4th grade "too easy"

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We moved over the summer from Southern VA where DD9 had been in private school since K. We were excited to be able to put her in public schools considering all the great things we've heard about MCPS. Well, here we are >1 month in and I'm perplexed by what she is bringing home from 4th grade. Most of what she is doing is review (I know that's typical in the start of a school year) but some is downright ridiculous. Her spelling words this week include came, some and page. These words are on the Dolch Pre-K list! Is there something I'm missing here or is MCPS just doing great on tests because the bar is set low? She never got tested for HGT since we were in a non-testing school. Is this something I need to ask for now? For a child that is reading 1-2 chapter books a week, I worry about the dumbing down of her education.

Dolch doesn't have a "preK list"

[Anonymous]

I agree that MCPS schools vary, and within them, teachers vary as well. I think that this is a case for talking with the specific teacher, asking for additional challenges.

At our school, my kids have seen quite a bit of differentiation (including harder spelling tests), sometimes at our request but mostly because the teachers were responding to individual kids' needs.

As for HGT--I'm assuming you're referring to the highly gifted centers? If so, 4th grade is the entry year. As far as I know, it is not possible to enter after that.

[Anonymous]

4th grade is also "too easy" for my DS as well. The problem is that the expectations aren't very high at all - if they read a book for the weekly book log it's enough to write a few sentences. My DS doesn't have spelling this year, maybe it's incorporated some other way.

We are supplementing with a private tutor, not because he's behind but precisely because what school (MCPS) asks of him in reading, writing is not challenging. The tutor is doing wonders, my DS is actually excited about his assignments. He started out by writing summaries for her according to the school's expectations (short, brief and often with grammar or spelling errors) - she has asked him to elaborate more, is teaching him how to expand his work, to think more deeply and analyze. And use more colorful words and expressions. And she's working with him on vocabulary.

I just wish this were being done in school. His older sibling went to an HGC - their expectations were much higher and they were actually teaching the above. Since we had this comparison, we decided that we can't wait for someone in high school to teach him how to write properly.

[Anonymous]

Really they will teach them how to write properly in high school??? I was assuming we needed to leave MCPS for that. My 6th grader is doing a project which involves mostly gluing and cutting at the moment.

[Anonymous]

In general even grade s are review years and odd grades are learning years. Couple that with it being the start of the year. Talk to the teacher about differentiation options.

What brand of weed are you smoking?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We moved over the summer from Southern VA where DD9 had been in private school since K. We were excited to be able to put her in public schools considering all the great things we've heard about MCPS. Well, here we are >1 month in and I'm perplexed by what she is bringing home from 4th grade. Most of what she is doing is review (I know that's typical in the start of a school year) but some is downright ridiculous. Her spelling words this week include came, some and page. These words are on the Dolch Pre-K list! Is there something I'm missing here or is MCPS just doing great on tests because the bar is set low? She never got tested for HGT since we were in a non-testing school. Is this something I need to ask for now? For a child that is reading 1-2 chapter books a week, I worry about the dumbing down of her education.

Dolch doesn't have a "preK list"

Yes they do. http://www.spellingcity.com/view-spelling-list.html?listId=4491820&x=cf9bd

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't know. My kid is in third grade and this weeks' spelling list includes the words mischief, insincere and mischievous. He has to write an essay every week about a book he's reading. They have substantial math homework every night, plus cursive 2x each week. Interesting work on the constitution and the bill of rights seems to be happening in social studies. They just did two science experiments on gravity. The coursework seems appropriately challenging.

Something tells me our 3rd graders are in the same school...cause that almost totally summarizes what my 3rd grader is doing.
Maybe's OP's family got a lemon of a school.

Why cursive? Will our kids even be writing as adults?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't know. My kid is in third grade and this weeks' spelling list includes the words mischief, insincere and mischievous. He has to write an essay every week about a book he's reading. They have substantial math homework every night, plus cursive 2x each week. Interesting work on the constitution and the bill of rights seems to be happening in social studies. They just did two science experiments on gravity. The coursework seems appropriately challenging.

