23 Baltimore City Schools Have Zero Students Proficient in Math

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What’s your issue with #2? They honestly need so much more to make that job worth it.

They need to be paid all that money to do a good job teaching.

Which one of them is doing a good job?

Yawn. Quit your job, get in there and show them how it’s done. Enjoy your new salary.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Fox News logic never ceases to amaze me. Baltimore can barely attract teachers to stay more than a couple years as-is, but hey, let’s insinuate that we believe they’re overpaid!

+1

Republicans don't care about our schools; they only want to fearmonger.

Sit TF down, OP.

Friendly reminder: Balto is a 100% All-Dem city, friend

Tragic. Will never forget once hearing “If you wanted to keep poor people in chains, you would do EXACTLY what Democrats are doing.”

Blah blah blah. You aren’t convincing anyone to vote R who wasn’t already going to do so.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:One solution might be to have schools separated out by how students score on these tests. Put all the failing students together and then start with the very basics. Teach them to read. Provide intensive services at that school and give the teachers specialty pay for teaching in those schools. Smaller classes too. Keeping kids who can’t read on the standard curriculum and just presenting they can is not helpful to them. Decades ago someone came up with teach for America as a sort of peace corp for inner city schools. It was hugely popular and fairly prestigious for a while. It was criticized (often with good reason) but we need some kind of similar solution now — a way to convince people that this is important community service and yes it will be hard but your country will be grateful. Now it’s like “yeah, we’ll give you an impossible and often dangerous job and we will absolutely call you lazy and criticize you when you fail. And the pay is not great and the hours are totally not flexible with a super early start time. Please apply!”

Your solution is known as “tracking” or “ability grouping.” It is a common sense approach, and crucially needed in school systems such as Baltimore city schools.

Democrats have vehemently opposed any type of tracking or ability grouping. For decades, democrats have worked to dismantle any separation by ability. Notably (though not the only example) democrat Bill DeBlasio specifically terminated the entire gifted and talented program in NYC schools, in order to stop the possibility of “tracking.”

If you are opposed to what is happening in Baltimore, stop voting for democrats.

Yeah, vote for Republicans who want to dismantle public education and have our tax dollars pay for their private religious schools. Nope! Sorry.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:zero might not be an indication of failure and might be an indication of protest. Just saying.

What would they be protesting? Baltimore receives the 4th highest funding in the entire country for their schools, each student on average has $20,000 spent vs less than $10,000 per student elsewhere.

The families are not held down by anyone at all either, in fact they are pampered with money/food/clothes/education that they didn't earn but are siphoned away from hardworking taxpayers.

It's the same reason why illegals flood the country, they get handed "free stuff" that they didn't earn and get treated to a vacation more or less on the taxpayer's dime.

If it wasn't for the handouts then either Baltimore would become a clone of one of Africa's worst cities with gangs going into the suburbs to rob people, or they would all starve as they are not producing anything on their own.

The education is meant to correct the latter but you can throw the 4th highest amount of money at them for public school and it does nothing so what's the solution to that?

Impressively incorrect, but unsurprising from someone who calls undocumented people “illegals.”

[Anonymous]

I worked in Baltimore schools for many years. I think there are multiple issues here. One is that “progress” might be a better metric than “proficient “.
A year or more of progress is both positive and significant— even if it’s still below the level of “proficient “.
Another is to ask what population norms are being used to determine what is “proficient”.

My recommendation would be to fund something like the Harlem Children’s Zone— providing wrap around services and resources from birth.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Last one, now that I have learned to post pictures. These are all from the MD state released items/practice test 3rd grade Math test:



I think it is tricky, for a third grader. Yes, of course, I think it would be wonderful for all third graders to be able to answer a question like this that shows they are truly able to understand the application of math. Instead of just asking a simple question: "What is the area of this rectangle?"

But - the fact that many students aren't able to answer questions like this doesn't mean they are learning nothing in math. Just that these questions are pretty tricky for them to understand.

These sort of questions have become more common, asking kids to give the matching equation that demonstrates problem solving ability.

Yes types of tests have become more common. But is that really a good idea?

I have seen plent of students start third grade unable to decode any of the two syllable words in the question. So right off the bat, they are relying on the computer to read the question out loud to them. It reads the question in the mechanical voice that makes the sense of the question hard to understand.

Next plenty of kids still draw rows of dots to multiply, or draw counters to add, both are laborious tasks.

They look at all the equations and think they have to solve them. So they start drawing all the circles and add them up.

When kids are this far behind, they just need to get proficient at basic math skills. They don’t need complicated math tests. Just test them on straightforward knowledge of math.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Last one, now that I have learned to post pictures. These are all from the MD state released items/practice test 3rd grade Math test:



I think it is tricky, for a third grader. Yes, of course, I think it would be wonderful for all third graders to be able to answer a question like this that shows they are truly able to understand the application of math. Instead of just asking a simple question: "What is the area of this rectangle?"

But - the fact that many students aren't able to answer questions like this doesn't mean they are learning nothing in math. Just that these questions are pretty tricky for them to understand.

I don’t know what you’re complaining about with this question. It seems on the easy side for third grade actually. They even give the answers! And they’re all different! If the kid knew the answer as you suggested then they could just choose the right answer. Choosing the right equation without any answers provided might be a slight challenge but still within third grade expectations.

[Anonymous]

Why not go back to basic skills tests?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Last one, now that I have learned to post pictures. These are all from the MD state released items/practice test 3rd grade Math test:



I think it is tricky, for a third grader. Yes, of course, I think it would be wonderful for all third graders to be able to answer a question like this that shows they are truly able to understand the application of math. Instead of just asking a simple question: "What is the area of this rectangle?"

