How quickly can MCPS fix the curriculum nightmare?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:how quickly?(

As quickly as they want. which seems to be S L O W, 3 years or so. Enjoy!

Do you know the saying, "Fast, good, or cheap - pick two."?

Right..we have already slammed MCPS for rolling out 2.0 too quickly. Now (for a change of pace) we need to complain about a slow roll out for 3.0.

I'd say given we're are in a triage situation with a defunct current curriculum AND we're purchasing a proven math and ELA off-the-shelf curriculum (complete with teacher materials, possibly textbooks, functioning website, parent resources, training materials and reference tools), AND MCPS has some of the most educated teachers around, it could roll out faster and be fine.

C2.0 was terrible because Erik Lange & crew were smashing up various worksheets and calling it the new homebrew MCPS C2.0 with buddy Pearsons. Then they rolled it out in September before it was even complete, no resources, $hit "training", teachers constantly getting updates/revisions, materials riddled with numerical and grammatical errors, an IT portal that crashed weekly, etc.

No comparison.

The fact that anyone in K-3 in particular wants their kids to do ANY C2.0 boggles my mind. It is the number one reason all the area preschools and montessori schools are full up on K students for the first year ever. People are avoiding C2.0. And the county has no answer to when it will be gone. If PARCC, Pearson's product again, is also gone they should hurry up and say that time frame as well. Principals only care about their PARCC scores - not the teachers, not the students, not the shoddy curriculum, not the parents.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just want to know. when they roll out the new curriculum, do they mean only K and 6th grade student? how about current student already being taught using 2.0? Will they be switched too?

I believe it will be by school, and the entire school will be switched. This website explains everything available about the curriculum rollout right now: http://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/curriculum/curriculum-review.aspx

The timeline for implementation is under the FAQs. All schools will be getting the new science curriculum this fall. The Math and ELA curricula will be rolled out incrementally, with the goal of every ES and MS having the new curriculum for the 2020-2021 school year.

where is this in writing from MCPS? our pta and principal did not mention this. I hope it is true, but I'd like to know asap.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The recommendation is rollout a new K-8 ELA and math curriculum within three years. Sounds like the MCPS goal is to begin procurement this summer. I really don't see why there can't be workbooks or something equivalent available by the fall. I understand that it would be too much to demand teachers fully implement this, without training, on that time frame. But how could it hurt to have these materials as a back-up by the fall?

The separate question is what to do about student deficiencies. I don't hear that being broached.

What do you mean three years? It takes MCPS three years while paying John Hopkin's for the curriculum reccomendation to fix C2.0. So for three years kids have to continue to have errors in the handouts and an ineffective curriculum?

Rollling out a proven, tested ES curriculum should not take three years.

Yep, the plan is to roll it out incrementally over 3 years. They'll start with 30 school this fall, then expand it each year until all schools get it 3 years from now.

I agree it's ridiculous to expect some of the kids to have to suffer through a failed curriculum for years.

+1 I don't get why they can't pilot it with 30 in the fall and then expand it to all schools in year 2.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:how quickly?

As quickly as they want. which seems to be S L O W, 3 years or so. Enjoy!

Do you know the saying, "Fast, good, or cheap - pick two."?

private schools don't take 3 years to upgrade an aspect of a subject's curriculum.

when you see a problem, you fix it, immediately. Only in MCPS do you politik it for years. In this case it took 6 years of constant teacher, parent and student complaints, then a routine 5 year audit, then an announcement, then.....?

and no one has gotten fired in the BLOATED, OVERPAID CENTRAL OFFICE CURRICULUM GROUP AT MCPS.

more sad than hilarious, but still hilarious.

[Anonymous]

measure twice, cut one.

pick the damn best common core math and ELA out there and roll it out immediately.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:measure twice, cut one.

pick the damn best common core math and ELA out there and roll it out immediately.

First year is still part of measuring..

