"Is MCPS losing its edge?"

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It never had an edge. They need to get back to basics.

It did in the 60s and 70s.

Homogeneous population.

Yes. The article could have had more discussion of this context. The FARMS rates have risen dramatically over the years.

Yes +1. I am a teacher and I also have had two kids graduate. Look, we have gone from a district where the majority of kids had college-educated, professional parents, to one that still has many of those parents but also many low-income, new immigrant parents. Some kids arrive in kindergarten reading chapter books because their parents have been teaching them since birth, and some kids arrive not even knowing their name because they’ve been taken care of by siblings and had no exposure to English. Of course these kids don’t “achieve” at the same rate.

Sure. But MCPS doesnt have to have grading policies that say that a 10th grader with a 99 and a 100 in the first and second semester and one with a 89.5 and 75 “achieved” the same A.

Someone with an 89.5 and a 75 would have a B for the semester.

No, it would be an A. Either way, it's crazy that someone who barely scrapes an A one semester and then gets a C the next will get the same grade as someone who gets 100 both semesters.

It would be an insane MCPS policy if you could take the higher of the two semesters as the full year grade. What would stop a kid from going very little in the second semester if they already had an A in the first semester?

That’s exactly what the policy is.

Well, no, because there is no full year grade in high school.

See the chart on page 4 for how semester grades are calculated.

https://ww2.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/policy/pdf/ikara.pdf

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just read the article. What an absolute mess.

I can’t understand how anyone can continue defending this district or pretending it’s providing kids with a high quality education.

Can you post it online? I don't think it's on their website, which is annoying.

Try this: https://issuu.com/bethesdamagazine/docs/bethesda-sept-2024?ff

It starts on page 64.

Wow. The article was good and thorough. The responses from MCPS, via its spokesperson, was absolutely pathetic. MCPS has no shame.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just read the article. What an absolute mess.

I can’t understand how anyone can continue defending this district or pretending it’s providing kids with a high quality education.

Can you post it online? I don't think it's on their website, which is annoying.

Try this: https://issuu.com/bethesdamagazine/docs/bethesda-sept-2024?ff

It starts on page 64.

Wow. The article was good and thorough. The responses from MCPS, via its spokesperson, was absolutely pathetic. MCPS has no shame.

Where was MCPS’s response to the article?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just read the article. What an absolute mess.

I can’t understand how anyone can continue defending this district or pretending it’s providing kids with a high quality education.

Can you post it online? I don't think it's on their website, which is annoying.

Try this: https://issuu.com/bethesdamagazine/docs/bethesda-sept-2024?ff

It starts on page 64.

Wow. The article was good and thorough. The responses from MCPS, via its spokesperson, was absolutely pathetic. MCPS has no shame.

Where was MCPS’s response to the article?

There were several responses from someone only identified as an MCPS spokesperson in the article.....

[Anonymous]

^^^

Those poor talented teachers stuck in hell

Makes me sick thinking about it

[Anonymous]

It is a good article. But that Bethesda magazine site makes it so hard to read. They need to hire a high school kid to bring the format into this century.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:^^^

Those poor talented teachers stuck in hell

Makes me sick thinking about it

They got what they voted for. Now they should just put on the discovery channel and collect their paycheck and retirement. Doing anything more is just going to shorten their lifespan.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just read the article. What an absolute mess.

I can’t understand how anyone can continue defending this district or pretending it’s providing kids with a high quality education.

Can you post it online? I don't think it's on their website, which is annoying.

Try this: https://issuu.com/bethesdamagazine/docs/bethesda-sept-2024?ff

It starts on page 64.

Wow. The article was good and thorough. The responses from MCPS, via its spokesperson, was absolutely pathetic. MCPS has no shame.

Where was MCPS’s response to the article?

There were several responses from someone only identified as an MCPS spokesperson in the article.....

Oh, yeah — I saw those. I thought you meant they’ve responded separately.

Their statement about final exams was pathetic.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:^^^

Those poor talented teachers stuck in hell

Makes me sick thinking about it

I am sure is it amazingly frustrating to be an MCPS teacher. How demoralizing to work for such a dysfunctional organization.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can you all stop accusing people of being private school parents and actually engage with the issues at hand?

Here’s just one example:

During the 2023-2024 school year, Rebekah Jacobs’ son was required to read only 2 books for English class at Wootton High School and none of his writing assignments were more than 4 pages long. He, like all freshmen at the school, was in honors English.

