Does anyone like Curriculum 2.0?
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Anonymous
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If you support MCPS math pathways, please join a group of us just starting out. We have a Facebook page to gather supporters. We are parents of children who need the math acceleration that the county is dropping.
https://www.facebook.com/MCPSParentsSupportMathPathways?ref=tn_tnmn |
Anonymous
| What if mcps closes all the schools in red zoom and bus the students to the green zoon schools and mix the kids. Will this lift the kids from red zoon? Let's make sure each school has the same percentage of students on FARM. My prediction is that th top kids will still be at the top, doesn't matter if they are attend the green zoon or red zoon school. When dr. West was here, his policy it to push everyone with plenty of resource concentrated in the red zoon. The performance enhanced for all students but the gap is the same. Now mcps realized that the only way to reduce the gap is to stop the two groups so the other two group can catch up. That is this new curriculum 2.0 for. |
Anonymous
Which gap are you referring to -- the widening gap between Asians and Whites in MCPS and Montgomery County? Is this the gap the fading old guard is trying to close? |
Anonymous
I personally don't think mcps cares about the old guard. They more worried about their image. The gap between the white and asian is not a concern. They want to score high on closing the gap between wh/Asian and AA/Latino. Holding the wh/asian back may work this time. By the way, a lot of wh families send their kids to private school in ES district due to trandition, religion or other reasons. |
Anonymous
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Who predominates the senior MCPS leadership ranks -- Blacks, Hispanics, Whites or Asians?
If, as some assert, there is a widening academic performance gap between Asians and Whites in Montgomery County why would not the senior MCPS leadership be interested in closing that widening gap as well? One can close the gap by forces and policies raising the bottom ranks up, or the the top ranks down or work in both directions simultaneously to speed up the process and get the prize? What approach do you think attempts to ensure each child in the County (MCPS) gets a challenging education? What mechanism is MCPS choosing to achieve its stated objectives of permitting all children access to a challenging education? Does eliminating access to advance mathematics for some of our children achieve the goals of MCPS? Does this make any sense in an age of technology where the language is mathematics and there is a widening gap in math and science competence emerging between American students and other worldly non American students? What are the short and long range effects and consequences of this policy on the pipeline of technology ready graduates in the County and to the local economy in the long run? If children of non whites made up the senior leadership of MCPS do you think these leaders would sign off on a policy blocking the advancement of able and willing students with demonstrated mastery from advancing in mathematics in this age of technology? |
Anonymous
| Asians DO NOT perform better than white in mcps! Wottpn has never beaten whitman on sat score. It is the other gap the mcps leadership wants to close as I mentioned in my previous post. Even in Blair magnet, white/ Asian won top competition. |
Anonymous
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/achievement-gap-widening-between-asian-american-students-and-everyone-else/2011/04/05/AF5YvclC_story.html |
Anonymous
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Now that we are done (at least for the time being) with the uncomfortable twisting, squirming and waffling and are getting closer to the truth and a straight forward and straight up answer to the original question posed:
The College Board, like MCPS leadership, is made up of the old generation elite (old guard) and the education estabilshment that are watching a new generation of high academic performers that are not their own children but are increasingly children of more recent immigrants. Imagine the College Board sanctioning intensive prep for the SAT reasoning and aptitude test (heresy)? Imagine yet the College Board rewarding the elite SAT test "prep" payers (old guard) with a "special SAT exam session that will count" in the summer? Note, others prepping in the summer can't take this test (they are not granted this pathway) until the fall with course work, college applications and extracurriculars in the mix. Furthermore, the College Board was prepared to change or alter the actual summer test date to the traditional fall date for the official records so red flags are not raised! Guess what, thrifty recent immigrant children do not shell out five grand ($5,000) for a 3-week intensive summer prep camp capped off with the opportunity to take the SAT immediately afterward, fully tapered, at peak prep mode. The old establishment guard does this. In a "TIA" moment (blind spot), the College Board gives this select