Middle School is way too easy

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Sounds like you should consider sending your kid to private school.

Most of the privates are much easier than FCPS AAP. We moved one from private back to FCPS and the curriculum in FCPS was far more challenging. Have heard the same from several others.

Name the private, please.

NP here. I think it is pretty well known in this area that FCPS middle and high schools are generally more rigorous than the standard private schools (in grades 7 through 12), especially in math and science. Temple Baptist, Dominion, Trinity, Oakcrest, GW Community, etc. Certainly, there are some private high schools that are arguably better and offer more options than FCPS high schools, but there are very few of them.

We have experience at two of the NOVA Catholic schools as well as FCPS and FCPS has been more rigorous for us (especially math).

Which grade? I know six families that moved to Catholic because they thought it was better and the kids agree it's much harder. Several catholic schools in the Arlington Diocese for middle school.

NP. I can name some schools. We've found middle school at Holy Spirit in Annandale to be much harder than the 7th-8th grade honors classes at Robinson (and elementary AAP also but that's outside the scope of this thread). So much so that I'm thinking about switching back to FCPS for next year. Holy Spirit was good for one of my kids but the workload and pace is just not working well for my child who is there now. If it were just some nightly math homework it would be no big deal but there are SO MANY tests and quizzes to study for, and writing assignments and massive long-term projects to worry about. Spanish is ridiculously hard and they teach that like it's a high school-level language class whether the 6th & 7th graders are ready for it or not. My oldest at Robinson had a much easier time than both younger kids and is now doing great in IB classes so I'm not sure if the extra rigor in middle school is necessary or appropriate unless the child is naturally super organized and already a master at executive functioning skills by the end of elementary. They say they teach those skills but really they just throw the kids into middle school and drastically ramp up the expectations without any supports built in so kids either sink or swim.

I agree catholic schools can have too many assignments for some kids but thank you for confirming that the AAP middle school classes are nowhere near an advanced level both in challenge and quantity. I don't know what private schools these kids are going to that are easier, but it would be hard to find a private school that was easier than FCPS and had no homework as well. They must be seeking them out because every other private school I've seen is harder. FCPS can do better with their AAP level classes. If you don't want that level, just do a regular ed class or honors class. No one is requiring kids to be in these upper level classes and from what I've heard honors classes are the same caliber as AAP so if you want to do honors for some classes and not others, you can do that as well. There is no need for FCPS to have such basic honors/ AAP classes.

Our experience is that Catholic school--which DC went to during Covid and the returned to public-- had a lot more work, but I'm not convinced it's 'harder' or more sophisticated work. Just more. Kind of tedious--lots of tests and quizzes, stricter grading. But my kid is also at Robinson now and I look at the things they do in social studies and it seems more sophisticated--analyzing primary documents etc. --and more interesting, but the workload is lighter. Also the electives are much better in public.

+1. This was our experience as well. A lot of what I would call "busy work" at the private school. If that is what you are interested in, OP, then you should just order some workbooks off of Amazon. Lots of options out there for extra practice.

No and I don't want my kid hating me. I think there are strong teachers that have a good middle ground of practice and challenge. It's sad actually that we can't have a discussion about challenging courses without people fighting over whether that just means busy work or not. It speaks to the fact that many people just don't care about challenging academics.

There are challenging courses that have a lot of projects. There are challenging courses that have a lot of writing papers and particularly in math there are challenging courses that have a lot of practice even if they also do a lot of challenge math type problems as well. But people who are academically minded can see when their kids are challenged and when they are not and they aren't so categorical in terms of how that challenge is always applied from class to class. Easy assignments and few of them even at the AAP level does not equal challenge in any way and that is what FCPS has become. Plenty of kids in middle have all A's and are doing very little work and very little challenging work. It doesn't check the "challenge box" in any way.

PP here. I feel like my kids were appropriately challenged by strong teachers at Rocky Run MS. It is sad that you cannot accept some people believe their FCPS middle school delivers challenging academics. You just say they are wrong without having any experience or knowledge of their middle school.

Not in the slightest. First off. Rocky Run is a major TJ feeder school, so from the beginning pages, we singled this school, Longfellow, Carson, and Luther Jackson out as schools that typically stepped up in providing a challenging curriculum being TJ feeders. Secondly, the question was framed as whether or not to talk to the school about the situation, not to put FCPS down that all schools were like this, or that all non-AAP classes have more challenges. I respect not everyone wants this or wants this in all subjects.

This was the original question and after 12 pages, only a couple of people have even believed me much less actually given advice related to the question.

