NY Times article on Middle School Algebra

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Parent/teacher engagement and discussion would have been great. There were some good and not-so-good topics introduced. They were very open to feedback and we could have ended up with some positive changes.

As someone who tuned in to most of the town halls and submitted questions during them, I will say my questions, and most of the other questions that were being asked were being ignored because they didn't want to answer them. Things like "the studies you are citing saying that detracking works required extra teachers and supports for some students, what kind of extra support will DOE propose for teachers?"

It certainly didn't strike many of us that they were open to feedback of any kind - they just kept saying what they wanted to happen and that the people who disagreed were going to have to be educated better. It was appalling.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The racial math gap comes from bright but working class black and latino kids being stuck in regular classes with no way to get tracked up. Working class parents don't tend to be as pushy with the schools, and teachers are too harried to stop and advocate for moving a kid up track. The way to fix this is to give multiple testing opportunities throughout the schoolyear for a kid to demonstrate their knowledge to move up gifted programming. There's also sadly some teachers with internal biases that may not believe a poor kid with a single mom that doesn't speak english is 'gifted material'. That can be corrected with professional development training.

While multiple testing opportunities would be fine, it's not going to fix most of the issue (right now parents can apply to join AAP every year, but I agree that it could be better if students were automatically tested/considered every year.)

The issue is that lower SES families are disproportionately minority, and also more likely to not do things like read and count with their kids or do other enrichment as they're younger or at home. Sometimes that's lack of knowledge on the part of the parents (they didn't have parents who raised them that way) and sometimes that's lack of time, money, language, or resources. But by the time you get to kindergarten you have some kids who can multiple and know fractions, and others who don't know how to count to five, or who don't understand relationships like 'less than'.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Luckily, enough of us were paying attention to your contradictory BS and a bipartisan group primarily in NOVA managed to stop your VMPI scheme.

According to that poster, VMPI opponents were overwrought because it still had to pass the legislature, and people could object at that point. Which is essentially whay happened.

We could have done without the RWNJ hysterics and lies.

Anyone still screaming about detracking after April 2021 has ulterior motives.

I think that most on this forum are just trying to prevent you from gaslighting and rewriting history to anyone who wasn't around to see this go down

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:December 2020:

43:42 "we're not taking away deep, rich STEM courses like AP Calc, IB, etc."
48:15 "schools would have a lot of flexibility to design courses"
58:15 "we have a lot of things to think about, give us your feedback, important to have people look at this from different directions, we know this will morph and change as we talk to more stakeholders"

In later meetings they more clearly spelled out options for acceleration.

You are only digging yourself deeper into a hole, PP.

We can all see what you were trying to do with VMPI, and everyone knows it would have watered down math rigor and reduced course offerings had you succeeded in ramming it through.

Just look at what you posted! Notice the logo? It’s the same as the one on info-graphic I posted about VMPI, and it touts “the 5 C’s” of math, except:

- citizenship? Citizenship is a “math” skill?

You mean to seriously tell us you planned to devote class-time, IN MATH, to promote citizenship, but somehow the math instruction would be stronger under VMPI??

Just drop it, equity-troll. No one believes your sad defense of VMPI, which failed for many good reasons.

That's the same person who said in an e-mail that we need to end tracking.
"VMPI proposals do promote equity and that the practice of isolating low-achieving students in low-level or slower-paced mathematics groups should be eliminated.
"

+1
I sat through the webinars and it was clear they were talking about ALL kids doing the same math classes K-10 and just trying to “differentiate” within the class by “going deeper”. This is NOT evident in the top line materials VMPI posted but it was entirely clear in the verbal discussion on the webinars.

Agreed. At the start they wanted to detrack k-10 and then have advanced units available for 11 and 12. This was wildly unpopular and they quickly walked it back in subsequent webinars and materials. I am not a political operative of any kind, just a parent who was paying attention.

Except they never actually proposed that.

They did talk about detracking, but didn't go beyond that. It wasn't in any of the materials.

They were running through the baseline pathway - similar to the baseline Math 6, Math 7, Math 8 progression. FCPS was never bound to only offering Math 6, Math 7, Math 8 and VMPI never proposed changing that. From the start, they said school districts would continue have "a lot of flexibility to design courses", just as they always have done. VDOE doesn't define how school districts accelerate kids - not before VMPI and that wasn't something they were proposing then. They never proposed banning acceleration.

