MCPS Is Broken What Are Your Ideas to Fix It?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Break up the "county runs one huge school system" model. We live in suburbs of a major city. Let's go to the suburban local school model, like those used in the burbs of Philly, Pittsburgh, and Westchester County NY. Local schools. Local school boards. Local control and decision making. There is no Apple Ballot or other machine running candidates through. You know who you are voting for, as you seem them at the grocery store, soccer fields, etc. and your kids are in the same schools as their kids. They know the issues. They and their families have to live out the same issues at school that your kids face. The one size fits all here is just not working.

Yep. I had this system growing up. Better accountability when it is town-based.

Problem is that most of Montgomery County is unincorporated.

Another terrible idea.

[Anonymous]

These suggestions are so silly. The county is part of a state. In the state of Maryland, school districts are county-based. You can’t just decide to have your own town’s public schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The answer has been right in front of us all along:

Break up the county.
Too big to thrive.

There aren’t too many large school districts that are high-performing.

Most of the large urban public school districts aren’t all that great. And with the push to urbanize MoCo, it will just get worse.

This sounds bad but I actually agree with it. I have not looked too thoroughly but from what I can tell 60,000 students seems to be the limit for high performing school districts, which basically allows for breaking MCPS up into thirds: east, west and north. The benefit of this is that each of the new districts will be better placed to serve the needs of their districts.

Yes. And if we're being perfectly honest, there are cultural differences between TKPK and Poolesville/Damascus.

It would def be more expensive to break into 3 systems, but I do think that's the right decision.

Plus, one major bonus: snow decisions would be regional!

That’s exactly right. It would also allow each district to prioritize their resources as they see fit. The north of the county should be allowed to prioritize funding big time HS football, if that’s what they want. Let the west of the county do more tracking and then allow the east to focus on the achievement gap. It makes sense for everyone.

Sure. Northwest Branch to the 200/370 to Muddy Branch makes a natural cut. TKPK, SS, CC, Bethesda, Potomac, Rockville, Kensington, Aspen Hill, Wheaton together could all be one big HS choice consortium. Break the rest E-W at Rock Creek/dotted line north, with Olney, Ashton, Sandy Spring, Burtonsville Colesville, Fairland, White Oak and Hillandale together -- Layhill, Redland, Gaithersburg, Germantown, Montgomery Village, Clarksburg, Damascus, Poolesville and Urbana make up the rest.

LOL. The demographics don’t work for your consortium dream. It would be over half the county population. We’re going to split this baby E-W at the railroad tracks up to Derwood where the N district will start at 200/370. Demographics are perfect.

That was just too easy...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:so many people don't realize how good they have it. Still one of the best school systems in the nation

give teachers hazard pay during this difficult time too

I’m not sure why people say this. My kid had a 4.4 with little effort, lots of AP classes and is finding that she’s not really prepared for college. The first semester has been tough for her, and she barely scraped a 3.0. She especially was complaining that she had no idea how to study for a final exam since MCPS in their wisdom removed them. She commented that most of the kids she was in school with seemed better prepared.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:*These suggestions primarily relate to high school. Coming from a high school teacher.

- Require final exams at the end of each semester like we used to.
- At the high school level, eliminate Progress Checks given mid second and third quarters in favor of semester exams as listed above. We haven't even been allowed to count them as grades recently.
- Get rid of the due date/deadline nonsense and the 50% rule. Teach children the importance of meeting due dates.
- Calculate the semester transcript grade by adding first and second quarter percentages and dividing them by two.
- Calculate class rank and put it on the transcript.
- Have valedictorians and salutatorians at graduation and call them that.
- Reinstitute the loss of credit rule whereby students with a certain number of unexcused absences lose credit for high school courses.
- Get rid of all of these random days off. We hardly have a 5-day work week during the year. Once the year starts, keep it going.
- Incorporate virtual snow days so that instruction can continue in some form during inclement weather. This eliminates calendar changes, as well.
- Tweak SSL credit. Eliminate meaningless virtual means to earn SSL hours and allow SSL credit for students who do things like rake or shovel snow for people in their neighborhoods.
- Allow participate in club or varsity sports to count for PE credit to open up schedules for other courses.
- If high school students now have to take a full year of health, incorporate other life skills like financial literacy into this year-long course. Make it more of a healthy/functional living course.
- The student member of the board should not be a voting member as he/she is not elected by taxpayers.

