No confidence in MCPS?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The problems are diverse, but they point back to the same cause: MCEA's control of the Board of Education. Until the union falls apart, MCPS isn't likely to get better.

MCAAP is the union you really need to worry about if you want to fix MCPS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:First steps to any functional organization/business: Figure out your mission statement and set clear boundaries for what you do and do not do. The goals need to be clear and achievable.

MCPS has this mission statement:
"The mission of Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) is to ensure every student has the academic, creative problem solving, and social emotional skills to be successful in college, career and community, regardless of his or her background."

Ummm, does anyone think that mission is possible? I don't. Therefore, of course they will fail.

In contrast, here is Anne Arundel's:
"The mission of Anne Arundel County Public Schools (AACPS) is to educate students to be prepared for college, careers, and community engagement. The goal is to empower students to create a better quality of life for themselves, their communities, and future generations.

Much more achievable, yes?

We have a failure to align with reality at the top.

The two are the same except for explicitly stating “all students” which will allow them or a lawyer to find technicality on why they can’t make it work for some.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The issue isn’t MCPS. Its society. This is the first generation being raised with phones and iPads as easy entertainment. Kids don’t learn to manage themselves, think for themselves, be creative, etc. Their parents are millennials who were raised in structured activities, trophy for everything, and now don’t have some essential parenting skills like setting boundaries.

The public education system isn’t designed to be a service industry that so many people treat it as. Too many people (federal, state, local, individual) have very different ideas of how it should operate, which pulls it in too many directions. Yes there are plenty of problems, but it’s not something that MCPS alone can fix.

Millennials didn’t entirely raise this generation of school kids. It’s a combination of gen x and millennials.

[Anonymous]

The absentee rates are alarming. Get the kids in school. Keep them interested.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The issue isn’t MCPS. Its society. This is the first generation being raised with phones and iPads as easy entertainment. Kids don’t learn to manage themselves, think for themselves, be creative, etc. Their parents are millennials who were raised in structured activities, trophy for everything, and now don’t have some essential parenting skills like setting boundaries.

The public education system isn’t designed to be a service industry that so many people treat it as. Too many people (federal, state, local, individual) have very different ideas of how it should operate, which pulls it in too many directions. Yes there are plenty of problems, but it’s not something that MCPS alone can fix.

Absolutely agree. I was a teacher and school administrator for many years and now I work with schools through an education nonprofit. So much of what DCUM attributes to MCPS is post-pandemic society that public, charter and independent schools are experiencing across the United States. Of course MCPS has areas that it needs to strengthen - along with every other school and district in the country - but the melodrama on here about MCPS is absurd. It's everywhere. It's the state of our country and a wake up call for change.

Agree but this didn’t start post pandemic. The pandemic just add fuel to an already burning fire. This started because people wanted to tie funding to test results and because politicians thought charter school ‘competition’ was the it thing for being able to privatize another part of society that shouldn’t be privatized. Which totally missed the point of charter schools and also never realized that the traditional system is burdened by somethings the other is freed of and the traditional system has some good oversight and accountability structures that the other lacks.

Folks have for years clearly stated what the problems with the public school system are:
1) How it’s funded
2) That every state has its own base standards, testing, and scoring
3) It’s overburden with solving or bandaiding all of societies problems for kids
4) Teacher preparation programs have not adapted to changing dynamics quick enough to be able to produce highly qualified teachers
5) Teaching does not pay enough nor does society respect the profession enough

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The absentee rates are alarming. Get the kids in school. Keep them interested.

That doesn’t work when you have parents who take kids out whenever they feel like it.

I see posts in my feed all the time with parents being like “we played hooky today!”

And then they wonder why their kids don’t care about school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The issue isn’t MCPS. Its society. This is the first generation being raised with phones and iPads as easy entertainment. Kids don’t learn to manage themselves, think for themselves, be creative, etc. Their parents are millennials who were raised in structured activities, trophy for everything, and now don’t have some essential parenting skills like setting boundaries.

The public education system isn’t designed to be a service industry that so many people treat it as. Too many people (federal, state, local, individual) have very different ideas of how it should operate, which pulls it in too many directions. Yes there are plenty of problems, but it’s not something that MCPS alone can fix.

Stop giving MCPS an out for its dysfunction:

- Cycling through 3 different superintendents in the past 2 years is very much a uniquely MCPS problem
- The Beidleman Scandal is definitely an MCPS problem and issue, not a national one
- The EV Bus contract mismanagement was also an MCPS problem, not a national one
- The Woodward/Northwood construction fiasco is also MCPS

Even if we want to give MCPS a pass for the trends associated with teacher/principal burnout and increases in student misbehavior, there is massive corruption, instability and leadership failures within the school system that exacerbate those issues. MCPS IS the problem.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My oldest graduated from MCPS in 2023, having spent all his academic life there (after Montessori preschool). My youngest is in 9th grade.

Even when my kids were little, there were posts on DCUM saying how MCPS stinks and how far it had sunk from its "heyday".

Please take everything with a grain of salt, OP.

MCPS has been declining for about 15 years so that tracks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The issue isn’t MCPS. Its society. This is the first generation being raised with phones and iPads as easy entertainment. Kids don’t learn to manage themselves, think for themselves, be creative, etc. Their parents are millennials who were raised in structured activities, trophy for everything, and now don’t have some essential parenting skills like setting boundaries.

The public education system isn’t designed to be a service industry that so many people treat it as. Too many people (federal, state, local, individual) have very different ideas of how it should operate, which pulls it in too many directions. Yes there are plenty of problems, but it’s not something that MCPS alone can fix.