In the November 2020 video cited earlier, the Essential Concepts leader noted that students would be in heterogeneous classes in Grades 8-10 and that this assumption was crucial to the Essential Concepts courses construction since it meant all students would be taking the same English, history, science course so cross curricular connections could be made. That was the whole premise around which the Grade 8-10 classes were designed.

He threw that out as a possible scenario. His example wouldn't work because not all school districts offer Civics in 8th. He also said they were looking for feedback on what should be added or put back. It was all still early in the process.

The whole premise was around the MATH intradisciplinary connections.
data <-> probability <-> linear model <-> linear equations <-> linear function <-> transforming a plane figure in space

No. VMPI was all about modeling real world scenarios. And where would those scenarios come from? INTER-disciplinary connections. Social studies, science, and English classes because all students would be taking the same courses given heterogeneous math classes. Heterogeneous classes were the backbone of VMPI.

"we're also wanting to identify include meaningful interdisciplinary connections and this is one of the things that excites me the most about having these heterogeneously grouped detracked classes think about an 8th grade year all of the students currently all of them take civics all of them take english language arts in grade 8 and all of them take some type of physical science class so think about how we might do a cross-curricular lesson with with civics so in civics they may go out and talk about the the political side about a poll and then in our math class we can talk about the mathematics behind it in a real deep connection that just is not possible in our current system"
VDOE November 2020 webinar 35:52 https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=siS8jlTcUzo

Modeling real world scenarios? Haha.

These clowns wouldn't understand anything real world related if it hit them in the head. I'm still laughing out loud at their suggestion that budding cosmetologists should take discrete logic in their VaMPIre math track. Maybe they confused cosmetology and cosmology, which I wouldn't put past them.

I hate this with a passion. The amount of math required actual model any real problem is more than most students are going to be exposed to in high school unless they are taking full advantage of TJ's offerings. Instead you get some dumbed down scenario that can be solved with basic algebra and waste time that could have been spent learning math

The VMPI guy didn’t say anything about “modeling real life”. PP was confused.

The VMPI guy said it’d be cool to tie math concepts to real-life applications. While learning about probability, look at polling info from civics class.

"In those essential concepts, we’re going to try to frame everything through the lens of mathematical modeling. How can we take a real world problem, develop our mathematical ideas and mathematical concepts by trying to solve that real world problem." 32:40

He doesn’t mean build a complex real-world model. He is saying kids could apply their math skills to real-work applications. Like election polling. They are going to apply math knowledge to understand polling data; they aren’t going to be building a complex election prediction model.

Or in other words, blend math class with social studies to make math easier to pass.

calculus class in California had extra credit assignment- write an essay about your favorite woman or minority inventor.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Parent/teacher engagement and discussion would have been great. There were some good and not-so-good topics introduced. They were very open to feedback and we could have ended up with some positive changes.

As someone who tuned in to most of the town halls and submitted questions during them, I will say my questions, and most of the other questions that were being asked were being ignored because they didn't want to answer them. Things like "the studies you are citing saying that detracking works required extra teachers and supports for some students, what kind of extra support will DOE propose for teachers?"

It certainly didn't strike many of us that they were open to feedback of any kind - they just kept saying what they wanted to happen and that the people who disagreed were going to have to be educated better. It was appalling.

I remember they changed up their precalculus listing when it was pointed out how their path to calculus makes no sense. It still didn't make sense but I think they made precalculus a full year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Luckily, enough of us were paying attention to your contradictory BS and a bipartisan group primarily in NOVA managed to stop your VMPI scheme.

According to that poster, VMPI opponents were overwrought because it still had to pass the legislature, and people could object at that point. Which is essentially whay happened.

We could have done without the RWNJ hysterics and lies.

Anyone still screaming about detracking after April 2021 has ulterior motives.

I think that most on this forum are just trying to prevent you from gaslighting and rewriting history to anyone who wasn't around to see this go down

+1
That’s me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Luckily, enough of us were paying attention to your contradictory BS and a bipartisan group primarily in NOVA managed to stop your VMPI scheme.

According to that poster, VMPI opponents were overwrought because it still had to pass the legislature, and people could object at that point. Which is essentially whay happened.

We could have done without the RWNJ hysterics and lies.

Anyone still screaming about detracking after April 2021 has ulterior motives.

