How can kids be successful in average MCPS schools?

[Anonymous]

As a parent of a kid who is starting middle school next year at a pretty average school - can you share experiences of what makes the difference for a kid to be successful in school in MCPS?

Are the academic standards the same school to school? Or are kids in Potomac/ Bethesda held to higher standards since they may often arrive better prepared to learn?

What can a parent do to help their child succeed, that MCPS may not offer everywhere.

I am concerned that teachers don’t seem to set homework at all and when they do they don’t grade it or even notice of the kids do it.

How can a parent get some sense their kids on the right track?

I don’t like stressing about this stuff, but as a Mom I need some reassurance I am putting the right things in place to help my kid do well ( and balance that with being happy). We are already seeing that elementary school teachers tell the kids HW is optional so the kids don’t want to do it.

Please share your best practices and ideas.

[Anonymous]

Yes. And you will be the difference maker. In an average MCPS school, you'll have to supplement like crazy if the goal is for you kid to leave middle school with a great education.

MCPS is not good at providing high quality instruction in its average schools. Your kid will get C-level academic instruction and experiences, with maybe a bright spot with a teacher/subject or two.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As a parent of a kid who is starting middle school next year at a pretty average school - can you share experiences of what makes the difference for a kid to be successful in school in MCPS?

Are the academic standards the same school to school? Or are kids in Potomac/ Bethesda held to higher standards since they may often arrive better prepared to learn?

What can a parent do to help their child succeed, that MCPS may not offer everywhere.

I am concerned that teachers don’t seem to set homework at all and when they do they don’t grade it or even notice of the kids do it.

How can a parent get some sense their kids on the right track?

I don’t like stressing about this stuff, but as a Mom I need some reassurance I am putting the right things in place to help my kid do well ( and balance that with being happy). We are already seeing that elementary school teachers tell the kids HW is optional so the kids don’t want to do it.

Please share your best practices and ideas.

I am a Bethesda parent and I still had a lot of extracurriculars for my kid. Unfortunately, even schools with 9/10 ratings are not going to educate the kids. We have 30 students classes + class clowns + trouble makers. No much reading, no math textbooks, etc etc. I figured I'll stay at MCPS and spend extra on after-school activities rather than go private.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yes. And you will be the difference maker. In an average MCPS school, you'll have to supplement like crazy if the goal is for you kid to leave middle school with a great education.

MCPS is not good at providing high quality instruction in its average schools. Your kid will get C-level academic instruction and experiences, with maybe a bright spot with a teacher/subject or two.

How do you know?? I never understand posts like these. You post as if you are an expert and have some sort of inside knowledge. How do you know? Did you have one kids attend Pyle MS and an “average” middle school? They all teach the same curriculum!!! Hello!!!!!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes. And you will be the difference maker. In an average MCPS school, you'll have to supplement like crazy if the goal is for you kid to leave middle school with a great education.

MCPS is not good at providing high quality instruction in its average schools. Your kid will get C-level academic instruction and experiences, with maybe a bright spot with a teacher/subject or two.

How do you know?? I never understand posts like these. You post as if you are an expert and have some sort of inside knowledge. How do you know? Did you have one kids attend Pyle MS and an “average” middle school? They all teach the same curriculum!!! Hello!!!!!!

1) I have a kid in an "average-to-low performing" MCPS school.

2) I talk with other parents and trades notes and experiences so I learn about what they're getting versus what we're getting

3) There's a lot of data about the performance and outcomes of every MCPS school. You can look at that data and see how good some schools are at a variety of education metrics versus others

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes. And you will be the difference maker. In an average MCPS school, you'll have to supplement like crazy if the goal is for you kid to leave middle school with a great education.

MCPS is not good at providing high quality instruction in its average schools. Your kid will get C-level academic instruction and experiences, with maybe a bright spot with a teacher/subject or two.

How do you know?? I never understand posts like these. You post as if you are an expert and have some sort of inside knowledge. How do you know? Did you have one kids attend Pyle MS and an “average” middle school? They all teach the same curriculum!!! Hello!!!!!!

1) I have a kid in an "average-to-low performing" MCPS school.

2) I talk with other parents and trades notes and experiences so I learn about what they're getting versus what we're getting

3) There's a lot of data about the performance and outcomes of every MCPS school. You can look at that data and see how good some schools are at a variety of education metrics versus others

The quality of the teacher for us has been the biggest factor.

[Anonymous]

I moved so my kids could attend Bethesda-area schools, but the recipe is the same everywhere, OP. You enrich at home, and you ensure that your kids are in the most advanced track they can sustain for their IQ, organizational skills and processing speed. This will look different for every kid, but the point is to seek an appropriate level of challenge, to learn for its own sake, and for college admissions positioning.

For one of my kids, this meant following the regular advanced track to AP level. For the other one, who is gifted, it meant starting Algebra 1 in 6th grade upon special request and sleeping or reading classics through all the grades until she met some challenge in AP Calc BC and AP Physics C.

Do not hesitate hiring individual tutors for your kids, as soon as they seem unsure or their grades drop to a B, especially in math, where each year builds on the other (chemistry and physics depend on a good math understanding as well). And insist on getting your kid to read as much as they can, good quality literature, because MCPS' Achilles' heel is the English curriculum. Unless they get do well in AP Lang and AP Lit, they will not be ready for the rigors of college writing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes. And you will be the difference maker. In an average MCPS school, you'll have to supplement like crazy if the goal is for you kid to leave middle school with a great education.