But - the fact that many students aren't able to answer questions like this doesn't mean they are learning nothing in math. Just that these questions are pretty tricky for them to understand.

I don’t know what you’re complaining about with this question. It seems on the easy side for third grade actually. They even give the answers! And they’re all different! If the kid knew the answer as you suggested then they could just choose the right answer. Choosing the right equation without any answers provided might be a slight challenge but still within third grade expectations.

For a third grader who is fluent in English and can read on grade level, and knows basic math well, it is an easy enough question. And it's not the hardest of the ones I posted.

But if a child gets this question wrong -- what does it tell you about why they got it wrong?

There are words that are hard to sound out. Sadly, I have third graders who aren't reading proficiently yet so they actually would have a hard time with: "following" "figure" "rectangular" "floor" "which" "equation" "represent" "amount" "space". etc. So just the reading part is hard.

Yes, the computer will read aloud the question. But it does so in a mechanical and slow voice that the kids find irritating, and they often won't go back and listen to the question again.

Asking "Which equation represents the amount of space" just adds to the cognitive difficulty of answering this question. The test is long. The kids who can't read or don't speak English well get tired.

To get them to score well on this test, you have to provide many examples of this type of question - that really doesn't require them to actually multiply anything. So instead of practicing actually needed math practice (math fluency) you need to spend a lot of time getting them to understand how to match a diagram to an equation and eliminate the distractors.
If a kid picks D) 4x2x7x2 -- did he pick it because he thought it was a perimeter problem (even though the numbers don't match up with the diagram?). If he picks a) did he misread the + as a x ?

Of COURSE problem solving and making sense of math are very important. If we have huge numbers of kids who are able to capably perform computations accurately, but fail to apply this knowledge in context, that's a problem.

But do we actually have that problem? Do we have large numbers of 3rd and 4th graders who can add and subtract 3 and 4 digit numbers quickly and accurately (without using fingers, a number line, or drawing dots on a page?). Do we have kids in upper elementary who are multiplying and dividing (including long division) accurately? Who can convert fractions quickly? Sure -- in some of your MCPS schools, probably all of them. But not in the schools where I teach and have taught.

Making kids try to pass tests like the ones being used by the state just makes it harder to focus on the basic skills. You have to teach them "tricks" so they can get these word problems correct instead of spending time working on foundational skills. And it ISN'T WORKING. If it was working, more kids would be able to pass these tests.

[Anonymous]

I’ll agree that in some cases their illiteracy might be affecting their math scores, but there’s more to math than just doing very simple calculations.

And come on, if a kid doesn’t know what the word “space” means in third grade then there’s a big problem. What the heck are the teachers doing all day in class that the majority of a third grade class doesn’t know that “space” means area?

And I certainly didn’t have any computers reading questions to me in school tests. It’s wild that you think the problem here is that the computer voice reading the math questions is not quite natural enough for you. Next you’ll be complaining about its accent or lack thereof.

[Anonymous]

Repeat the grade if the student does not have the basic skills.

My grandfather had to do this twice during his education.

He still became a 1%er.

If a student cannot do basic 3rd grade math it really prevents them from working a lot of jobs or becoming business owners. They won't be able to be a professional painter as they will be unable to quote the jobs.
They won't be able to own a landscaping company again as they won't be able to estimate fertilzer or mulch needed for a yard.

Social promotion does not benefit the children.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Repeat the grade if the student does not have the basic skills.

My grandfather had to do this twice during his education.

He still became a 1%er.

If a student cannot do basic 3rd grade math it really prevents them from working a lot of jobs or becoming business owners. They won't be able to be a professional painter as they will be unable to quote the jobs.
They won't be able to own a landscaping company again as they won't be able to estimate fertilzer or mulch needed for a yard.

Social promotion does not benefit the children.

You realize that race and SES would be the main distinguishing factor for test results though. I would argue it is not race but family structure being the main trait. Culture in 2nd. Economic class 3rd. Race/Ethnicity 4th. A lot of the childrens succes comes from the educational success of the mother.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Last one, now that I have learned to post pictures. These are all from the MD state released items/practice test 3rd grade Math test:



I think it is tricky, for a third grader. Yes, of course, I think it would be wonderful for all third graders to be able to answer a question like this that shows they are truly able to understand the application of math. Instead of just asking a simple question: "What is the area of this rectangle?"

But - the fact that many students aren't able to answer questions like this doesn't mean they are learning nothing in math. Just that these questions are pretty tricky for them to understand.

I think it's important to point out that a lot of these word problems were made because of allegations from marxists that math is somehow racist against black people - that they can't understand abstract concepts (which is in itself an extremely racist viewpoint but one pushed by many black civil rights advocates). But of course they will understand things like "tyrone has five mixtapes and lost two" or "uncle jim is painting a garage." It is, however, ironic that the black kids in baltimore schools cannot even answer the contextualized questions that the education marxists have forced into the curriculum

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Repeat the grade if the student does not have the basic skills.

My grandfather had to do this twice during his education.

He still became a 1%er.

If a student cannot do basic 3rd grade math it really prevents them from working a lot of jobs or becoming business owners. They won't be able to be a professional painter as they will be unable to quote the jobs.
They won't be able to own a landscaping company again as they won't be able to estimate fertilzer or mulch needed for a yard.

Social promotion does not benefit the children.

It is extremely difficult to retain a student these days. If that student has attendance issues, they will rarely retain them because it wouldn't help anyway. I had a student who missed more than 100 days of kindergarten last year and they passed him despite my objection. He went to first grade knowing less than 6 letter names and sounds. Not surprising that he is lost in first grade.

[Anonymous]

How much is their top school administrator
getting paid?