During the 2022-2023 school year, Paul Jaskunas’ son was supposed to be studying Homer’s The Odyssey for his sophomore year honors English class at B-CC, but the students were only assigned a short excerpt from the book. To round out the unit, the class watched a 12-minute YouTube video summarizing the plot, performed a skit of the scene, and read a novella about Penelope, Odysseus’ wife.

Jacobs and Jaskunas are both members of the curriculum committee of the Montgomery County Council of Parent-Teacher Associations, At a recent workshop with MCPS administrators in attendance, the committee reported that in classrooms at every socioeconomic level, “students are not reading a lot of texts within the grade level band.” Even at high schools with 90% pass rates on the MCAP, where even the feeder schools had 70+ percent MCAP pass rates, “teachers are not assigning grade-level work,” the organization reported.

The bolded is the source of the problem. If everyone is in Honors English, but they've reduced or changed the readings to account for a wider range of abilities in the class, then no one is in Honors English.

The Honors/Advanced English thing is stupid. My middle school kid is in "Advanced English." So are all the rest of his classmates--they don't need to inflate the titles of the coursework if there's no actual differentiation.

Middle School Advanced English is SO SO SO bad. They often just read excerpts of books instead of reading the entire book.

The teachers are supposed to make the class ‘equitable’ and ‘accessible’ so instead of having the kids actually read the book, they show YouTube videos of someone else reading it.

There is zero differentiation.

My middle schoolers read a book each quarter, including writing a (very short) note about every page of the book

My HS kid has never read more than two books a school year, often one. Last year they watched a video of the book instead of reading it.

Teachers are instructed to do this because it is more equitable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just read the article. What an absolute mess.

I can’t understand how anyone can continue defending this district or pretending it’s providing kids with a high quality education.

Can you post it online? I don't think it's on their website, which is annoying.

Try this: https://issuu.com/bethesdamagazine/docs/bethesda-sept-2024?ff

It starts on page 64.

Wow. The article was good and thorough. The responses from MCPS, via its spokesperson, was absolutely pathetic. MCPS has no shame.

Where was MCPS’s response to the article?

There were several responses from someone only identified as an MCPS spokesperson in the article.....

Oh, yeah — I saw those. I thought you meant they’ve responded separately.

Their statement about final exams was pathetic.

Final exams? That could hurt somebodies feelings or appear racist. That crap is from when America was great. We’re happy down here in the sloppy slovely disheveled sewer catching West Nile virus and Monkeypox.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can you all stop accusing people of being private school parents and actually engage with the issues at hand?

Here’s just one example:

During the 2023-2024 school year, Rebekah Jacobs’ son was required to read only 2 books for English class at Wootton High School and none of his writing assignments were more than 4 pages long. He, like all freshmen at the school, was in honors English.

During the 2022-2023 school year, Paul Jaskunas’ son was supposed to be studying Homer’s The Odyssey for his sophomore year honors English class at B-CC, but the students were only assigned a short excerpt from the book. To round out the unit, the class watched a 12-minute YouTube video summarizing the plot, performed a skit of the scene, and read a novella about Penelope, Odysseus’ wife.

Jacobs and Jaskunas are both members of the curriculum committee of the Montgomery County Council of Parent-Teacher Associations, At a recent workshop with MCPS administrators in attendance, the committee reported that in classrooms at every socioeconomic level, “students are not reading a lot of texts within the grade level band.” Even at high schools with 90% pass rates on the MCAP, where even the feeder schools had 70+ percent MCAP pass rates, “teachers are not assigning grade-level work,” the organization reported.

The bolded is the source of the problem. If everyone is in Honors English, but they've reduced or changed the readings to account for a wider range of abilities in the class, then no one is in Honors English.

The Honors/Advanced English thing is stupid. My middle school kid is in "Advanced English." So are all the rest of his classmates--they don't need to inflate the titles of the coursework if there's no actual differentiation.

Middle School Advanced English is SO SO SO bad. They often just read excerpts of books instead of reading the entire book.

The teachers are supposed to make the class ‘equitable’ and ‘accessible’ so instead of having the kids actually read the book, they show YouTube videos of someone else reading it.

There is zero differentiation.