group an advantage (just as the College Board has traditionally done with its testing accommodations). Why? For precisely the same reason the old guard here in MCPS wants to block the advancement of these new high flying academic performers by eliminating pathways to give their own children an advantage and "close" the gap that really hurts them. This strategy is "quietly" permeating all phases of education in America. The children of the educational leadership and old guard are no longer the high and highest academic performers and hence it's time to change policy and the rules (while they are still in charge). The College Board blundered and they were called out. To their credit, the College Board very quickly cancelled their summer testing plans. MCPS, too, has blundered by eliminating the math advancement pathways and preventing able, capable and willing students from moving on in mathematics (the language of our technology age). MCPS is being called out. Who benefits and stands to gain the most from this attempted policy changes? Who does this policy affect the most in our County? Is it the highest academic performers in our County? Who are they? Who is the worse off because of these attempted policy changes? http://www.usnewsuniversitydirectory.com/articles/...h-on-new-sat-summer_12424.aspx http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/p...012/06/06/gJQAeLZpIV_blog.html http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/opinion-la/la-...d-sat-20120605,0,5866106.story http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/31/sat-summer_n_1560537.html http://www.usnewsuniversitydirectory.com/articles/...h-on-new-sat-summer_12424.aspx |
Anonymous
For those who mysteriously now can no longer open the link my apologies for the text. Achievement gap widening between Asian American students and everyone else By Kevin Sieff, Published: April 5, 2011 Washington Post As policymakers over the past decade focused on closing the achievement gap between white students and underrepresented minorities, another rift was widening: the gap between Asian American students and everyone else. A new study from the Center on Education Policy underscores how significantly Asian American students outpace their peers, particularly in Maryland and Virginia. The data focus on student achievement on eighth-grade state standardized tests, including a rare analysis of student performance at advanced levels. It is at those levels that the exceptional — and rapidly improving — achievement of Asian American middle- schoolers was most pronounced. Nationwide, the percentage of Asian American students scoring in the upper echelons on math exams was 17 points higher than the percentage of white students. Notably, that gap has continued to widen in more recent years. In Virginia, for example, Asian American students’ advanced-level math performance leapt from 59 percent to 76 percent between 2006 and 2009, compared with an increase from 43 percent to 58 percent for white students. In Maryland, that same pattern was apparent on reading tests. The percentage of Asian American students who tested in advanced levels grew from 40 percent to 58 percent between 2006 and 2009. The percentage of white students in that category grew from 35 percent to 48 percent. “The lesson for other groups is that effort counts. Asian American students are working harder, doing better and getting ahead,” said Jack Jennings, president of the Center on Education Policy. In Fairfax and Montgomery counties, Asian American students outperform their white peers at the advanced level in several subject areas, but those gaps do not appear to be growing at the same pace as in the rest of their states or the nation. Fairfax officials said they hadn’t studied the issue. “When we look at the achievement gap, we look at white and Asian students on one side, and African American and Latinos on the other,” said Fairfax County Public Schools spokesman Paul Regnier. “That particular gap isn’t something we’ve looked at specifically.” Jennings points out that the Asian American subgroup is an imperfect monolith — including students whose families hail from countries as diverse as Japan and Jordan. There are clear disparities within the subgroup. Pacific Islanders, for example, don’t perform as well as Korean students on standardized tests. But in most states, Asian Americans — sometimes labeled a “model minority” — outperformed all other subpopulations. Some scholars are quick to argue against that label, saying it plays down the diversity, and the challenges, that pervade the subpopulation. “In reality, there are significant numbers of Asian American and Pacific Islander students who struggle with poverty, who are English-language learners increasingly likely to leave school with rudimentary language skills, who are at risk of dropping out, joining gangs and remaining on the margins of society,” said a 2008 report, “Facts, Not Fiction: Setting the Record Straight,” from the National Commission on Asian American and Pacific Islander Research in Education. The achievement gap is most commonly measured by the number of students who are considered “proficient” in a given subject. By those measures, the gap between historically underperforming minority groups and white students is shrinking in eighth grade, according to the study. But when the data focuses on achievement at advanced levels, the gap is widening — between white and Asian students, but also between African American and Hispanic students and their white peers. “It looks like we’re raising the bottom, but not so much helping students in the middle get to the top,” Jennings said. |
