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Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS)
More math acceleration
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Anonymous
| I started an earlier post about the end of math acceleration in our school(which is College Gardens). The discussion changed to a different topic at another school so I am starting fresh. College Gardens which this year offers up to 2 years math acceleration will only offer a 1 year accelration in 5th grade. Children that were working 2 years ahead will go back a year. Seventh grade math will no longer be offered. The principal claims that the children won't repeat the same topics..but with very large class sizes parents are quite skeptical that the "enrichment" won't end up being an extra work sheet. We were told all MCPS schools were heading this way as the acceleration is not working well for many children. I hope I am pleasantly surprised next year...but doubt it! |
Anonymous
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Why is this? Did they lose a teacher? Are there not enough kids to make a higher math class? Can the kids who would/should have been taking 7th grade math be bused to the local middle school (this happens for kids who have higher level math needs at other schools)? Have the parents gotten together to raise the issue with the principal and higher (i.e. community superintendant and AEI)?
If I were a parent whose kid was forced to redo 6th grade math, instead of progressing on to 7th, I would refuse to have him attend the class. Especially if he/she made As. |
Anonymous
I'm curious whether you have (yet) had a child in accelerated math in MCPS? There are many MCPS parents who have had kids in accelerated math who are not happy with the way things are going, even when their children are earning good grades. |
Anonymous
| At our school, kids who need 7th grade math go to the local middle school first thing in the morning. That seems to work. |
Anonymous
I should clarify that if the parent or child doesn't want the acceleration, then it shouldn't happen. Or if the child has been accelerated and is making poor grades, acceleration shouldn't happen. I do have a child who is 2 years accelerated and I and the child are fine with that. Kid is still making straight As in acceleration. The bigger problem I see is in the math teaching as a whole. Each year, accelerated or not, I find things going on that undermine my kids' development of strong skills. For example, in the first years of teaching addition, subtraction, multiplication and division and fractions, the kids do very little repetition of these problems. I think in the effort to not overwhelm kids with boring homework, too little homework is assigned. Thus, there is not enough repetition to develop speed, good organization of the problem, and self-knowledge of mistakes to be watched for. Also, calculators are encouraged in 4th grade homework, which IMO is ridiculous. These kids need to be able to do the problems w/ paper and pencil first with a high degree of speed and accuracy. Allow calculators to check homework if you want, not to do it. Another problem is that homework is given that doesn't actually check for complete understanding of a concept. An example would be teaching of order of operations with the PEMDAS acronym, but the kids don't learn that m/d or a/s part need to be carried out from left to right, so the teaching of the use of the acronym is incomplete. I also have come upon certain aspects of the math where I disagree with the way my child is taught to do a problem; classic example here is giving the kids an acronym to remind them what math operation to use in a particular kind of problem, instead of teaching them to carry units in their word problems and cancel them out in order to make sure they have set up the problem correctly. The first method is easily mis-applied, the latter is a foundational skill that kids need to do problems all the way thru to chemistry, physics, and higher level maths. I could go on and on, but the bottom line is that my experience is that the math curriculum and teaching are weak, and that is the foundation of problems with acceleration. |
Anonymous
| OP here..PP, this is the problem that the change is supposed to address more in depth coverage.. Apprently MCPS is realizing that there are many kids who are not where they need to be for high school math even though they were successful on assessments in the earlier grades. |
Anonymous
but, IMO, you don't need to keep kids back an entire year to do this. My daughter rarely has math homework (maybe 1x a week) and even when she does, it's not very well-designed. IMO, kids need to have math homework every night. Math is like a language -- could you become fluent and fast in Spanish if you only had Spanish homework 1x a week. Could you learn Spanish grammar if you were never asked to translate a passage and were told you could use Google Translate instead? IMO, stopping the acceleration is prescribing the wrong medicine for the problem. |
Anonymous
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"I should clarify that if the parent or child doesn't want the acceleration, then it shouldn't happen. Or if the child has been accelerated and is making poor grades, acceleration shouldn't happen. "
Hah! A parent that would voluntarily pull their child? Not at my child's school. Even though several were misplaced and didn't belong in the (VERY overcrowded) class. Also, the teacher was not allowed to give poor grades - the principal changed them all to passing and they continued on to the next year with at best shaky knowledge of the previous 2 years of instruction. |
Anonymous
| My child is one of the students that have completed Math 6 at College Gardens this year in the 4th grade. I have had many conversations in the past several weeks about this with my daughters teacher, the principal, the vice principal, and other teachers in the school. Unfortunately, I have been given a different answer as to what math 6 (again) will look like for my daughter next year. All of her assessments have been A's with a few B's and she understands the concepts. I understand why they are slowing math acceleration down....I have had to reteach every single unit as the teaching this year has been VERY weak! With the teacher trying to teach math 5 and math 6 at the same time with too many kids in the classroom overall as well. In addition, it is clear that the teacher did not understand the concepts being taught as my daughter actually taught the teacher new ways to solve some of the problems (after marking her wrong). The teachers were not trained to teach middle school level math and this has shown dramatically. We are not sure what to do. I am setting up a meeting but am not convinced that she really is ready to go on to 7th grade math at the middle school. On the other hand, having her sit through the same content with extra busy work also seems pointless. Its just a shame that the students have to suffer from poor decision making. |
Anonymous
It is not true that this is happening at all MCPS schools. Our school is accelerating at least 15 kids from being one year ahead to skipping another year so that in the fall they will be placed a total of 2 years ahead of grade. It is bad education policy to say that all children 2 years ahead will go back a year across the county. While 2 years acceleration might not work for all, I'm sure it works for some. Show me the data that NO kids can succeed 2 years ahead, and I would say a blanket policy against 2 yr. ahead acceleration is OK. IMO, your principal is telling you what he/she thinks you need to hear in order to go away and not fight about this. What is the data about your child's math performance telling you? What about the other kids -- how have they performed on the end of unit math assessments this year? These tests are standardized for the whole county, so they should be accurate assessments as to whether kids have solid learning. Be careful and ask for the data about your child's incoming math assessment next fall. If your child is assessed coming in as already knowing a substantial portion of the math year to which he is assigned, why should he repeat? It doesn't make sense. MCPS/AEI Dept is supposed to be helpful on this. You can go over the head of the principal to AEI or the Community Superintendent. |
Anonymous
We have a child in accelerated math in MCPS. There are many parents with kids in accelerated math who ARE happy with their child's understanding and performance. A blanket policy on acceleration is not appropriate. Acceleration decisions should be made individually between the parent, child and school. |
Anonymous
| College Gardens did not implement the plan that they described to parents for next year. They are slowing down the acceleration..and are no longer offering 7th grade math..but they are still offering 2 year acceleration in grades 3 and 4 which means no one has to go backwards. |
Anonymous
No one except for the 4th graders that already completed math 6! |
Anonymous
| They are repeating math 6 but not going backwards... 2nd and 3rd graders who were taking 4th and 5th grade math would have to go back to 3 and 4th grade math under the original plan |