually a GT committee!  Listserv lurker though I may be, I whipped off an email to the chairperson to introduce myself, to let her know that I was thrilled that she was breathing some life into GT at the school, and to offer to serve as a resource, because back in the day I had been the GT chair.  She wrote back and we agreed to meet for coffee that weekend.

I knew we were going to hit it off when she told me that one of her first moves was to have the school PTA formally change the name of the committee from “Highly Able Learner Committee” back to Gifted and Talented Committee. You go!

It was a really good meeting which took the form of “You me tell your story and I’ll tell mine.”  Her story included the nugget that that her son had been whole grade-accelerated in Kindergarten—in fact six children had been in her child’s year.  But then a new principal came in—and rescinded the skip for four of them. Man, that took my breath away.  I can’t imagine being one of those parents.   We must have talked for two hours and we covered a whole lot of ground: William and Mary, MAP-R’s, the political context of the Centers and Magnet, etc. etc.  In the days that followed I sent her more resources, including a 33-page “Highly Able Learner Handbook” that I had put together when I was the GT chair.  I had forgotten about it, but she was thrilled (“This is GREAT!!! Why didn’t I get this handbook two years ago?”).  She quickly decided that the committee would update it and post it to the PTA’s website.  By January.  Awesome.

And then there was the panel.  She already had commitments from the school counselor, a couple and their child attending the Center, another parent and child attending the Humanities and Communications Arts magnet, and a student attending the performing arts lottery magnet.  She asked if I could join as well, because in addition to having had a child in both the Center and a Magnet—and the experience of leaving those programs early—I could speak about the larger MCPS policy context.  I said I’d be happy to participate.

The panel went really, really well. The GT Chair did a super job of organizing.  The turnout was decent—all the chairs in the media center were taken—although afterwards she noted that no one from the PTA’s leadership came, nor school staff besides the counselor.  And it was great to hear the perspectives of the kids and their families, the “been there, done that’s”, and the utter randomness of it all.  The one mom and I actually went back to preschool days, and it was great to catch up. Her older child, a year ahead of C., had been in a Center—but not gotten into a middle school magnet.  Her younger child didn’t get into a Center—but got into a middle school magnet.  The one who ended up at “regular” middle school thrived there and loved it.  M., same school, not.

The comments from the school counselor were particularly interesting to me.  She had been a counselor for many years at an elementary school that houses a Center Program, and she described the efforts they made to bond these highly gifted kids, who had all been stars at their respective home schools, into a cohesive community. She also admitted the difficulty in bridging the tensions of the Center/home school divide.  A parent asked if the counselors from the schools housing the Centers ever collaborated. The answer: no.  Wow, I thought, is that ever a hole in the support services to gifted students. In fact I would guess that your average MCPS school counselor has little-to-no training whatsoever in giftedness.  This certainly has been our experience, especially at the middle school level in the Down County.  When a counselor is dealing with gangs, teen pregnancy, truancy, homelessness… the “angsting” of “privileged” gifted kids is going to be ignored—until it rises to the level of setting a fire or being insubordinate.  But that doesn’t make it right.

There were lots of great questions, about homework, about what happens to kids who don’t go to the Centers or magnets, about what happens in high school.  I was so busy listening or talking that I didn’t take notes, but if a summary comes out I will share it here.

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Why You Should Fill Out that Application for the Highly Gifted Center Program

Posted in Gifted, School, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on November 5, 2009 | 10 Comments »

Last week I thought I had really put my foot in it with a friend.  She has an extremely bright and creative 3rd grader and I realized that the deadline (Monday, November 9) for the Centers for the Highly Gifted was fast approaching .  So I gave her a call and in the course of the conversation sort of wove in, “So…are you going to apply?”  When she said “No, I don’t know what I would put on the form” I just about had a heart attack.  Reflecting on my reaction, I worried I had seriously overstepped.