Stop giving MCPS an out for its dysfunction:

- Cycling through 3 different superintendents in the past 2 years is very much a uniquely MCPS problem
- The Beidleman Scandal is definitely an MCPS problem and issue, not a national one
- The EV Bus contract mismanagement was also an MCPS problem, not a national one
- The Woodward/Northwood construction fiasco is also MCPS

Even if we want to give MCPS a pass for the trends associated with teacher/principal burnout and increases in student misbehavior, there is massive corruption, instability and leadership failures within the school system that exacerbate those issues. MCPS IS the problem.

Clearly you don’t want to have a nuance discussion. Laying all the problems at the feet of MCPS is wrong. No one gave MCPS a pass, they noted that many of the things that people talk about as MCPS decline are happening nationally and like all school districts MCPS is trying to manage as best as possible.

And the cycling through Superintendents is my opinion is a product of folks in this area not accepting the above and expecting fixes/progress overnight. Not to mention expecting that some (heck many) people aren’t going to be angered/offended when change comes a calling.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The issue isn’t MCPS. Its society. This is the first generation being raised with phones and iPads as easy entertainment. Kids don’t learn to manage themselves, think for themselves, be creative, etc. Their parents are millennials who were raised in structured activities, trophy for everything, and now don’t have some essential parenting skills like setting boundaries.

The public education system isn’t designed to be a service industry that so many people treat it as. Too many people (federal, state, local, individual) have very different ideas of how it should operate, which pulls it in too many directions. Yes there are plenty of problems, but it’s not something that MCPS alone can fix.

Stop giving MCPS an out for its dysfunction:

- Cycling through 3 different superintendents in the past 2 years is very much a uniquely MCPS problem
- The Beidleman Scandal is definitely an MCPS problem and issue, not a national one
- The EV Bus contract mismanagement was also an MCPS problem, not a national one
- The Woodward/Northwood construction fiasco is also MCPS

Even if we want to give MCPS a pass for the trends associated with teacher/principal burnout and increases in student misbehavior, there is massive corruption, instability and leadership failures within the school system that exacerbate those issues. MCPS IS the problem.

Clearly you don’t want to have a nuance discussion. Laying all the problems at the feet of MCPS is wrong. No one gave MCPS a pass, they noted that many of the things that people talk about as MCPS decline are happening nationally and like all school districts MCPS is trying to manage as best as possible.

And the cycling through Superintendents is my opinion is a product of folks in this area not accepting the above and expecting fixes/progress overnight. Not to mention expecting that some (heck many) people aren’t going to be angered/offended when change comes a calling.

What are you talking about? The superintendent shuffling was directly a result of the Beidleman scandal. Not anyone’s misplaced expectations. Where’s your accountability for MCPS?

[Anonymous]

What exactly is declining for your kids academically or otherwise?
Lots of posts also saying classes are hard or too accelerated and lots of pressure to do well academically. Courses seem rigorous for the most part.
If your kid goes, pays attention and puts in the work to learn, they will learn and succeed.

If kids don’t go, play on their screens instead of pay attention, don’t do the homework or study at home, then they may not succeed so much. All this stuff is the parents’ responsibility and to motivate their kids.

Yes MCPS can change many things but it’s still going to come down to what you and your kid put into to it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The issue isn’t MCPS. Its society. This is the first generation being raised with phones and iPads as easy entertainment. Kids don’t learn to manage themselves, think for themselves, be creative, etc. Their parents are millennials who were raised in structured activities, trophy for everything, and now don’t have some essential parenting skills like setting boundaries.

The public education system isn’t designed to be a service industry that so many people treat it as. Too many people (federal, state, local, individual) have very different ideas of how it should operate, which pulls it in too many directions. Yes there are plenty of problems, but it’s not something that MCPS alone can fix.

Absolutely agree. I was a teacher and school administrator for many years and now I work with schools through an education nonprofit. So much of what DCUM attributes to MCPS is post-pandemic society that public, charter and independent schools are experiencing across the United States. Of course MCPS has areas that it needs to strengthen - along with every other school and district in the country - but the melodrama on here about MCPS is absurd. It's everywhere. It's the state of our country and a wake up call for change.

yeah, it could be the parenting.

Or it's the fact the schools insist on excessive use of screens in class starting in kindergarten and refuse to discipline kids in any meaningful way and make it extremely difficult to get real help for kids with special needs.

[Anonymous]

oh and let's not forget how school systems around the country became obsessed with Lucy Calkins/Fountas & Pinell, gaslit parents who complained their kids weren't learning to read and only this year has MCPS introduced a reading curriculum that makes any sense, they are still sending Benchmark materials home that encourage kids to guess words instead of sounding them out.

But that's not important right? It's those evil parents that don't trust schools that are the problem.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The absentee rates are alarming. Get the kids in school. Keep them interested.

That doesn’t work when you have parents who take kids out whenever they feel like it.

I see posts in my feed all the time with parents being like “we played hooky today!”

And then they wonder why their kids don’t care about school.

+1 my kids complain that we never take the them out of school for vacations. They said *everyone* does it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The absentee rates are alarming. Get the kids in school. Keep them interested.

That doesn’t work when you have parents who take kids out whenever they feel like it.

I see posts in my feed all the time with parents being like “we played hooky today!”

And then they wonder why their kids don’t care about school.

+1 my kids complain that we never take the them out of school for vacations. They said *everyone* does it.

The schools themselves have encouraged this by telling us education is less essential than staffing Amazon warehouses. Of course a lot of families became disconnected from schools.