Did you waste your money buying a house to get access to MCPS?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

The problem was that the MCPS curriculum was trying to teach to the lowest levels of achievers. It failed everyone in the process. Good, robust curriculum is easily available on the market. However, that will mean that many students will fail testing. They will probably need to be taught differently. That will require money. See how that works?

The only thing MCPS can do now is have different curriculum for different students. This means differentiation in classrooms and creating cohorts of like ability students. 2.0 is not just imperfect, it is at the bottom of the heap in terms of curriculum. We need textbooks, we need to follow the units in the textbooks, we need the students to do all the assignements in the textbooks and then be tested on it. Seriously, this is not rocket surgery!

You apparently have a lot of faith in the textbook companies. Did you go to school in the US? I did, and a lot of the textbooks I had to use were terrible.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

The problem was that the MCPS curriculum was trying to teach to the lowest levels of achievers. It failed everyone in the process. Good, robust curriculum is easily available on the market. However, that will mean that many students will fail testing. They will probably need to be taught differently. That will require money. See how that works?

The only thing MCPS can do now is have different curriculum for different students. This means differentiation in classrooms and creating cohorts of like ability students. 2.0 is not just imperfect, it is at the bottom of the heap in terms of curriculum. We need textbooks, we need to follow the units in the textbooks, we need the students to do all the assignements in the textbooks and then be tested on it. Seriously, this is not rocket surgery!

You apparently have a lot of faith in the textbook companies. Did you go to school in the US? I did, and a lot of the textbooks I had to use were terrible.

Seriously,if their idea of education is primarily reading then testing, we are all f*****

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is rare to find a school that can overcome discrepancies in parental income and education. Those are the two most important factors in student success. Not class size, curriculum, money spent, teacher education level...

Is 2.0 perfect no. Will the replacement be..no. Is there a curriculum that has been rated very successful for all different types of kids? That is have not heard of and I would assume it would get a lot of publicity.

The problem was that the MCPS curriculum was trying to teach to the lowest levels of achievers. It failed everyone in the process. Good, robust curriculum is easily available on the market. However, that will mean that many students will fail testing. They will probably need to be taught differently. That will require money. See how that works?

The only thing MCPS can do now is have different curriculum for different students. This means differentiation in classrooms and creating cohorts of like ability students. 2.0 is not just imperfect, it is at the bottom of the heap in terms of curriculum. We need textbooks, we need to follow the units in the textbooks, we need the students to do all the assignements in the textbooks and then be tested on it. Seriously, this is not rocket surgery!

P for proficient. la la la la.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is rare to find a school that can overcome discrepancies in parental income and education. Those are the two most important factors in student success. Not class size, curriculum, money spent, teacher education level...

Is 2.0 perfect no. Will the replacement be..no. Is there a curriculum that has been rated very successful for all different types of kids? That is have not heard of and I would assume it would get a lot of publicity.

The problem was that the MCPS curriculum was trying to teach to the lowest levels of achievers. It failed everyone in the process. Good, robust curriculum is easily available on the market. However, that will mean that many students will fail testing. They will probably need to be taught differently. That will require money. See how that works?

The only thing MCPS can do now is have different curriculum for different students. This means differentiation in classrooms and creating cohorts of like ability students. 2.0 is not just imperfect, it is at the bottom of the heap in terms of curriculum. We need textbooks, we need to follow the units in the textbooks, we need the students to do all the assignements in the textbooks and then be tested on it. Seriously, this is not rocket surgery!

You must not have seen the handouts. It has nothing to do with the lowest achiever. I would have been fine with that. The quality of the materials was a joke. It looked like something a home school parent wrote up. No one who is teaching to the lowest achievers thinks that syntax errors, grammatical errors, and non sequitur are helpful.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is rare to find a school that can overcome discrepancies in parental income and education. Those are the two most important factors in student success. Not class size, curriculum, money spent, teacher education level...

Is 2.0 perfect no. Will the replacement be..no. Is there a curriculum that has been rated very successful for all different types of kids? That is have not heard of and I would assume it would get a lot of publicity.

The problem was that the MCPS curriculum was trying to teach to the lowest levels of achievers. It failed everyone in the process. Good, robust curriculum is easily available on the market. However, that will mean that many students will fail testing. They will probably need to be taught differently. That will require money. See how that works?