But then late yesterday afternoon she sent me an email.  Could I come over that evening to talk about the application?  She and her husband were stumbling on the first question:  “What advanced learning need has your child demonstrated that you believe MAY NOT BE EASILY MET IN HIS OR HER LOCAL SCHOOL PROGRAMS.”   Sure, I wrote her.  She emailed back; another friend was  also going to come over.  By the time I arrived, there was yet another friend there for soup and chat.  (My friend is like that.)  Little did I know that I was going to be the evening’s “featured speaker.”

However it turned out really well.  We had a good, thoughtful discussion about giftededness, MCPS, the Centers, their home school, education.  For my part, it was very informative to hear their concerns about both home school and Center program, and to get their impressions of the MCPS presentations they had sat through.  And they told me they appreciated my perspective and the chance to actually talk this stuff through, because the focus had been so much on the process of applying.

So what were my main points?

  • My starting point for all of this is that the Center might not be great for every GT kid, but at minimum a parent shouldn’t cut off the opportunity by not even applying.  If your child gets in, you can always say no.  If they attend but don’t like it, they can always go back to their neighborhood school.
  • There was some concern that kids in a GT program would get an “attitude,” that they would feel superior to other kids.  My response?  Kids in a regular classroom who are always at the top, who always finish their work before others, are getting no favors.  Contrary to what one might think, condescension (not to mention behavior problems) can actually breed in that situation.  Whereas when you put gifted kids with other kids at their readiness level, they may realize for the first time that they aren’t the best, that there are others smarter than them.  Learning to work and even struggle a bit is a good thing, as opposed to coasting through, never learning work habits and then having the consequences hit them later in life when the lesson is harder and it really matters.
  • Bottom line: Every child has a right to learn something during the six hours they are required to be in school.  They shouldn’t be used as tutors or “good influences” for other kids to their own detriment.
  • Diversity.  Yes, this has been a concern with GT programs in the county–that the Centers and Magnets are overwhelming White and Asian.  Encouragingly, my friend and her friends reported that the parents who showed up at the Center information meetings were extremely diverse.  Which brought me to my next point….
  • I think I planted some seeds of an “aha” moment when I explained that principals have an incentive NOT to have GT kids leave the building, especially minority kids.  Think about it.  Under No Child Left Behind schools live and die by their test scores.  Why would a school encourage a high achieving child–especially a minority child–to leave?  I mentioned it because….
  • I had heard through the grapevine that parents at this particular school had gotten the hard sell from their principal, that “whatever the Center can do, we can do  better.”   Sorry.  Just. Don’t. Buy. It.  In my humble opinion, the “GT” that could be offered would be the thin gruel of a smidge of William and Mary and math acceleration.  End of story.  Whereas at the Centers, students receive substantive writing and writing instruction; use of WordlyWise vocabulary books; creative, content-rich interdisciplinary science and social studies; truly differentiated and appropriately challenging reading instruction.  And of course grouping with peers, and the stimulation and understanding that comes with that, and teachers who understand more about giftedness than the average teacher.  Slam dunk.

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Why I Care About the Singam Case

Posted in Gifted, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on September 8, 2009 | 13 Comments »

Two weeks ago, when I learned about the unfolding drama surrounding Kumar Singam’s efforts to enroll his 9 year old daughter in an MCPS middle school (posts here and here), I wrote him an email:

… I wanted to let you know that I really, really empathize with you. Just last night my 15 year old who will be a sophomore at [deleted] was sobbing about how she didn’t want to go back to school because she feels like she is “spinning her wheels”….  MCPS refusal to accelerate students who need it–especially those who are verbally gifted–is a travesty….