My middle schoolers read a book each quarter, including writing a (very short) note about every page of the book

My HS kid has never read more than two books a school year, often one. Last year they watched a video of the book instead of reading it.

Teachers are instructed to do this because it is more equitable.

I swear, this misguided sense of how to achieve equity sunk this school system.

Rather than differentiating instruction and supports to help bring the struggling kids up to grade level, while leaving the grade level and above kids alone, they elected to pull everyone down to this crappy lowest common denominator.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just read the article. What an absolute mess.

I can’t understand how anyone can continue defending this district or pretending it’s providing kids with a high quality education.

Can you post it online? I don't think it's on their website, which is annoying.

Try this: https://issuu.com/bethesdamagazine/docs/bethesda-sept-2024?ff

It starts on page 64.

Wow. The article was good and thorough. The responses from MCPS, via its spokesperson, was absolutely pathetic. MCPS has no shame.

Where was MCPS’s response to the article?

There were several responses from someone only identified as an MCPS spokesperson in the article.....

Oh, yeah — I saw those. I thought you meant they’ve responded separately.

Their statement about final exams was pathetic.

Final exams? That could hurt somebodies feelings or appear racist. That crap is from when America was great. We’re happy down here in the sloppy slovely disheveled sewer catching West Nile virus and Monkeypox.

And then when they get to college, they have a damn rude awakening when they realize they’ll actually have to write papers, read books, and take final exams.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can you all stop accusing people of being private school parents and actually engage with the issues at hand?

Here’s just one example:

During the 2023-2024 school year, Rebekah Jacobs’ son was required to read only 2 books for English class at Wootton High School and none of his writing assignments were more than 4 pages long. He, like all freshmen at the school, was in honors English.

During the 2022-2023 school year, Paul Jaskunas’ son was supposed to be studying Homer’s The Odyssey for his sophomore year honors English class at B-CC, but the students were only assigned a short excerpt from the book. To round out the unit, the class watched a 12-minute YouTube video summarizing the plot, performed a skit of the scene, and read a novella about Penelope, Odysseus’ wife.

Jacobs and Jaskunas are both members of the curriculum committee of the Montgomery County Council of Parent-Teacher Associations, At a recent workshop with MCPS administrators in attendance, the committee reported that in classrooms at every socioeconomic level, “students are not reading a lot of texts within the grade level band.” Even at high schools with 90% pass rates on the MCAP, where even the feeder schools had 70+ percent MCAP pass rates, “teachers are not assigning grade-level work,” the organization reported.

The bolded is the source of the problem. If everyone is in Honors English, but they've reduced or changed the readings to account for a wider range of abilities in the class, then no one is in Honors English.

The Honors/Advanced English thing is stupid. My middle school kid is in "Advanced English." So are all the rest of his classmates--they don't need to inflate the titles of the coursework if there's no actual differentiation.

Middle School Advanced English is SO SO SO bad. They often just read excerpts of books instead of reading the entire book.

The teachers are supposed to make the class ‘equitable’ and ‘accessible’ so instead of having the kids actually read the book, they show YouTube videos of someone else reading it.

There is zero differentiation.

My middle schoolers read a book each quarter, including writing a (very short) note about every page of the book

My HS kid has never read more than two books a school year, often one. Last year they watched a video of the book instead of reading it.

Teachers are instructed to do this because it is more equitable.

They need to stop that nonsense and give kids books and do their job, which is to help them understand the book.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just read the article. What an absolute mess.

I can’t understand how anyone can continue defending this district or pretending it’s providing kids with a high quality education.

Can you post it online? I don't think it's on their website, which is annoying.

Try this: https://issuu.com/bethesdamagazine/docs/bethesda-sept-2024?ff

It starts on page 64.

Wow. The article was good and thorough. The responses from MCPS, via its spokesperson, was absolutely pathetic. MCPS has no shame.

Where was MCPS’s response to the article?

There were several responses from someone only identified as an MCPS spokesperson in the article.....

Oh, yeah — I saw those. I thought you meant they’ve responded separately.

Their statement about final exams was pathetic.

Final exams? That could hurt somebodies feelings or appear racist. That crap is from when America was great. We’re happy down here in the sloppy slovely disheveled sewer catching West Nile virus and Monkeypox.

And then when they get to college, they have a damn rude awakening when they realize they’ll actually have to write papers, read books, and take final exams.

College is now high school. Defining deviancy downward is the progressive pastime.