Question about middle school English differentiation

[Anonymous]

I know that in MCPS middle school everyone is in Advanced English.

Does your child’s school seem to group the students in classes according to their ability or is it all abilities/reading levels mixed into the same classes?

[Anonymous]

No differentiation, so annoying. I thought English was the weakest MS subject, period.

[Anonymous]

The classes are mixed ability. But our school had a presentation at some point about how they can differentiate individual students' assignments within StudySync so they are reading at the appropriate levels.

[Anonymous]

No differentiation at our MS. It is pretty terrible, and was terrible even before Covid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The classes are mixed ability. But our school had a presentation at some point about how they can differentiate individual students' assignments within StudySync so they are reading at the appropriate levels.

We were told that, but it is BS.

Not only is there no differentiation, there is also very little feedback. My kid is in 8th and has never gotten a writing assignment back with so strict I’ve feedback.

She gets As for completion, basically. Turn in something, even with craptastic writing? It gets an A.

[Anonymous]

No differentiation for English. Yes for history. More advanced kids are allowed to take HIGH in most MSs now.

[Anonymous]

Writing in the humanities is a joke until you get to AP classes, or are in a Humanities magnet. It's the weakness of MCPS compared to selective private schools.

[Anonymous]

Zero in our school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Writing in the humanities is a joke until you get to AP classes, or are in a Humanities magnet. It's the weakness of MCPS compared to selective private schools.

The IB classes are strong too, right?

[Anonymous]

I don't understand why it's called Advanced English and why no one admits there is no regular english. My kid with a learning disability in written expression is in Advanced English and when I questioned it when matriculating the middle school I got a lot of "we really think he can handle it" and "lets give it a try". No one ever explained that almost everyone is in advanced and the other option is quite remedial. Band is somehow Advanced Band, too. My son got into Advanced Band having never played his instrument.

[Anonymous]

I'm not a big fan of Study Synch. I was going over the responses to one of the multiple choice quizzes on Study Synch and there was one question where the question (to define a word as used in context) really had two possible answers; there was another question where the "correct" answer seemed to me totally the wrong interpretation of the passage, and there was another answer that was also not great, but maybe closer to the point the author was actually trying to make.

So I think even an advanced reader can do poorly in Advanced English, because at least the multiple choice questions seem to be an exercise in trying to figure out what the StudySynch people would think, rather than what the author thought.

For Band, I thought it was just that 6th grade is beginner band and 7th grade is advanced band -- not that it implied any better skill level. They could call it Band 1, Band 2, Band 3, which might be more accurate.

There's really a wide variation in the grading. My older kid, who is a conscientious student who studies Spanish in her spare time and is close to fluent now, got a B in MS Spanish for random reasons. Her sibling is getting an A and he knows about 5 words, three of which are foods he orders at Mexican restaurants. My husband keeps saying "How is he getting an A?" and I'm like "How did our first kid get a B???"

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm not a big fan of Study Synch. I was going over the responses to one of the multiple choice quizzes on Study Synch and there was one question where the question (to define a word as used in context) really had two possible answers; there was another question where the "correct" answer seemed to me totally the wrong interpretation of the passage, and there was another answer that was also not great, but maybe closer to the point the author was actually trying to make.

So I think even an advanced reader can do poorly in Advanced English, because at least the multiple choice questions seem to be an exercise in trying to figure out what the StudySynch people would think, rather than what the author thought.

For Band, I thought it was just that 6th grade is beginner band and 7th grade is advanced band -- not that it implied any better skill level. They could call it Band 1, Band 2, Band 3, which might be more accurate.

There's really a wide variation in the grading. My older kid, who is a conscientious student who studies Spanish in her spare time and is close to fluent now, got a B in MS Spanish for random reasons. Her sibling is getting an A and he knows about 5 words, three of which are foods he orders at Mexican restaurants. My husband keeps saying "How is he getting an A?" and I'm like "How did our first kid get a B???"

That's funny, re: Spanish. My kid doesn't seem to be learning much Spanish at all. In our middle school, 6th grade band is also called Advanced Band.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm not a big fan of Study Synch. I was going over the responses to one of the multiple choice quizzes on Study Synch and there was one question where the question (to define a word as used in context) really had two possible answers; there was another question where the "correct" answer seemed to me totally the wrong interpretation of the passage, and there was another answer that was also not great, but maybe closer to the point the author was actually trying to make.

So I think even an advanced reader can do poorly in Advanced English, because at least the multiple choice questions seem to be an exercise in trying to figure out what the StudySynch people would think, rather than what the author thought.

For Band, I thought it was just that 6th grade is beginner band and 7th grade is advanced band -- not that it implied any better skill level. They could call it Band 1, Band 2, Band 3, which might be more accurate.

There's really a wide variation in the grading. My older kid, who is a conscientious student who studies Spanish in her spare time and is close to fluent now, got a B in MS Spanish for random reasons. Her sibling is getting an A and he knows about 5 words, three of which are foods he orders at Mexican restaurants. My husband keeps saying "How is he getting an A?" and I'm like "How did our first kid get a B???"

That's funny, re: Spanish. My kid doesn't seem to be learning much Spanish at all. In our middle school, 6th grade band is also called Advanced Band.

Well, I wouldn't expect much since there hasn't even been a full week of school yet.

[Anonymous]

I’m confused. Not yet in middle school yet but why not just call it English instead of Advanced English?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m confused. Not yet in middle school yet but why not just call it English instead of Advanced English?

The same reason women's clothing manufacturers have inflated their sizing so that today's 8 is the same as a 12 or 14 from our moms' day: it makes people feel better about themselves. Or, in this case, their parents.