The Singam case, and the resistance by MCPS officials to grade skipping, gave me a feeling of deja vu.  My daughter was never whole grade or radically subject accelerated.  Instead over the years we bought hook, line and sinker into every MCPS-touted GT program there was, with promises that “next year” it would “get better.” Nonetheless, by the time C. was in middle school, she was asking school officials for acceleration–or some kind of  intervention–ironically first in “GT” science class, but really in other classes as well. She self-advocated, as GT kids are often urged to do. And was brushed off–which is when things took a serious turn for the worse, to the point where we felt we had to withdraw, and were left no option but to homeschool. We were told by the magnet coordinator, “If she’s not happy in the magnet, she’s welcome to return to her home middle school.” Snort…As if. I had naively believed that the magnets were part of that “continuum of services” MCPS likes to talk about, where people would appreciate and “get” kids like mine and where we would work together to find a way to meet their needs. But clearly I was wrong. The magnet, I was told by the then-coordinator, was a “privilege.”

Fine. We withdrew C. The next month she took the SAT as part of the CTY Talent Search and got a freaking amazing score for a 12 year old.  (No, as it turns out, they probably didn’t “have many students who fit her profile.”)  What to do?  More to the point, what would MCPS do for this kid/with this kid if we wanted to re-enroll her for 8th grade?  Because she–we–could not return to the one program supposedly tailor-made for kids like her.  That relationship was shattered.  After countless phone calls and conversations with indifferent or clueless school system officials, I finally connected with someone in the Office of Accelerated and Enriched Instruction (since retired) who got it.  I mean, by that time I had met with so much resistance and hostility that I actually cried while on the phone with her.

Much like Mr. Singam, we met with someone from the Community Superintendent’s office.  We too believed that based on testing, our daughter needed to be placed beyond the norm for her age, namely high school.  MCPS didn’t want to go there; it was not even open for discussion.  Our fall back was that at minimum she needed access to high school English and social studies courses:  just as they arrange for very advanced math or foreign language middle school students to take classes at high school (and for which there is ample precedent) they should do the same for our child. Again, we could get no commitment from MCPS.  The best we could get was an offer of possible placement into the middle school housing the math/science/computer science magnet. (Not the magnet itself mind you, but just to be in building with other really bright age peers.  And they made that sound like a huge concession.).  Once there, we were told, this MCPS individual, the principal and someone from AEI would meet with us and personally build our child’s schedule.  However there was no assurance that she would receive high school level instruction, and by this point we were just too gun shy to take a risk–yet again–on an MCPS promise.  So we homeschooled another year, returning C. to an MCPS high school program that is the unspoken “service” at that level.

All should be great, no?  Well, actually no.  I mean, it’s a really great program and she’s getting vastly more than is available to most kids her age.  But she still has felt underchallenged in her strength areas.  For example she essentially had to repeat government last year (after sucessfully completing an equivalent college course).  To the credit of the coordinator there however, this year C. has been able to get permission to take an AP history class typically reserved for seniors. It’s her favorite class, the one where she feels she “belongs” intellectually and socially.  Clearly, this is a student who could have been radically subjected accelerated years earlier in her area of strength, the humanities, if allowed.  And no, I’m not pushing her.  She’s the one who is yearning for more challenge, for true intellectual engagement and risk taking, for the chance to get to college sooner in the hopes it will be there.

Recently we met a young man from elsewhere in the country who has grade skipped, someone C.’s age who will graduate this academic year–and she is angry that she never had that opportunity. To her, it feels as if MCPS has held her back every step of the way, and she has asked me “Why with MCPS is everything always a fight?”  I wish I had the answer.  All I know is that children like mine–and potentially Mr. Singam’s until he fought back–are being harmed–yes, that’s right, harmed–by MCPS’s refusal to deal with the realities of giftedness at the individual student level, to fully and truly meet their academic needs.  What kind of a toll does it take to be given the message year after year that it’s not okay to be who you are, that you must stifle and dampen your curiosity and passion to learn?

