Math Placement Issues
Manhasset's advanced math program is not accessible to many deserving students due to new policies implemented in 2021. Those policies:
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Established an arbitrary cutoff score on a one day aptitude test (CogAT) to be included in the evaluation process
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Excluded students based on a "secure exam" that included grade 6 content those students had never been taught in Manhasset Schools
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Misapplied a teacher rating scale (Renzulli scale rating) so that the criteria has no uniformity or meaning as a measure of student behavior and that disproportionately hurt female students in 2023
The new policies have impacted deserving students like the ones below for the past 3 years. (The policy and program in place before 2021 did not have these issues.)
The problems noted above resulted in the placement results for the 2023 cohort shown below. Based on the CogAT threshold, 78 students were invited to take the secure exam for evaluation.
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Almost Alice's aren't even on the list because they don't get to take the secure exam. Click here to see how many there were. The cutoff is arbitrarily exclusive. If the 90th percentile were chosen as the cutoff, there would be 33 more students who at least got to take the secure exam for placement consideration.
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Tutorless Tommy's are the 15 students in the 50-60% range and the 6 students below 50% who have great CogAT scores, but didn't know 6th grade content because they didn't get outside tutoring at home. These students performed poorly on a test for content that they were not even taught at Manhasset schools.
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Luckless Lucy's are the three Unlucky Students (#1, 2 and 3). They had enough aptitude and content knowledge, but got a low and inaccurate teacher rating from a randomly assigned, harsh teacher who gave them a '1' teacher rating. Girls were only 38% of the pool, yet all three Luckless Lucys were girls from Munsey Park. Much educational research exists that some teachers are predisposed to think that girls "can't do math" or don't like math. But, this is wrong. Each one of these girls was distraught when they were denied because they could not make sense of a decision that didn't match their ability. In August 2023, their parents asked administrators to reconsider the teacher rating by evaluating feedback from other teachers, but they were denied. Parents did not have the information below to know how unfair this decision was as this data was deliberately not provided until December 2023. Click here for information on the inaccurate teachers ratings.
Selection issues began when Manhasset changed the 6th grade advanced math program policy in 2020. Policy and procedural issues that created these results are summarized below.
Click here to learn about the intended selection process for 6th grade advanced math.
Click to learn about the actual process and the detailed rubric applied.
Click here on what you can do to help improve the process.
About Manhasset Excellence
Manhasset Excellence aspires to ensure excellence in Manhasset Schools by promoting flexibility and transparency in advanced placement programs. We hope to educate the Manhasset community about the selection process for the 6th grade advanced math program in hopes that a better understanding about the policy and its implementation will allow parents and the administrators to work together to establish better placement processes for all subjects in the future. Information presented is estimated based on available information from the Board, administrators, the math department and parent feedback.