- Sit back and listen to everyone complain about how racist all the changes are

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:*These suggestions primarily relate to high school. Coming from a high school teacher.

- Require final exams at the end of each semester like we used to.
- At the high school level, eliminate Progress Checks given mid second and third quarters in favor of semester exams as listed above. We haven't even been allowed to count them as grades recently.
- Get rid of the due date/deadline nonsense and the 50% rule. Teach children the importance of meeting due dates.
- Calculate the semester transcript grade by adding first and second quarter percentages and dividing them by two.
- Calculate class rank and put it on the transcript.
- Have valedictorians and salutatorians at graduation and call them that.
- Reinstitute the loss of credit rule whereby students with a certain number of unexcused absences lose credit for high school courses.
- Get rid of all of these random days off. We hardly have a 5-day work week during the year. Once the year starts, keep it going.
- Incorporate virtual snow days so that instruction can continue in some form during inclement weather. This eliminates calendar changes, as well.
- Tweak SSL credit. Eliminate meaningless virtual means to earn SSL hours and allow SSL credit for students who do things like rake or shovel snow for people in their neighborhoods.
- Allow participate in club or varsity sports to count for PE credit to open up schedules for other courses.
- If high school students now have to take a full year of health, incorporate other life skills like financial literacy into this year-long course. Make it more of a healthy/functional living course.
- The student member of the board should not be a voting member as he/she is not elected by taxpayers.

- Sit back and listen to everyone complain about how racist all the changes are

DP. Huh? Why is this racist? This seems to be very practical advice.

I would also add:
- Bring back final exams in HS (to better prep for college)
- Offer Magnet or Local trade school class options (ex. tax preparation, small business registration, etc.), not just AP.
- Permit other music (piano, etc.) to substitute for Music credit
- Do not allow early vacant seats to be filled by the current board members
- Only district voters may elect their own district board members
- Elementary School, Middle School, High School boundaries are as close to home-school and contiguous as possible (not gerrymandered)

I lived for over twenty(?) years in one of the worst HS boundaries in the County. Over the years I've seen gang fights, kids with drugs, missing child posters, neighbors assaulted and one killed, - and this was not even the worst in MC. One of my family members is a teacher with 30+ years experience teaching in a very bad part of my home state.

The reason why it was not possible for every child to do well had nothing to do with the school - it was the parents. I used to see way more kids playing in the playground after dark, and those where pretty much the same kids getting into issues later in life. When the school places even more pressure on these kids without parent support for educational goal, it just increases drop out rates, truancy, suspension, etc.

That means you're left with three choices. You can try to offer supplementary instruction (which only works if the child is already motivated). You can try to reach out to the parent directly to convince them of the value of education (which only works if the parents are motivated). If both the child and family don't see themselves in AP classes, offer life skills to help them succeed (trade school classes). MCPS offers Saturday School, and pushes all children towards AP without doing anything else. Works for a few kids who are academically inclined, but that's about it. The others just don't see themselves in school anymore.

As far as this thread goes, people trying to spin this as a race issue is a racist herself. She sees poverty as the result of skin color and it's not true. Poverty is closer to what people value and the discipline they have to achieve their goals. I've worked for several black and hispanic supervisors and leaders over the years and they all had a few things in common. They worked hard, treated everyone equally, and did not taint their judgement with race-this and race-that. When really racist stuff did happen, it was addressed, but didn't turn into a never-ending drama. (And yes, I am part of a minority group).

As far as cutting up Montgomery County along 495, 370, 270 etc into smaller school districts; yes, I can see that happening since the board seems deaf to parent complaints. This is what happens when you rule with an iron fist - people break apart. But, if that happens, so be it. In the case of children's education, if Montgomery County board of education is rigged so that non-district voters can elect another district's rep, that's corruption imho. People can choose to address issues or sit around hoping things get better. I just know I'll support whoever is able to change how things are now.

[Anonymous]

I would modify the class rank. I can see "Top 10%" ranks at a HS that are numbered, "Top 25%" that are unnumbered, but with a hard cut-off after that. A kid doesn't want to know they were 499 of 500 and it doesn't motivate academics.

