What happened to MCPS?????

[Anonymous]

Friend in Damascus loves their school. Says teachers are top notch, curriculum is differentiated, and class sizes are small. I live outside Montgomery County and am jealous.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

You have valid points, but as you said this is the general U.S. system, it is not a problem created by MOCO or 2.0.
Even before 2.0, 1st graders were not doing multiplication. On the whole, I think there are a lot of things that can be done to improve the ENTIRE educational system.

This is terribly weak argument. You can't let off MCPS off the hook by saying all US based education is sub par. US education including MCPS needs to become competitive with countries that rank higher. MCPS is going in the opposite direction with 2.0. They missed on opportunity to improve and instead backslid. MCPS is accountable to its tax payers, students, and parents. They deserve better.

What argument? I said our U.S. system needs to be improved, I never said "subpar". That is your word, not mine. I said "improve", to me that means a lot of different things. Quite frankly, I have no fear that my child will have a miserable life because she was not doing multiplication in 1st grade. As far as letting anyone off the hook, I don't have an axe to grind with MOCO, so I am not letting anyone off any hook. Take it down a notch.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
My children have been exposed to the French and British school systems (private and public) before coming here to MCPS. While no system is perfect, they DO expect much higher standards of performance from their average students compared to MCPS.

For example, in DC1's private British school, they were teaching multiplication tables to FIRST graders (started at step counting and jam tarts, and ended by learning tables off by heart). In the French public school system, they learn this in second grade. In MCPS, they learn multiplication in third grade. And everything is like this.

I don't think that it's valid to compare British private schools to US public schools.

You have missed the point.
Many, many school systems around the world, especially the Asian systems like those in Japan, Korea, Singapore, etc, but also some European systems like I wrote, are training the next generation to be much more competitive than here because their schooling is more rigorous.

Feel free to quibble on minor details. The big picture is that MCPS, and the American approach to education in general, are not sustainable in the long-term. We need curriculae with informative factual content, not "higher-order thinking / creative strategies". We need to use detailed and specific measures to evaluate students' work, not meaningless Ps and Is. We need to train teachers to be precise and rigorous in their teaching, not laissez-faire. We need to pay these teachers more to begin with, so that the cream of the crop will be attracted to the teaching profession! No more wishy-washy murky nonsense.

10:56 here. I beg to differ in regards to what the standards should be. An increase in rigour, I don't necessarily have a problem with, however, I am a big proponent of the "higher-order", "creative" thinking. I don't want my child to just be able to be do multiplication in 2nd grade. I want my DC to be able to think critically and analytically, think outside the box, be creative, to be able to figure out new ways to apply the math knowledge to something no one else would have thought of doing. I want my kid to think "Hey, if I cut the foot off these panty-hose, I can be a billionaire in a few years", and bump it if everyone else thinks it is a sucky idea."
I care less about DC out-running and gunning the next man, DC needs to be able to see PAST the next man.
All this trying to be better, make more money, out doing each other didn't help us NOT run our economy in the ground.
I'm all for changing the paradigm. And I don't think that makes anyone less intellectual, dumbed down or any other way "less than".

[Anonymous]

My children have been exposed to the French and British school systems (private and public) before coming here to MCPS. While no system is perfect, they DO expect much higher standards of performance from their average students compared to MCPS.

For example, in DC1's private British school, they were teaching multiplication tables to FIRST graders (started at step counting and jam tarts, and ended by learning tables off by heart). In the French public school system, they learn this in second grade. In MCPS, they learn multiplication in third grade. And everything is like this.

The French grade their primary students on a numbers scale that is either out of 20 or out of 10. One point off for every error on your homework or test. Everything is graded, the reports come home with all grades and written recommendations. The parents know exactly how their kid is performing and what the teacher thinks: no sweet talking here!

The average French and British students end up with a greater and more rigorous body of knowledge than the average students here who waste more time with "manipulatives", "multiple strategies", etc. They have better written essay skills, while the US is stronger on oral presentations (which is great).