It’s because of these experiences that I have been following, and will continue to follow, the Singam case so closely.  By very vocally and fearlessly pushing MPCS to do the right thing by his daughter, Mr. Singam has forced truths about the system into the light that go against the happy feel good message they put out.  (It should be noted that many GT advocates have more than one child in the system and that the fear of retaliation is often what mutes their advocacy efforts.)   The Singam case reveals the lengths to which MCPS will go to put the institutional status quo above the needs of a student.  It reveals MCPS attitudes towards the legitimacy of homeschooling.  And it shows that the Centers, and middle school magnets are essentially mechanisms to hold the the brightest kids in MCPS from advancing too quickly.  Meanwhile in “regular” school there is no GT there “there.”

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Truth Out: MCPS Hates Grade Skipping

Posted in Gifted, In the News, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on August 31, 2009 | 8 Comments »

Well the new school year is certainly shaping up to start with a bang, isn’t it?  Comes a story that could have significant impact not only on the discussion of gifted education in the county, but homeschooling too.

This week the Gazette ran a story headlined: Parent advocate says his daughter should be allowed to skip grades – School system would enroll her in advanced elementary classes.  I’m actually acquainted with the parent in question through my involvement with last year’s AEI Advisory Committee meetings and have a lot of empathy for him.  (You can relive the drama (referenced in the article) by trolling through my archives from the spring–or reading his own posts on the Parents’ Coalition blog).  Here’s the situation:

Caitlyn, who has been home-schooled with the Calvert School curriculum since leaving Seven Locks Elementary School in first grade, has the certificates to show that she can handle middle school coursework. Yet, the school system will not allow her to enroll in middle school, mainly because of her age.

Caitlyn, who lives in Bethesda, would go to Cabin John Middle School in Potomac, if allowed, despite the fact that she’s of fourth-grade age.

Her Calvert School certificates, obtained by The Gazette, show that she has passed the fifth grade and completed math at a seventh-grade level. According to her father, a staff member at Cabin John told him personally that Caitlyn should be enrolled at the school.

“I have proof that my daughter is beyond third grade,” Kumar Singam said. “We took her out of the system, and we’re asking the school system to place her according to her grade accomplishment.”

Martin M. Creel, the school system’s director of Enriched and Innovative Programs, said that officials have offered Kumar’s daughter the opportunity to take advanced courses in elementary school.

Although Creel could not speak specifically about her case, he said that the system buses students to nearby middle schools for advanced courses. And, because Caitlyn is certified to handle middle school math, “that is something that we would certainly offer in this case,” Creel said.

There’s additional information about the case in this Examiner op-ed, and in a blog post by the father.

Where to start?  So many questions.  But I’ll start with the one of most interest to GT advocates in the county:  What exactly, pray tell, are the “advanced courses in elementary school” that Mr. Creel has offered?

It seems that they are willing to bus Caitlyn to a nearby middle school for math (she’s working 3 grades above her age grade level).   Of course. They’re always willing to do it for math.

But what about everything else?  What about science, social studies, language arts?  Does MCPS propose 4th grade William and Mary and Jr. Great Books for a child who has completed 5th grade?  Have they offered her a seat in a Center for the Highly Gifted program?  A few days ago I asked Mr. Singam, and he stated, “I did press them for a clear articulation of “advanced” work they were proposing.  No reply.”

There is precedent for grade “skipping” in MCPS.  However the reporter gets it all wrong on two fronts.

While grade skipping can be useful for some children, it is not for others, said one parent on the GTALetters listserv, a forum that county parents use to discuss gifted and talented education. That parent asked not to be identified because his child finally was skipped after a lengthy battle with the school system.

First, by not citing any research on grade acceleration the reporter does a real disservice to readers, allowing the general bias against grade acceleration to hang out there.  The parent in question (a mom I know) referred him to the Davidson Institute for an expert comment, but he failed to follow up.  Second, the parent the reporter references did NOT have a “lengthy battle with the school system.”  Her journey to grade skipping for her child was actually incredibly smooth:  she asked for the grade skips, and got them, thanks to individuals in system who were willing to go do things other than the norm when they recognized that this was best for her child.  Imagine that.  (Her child is doing just fine, by the way.)