"Kid is in AAP and the curriculum is barely general ed level. I have friends in other districts, not in honors, having more work and more rigor day to day. No homework all year long beyond maybe 30 minutes a week and we are at the end of the first quarter. This is my second kid going through the system and I thought it was weak before but now it's so much weaker and my first kid already wasn't prepared for high school. Should I say anything?"

Well, I suppose the answer to your question is yes. If you are dissatisfied with your school's curriculum, then you should make an appointment with the administration to air your concerns.

But would they accept any suggestions? I don't think so.

Outside of more homework, what are your suggestions? You keep bringing up rigor, but have not provided any concrete examples of what that looks like. Gifted education is about diving deeper, not more work. It is about providing opportunities to analyze from various viewpoints or to look at the “why” of topics. It is not about a longer paper, more math problems, or reading an extra long book.
-Signed, Someone certified in gifted education

Maybe you've drunk the gifted cool aid too much then. First off it's advanced academics, not solely gifted and second writing more is definitely harder than writing less in school. Same for the book. Same for more math problems. You could say your thinking is just as limited as a rote curriculum. Doing more work is indeed harder. But as discussed before FCPS also isn't asking the hard questions at least in a way that is difficult. If they do ask a hard question it's a group discussion with no grade associated with it and they are few and far between so there is no work involved or editing to make your argument make more sense or be more convincing. One hard question ov3r a month as a group discussion doesn't make a challenging curriculum. Yes we all know or FCPSs portrait of a graduate skills but I don't actually think FCPS knows how to produce scholars of those abilities.

Omg. You really have no clue. More writing and more math problems are harder? Not at all true. Simply more time consuming. I suggest you take the 4 courses required to be certified in gifted education and then we can talk.

-signed, an FCPS teacher with a gifted endorsement from UVA

DP, is your bumper also endorsed with the UVA logo? It's pretty clear to me that the AAP curriculum is a joke, especially in math. Right now FCPS is in dire need of real teachers who majored in a hard science, math, or engineering and who are passionate about teaching kids. They need a lot less people like you masquerading around with their education degree pretending they are 'gifted educators'. Responding with 'Omg' also gives everything away.

Ok, but that doesn’t negate at all what I said. More writing and more math problems doesn’t necessarily equate to being harder or challenging. That’s why I suggested you actually take the gifted courses yourself to understand better how to effectively challenge students.

I do, I teach the kids who are bored to death in their math classes in school and are capable of so much more than what they're doing in school. The most frustrating thing about many of the kids that I've taught is not that they cannot handle serious mathematics (they can), but that I literally have to undo many misconceptions taught in school. That's just on the content side; never mind them being conditioned for speed and to give up when they can't figure out a problem after 2 minutes. Simply put, school is not teaching them how to think for two main reasons 1) A curriculum focused on rote skills with limited opportunities for practice and 2) Teachers who enable this type of curriculum versus attempting to teach them how to mathematically reason.

Let's put it this way: My kid learns more math during the summer when at home than during the school year, that speaks to how poor the AAP program is in challenging kids.

[Anonymous]

We were frustrated with the slow pace of AAP in ES. So, both of my kids were enrolled in AoPS Math and Language arts classes. Both kids said that they learned more in 3.5 hours of AoPS than they learned in the entire week of regular school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We were frustrated with the slow pace of AAP in ES. So, both of my kids were enrolled in AoPS Math and Language arts classes. Both kids said that they learned more in 3.5 hours of AoPS than they learned in the entire week of regular school.

They're not alone. I'd imagine most kids would say the same if they have experienced those classes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We were frustrated with the slow pace of AAP in ES. So, both of my kids were enrolled in AoPS Math and Language arts classes. Both kids said that they learned more in 3.5 hours of AoPS than they learned in the entire week of regular school.

We use RSM for exactly that reason. So much better then what he is doing in school.

[Anonymous]

Has anyone seen the documentary The Race to Nowhere?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We were frustrated with the slow pace of AAP in ES. So, both of my kids were enrolled in AoPS Math and Language arts classes. Both kids said that they learned more in 3.5 hours of AoPS than they learned in the entire week of regular school.

Both of my kids who got all 4s in advanced math at FCPS tested a grade below in both AoPs and RSM.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You should be using the after school hours to invest in high intensity sports, science, foreign language, music, arts, and community service training. Your kid needs to be flourishing in one or more of these areas at the start of high school to take part in the high level (state and national level) activities that get them noticed by colleges.

Academics will ramp up in 9th or 10th grade. Middle school is the time to invest in the activities that matter to you and your child that the school can’t provide.