Which school, so that I can move my kids there ?

At the Bethesda ES, in 3rd grade, they are not doing cursive. Their spelling words are past tense verbs like "slept" and instead of learning them quickly off by heart they are expected to sort them in completely silly and complicated ways. They are not doing anything remotely challenging anywhere except for ONE weekly supercomplex math problem that are way over their heads and that the parents are expected to explain - not the teachers.
The one bright moment of the year so far was a video (a video!) about the Roman Empire. DS was fascinated.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't know. My kid is in third grade and this weeks' spelling list includes the words mischief, insincere and mischievous. He has to write an essay every week about a book he's reading. They have substantial math homework every night, plus cursive 2x each week. Interesting work on the constitution and the bill of rights seems to be happening in social studies. They just did two science experiments on gravity. The coursework seems appropriately challenging.

Which school, so that I can move my kids there ?

At the Bethesda ES, in 3rd grade, they are not doing cursive. Their spelling words are past tense verbs like "slept" and instead of learning them quickly off by heart they are expected to sort them in completely silly and complicated ways. They are not doing anything remotely challenging anywhere except for ONE weekly supercomplex math problem that are way over their heads and that the parents are expected to explain - not the teachers.
The one bright moment of the year so far was a video (a video!) about the Roman Empire. DS was fascinated.

Imagine what it would do to the real estate market in Montgomery County if more people realized that "good schools" is not synonymous with "schools with small percentages of kids classified as FARMS, Hispanic, and black".

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't know. My kid is in third grade and this weeks' spelling list includes the words mischief, insincere and mischievous. He has to write an essay every week about a book he's reading. They have substantial math homework every night, plus cursive 2x each week. Interesting work on the constitution and the bill of rights seems to be happening in social studies. They just did two science experiments on gravity. The coursework seems appropriately challenging.

Which school, so that I can move my kids there ?

At the Bethesda ES, in 3rd grade, they are not doing cursive. Their spelling words are past tense verbs like "slept" and instead of learning them quickly off by heart they are expected to sort them in completely silly and complicated ways. They are not doing anything remotely challenging anywhere except for ONE weekly supercomplex math problem that are way over their heads and that the parents are expected to explain - not the teachers.
The one bright moment of the year so far was a video (a video!) about the Roman Empire. DS was fascinated.

Imagine what it would do to the real estate market in Montgomery County if more people realized that "good schools" is not synonymous with "schools with small percentages of kids classified as FARMS, Hispanic, and black".

Yep. Mcps will drive everything into the ground, starting with the curriculum, ending with the property values.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Imagine what it would do to the real estate market in Montgomery County if more people realized that "good schools" is not synonymous with "schools with small percentages of kids classified as FARMS, Hispanic, and black".

Yep. Mcps will drive everything into the ground, starting with the curriculum, ending with the property values.

I think you misunderstood what I said.

There are people who think that schools with low percentages of kids classified as FARMS, Hispanic, and black are good schools, and schools with higher percentages of kids classified as FARMS, Hispanic, and black are bad schools. These people are wrong. There are schools with low percentages of kids classified as FARMS, Hispanic, and black that are not good schools. There are schools with higher percentages of kids classified as FARMS, Hispanic, and black that are good schools.

If more people realized this, then yes, property values in the "W"-school zones would probably go down. But property values in the rest of the county would go up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Imagine what it would do to the real estate market in Montgomery County if more people realized that "good schools" is not synonymous with "schools with small percentages of kids classified as FARMS, Hispanic, and black".

Yep. Mcps will drive everything into the ground, starting with the curriculum, ending with the property values.

I think you misunderstood what I said.