MCPS is not good at providing high quality instruction in its average schools. Your kid will get C-level academic instruction and experiences, with maybe a bright spot with a teacher/subject or two.

How do you know?? I never understand posts like these. You post as if you are an expert and have some sort of inside knowledge. How do you know? Did you have one kids attend Pyle MS and an “average” middle school? They all teach the same curriculum!!! Hello!!!!!!

1) I have a kid in an "average-to-low performing" MCPS school.

2) I talk with other parents and trades notes and experiences so I learn about what they're getting versus what we're getting

3) There's a lot of data about the performance and outcomes of every MCPS school. You can look at that data and see how good some schools are at a variety of education metrics versus others

+1
Some of the tests being dumbed down, certain questions removed from tests

The standards as a class lowered so that a majority of the class doesn't do poorly. I mean, of course I should have realized.

[Anonymous]

MCPS is forced to lower standards over the years to make sure under-performing kids can pass HS. This is one of the reasons why people say MCPS is in trouble. I don't think they are able to turn it around.

[Anonymous]

14:56 again. The homework is not a good gauge of educational quality, because due to different processing speeds, some kids may finish it in class and you're going to worry they don't have enough, and some kids may agonize over it at home, and you're going to think they have too much... I think MAP scores are a better snapshot of how your kid is going. Anything over 90th percentile means your kid is mastering subject matter. I love the adaptive MAP test concept.

Grades in middle school should be all As. But all As do not mean much in this period of grade inflation and lower rigor, which is why you need to have high expectations for reading, writing and math achievement. One of my kids had a writing tutor in middle school, despite getting all As in school, because I knew he had a weakness in that department. It allowed him to start off high school on the right foot.

[Anonymous]

Performance results have a lot to do with the population of kids, not how good a school is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Performance results have a lot to do with the population of kids, not how good a school is.

So basically you believe MCPS has no culpability or responsibility for poor academic outcomes. How convenient. But what you're pushing here by getting parents to ignore test data is very dangerous.

Standardized testing and its correlation with poverty is well-known, but it's also well-known that standardized testing is a better indication of kids' actual academic understanding compared to classroom grades, which are grossly inflated. And when presented with positive classroom grades and negative or confusing standardized test scores, they tend to believe the classroom grades over the test scores, not knowing that the classroom grades are inflated. This is because parents have a dangerous sense of trust with their teachers and schools, but don't realize how the system has conspired to make things look good even when they really aren't.

The Hechinger Report just reported on this: https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-parents-report-cards/

As test scores have fallen nationwide while grades have risen, the researchers believe that parents may be underinvesting in their children. “Parents are the key to children’s success,” said Ariel Kalil at the University of Chicago. “What you need is for parents to be making investments in their kids’ skill development, and you need that parental effort to be happening early and often. Anything that depresses parent investment is a problem.”

Kalil is concerned that this underinvestment in children is more pronounced in low-income communities, where, she said, high grades are often issued for below-grade-level skills. After the pandemic, schools struggled to persuade families to enroll in free tutoring and summer programs to make up for months of disrupted instruction. Many report cards showed solid grades, reducing the urgency for parents to act.

Paired with other recent research on long-term academic and economic consequences, this study strengthens the case that grade inflation isn’t harmless. Inflated grades may feel encouraging, but they can send false signals both to students, who may study less, and to parents, who may see less reason to step in. Ultimately, it not only hurts individuals, but American labor force skills and future economic growth, the researchers argue.

Kalil, a behavioral scientist, believes that parents have more confidence in grades because they are familiar and easier to understand. Meanwhile, score reports are complicated and even many well-educated parents are confused about scaled scores and percentile rankings.

[Anonymous]

My kid is very successful at Gaithersburg and will be most likely be accepted at every college they apply at. Work ethic and effort translates no matter which school you attend.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I moved so my kids could attend Bethesda-area schools, but the recipe is the same everywhere, OP. You enrich at home, and you ensure that your kids are in the most advanced track they can sustain for their IQ, organizational skills and processing speed. This will look different for every kid, but the point is to seek an appropriate level of challenge, to learn for its own sake, and for college admissions positioning.

For one of my kids, this meant following the regular advanced track to AP level. For the other one, who is gifted, it meant starting Algebra 1 in 6th grade upon special request and sleeping or reading classics through all the grades until she met some challenge in AP Calc BC and AP Physics C.

Do not hesitate hiring individual tutors for your kids, as soon as they seem unsure or their grades drop to a B, especially in math, where each year builds on the other (chemistry and physics depend on a good math understanding as well). And insist on getting your kid to read as much as they can, good quality literature, because MCPS' Achilles' heel is the English curriculum. Unless they get do well in AP Lang and AP Lit, they will not be ready for the rigors of college writing.

you sound nuts! My kid went to an average school and did well. Take APs and your kid will be fine. if they need that much tutoring, then maybe they shouldn't expect to go to high academic college.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My kid is very successful at Gaithersburg and will be most likely be accepted at every college they apply at. Work ethic and effort translates no matter which school you attend.

Thanks - I agree! But how do you cultivate that if it’s not there? And how do you keep it going when kids all around don’t have one?