I think that most on this forum are just trying to prevent you from gaslighting and rewriting history to anyone who wasn't around to see this go down

Nope. I was here and called out the hysterics at the time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Parent/teacher engagement and discussion would have been great. There were some good and not-so-good topics introduced. They were very open to feedback and we could have ended up with some positive changes.

As someone who tuned in to most of the town halls and submitted questions during them, I will say my questions, and most of the other questions that were being asked were being ignored because they didn't want to answer them. Things like "the studies you are citing saying that detracking works required extra teachers and supports for some students, what kind of extra support will DOE propose for teachers?"

It certainly didn't strike many of us that they were open to feedback of any kind - they just kept saying what they wanted to happen and that the people who disagreed were going to have to be educated better. It was appalling.

“Appalling” that they didn’t immediately respond with a staffing/funding plan?

Like I said, hysterics.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Parent/teacher engagement and discussion would have been great. There were some good and not-so-good topics introduced. They were very open to feedback and we could have ended up with some positive changes.

As someone who tuned in to most of the town halls and submitted questions during them, I will say my questions, and most of the other questions that were being asked were being ignored because they didn't want to answer them. Things like "the studies you are citing saying that detracking works required extra teachers and supports for some students, what kind of extra support will DOE propose for teachers?"

It certainly didn't strike many of us that they were open to feedback of any kind - they just kept saying what they wanted to happen and that the people who disagreed were going to have to be educated better. It was appalling.

“Appalling” that they didn’t immediately respond with a staffing/funding plan?

Like I said, hysterics.

I was on that webinar too with those questions asked. No it is appalling because the clear impression was they planned to just toss the kids all in together in basically the same system (no direct lesson plans for teachers on how to teach 6 levels at once in ways that didn’t just leave the top ones sitting on a computer, no plans for more teachers etc).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Parent/teacher engagement and discussion would have been great. There were some good and not-so-good topics introduced. They were very open to feedback and we could have ended up with some positive changes.

As someone who tuned in to most of the town halls and submitted questions during them, I will say my questions, and most of the other questions that were being asked were being ignored because they didn't want to answer them. Things like "the studies you are citing saying that detracking works required extra teachers and supports for some students, what kind of extra support will DOE propose for teachers?"

It certainly didn't strike many of us that they were open to feedback of any kind - they just kept saying what they wanted to happen and that the people who disagreed were going to have to be educated better. It was appalling.

“Appalling” that they didn’t immediately respond with a staffing/funding plan?

Like I said, hysterics.

I was on that webinar too with those questions asked. No it is appalling because the clear impression was they planned to just toss the kids all in together in basically the same system (no direct lesson plans for teachers on how to teach 6 levels at once in ways that didn’t just leave the top ones sitting on a computer, no plans for more teachers etc).

The kids with the highest aptitude were supposed to gain a deeper and richer understanding of math by helping their classmates.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Parent/teacher engagement and discussion would have been great. There were some good and not-so-good topics introduced. They were very open to feedback and we could have ended up with some positive changes.

As someone who tuned in to most of the town halls and submitted questions during them, I will say my questions, and most of the other questions that were being asked were being ignored because they didn't want to answer them. Things like "the studies you are citing saying that detracking works required extra teachers and supports for some students, what kind of extra support will DOE propose for teachers?"

It certainly didn't strike many of us that they were open to feedback of any kind - they just kept saying what they wanted to happen and that the people who disagreed were going to have to be educated better. It was appalling.

“Appalling” that they didn’t immediately respond with a staffing/funding plan?

Like I said, hysterics.

I was on that webinar too with those questions asked. No it is appalling because the clear impression was they planned to just toss the kids all in together in basically the same system (no direct lesson plans for teachers on how to teach 6 levels at once in ways that didn’t just leave the top ones sitting on a computer, no plans for more teachers etc).

They discussed detracking during webinars. It wasn’t on the website or in the infographic. They always included AP and IB though which does require Algebra 1 in 8th.

It was also very early in the progress. People were making way too many assumptions. And the hysteria was unwarranted.

Stop using kids as pawns in your political games.

[Anonymous]

Relitigating dead proposals is so fun.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Parent/teacher engagement and discussion would have been great. There were some good and not-so-good topics introduced. They were very open to feedback and we could have ended up with some positive changes.