The only thing MCPS can do now is have different curriculum for different students. This means differentiation in classrooms and creating cohorts of like ability students. 2.0 is not just imperfect, it is at the bottom of the heap in terms of curriculum. We need textbooks, we need to follow the units in the textbooks, we need the students to do all the assignements in the textbooks and then be tested on it. Seriously, this is not rocket surgery!

You must not have seen the handouts. It has nothing to do with the lowest achiever. I would have been fine with that. The quality of the materials was a joke. It looked like something a home school parent wrote up. No one who is teaching to the lowest achievers thinks that syntax errors, grammatical errors, and non sequitur are helpful.

I also don't see the curriculum as teaching to the lowest common denominator in all cases. The critical writing part is probably difficult for many kids. Similar for other subjects except math. Too much time spent on different ways to do math in the early years. It's good they wanted to teach number fluency, but the time spent on it was overkill.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is rare to find a school that can overcome discrepancies in parental income and education. Those are the two most important factors in student success. Not class size, curriculum, money spent, teacher education level...

Is 2.0 perfect no. Will the replacement be..no. Is there a curriculum that has been rated very successful for all different types of kids? That is have not heard of and I would assume it would get a lot of publicity.

The problem was that the MCPS curriculum was trying to teach to the lowest levels of achievers. It failed everyone in the process. Good, robust curriculum is easily available on the market. However, that will mean that many students will fail testing. They will probably need to be taught differently. That will require money. See how that works?

The only thing MCPS can do now is have different curriculum for different students. This means differentiation in classrooms and creating cohorts of like ability students. 2.0 is not just imperfect, it is at the bottom of the heap in terms of curriculum. We need textbooks, we need to follow the units in the textbooks, we need the students to do all the assignements in the textbooks and then be tested on it. Seriously, this is not rocket surgery!

You must not have seen the handouts. It has nothing to do with the lowest achiever. I would have been fine with that. The quality of the materials was a joke. It looked like something a home school parent wrote up. No one who is teaching to the lowest achievers thinks that syntax errors, grammatical errors, and non sequitur are helpful.

Absolutely. The audit said about 30% of the math materials had errors in them. And then people are wondering why so many of us are concerned. Maybe the new curriculum won't have errors and will be awesome, but you can't blame us for being skeptical.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is rare to find a school that can overcome discrepancies in parental income and education. Those are the two most important factors in student success. Not class size, curriculum, money spent, teacher education level...

Is 2.0 perfect no. Will the replacement be..no. Is there a curriculum that has been rated very successful for all different types of kids? That is have not heard of and I would assume it would get a lot of publicity.

The problem was that the MCPS curriculum was trying to teach to the lowest levels of achievers. It failed everyone in the process. Good, robust curriculum is easily available on the market. However, that will mean that many students will fail testing. They will probably need to be taught differently. That will require money. See how that works?

The only thing MCPS can do now is have different curriculum for different students. This means differentiation in classrooms and creating cohorts of like ability students. 2.0 is not just imperfect, it is at the bottom of the heap in terms of curriculum. We need textbooks, we need to follow the units in the textbooks, we need the students to do all the assignements in the textbooks and then be tested on it. Seriously, this is not rocket surgery!

P for proficient. la la la la.

Silly pp, not all textbooks are terrible. My kids have always been in magnet programs and 1 is in MIT (so not Ivy, but I guess its good enough?). So, not la la la la. If you are educated, show some discernment. Evaluate the textbooks, research, look at other sources. I will maintain that good curriculum for each grade and each subject is available in the market. But you all want to be spoon-fed without any work, you get what you get.

Should parents be in this situation where they are controlling the education of their students to this extent? Probably not. However, when you can see for yourself that the schools are not doing a good job, why would you wait for 7 years to speak up or take action? Was this such a surprise to people? Did they not have eyes and ears? Was the growing achievement gap not a topic of heated conversation on these forums? Were Asian students not reviled for getting supplementation outside of school? The symptoms of a poor education was being discussed on this board for years, and yet you had to be hit on your head with a hammer to get it? Really?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is rare to find a school that can overcome discrepancies in parental income and education. Those are the two most important factors in student success. Not class size, curriculum, money spent, teacher education level...