Anonymous
Uh sure... if you move highschool students who are already developed there will be no change. If you move Kindergarten students and allow them to be shaped and formed in this new environment there is no doubt you will see change. Talented students are born both rich and poor but to pretend the opportunity for a gifted student in a red zone is the same as one in a green zone school is delusional. This is mainly a cultural phenomenom. |
Anonymous
Who makes up senior MCPS leadership? Who makes the bulk of MCPS teachers? Who were the MCPS teachers and principals accelerating? Who made up all the "accelerated" MCPS kids who then needed water downed subject material? Who were these "accelerated" kids trying the catch and close the gap? Who in MCPS created the the backlash after all that acceleration? Why did MCPS have a mandate to accelerate 40% of all MCPS students? Do you think acceleration was the problem --- or the 40% mandate? Do you think this 40 % mandate created the problem with some kids falling behind and the need for watered down curriculum? What additional resources are needed in this exercise of musical chairs allowing able, capable and willing White, Hispanic, Black, Asian, and Others to advance if mastery is already achieved at the beginning of the school year? Do you think this requires advancing 40% of the children in the County? Has curriculum 2.0 served the 'intended" purpose of eliminating the need for the highest performers to advance? When does the County think this "College Board type summer pilot" will achieve the intended goals? In the next decade or 22nd century? The stated goals of MCPS are to provide a challenging curriculum for all our children (White, Hispanic, Black, Asian, and other). Eliminating math pathways for able, capable and willing White, Hispanic, Black, Asian and Other children in our County in whatever silo or gated County neighborhood they currently reside is assinine educational policy -- even if designed to close the gap between Asians and all the rest. It does raise legitimate concerns about motives behind this policy. |
Anonymous
| This policy is so suspicious because it just doesn't make any sense. Rationally, a school system (or school) aught to be able to determine whether a student needs additional enrichment/acceleration and provide that to the student. There is just no sense in eliminating acceleration across the board throughout the entire county and hoping for the best. When something doesn't make sense on the surface, there is usually something else going on. |
Anonymous
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I am a parent who is very much involved in my kids school on many levels. My son was reading news papers and chapter books while in Kindergarten and is looking to create his first video game by the start of 2nd grade LoL.
I actually do like the Curriculum 2.0 and here is why? The focus is to encourage students to be able to THINK critically – not simply regurgitate the thoughts of others. Instead of teaching children to make good decisions by telling them what to do, they are taught to make good decisions by giving them decisions to make; teachers are no longer teaching but facilitating. Also students are introduced to advanced concepts earlier the before; so basically a kindergartener is introduced to concepts from 1st, 2nd and 3rd grade and then reinforced, revisited and expanded upon again and again for the next few years. |
Anonymous
I see why you like the curriculum. Your child was introduced to advanced concepts earlier than before. This is good. The curriculum hasn't worked for my child over the last 2 years as the child was already introduced to those advance concepts before he entered the system. Thus, curriculum 2.0 hasn't worked for our child the way it's worked for your child. Since MCPS has removed the option of subject advancement (an older sibling was advanced multiple grade levels) for this child the option is to learn from the older sibling and self study. MCPS teaching (in math) was absolutely worthless since K. She is now in 3rd grade. |
Anonymous
| Many like curriculum 2.0 and many don't like curriculum 2.0. The many who don't like curriculum 2.0 (the magic 47%) do so because it fails their children in math instruction (STEM related disciplines) and with simultaneous elimination of the former math pathways leaves these kids in a lurch (no man's land) with no options in school to compensate for the failings of curriculum 2.0. What remains are empty promises from the Board, Starr, MCPS leadershiip, the school principals and teachers. No one is talking to the students! |