As someone who tuned in to most of the town halls and submitted questions during them, I will say my questions, and most of the other questions that were being asked were being ignored because they didn't want to answer them. Things like "the studies you are citing saying that detracking works required extra teachers and supports for some students, what kind of extra support will DOE propose for teachers?"

It certainly didn't strike many of us that they were open to feedback of any kind - they just kept saying what they wanted to happen and that the people who disagreed were going to have to be educated better. It was appalling.

“Appalling” that they didn’t immediately respond with a staffing/funding plan?

Like I said, hysterics.

I was on that webinar too with those questions asked. No it is appalling because the clear impression was they planned to just toss the kids all in together in basically the same system (no direct lesson plans for teachers on how to teach 6 levels at once in ways that didn’t just leave the top ones sitting on a computer, no plans for more teachers etc).

The kids with the highest aptitude were supposed to gain a deeper and richer understanding of math by helping their classmates.

One can only hope this is a joke.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Parent/teacher engagement and discussion would have been great. There were some good and not-so-good topics introduced. They were very open to feedback and we could have ended up with some positive changes.

As someone who tuned in to most of the town halls and submitted questions during them, I will say my questions, and most of the other questions that were being asked were being ignored because they didn't want to answer them. Things like "the studies you are citing saying that detracking works required extra teachers and supports for some students, what kind of extra support will DOE propose for teachers?"

It certainly didn't strike many of us that they were open to feedback of any kind - they just kept saying what they wanted to happen and that the people who disagreed were going to have to be educated better. It was appalling.

“Appalling” that they didn’t immediately respond with a staffing/funding plan?

Like I said, hysterics.

I was on that webinar too with those questions asked. No it is appalling because the clear impression was they planned to just toss the kids all in together in basically the same system (no direct lesson plans for teachers on how to teach 6 levels at once in ways that didn’t just leave the top ones sitting on a computer, no plans for more teachers etc).

They discussed detracking during webinars. It wasn’t on the website or in the infographic. They always included AP and IB though which does require Algebra 1 in 8th.

It was also very early in the progress. People were making way too many assumptions. And the hysteria was unwarranted.

Stop using kids as pawns in your political games.

I had no political agenda with it. I’m a Democrat and thought it was a ridiculously stupid thing for a D administration to put forward during a governor election year.

Heterogeneous classes K-10 was a core element of the plan. People specifically asked about how it would still allow for advanced classes before 11th and were told that isn’t part of the plan.

I specifically asked how this squared with IB and with Calc in 12th. Below was the reply.

“The VMPI proposal includes ensuring that the content in the Essential Courses 8-10 will prepare students for the path they choose for grades 11-12, including those that will be entering the IB program. Additionally, the VMPI proposed course options for 11-12 will include the opportunity for a student to take Calculus senior year without having to take additional coursework over the summer.”

They planned to shift around what was covered in the classes to allow IB and Calc in 12th still supposedly. But heterogeneous classes up thru 10th were a core component of what they were talking about not just as a one off but threaded through the whole webinar. They only backed off that after the public blow back - and NOT when many concerned parents were posting questions/comments in the webinar chat discussion or emailing them afterward.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Parent/teacher engagement and discussion would have been great. There were some good and not-so-good topics introduced. They were very open to feedback and we could have ended up with some positive changes.

As someone who tuned in to most of the town halls and submitted questions during them, I will say my questions, and most of the other questions that were being asked were being ignored because they didn't want to answer them. Things like "the studies you are citing saying that detracking works required extra teachers and supports for some students, what kind of extra support will DOE propose for teachers?"

It certainly didn't strike many of us that they were open to feedback of any kind - they just kept saying what they wanted to happen and that the people who disagreed were going to have to be educated better. It was appalling.

“Appalling” that they didn’t immediately respond with a staffing/funding plan?

Like I said, hysterics.

I was on that webinar too with those questions asked. No it is appalling because the clear impression was they planned to just toss the kids all in together in basically the same system (no direct lesson plans for teachers on how to teach 6 levels at once in ways that didn’t just leave the top ones sitting on a computer, no plans for more teachers etc).

The kids with the highest aptitude were supposed to gain a deeper and richer understanding of math by helping their classmates.

Omg such b.s. Very few smart kids like to "help" and most young kids who need help need a trained instructor's experienced eye.

I sympathize with teachers and yet I think detracked classes do a disservice to all. Juggling 3 or more ability groups in one class takes time away from ensuring learning is occurring.