Is 2.0 perfect no. Will the replacement be..no. Is there a curriculum that has been rated very successful for all different types of kids? That is have not heard of and I would assume it would get a lot of publicity.

The problem was that the MCPS curriculum was trying to teach to the lowest levels of achievers. It failed everyone in the process. Good, robust curriculum is easily available on the market. However, that will mean that many students will fail testing. They will probably need to be taught differently. That will require money. See how that works?

The only thing MCPS can do now is have different curriculum for different students. This means differentiation in classrooms and creating cohorts of like ability students. 2.0 is not just imperfect, it is at the bottom of the heap in terms of curriculum. We need textbooks, we need to follow the units in the textbooks, we need the students to do all the assignements in the textbooks and then be tested on it. Seriously, this is not rocket surgery!

You must not have seen the handouts. It has nothing to do with the lowest achiever. I would have been fine with that. The quality of the materials was a joke. It looked like something a home school parent wrote up. No one who is teaching to the lowest achievers thinks that syntax errors, grammatical errors, and non sequitur are helpful.

+1 the sorts of errors the curriculum office has made and xeroxed off 100K times are far beyond the worst textbook I've ever seen. The it's-always-been-crap-so-why-bother argument doesn't apply here. And, yes, before even getting to errors of content, there are errors of syntax that we should all agree are unacceptable. Why should anyone have to parse incorrect English, just to parse some math?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is rare to find a school that can overcome discrepancies in parental income and education. Those are the two most important factors in student success. Not class size, curriculum, money spent, teacher education level...

Is 2.0 perfect no. Will the replacement be..no. Is there a curriculum that has been rated very successful for all different types of kids? That is have not heard of and I would assume it would get a lot of publicity.

The problem was that the MCPS curriculum was trying to teach to the lowest levels of achievers. It failed everyone in the process. Good, robust curriculum is easily available on the market. However, that will mean that many students will fail testing. They will probably need to be taught differently. That will require money. See how that works?

The only thing MCPS can do now is have different curriculum for different students. This means differentiation in classrooms and creating cohorts of like ability students. 2.0 is not just imperfect, it is at the bottom of the heap in terms of curriculum. We need textbooks, we need to follow the units in the textbooks, we need the students to do all the assignements in the textbooks and then be tested on it. Seriously, this is not rocket surgery!

P for proficient. la la la la.

Silly pp, not all textbooks are terrible. My kids have always been in magnet programs and 1 is in MIT (so not Ivy, but I guess its good enough?). So, not la la la la. If you are educated, show some discernment. Evaluate the textbooks, research, look at other sources. I will maintain that good curriculum for each grade and each subject is available in the market. But you all want to be spoon-fed without any work, you get what you get.

Should parents be in this situation where they are controlling the education of their students to this extent? Probably not. However, when you can see for yourself that the schools are not doing a good job, why would you wait for 7 years to speak up or take action? Was this such a surprise to people? Did they not have eyes and ears? Was the growing achievement gap not a topic of heated conversation on these forums? Were Asian students not reviled for getting supplementation outside of school? The symptoms of a poor education was being discussed on this board for years, and yet you had to be hit on your head with a hammer to get it? Really?

And yet there are still people on this forum saying, "MCPS is going to fix it! Stop acting like it's so bad! There's one person complaining and he/she is crazy!"

[Anonymous]

My kid got all Ps.
They are proficient, as defined by MCPS.
We're good to go.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My kid got all Ps.
They are proficient, as defined by MCPS.
We're good to go.

MCPS changed the report card. Maybe you didn't notice?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
I INVESTED money in land near downtown Bethesda, which has appreciated and will continue to do so. The schools are good as well!

for how much longer?

I've been in the system for over 20 years as a teacher. born in Mo Co - spent my entire lifetime in this county

Don't depend on Bethesda "holding out" for much longer.

Long enough. My oldest who needs lots of help, has indeed received lots of help from MCPS, for which we are incredibly grateful, and will be out in a few years. My youngest can deal with whatever they throw at her

My son received services early on, but through Infants and Toddlers. So 2.0 wasn't a factor. However, as a rising 4th grader, he was part of the 2.0 roll out. You really don't know the effects until you move into another system, which is happening shortly for us.