There are people who think that schools with low percentages of kids classified as FARMS, Hispanic, and black are good schools, and schools with higher percentages of kids classified as FARMS, Hispanic, and black are bad schools. These people are wrong. There are schools with low percentages of kids classified as FARMS, Hispanic, and black that are not good schools. There are schools with higher percentages of kids classified as FARMS, Hispanic, and black that are good schools.

If more people realized this, then yes, property values in the "W"-school zones would probably go down. But property values in the rest of the county would go up.

I read a study recently that was done on/for Montgomery county, and it showed that once the FARMs percentage went above 20% the performance of lower income students stagnated. It didn't say what happened to the performance of the higher income kids though. This suggests that there is a point where school effectiveness is impacted by the % of FARMs kids.

Here: http://tcf.org/assets/downloads/tcf-Schwartz.pdf

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Imagine what it would do to the real estate market in Montgomery County if more people realized that "good schools" is not synonymous with "schools with small percentages of kids classified as FARMS, Hispanic, and black".

Yep. Mcps will drive everything into the ground, starting with the curriculum, ending with the property values.

I think you misunderstood what I said.

There are people who think that schools with low percentages of kids classified as FARMS, Hispanic, and black are good schools, and schools with higher percentages of kids classified as FARMS, Hispanic, and black are bad schools. These people are wrong. There are schools with low percentages of kids classified as FARMS, Hispanic, and black that are not good schools. There are schools with higher percentages of kids classified as FARMS, Hispanic, and black that are good schools.

If more people realized this, then yes, property values in the "W"-school zones would probably go down. But property values in the rest of the county would go up.

I read a study recently that was done on/for Montgomery county, and it showed that once the FARMs percentage went above 20% the performance of lower income students stagnated. It didn't say what happened to the performance of the higher income kids though. This suggests that there is a point where school effectiveness is impacted by the % of FARMs kids.

Here: http://tcf.org/assets/downloads/tcf-Schwartz.pdf

It also showed that lower income kids began to close the achievement gap after they had been in the system several years, and the longer they were in the system the better they performed. IMO, poor parents who sacrifice to get into a high performing district really are helping their child out in the long term if this study is right.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

I read a study recently that was done on/for Montgomery county, and it showed that once the FARMs percentage went above 20% the performance of lower income students stagnated. It didn't say what happened to the performance of the higher income kids though. This suggests that there is a point where school effectiveness is impacted by the % of FARMs kids.

Here: http://tcf.org/assets/downloads/tcf-Schwartz.pdf

I'm the PP, and yes, I agree completely. But there are a lot of schools that aren't Burning Tree ES (<5% FARMS) but also aren't Wheaton Woods ES (81.1% FARMS). (I picked those elementary schools at random; I don't know a thing about them other than what's on the school-at-a-glance report.) And what's more, if the affluent people were less concentrated in certain parts of the county, the FARMS percentages would go down in the schools in the rest of the county. Which would be good for everybody (except possibly the people who paid a lot extra to live in a "W" zone).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Imagine what it would do to the real estate market in Montgomery County if more people realized that "good schools" is not synonymous with "schools with small percentages of kids classified as FARMS, Hispanic, and black".

Yep. Mcps will drive everything into the ground, starting with the curriculum, ending with the property values.

I think you misunderstood what I said.

There are people who think that schools with low percentages of kids classified as FARMS, Hispanic, and black are good schools, and schools with higher percentages of kids classified as FARMS, Hispanic, and black are bad schools. These people are wrong. There are schools with low percentages of kids classified as FARMS, Hispanic, and black that are not good schools. There are schools with higher percentages of kids classified as FARMS, Hispanic, and black that are good schools.

If more people realized this, then yes, property values in the "W"-school zones would probably go down. But property values in the rest of the county would go up.

I don't know how you're defining "good schools" but most if the world thinks a good school is one that cultivates smart students, productive citizens, and successful professionals of whatever field. And yes, test scores, graduation rates, college acceptance/graduation, and employability are all worldwide proxies for "smart".