My problem with MCPS and I fear, many other US school systems, is that they expect too little of their average students. They cater to their LD students much BETTER than French and British systems - I also have a LD child receiving services, so I know. I am grateful for that.

Students here have coasted for years on US economic power which has given them comfortable lifestyles for mediocre performance. Now the economy is in decline and other countries are taking the lead, the next generation of students should be taught to a higher level, otherwise they will not be able to compete in the global marketplace.

+100 My observation based on seeing my older child pre 2.0 math/grading and younger child post 2.0 grading/math, is that MCPS used to be better than the traditional American public school system with lower expectations. Now MCPS is moving to the bottom of the pack. My older child received a far better math education in K-3 than my youngest child is receiving under 2.0.

There is nothing magical or even complex about multiplication. It is simply adding one number onto itself multiple times. Asian and montessori systems teach simple multiplication after addition and simple division after subtraction. Our Montessori school taught multiplication and division to K kids. While K math pre 2.0 wasn't as strong as those systems, it still covered far more than the new 2.0. Kids could also accelerate and many second graders were doing multiplication. These were not gifted students or math savants. They were simply average kids who had demonstrated that they understood the concepts and were ready to move on.

In the new system not only is there no expectation that average students can achieve beyond a very low bar, there is no way for them to even have the opportunity to do it.

[Anonymous]

I think all the Chicken Little stuff is written by 1 poster, who apparently has trouble truncating the extra space in her posts. Ugh, get over it, go back to your precious Montessori or private. The rest of us DO CARE about our kids' educations and have found MCPS a reasonably good (but obviously not perfect) system for our kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My older child received a far better math education in K-3 than my youngest child is receiving under 2.0.

OK. But my younger child is receiving a far better math education in K-3 under 2.0 than my older child received.

(And, really, both of them got/are getting a far better math education in K-3 than I received.)

[Anonymous]

[quote]You have missed the point.
Many, many school systems around the world, especially the Asian systems like those in Japan, Korea, Singapore, etc, but also some European systems like I wrote, are training the next generation to be much more competitive than here because their schooling is more rigorous.

Feel free to quibble on minor details. The big picture is that MCPS, and the American approach to education in general, are not sustainable in the long-term. We need curriculae with informative factual content, not "higher-order thinking / creative strategies". We need to use detailed and specific measures to evaluate students' work, not meaningless Ps and Is. We need to train teachers to be precise and rigorous in their teaching, not laissez-faire. We need to pay these teachers more to begin with, so that the cream of the crop will be attracted to the teaching profession! No more wishy-washy murky nonsense

+1000! There are too many people in MCPS that don't understand this. In all subjects, but especially STEM, you need rigor to achieve higher order thinking and creativity. As long as MCPS is run by people with education degrees who fear math and science and have no capability in the STEM subjects, you just will not see improvement.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Feel free to quibble on minor details. The big picture is that MCPS, and the American approach to education in general, are not sustainable in the long-term. We need curriculae with informative factual content, not "higher-order thinking / creative strategies". We need to use detailed and specific measures to evaluate students' work, not meaningless Ps and Is. We need to train teachers to be precise and rigorous in their teaching, not laissez-faire. We need to pay these teachers more to begin with, so that the cream of the crop will be attracted to the teaching profession! No more wishy-washy murky nonsense.

Please distinguish between "evaluating" and "grading" students. They are not synonymous. Grading is a form of evaluation, but it is not the only form.

And if P/I/N is meaningless, then so are O/S/I and A/B/C/D.

[Anonymous]

12:06 Stop playing dumb. You know that N/I/P are measured differently than N/S/O or A/B/C/D. A teacher and multiple posters have responded to this. You just seem to need to defend MCPS with poor logic and weak arguments over and over again. Are you paid to do this?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:12:06 Stop playing dumb. You know that N/I/P are measured differently than N/S/O or A/B/C/D. A teacher and multiple posters have responded to this. You just seem to need to defend MCPS with poor logic and weak arguments over and over again. Are you paid to do this?

Yes, they are measured differently. This does not make them any less (or more) meaningful, either intrinsically or to me as a parent.