So while you say your youngest can deal, I think that's a very sad statement to make about educating your child.

Learning isn't about "dealing." It's about being challenged to master material that will help a person to function in society.

We moved from having total autonomy over guides and instructional practices to having no control over what to present to a classroom of children each learning at a different pace.

Someone mentioned that "ignorance is bliss" with regard to parental awareness. I should be amazed at this lack of awareness, but I'm not, as I do realize that many parents barely touch the surface when conversing with their own children. Superficial discussions at best . . .

how sad

Ha ha ha! You don't me, and yet you assume so much? I have probably thought more about educating my children than you. We prioritize education and work a lot at home. My youngest is not only a hard worker, but very competent. MCPS can go downhill, it will not affect her.

I have criticized MCPS for years on these boards, over specific things (overuse of tech in primary years, absence of textbooks, poor writing preparation in middle and high school, less-than-rigorous selection of electives instructors, etc), but overall, I take exception to painting this public school system in he disastrous light that some do. It's not a lost cause. It's actually a good system. As a scientist, I appreciate the STEM emphasis and the wealth of possible coursework in high school, I find writing to be quite ambitious at the elementary school level, and I love how American schools in general encourage public speaking and personal growth. As a foreigner, I can tell you that it's quite different from other education philosophies (rote, head down, listen to the teacher destroy your self-esteem).

No system will be perfect. MCPS works fine, as long as you remember that education ALWAYS begins at home.

Yes, Yes, Yes. Some of these posters are primarily committed to getting everyone to agree that MCPS is the pits. the energy is not focused on improvement , it is aimed at only saying it sucks in 200 different threads a day.
The amount of vitriol and the amount of time they spend spewing it they could have moved, planned, financed a new charter school and recruited all the other MCPS parents to sign up.

Then congrats -- you have a system you love.

Some of us want to confront the reality that MCPS has serious problems. Since you love it, you don't have to participate. Sit back and enjoy the school system you have.

DP.. where did that ^PP state she *loved* MCPS? You make it seem like you either have to completely hate MCPS or completely love it. There's no in between?

^PP is stating that if you hate MCPS *that* much, it would behoove you to spend your time and energy in driving to make changes to MCPS the way you want it to be instead of expending all that energy posting on this forum.

I get that people want to vent on here, and I don't think there's anything wrong with that. But, I hope you spend more time contacting the BoE and organizing to make changes rather than spending useless time on this forum venting, because that certainly won't change anything except make you more frustrated.

Someone did try to organize over the weekend, but the petition was taken down. I encourage people to contact the BoE and organize. Every time someone has brought up organizing, they've gotten zero traction on here. It's really sad.

SO THE F**** WHAT? SOME PEOPLE DO REAL WORK, ORGANIZING, IMPROVING, LODGING COMPLAINTS TO THE BOE IN ACTUAL REAL FREAKING LIFE!! YOU ARE LIKE THOSE VOLUNTEERS ON THE STREET CORNERS, IF YOU DO NOT SIGN UP FOR WHATEVER CHARITY THEY REPRESENT THAT MUST MEAN YOU ARE NOT CHARITABLE IN ANY WAY SHAPE OR FORM. CHICK, PEOPLE DO NOT HAVE TO ORGANIZE, OR AGREE WITH ANY STINKING THING YOU DO ON DCUM. JEFF IS NOT THE MCPS BOE. THAT'S WHAT IS WRONG WITH THIS NATION NOW, WHY OUR DEMOCRACY IS IN THE TOILET. ONLINE GENIUSES THINKING THE INTERNET IS THE WHOLE ENTIRE WORLD.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
I INVESTED money in land near downtown Bethesda, which has appreciated and will continue to do so. The schools are good as well!

for how much longer?

I've been in the system for over 20 years as a teacher. born in Mo Co - spent my entire lifetime in this county

Don't depend on Bethesda "holding out" for much longer.

Long enough. My oldest who needs lots of help, has indeed received lots of help from MCPS, for which we are incredibly grateful, and will be out in a few years. My youngest can deal with whatever they throw at her

My son received services early on, but through Infants and Toddlers. So 2.0 wasn't a factor. However, as a rising 4th grader, he was part of the 2.0 roll out. You really don't know the effects until you move into another system, which is happening shortly for us.