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just want to know. when they roll out the new curriculum, do they mean only K and 6th grade student? how about current student already being taught using 2.0? Will they be switched too?

I believe it will be by school, and the entire school will be switched. This website explains everything available about the curriculum rollout right now: http://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/curriculum/curriculum-review.aspx

The timeline for implementation is under the FAQs. All schools will be getting the new science curriculum this fall. The Math and ELA curricula will be rolled out incrementally, with the goal of every ES and MS having the new curriculum for the 2020-2021 school year.

where is this in writing from MCPS? our pta and principal did not mention this. I hope it is true, but I'd like to know asap.

It's in the FAQ section of the website I linked to above. Scroll down to the table and it'll indicate that science will be implemented at all schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:how quickly?

As quickly as they want. which seems to be S L O W, 3 years or so. Enjoy!

Do you know the saying, "Fast, good, or cheap - pick two."?

private schools don't take 3 years to upgrade an aspect of a subject's curriculum.

when you see a problem, you fix it, immediately. Only in MCPS do you politik it for years. In this case it took 6 years of constant teacher, parent and student complaints, then a routine 5 year audit, then an announcement, then.....?

and no one has gotten fired in the BLOATED, OVERPAID CENTRAL OFFICE CURRICULUM GROUP AT MCPS.

more sad than hilarious, but still hilarious.

+100

Infuriatingly incompetent.

[Anonymous]

Remember that teachers need to get trained on the new curriculum, and while maybe, with a huge effort, they can all train on all aspects of the new curriculum, there have to be enough competent trainers available. It is a staff logistics issue, too. Be reasonable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:measure twice, cut one.

pick the damn best common core math and ELA out there and roll it out immediately.

First year is still part of measuring..

how about they get off their butts and fly to any of the 100 school districts using NY Math or Singapore Math, get tips on how to implement it, teach it effectively and just do the two day training and get the materials into the teachers' hands.

stop this reinventing the wheel, customization BS that MCPS pretends is value add. It's MATH. And the US is bottom of the barrel teaching math, mainly because of half of its student body doesn't truly value working hard at school. But that is no excuse for faulty materials.

[Anonymous]

Read up on best practices for curriculum change. I’m no MCPS apologist, but it’s generally recommended that a school system implement a new curriculum over several years, to work out the kinks. Johns Hopkins recommended a gradual implementation in the audit.

[Anonymous]

I thought Curriculum 2.0 was going to fix everything.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:measure twice, cut one.

pick the damn best common core math and ELA out there and roll it out immediately.

First year is still part of measuring..

how about they get off their butts and fly to any of the 100 school districts using NY Math or Singapore Math, get tips on how to implement it, teach it effectively and just do the two day training and get the materials into the teachers' hands.

stop this reinventing the wheel, customization BS that MCPS pretends is value add. It's MATH. And the US is bottom of the barrel teaching math, mainly because of half of its student body doesn't truly value working hard at school. But that is no excuse for faulty materials.

+1 And even if the first year is part of measuring, why don't they roll it out to everyone in year 2? Why must it take 3 years?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Read up on best practices for curriculum change. I’m no MCPS apologist, but it’s generally recommended that a school system implement a new curriculum over several years, to work out the kinks. Johns Hopkins recommended a gradual implementation in the audit.

Johns Hopkins also said 2.0 was not leading to good learning outcomes. Pick your poison. I'd much rather my kids have a good curriculum with "kinks."

[Anonymous]

I would love to have the entire new curriculum as soon as the BOE approves the purchase—most likely at their June 25 meeting. I would like to use it in my classroom even if my school is not among the first 30 chosen. Problem is, the vendors will likely sell it at a cost based on the number of students licensed to access it. That’s going to be a very expensive proposition. Responding to vendor questions after the RFP was released, it looks like MCPS is angling for a deal where the first 30 schools get access for the teachers and their students, but all other teachers would only get “preview” access—that means they could familiarize themselves with the new curriculum but could NOT use it to teach, because their students would not have access.