[Anonymous]

Lots of good ideas. But the first and most important is to find a new leader that is capable of actually leading MCPS and also clearing out the clearly decrepit senior management ranks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:These suggestions are so silly. The county is part of a state. In the state of Maryland, school districts are county-based. You can’t just decide to have your own town’s public schools.

You know what’s silly? A county with such a highly-educated population accepting such an abysmal public school system for their kids. There is no excuse for such a poorly run school district in this county and we need to figure out ways to make it better.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Lots of good ideas. But the first and most important is to find a new leader that is capable of actually leading MCPS and also clearing out the clearly decrepit senior management ranks.

Agree. It's just unfortunate that teachers are bearing the brunt right now. I think that once leadership turns over and policies change, they should also have a hiring fair. I saw the list of teachers that left MCPS early in covid. One I recognized was my kid's former teacher. Guessing he couldn't risk his health and the MCPS policy didn't value him enough to go virtual back then. Hoping he can come back (but he's good enough that I'm sure he had other options..)?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:These suggestions are so silly. The county is part of a state. In the state of Maryland, school districts are county-based. You can’t just decide to have your own town’s public schools.

You know what’s silly? A county with such a highly-educated population accepting such an abysmal public school system for their kids. There is no excuse for such a poorly run school district in this county and we need to figure out ways to make it better.

+1000. I will never tolerate mediocrity as a direct result of incompetence.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My personal view is that they need to return to a focus on high standards and expectations for both staff and students. This can be accomplished through a number of different ways, but the details are probably not that important right now. What are your ideas?

Would you please put down the crack pipe..

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:These suggestions are so silly. The county is part of a state. In the state of Maryland, school districts are county-based. You can’t just decide to have your own town’s public schools.

You know what’s silly? A county with such a highly-educated population accepting such an abysmal public school system for their kids. There is no excuse for such a poorly run school district in this county and we need to figure out ways to make it better.

+1000. I will never tolerate mediocrity as a direct result of incompetence.

It’s a mixture of things. Not just incompetence.

There is some corruption, there is a hyperfocus on race and ‘equity’, there is a hyper focus on closing the Achievement Gap, there is the issue of changing demographics.

Hard to tackle all these issues in this county.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The answer has been right in front of us all along:

Break up the county.
Too big to thrive.

There aren’t too many large school districts that are high-performing.

Most of the large urban public school districts aren’t all that great. And with the push to urbanize MoCo, it will just get worse.

This sounds bad but I actually agree with it. I have not looked too thoroughly but from what I can tell 60,000 students seems to be the limit for high performing school districts, which basically allows for breaking MCPS up into thirds: east, west and north. The benefit of this is that each of the new districts will be better placed to serve the needs of their districts.

Yes. And if we're being perfectly honest, there are cultural differences between TKPK and Poolesville/Damascus.

It would def be more expensive to break into 3 systems, but I do think that's the right decision.

Plus, one major bonus: snow decisions would be regional!

That’s exactly right. It would also allow each district to prioritize their resources as they see fit. The north of the county should be allowed to prioritize funding big time HS football, if that’s what they want. Let the west of the county do more tracking and then allow the east to focus on the achievement gap. It makes sense for everyone.

Sure. Northwest Branch to the 200/370 to Muddy Branch makes a natural cut. TKPK, SS, CC, Bethesda, Potomac, Rockville, Kensington, Aspen Hill, Wheaton together could all be one big HS choice consortium. Break the rest E-W at Rock Creek/dotted line north, with Olney, Ashton, Sandy Spring, Burtonsville Colesville, Fairland, White Oak and Hillandale together -- Layhill, Redland, Gaithersburg, Germantown, Montgomery Village, Clarksburg, Damascus, Poolesville and Urbana make up the rest.

Can't even get mcps parents to agree on a boundary study and somehow think you're going to be able to get mcps to break up into smaller districts without some gigantic legal fight?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:These suggestions are so silly. The county is part of a state. In the state of Maryland, school districts are county-based. You can’t just decide to have your own town’s public schools.

You know what’s silly? A county with such a highly-educated population accepting such an abysmal public school system for their kids. There is no excuse for such a poorly run school district in this county and we need to figure out ways to make it better.

I am pp and I don’t disagree with improving the district, but surely you agree that it is wasted time to try to improve it by imagining a non-county-based system in a state that mandates county-based systems.