Challenge Every Child

[Anonymous]

What do you know about this movement which I have heard advocates totally homogeneous (though supposedly advanced) curriculums across the board. Is this the end of reading groups in ES..everyone gets the same instruction whether you come in reading or don't know your letters. How about math? I have heard some middle schools are already doing this with differentiated assignments within a classroom. Is this really happening with huge class sizes or are some kids lost and some kids bored? Or does this just mean they would end all GT centers?

[Anonymous]

It will decimate our school system. It's an inexcusable step that will hurt all kids, whether they need extra help, more challenge, or fall somewhere in the middle.

Every single person I've talked to says that schools who have homogenous classes in middle school give watered down content. Challenge no longer exists.

[Anonymous]

Homogenous groupings cannot work with a full range of ability levels in one classroom no matter how highly skilled the teacher. It may work with cluster groupings - i.e., instead of five levels in one class, two or three.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What do you know about this movement which I have heard advocates totally homogeneous (though supposedly advanced) curriculums across the board. Is this the end of reading groups in ES..everyone gets the same instruction whether you come in reading or don't know your letters. How about math? I have heard some middle schools are already doing this with differentiated assignments within a classroom. Is this really happening with huge class sizes or are some kids lost and some kids bored? Or does this just mean they would end all GT centers?

I'm confused by your post because to me, "homogeneous" classes would mean that everyone in the class is of the same ability (all the advanced readers are grouped together in one class; struggling readers in another class, etc) and the instruction would be targeted to their ability level. Right now, students are in heterogenous language arts classes, and they only get 10-15 minutes of instruction during reading groups that are geared to their specific skill level (if that ..... the higher level students in our school only meet with the teacher a couple of times a week). If you asked me, the homogeneous model would be preferrable, but perhaps I'm misunderstanding what is being proposed.

[Anonymous]

I think your confusion is that the OP said homogeneous curriculum not homogeneous groupings (which would be the opposite). Homogeneous curriculum mean every child advanced or struggling gets the same content and assignments,

[Anonymous]

Yes, the movement afoot at the moment is to eliminate any kind of grouping by ability and have the teacher address all 25 or so kids' needs in the same classroom during the same class time. It's ludicrous. It serves no child well.

[Anonymous]

This is something I have been hearing about with concern as well. The Gazette recently had an article about the momentum of some people to remove the gift and talented label. Apparently this label (which is not so exclusive since 40% of the kids get it) seems to get "extra resources" along with the academically challenged kids, so the middle kids get left out.

This is crazy. As OP said, every kid should feel challenged. Ideally, we would have a separate curriculum for each kid. Reality says that we should break them up into smaller groupings of classes that can go at an appropriate pace for each class.

I get the feeling that some people feel left out because they think their kid should be higher than they are placed. G&T is like a status symbol. I know the feeling b/c my DC doesn't get the attention of travel sports teams either. DC is in the top 2-5% on various national academic tests, though. What is hard is when your kid really does need that stimulation to thrive and succeed. Some kids really are better at academics, sports, music, dance, etc. than others. If these kids get bored, they really won't pursue their talents.

[Anonymous]

We are already considering leaving Montgomery County because of this.

[Anonymous]

Here is a link to an online petition from the "Gifted and Talented Association of MoCo" if anyone is interested. I have used this site for GT information in the past and have found it valuable.


http://www.gtamc.org/challenge-every-child

[Anonymous]

I don't know anything about "Challenge Every Child". I don't have a problem with the concept of setting high expectations for everyone and providing support for those who struggle, IF the expectations are indeed very high. The MSAs and the Maryland State Voluntary Curriculua are IMO very low benchmarks.

If classrooms all were geared to the high honors class level and intensive support were provided after school, during school, and in class, and during the summer the prepare students who nwere struggling to keep up, and if kids weren't allowed in the classroom at all if they were disruptive to the high level of instruction --and if an approrpiate, decent alternative were provided for kids who truly couldn't handle this level of instruction, I'd have no problem with it.

However, there's no way the above will happen.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't know anything about "Challenge Every Child". I don't have a problem with the concept of setting high expectations for everyone and providing support for those who struggle, IF the expectations are indeed very high. The MSAs and the Maryland State Voluntary Curriculua are IMO very low benchmarks.

If classrooms all were geared to the high honors class level and intensive support were provided after school, during school, and in class, and during the summer the prepare students who nwere struggling to keep up, and if kids weren't allowed in the classroom at all if they were disruptive to the high level of instruction --and if an approrpiate, decent alternative were provided for kids who truly couldn't handle this level of instruction, I'd have no problem with it.

However, there's no way the above will happen.

Why do you say it will never happen? It happens today, doesn't it? Why can't a school with 3-5 classrooms per grade, differentiate the kids into 3-5 groups and let each group go at it's own pace. Practically, there is an issue where some kids in group 2 might want to be placed in group 1, but this doesn't really go away when you mix all the kids and give them the same curriculum geared toward the middle. You will still have kids that want to be more challenged and some kids that will struggle. I don't get why this is so hard. I do get why MCEA and maybe the board want to go this route. It probably is cheaper and easier to implement and removes problem parents who want their kid in GT classes , when teachers feel the kid doesn't belong.

On this last issue, note that I do have an issue with tracking. If a kid doesn't test well in grade 2, but the family wants them in GT, I say let them tackle it. Hard work can overcome a lot. In this scenario, you might have 2 of the 5 classrooms teach GT instead of 1. There is no perfect solution until you get 1 teacher per kid, but that will never happen. I do think some level of differentiation can work. I can't believe anyone thinks that one-size-fits-all works!

[Anonymous]

Why should any child go to a GT elementary if the middle school is heterogeneous?

[Anonymous]

I saw the effects of acceleration for all when my son was advanced 2 years in math. I am sure there were some kids who were ready for that but most were not. This seems like an attempt to ignore both the struggling and the advanced and make things easier on the schools. I signed the survey.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why should any child go to a GT elementary if the middle school is heterogeneous?

Are you suggesting the solution is to hold back elementary school kids because the middle school is imperfect?

Wouldn't it be better to fix the middle school? I don't have middle school kids, so I don't know what is going on there, but my approach would be to fix the problem, not create another problem.

[Anonymous]

I think this is the situation that already exists at our Silver Spring elem. They are placed into heterogenous homerooms, where they are taught all together for science, social studies and language arts (first half of LA). However, for LA they do have breakout groups for instruction for the second half of the LA block. Some of the groups meet daily (lower reading levels), some meet a few times per week (higher reading levels). They get grouped for math. So, the difference you're talking about is getting rid of groups for math? I can't picture that happening, teaching would be completely impossible, not merely difficult as it is with the other subjects. I do not think that every subject needs to be segregated by level. I think the mid range and lower level kids should be in a group with kids who raise the bar, otherwise the standards and expectations sink too low. I don't think that's a smart way to go as a matter of public education policy. Also, I think if you're in MCPS you need to get used to the idea that you're going to be teaching a lot at home and providing the challenge for your kids. They call it a free education, but it's not.