Regarding homeschooling and school placement, the Maryland COMAR says:

.04 Placement in Public School.

Upon application of a child for admission to a public school from a home instruction program, the local superintendent shall determine by an evaluation the placement of the child and any credits to be awarded toward high school graduation. The evaluation may include administration of standardized tests and examinations and interviews with the child.

However the Caitlyn was enrolled and warmly welcomed to middle school based on her school record and the judgment of the principal.  And it needs to be pointed out that her “home instruction” wasn’t some potentially questionable, loosey-goosey, mom-grade homeschooling thing.  Her parents were using the Calvert School homeschooling curriculum, a Maryland state accredited homeschooling program that has been around for 90 years.

MCPS is terrified of the precedent this case could set, which is why gifted advocates in the county are watching closely.

Caitlyn has completed 5th grade.  She was warmly welcomed to 6th grade before MCPS higher ups got involved.  She should be allowed to enroll in Cabin John Middle School.  Meet her academic needs–that’s what schools are supposed to do–and let her parents and school work together on any social emotional concerns that might arise, as they arise.

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“People Don’t Want to Give Up Those…Boutique Programs”

Posted in Gifted, School, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on April 24, 2009 | 5 Comments »

Here we go. The much anticipated video excerpt from the April 14, 2009 Board of Education Meeting. (Thanks MagnetParent2009!) where Superintendent Jerry Weast muses on the magnets. For those who want to see the whoooooole thing, here’s  video of the entire BOE meeting on the MCPS website.  See the players live and in action!

A major portion of the first half of the meeting centered on AP and IB programming, including testimony by AEI’s Marty Creel.  Never before seen IB info data on never before seen PowerPoint slides.

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The video hasn’t yet been been divided by agenda item and so I sat through the whole first part (We watch so you don’t have to!), laboriously pausing, rewinding, pausing with a navigation slider that kept half appearing and disappearing.  Don’t know if it’s my browser or what, but what a huge technology fail.  Hope they fix it.

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Which Way the Wind is Blowing

Posted in Gifted, School, tagged , , , , , , on April 19, 2009 | 2 Comments »

This week Janis Sartucci of the Parents Coalition reported the following statements by MCPS Superintendent Jerry Weast at the April 14 Board of Education meeting.  The topic under discussion was the system’s IB and AP programs.  Neither minutes nor video of the meeting are available at this time, so this can’t be verified, but according to Janis, he said:

We are transitioning out of old models

  • out of 11 languages
  • out of magnets to whole school magnets
  • out of consortiums

We are moving away from magnets for whites and Asians to whole school reform.
We are closing down classes with low rigor that lead to nowhere.

But people don’t want to give up their wonderful little boutique programs.

Fits in nicely with my earlier post, Class War, as well as my observation regarding the introduction of race in the GT discussion.

UPDATE:  The video is now available.  Click here.

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MCPS Parent Manifesto

Posted in Gifted, School, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on April 5, 2009 | 7 Comments »

I know that the letters of acceptance–and rejection–for the MCPS elementary school Centers for the Highly Gifted went out this week. How?  No, it’s not just the e-mails from friends, letting me know the results for their own child.  No, it’s not the anguished/peeved posts to listservs by parents wondering how their above average, straight A students could have been rejected.

Rather, I can see it in the search terms that are showing up on my blog. Down are the predictable “cleavage,” “pencils,” “bomb” (thanks to a highly popular term used in my RennFest post; a very attractive photo of pencils I once used; an unusual photo of a bomb, I guess).  Up are various combinations of “mcps” “Montgomery County, MD” “highly gifted center” and “appeal.”

To those parents who have found themselves turning to Google about this gifted and talented stuff and landing here for the first time, I say, “welcome!”