With my pre-2.0 kid, when the kid received an O, or an A, that told me that the kid has learned what the kid was supposed to learn. If I wanted to know exactly why the kid received an O, or an A, I would have to ask the teacher. (Typically the teacher would explain why at the parent-teacher conference, but there is only one of those per year, compared to four report cards per year.)

With my 2.0 kid, when the kid receives a P, that tells me that the kid has learned what the kid was supposed to learn. If I want to know exactly why the kid received P, I have to ask the teacher. (Typically the teacher explains why at the parent-teacher conference, but there is only one of those per year, compared to four report cards per year.)

And I want to know why almost every post that says that 2.0 does not represent the world coming to an end gets a response of "you must work for MCPS". (I do not work for MCPS.) I have never, in real life, talked to a 2.0-hater. I don't conclude from this that nobody who posts on DCUM with hatred of 2.0 can possibly be sincere.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
My children have been exposed to the French and British school systems (private and public) before coming here to MCPS. While no system is perfect, they DO expect much higher standards of performance from their average students compared to MCPS.

For example, in DC1's private British school, they were teaching multiplication tables to FIRST graders (started at step counting and jam tarts, and ended by learning tables off by heart). In the French public school system, they learn this in second grade. In MCPS, they learn multiplication in third grade. And everything is like this.

The French grade their primary students on a numbers scale that is either out of 20 or out of 10. One point off for every error on your homework or test. Everything is graded, the reports come home with all grades and written recommendations. The parents know exactly how their kid is performing and what the teacher thinks: no sweet talking here!

The average French and British students end up with a greater and more rigorous body of knowledge than the average students here who waste more time with "manipulatives", "multiple strategies", etc. They have better written essay skills, while the US is stronger on oral presentations (which is great).

My problem with MCPS and I fear, many other US school systems, is that they expect too little of their average students. They cater to their LD students much BETTER than French and British systems - I also have a LD child receiving services, so I know. I am grateful for that.

Students here have coasted for years on US economic power which has given them comfortable lifestyles for mediocre performance. Now the economy is in decline and other countries are taking the lead, the next generation of students should be taught to a higher level, otherwise they will not be able to compete in the global marketplace.

+1


I totally agree!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:[quote]You have missed the point.
Many, many school systems around the world, especially the Asian systems like those in Japan, Korea, Singapore, etc, but also some European systems like I wrote, are training the next generation to be much more competitive than here because their schooling is more rigorous.

Feel free to quibble on minor details. The big picture is that MCPS, and the American approach to education in general, are not sustainable in the long-term. We need curriculae with informative factual content, not "higher-order thinking / creative strategies". We need to use detailed and specific measures to evaluate students' work, not meaningless Ps and Is. We need to train teachers to be precise and rigorous in their teaching, not laissez-faire. We need to pay these teachers more to begin with, so that the cream of the crop will be attracted to the teaching profession! No more wishy-washy murky nonsense

+1000! There are too many people in MCPS that don't understand this. In all subjects, but especially STEM, you need rigor to achieve higher order thinking and creativity. As long as MCPS is run by people with education degrees who fear math and science and have no capability in the STEM subjects, you just will not see improvement.


I also agree 100%! This is the crux of the problem and makes me very concerned about MCPS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

My children have been exposed to the French and British school systems (private and public) before coming here to MCPS. While no system is perfect, they DO expect much higher standards of performance from their average students compared to MCPS.

For example, in DC1's private British school, they were teaching multiplication tables to FIRST graders (started at step counting and jam tarts, and ended by learning tables off by heart). In the French public school system, they learn this in second grade. In MCPS, they learn multiplication in third grade. And everything is like this.

The French grade their primary students on a numbers scale that is either out of 20 or out of 10. One point off for every error on your homework or test. Everything is graded, the reports come home with all grades and written recommendations. The parents know exactly how their kid is performing and what the teacher thinks: no sweet talking here!

The average French and British students end up with a greater and more rigorous body of knowledge than the average students here who waste more time with "manipulatives", "multiple strategies", etc. They have better written essay skills, while the US is stronger on oral presentations (which is great).