So while you say your youngest can deal, I think that's a very sad statement to make about educating your child.

Learning isn't about "dealing." It's about being challenged to master material that will help a person to function in society.

We moved from having total autonomy over guides and instructional practices to having no control over what to present to a classroom of children each learning at a different pace.

Someone mentioned that "ignorance is bliss" with regard to parental awareness. I should be amazed at this lack of awareness, but I'm not, as I do realize that many parents barely touch the surface when conversing with their own children. Superficial discussions at best . . .

how sad

Ha ha ha! You don't me, and yet you assume so much? I have probably thought more about educating my children than you. We prioritize education and work a lot at home. My youngest is not only a hard worker, but very competent. MCPS can go downhill, it will not affect her.

I have criticized MCPS for years on these boards, over specific things (overuse of tech in primary years, absence of textbooks, poor writing preparation in middle and high school, less-than-rigorous selection of electives instructors, etc), but overall, I take exception to painting this public school system in he disastrous light that some do. It's not a lost cause. It's actually a good system. As a scientist, I appreciate the STEM emphasis and the wealth of possible coursework in high school, I find writing to be quite ambitious at the elementary school level, and I love how American schools in general encourage public speaking and personal growth. As a foreigner, I can tell you that it's quite different from other education philosophies (rote, head down, listen to the teacher destroy your self-esteem).

No system will be perfect. MCPS works fine, as long as you remember that education ALWAYS begins at home.

Yes, Yes, Yes. Some of these posters are primarily committed to getting everyone to agree that MCPS is the pits. the energy is not focused on improvement , it is aimed at only saying it sucks in 200 different threads a day.
The amount of vitriol and the amount of time they spend spewing it they could have moved, planned, financed a new charter school and recruited all the other MCPS parents to sign up.

Then congrats -- you have a system you love.

Some of us want to confront the reality that MCPS has serious problems. Since you love it, you don't have to participate. Sit back and enjoy the school system you have.

DP.. where did that ^PP state she *loved* MCPS? You make it seem like you either have to completely hate MCPS or completely love it. There's no in between?

^PP is stating that if you hate MCPS *that* much, it would behoove you to spend your time and energy in driving to make changes to MCPS the way you want it to be instead of expending all that energy posting on this forum.

I get that people want to vent on here, and I don't think there's anything wrong with that. But, I hope you spend more time contacting the BoE and organizing to make changes rather than spending useless time on this forum venting, because that certainly won't change anything except make you more frustrated.

Someone did try to organize over the weekend, but the petition was taken down. I encourage people to contact the BoE and organize. Every time someone has brought up organizing, they've gotten zero traction on here. It's really sad.

SO THE F**** WHAT? SOME PEOPLE DO REAL WORK, ORGANIZING, IMPROVING, LODGING COMPLAINTS TO THE BOE IN ACTUAL REAL FREAKING LIFE!! YOU ARE LIKE THOSE VOLUNTEERS ON THE STREET CORNERS, IF YOU DO NOT SIGN UP FOR WHATEVER CHARITY THEY REPRESENT THAT MUST MEAN YOU ARE NOT CHARITABLE IN ANY WAY SHAPE OR FORM. CHICK, PEOPLE DO NOT HAVE TO ORGANIZE, OR AGREE WITH ANY STINKING THING YOU DO ON DCUM. JEFF IS NOT THE MCPS BOE. THAT'S WHAT IS WRONG WITH THIS NATION NOW, WHY OUR DEMOCRACY IS IN THE TOILET. ONLINE GENIUSES THINKING THE INTERNET IS THE WHOLE ENTIRE WORLD.

you seriously need to get a grip. wow.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid got all Ps.
They are proficient, as defined by MCPS.
We're good to go.

MCPS changed the report card. Maybe you didn't notice?

Not for the first five years of quarterly c2.0 “report card” complaints! That’s a recent re-development

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid got all Ps.
They are proficient, as defined by MCPS.
We're good to go.

MCPS changed the report card. Maybe you didn't notice?

Not for the first five years of quarterly c2.0 “report card” complaints! That’s a recent re-development

NP here, but why complain or attempt to make a point about something that's no longer valid?