And as I put myself in your shoes, I can’t help but get angry that so little progress has been made since I was in your shoes.  Yes, MCPS now gives parents actual numbers and the mean scores of selected students in verbal, quantitative and nonverbal areas-a good thing.  (Years ago, you just got a yes/no.)  But I find it outrageous that parents are still not told what tests are used!  This is like the doctor sending you a letter with some lab report numbers and a hearty, “Don’t worry, you’re fine.”  What’s “fine?”  In what way?  Compared to whom?  This stuff matters!

I find it that outrageous that after all these years the selection process is still not explained.  I find it outrageous that parents still have to piece together what the appeals process is.  And so I have to ask, why do parents continue to put up with this?  Frankly, it’s insulting.  It’s paternalistic.  Why do parents allow MCPS to deny them full information in this and so many other realms of their child’s education?

As it happens, I am still trying to get a complete set of records for M.  At this point I am about 7 or 8 phone calls deep with MCPS trying to find who might have her complete MAP-R records and the full results of her testing for the Center and Magnet programs.  Why?  Because I believe it’s my right.  And because I want to demonstrate, if only for myself, what a disaster the current assessment/articulation/”delivery of services” for gifted students in MCPS is and has been.  (Wouldn’t it be important for, say a neighborhood middle school, to know which kids tested for the magnets and at how high a level they are performing?  For the parents to know what tests were used and the results, so they could effectively advocate for “services?”)

This is not rocket science, people.   This is about writing words on a letter, writing words on a website, moving pieces of paper from Point A to Point B and someone actually looking at them.

So here’s a little “manifesto” I’ve put together.  Let me know what you think.

  • I have a right to know what testing instruments are being used in the 2nd grade global GT screening and when my child tests for Centers for the Highly Gifted and/or middle school magnet programs.
  • I have a right to know how those tests are normed.  I have a right to know my child’s scores as both raw scores and percentiles.  I have a right to complete testing information and sufficient information to interpret the results in a meaningful way.  I have right to know the decision process for entrance into these special programs–and the appeal process after the decision is made.
  • I want the fact that my child took tests for the admittance to the Centers for the Highly Gifted and/or middle school magnet noted in my child’s file. (Note: No record in M.’s files)
  • I want the results of tests for the admittance to the Centers for the Highly Gifted and/or middle school magnet programs included in my child’s file in order to inform instructional decisions, and to follow him/her throughout his/her school career. (Note: No records in her files.)
  • I have a right to the full MAP-R parent report (not just a number pointed to quickly if I happen to attend the parent-teacher conference. The full individual student reports, as seen here on pages 7-9 of this .pdf) sent/given to me every time the MAP-R test is administered to my child. (Note: I was only able to talk the reading specialist out of it one year…MAP-R has never been shared with me as a matter of course. Meanwhile, here’s a helpful sample provided by the test publisher.)
  • I want the cumulative MAP-R tests to appear in my child’s file and to follow him/her throughout his/her school career just as math assessment data does. (Note: There was NO MAP-R data in M’s file “permanent record.”)

I did share this with some friends.  Here’s how one responded regarding the MAP-R:

They only care about targeting the kids at the cusp of making proficient.  That is the sole reason for the MAP-R.  That is why they paid for it in the first place, because MAP-R fall performance correlates strongly with Spring MSA performance, and it gives them data to anticipate what they are likely to expect.  It is more crucial in schools where groups are at risk of not making AYP/missing targets.  but again — the real purpose of the MAP-R is to catch those kids at the cusp, and target massive test prep to them.  The ones who score high are assured of scoring advanced, so the school doesn’t need to do anything with those kids except hide their data, because otherwise parents will demand something other than incessant test prep.

And the last thing they would want to do is keep a record of it in the kid’s permanent record, so that you could see over time how little gains your advanced child is making (or, how much they are making – -entirely on their own!).

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