My problem with MCPS and I fear, many other US school systems, is that they expect too little of their average students. They cater to their LD students much BETTER than French and British systems - I also have a LD child receiving services, so I know. I am grateful for that.

Students here have coasted for years on US economic power which has given them comfortable lifestyles for mediocre performance. Now the economy is in decline and other countries are taking the lead, the next generation of students should be taught to a higher level, otherwise they will not be able to compete in the global marketplace.

+100 My observation based on seeing my older child pre 2.0 math/grading and younger child post 2.0 grading/math, is that MCPS used to be better than the traditional American public school system with lower expectations. Now MCPS is moving to the bottom of the pack. My older child received a far better math education in K-3 than my youngest child is receiving under 2.0.

There is nothing magical or even complex about multiplication. It is simply adding one number onto itself multiple times. Asian and montessori systems teach simple multiplication after addition and simple division after subtraction. Our Montessori school taught multiplication and division to K kids. While K math pre 2.0 wasn't as strong as those systems, it still covered far more than the new 2.0. Kids could also accelerate and many second graders were doing multiplication. These were not gifted students or math savants. They were simply average kids who had demonstrated that they understood the concepts and were ready to move on.

In the new system not only is there no expectation that average students can achieve beyond a very low bar, there is no way for them to even have the opportunity to do it.

+1000 - I too see the difference between what the curriculum used to be and the opportunities afforded kids who were ready to move on vs. the stuck in the mud system my youngest is trapped in. The same concepts are repeated year after year after year. Place values again in 4th Grade? Really? Once a kid masters the concept in 1st grade, just because the numbers are larger doesn't mean the system is really teaching him anything new. BTW - he is in the accelerated 4/5 class.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:[quote]You have missed the point.
Many, many school systems around the world, especially the Asian systems like those in Japan, Korea, Singapore, etc, but also some European systems like I wrote, are training the next generation to be much more competitive than here because their schooling is more rigorous.

Feel free to quibble on minor details. The big picture is that MCPS, and the American approach to education in general, are not sustainable in the long-term. We need curriculae with informative factual content, not "higher-order thinking / creative strategies". We need to use detailed and specific measures to evaluate students' work, not meaningless Ps and Is. We need to train teachers to be precise and rigorous in their teaching, not laissez-faire. We need to pay these teachers more to begin with, so that the cream of the crop will be attracted to the teaching profession! No more wishy-washy murky nonsense

+1000! There are too many people in MCPS that don't understand this. In all subjects, but especially STEM, you need rigor to achieve higher order thinking and creativity. As long as MCPS is run by people with education degrees who fear math and science and have no capability in the STEM subjects, you just will not see improvement.

I also agree 100%! This is the crux of the problem and makes me very concerned about MCPS.
Sounds like the crux of the problem is you don't think the folks in charge have what you think are the right degrees and the right focus.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:[quote]You have missed the point.
Many, many school systems around the world, especially the Asian systems like those in Japan, Korea, Singapore, etc, but also some European systems like I wrote, are training the next generation to be much more competitive than here because their schooling is more rigorous.

Feel free to quibble on minor details. The big picture is that MCPS, and the American approach to education in general, are not sustainable in the long-term. We need curriculae with informative factual content, not "higher-order thinking / creative strategies". We need to use detailed and specific measures to evaluate students' work, not meaningless Ps and Is. We need to train teachers to be precise and rigorous in their teaching, not laissez-faire. We need to pay these teachers more to begin with, so that the cream of the crop will be attracted to the teaching profession! No more wishy-washy murky nonsense

+1000! There are too many people in MCPS that don't understand this. In all subjects, but especially STEM, you need rigor to achieve higher order thinking and creativity. As long as MCPS is run by people with education degrees who fear math and science and have no capability in the STEM subjects, you just will not see improvement.

I also agree 100%! This is the crux of the problem and makes me very concerned about MCPS.

Sounds like the crux of the problem is you don't think the folks in charge have what you think are the right degrees and the right focus.

Got the ^^pp quote wrong... Definitely not agreeing 100%, that was part of a quote, not my response .