Argh I hate this mentality. You all just look at your kids like freaking investments who need to end up at a T20 school vs. actual people. Instead of having kids explore various things that might interest them, they *need* to pick one or two things to "invest" on so they can be good enough for college. Growing up, kids could explore and be involved in different sports and ECs. You had fall sports, then spring sports. Now you need to pick one so can do travel and be competitive. You can't just pick up an instrument for fun. Oh no, you have to at the national level. It's all or nothing. If you can't be a superstar at it, you shouldn't go for it. That's such a F up thing to teach kids. And all this really, really tells you at the end is that you probably came from an UMC family who had the $$$ to "invest" in you. And then you end up with kids who crash and burn/commit suicide/excel but never feel good enough. Do you hear yourselves? You can encourage hard work/academics and support their interests but this....it's gone too far. There is a happy medium between mediocrity and this BS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Has anyone seen the documentary The Race to Nowhere?

Apparently too many people. They overcompensated.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You should be using the after school hours to invest in high intensity sports, science, foreign language, music, arts, and community service training. Your kid needs to be flourishing in one or more of these areas at the start of high school to take part in the high level (state and national level) activities that get them noticed by colleges.

Academics will ramp up in 9th or 10th grade. Middle school is the time to invest in the activities that matter to you and your child that the school can’t provide.

Argh I hate this mentality. You all just look at your kids like freaking investments who need to end up at a T20 school vs. actual people. Instead of having kids explore various things that might interest them, they *need* to pick one or two things to "invest" on so they can be good enough for college. Growing up, kids could explore and be involved in different sports and ECs. You had fall sports, then spring sports. Now you need to pick one so can do travel and be competitive. You can't just pick up an instrument for fun. Oh no, you have to at the national level. It's all or nothing. If you can't be a superstar at it, you shouldn't go for it. That's such a F up thing to teach kids. And all this really, really tells you at the end is that you probably came from an UMC family who had the $$$ to "invest" in you. And then you end up with kids who crash and burn/commit suicide/excel but never feel good enough. Do you hear yourselves? You can encourage hard work/academics and support their interests but this....it's gone too far. There is a happy medium between mediocrity and this BS.

While you've aptly described the 'tiger' parents who mostly care about prestige and showing off (and there are certainly many in this area), you have to realize that there are also a significant # of families who honestly care about education and want their children to enjoy learning, be curious, and experience that in a stimulating environment. Is that too much to ask of kids in elementary school? Kids are capable of much more than what schools expect them to do (i.e mostly follow recipes and procedures), they are creative, they love a good challenge, and they love to think about things. Schools in this area are not meeting their needs because the curriculum is unchallenging, and frankly boring. If students enjoy learning more math from going to websites such as Khan academy, or learning more problem solving from playing games like Minecraft, that is pretty telling in how badly our schools are failing them. When they come home disinterested even though on paper they are passing tests and doing well, that is also telling. Education is in many ways more problematic now than it was way back when resources and technology were limited. It's not unreasonable for families to expose their kids to actual learning (whether they do it themselves at home, or outside). So yes, for some of us it's not at all about credentialing and signaling; we actually want them to find some joy in school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You should be using the after school hours to invest in high intensity sports, science, foreign language, music, arts, and community service training. Your kid needs to be flourishing in one or more of these areas at the start of high school to take part in the high level (state and national level) activities that get them noticed by colleges.

Academics will ramp up in 9th or 10th grade. Middle school is the time to invest in the activities that matter to you and your child that the school can’t provide.

Argh I hate this mentality. You all just look at your kids like freaking investments who need to end up at a T20 school vs. actual people. Instead of having kids explore various things that might interest them, they *need* to pick one or two things to "invest" on so they can be good enough for college. Growing up, kids could explore and be involved in different sports and ECs. You had fall sports, then spring sports. Now you need to pick one so can do travel and be competitive. You can't just pick up an instrument for fun. Oh no, you have to at the national level. It's all or nothing. If you can't be a superstar at it, you shouldn't go for it. That's such a F up thing to teach kids. And all this really, really tells you at the end is that you probably came from an UMC family who had the $$$ to "invest" in you. And then you end up with kids who crash and burn/commit suicide/excel but never feel good enough. Do you hear yourselves? You can encourage hard work/academics and support their interests but this....it's gone too far. There is a happy medium between mediocrity and this BS.

While you've aptly described the 'tiger' parents who mostly care about prestige and showing off (and there are certainly many in this area), you have to realize that there are also a significant # of families who honestly care about education and want their children to enjoy learning, be curious, and experience that in a stimulating environment. Is that too much to ask of kids in elementary school? Kids are capable of much more than what schools expect them to do (i.e mostly follow recipes and procedures), they are creative, they love a good challenge, and they love to think about things. Schools in this area are not meeting their needs because the curriculum is unchallenging, and frankly boring. If students enjoy learning more math from going to websites such as Khan academy, or learning more problem solving from playing games like Minecraft, that is pretty telling in how badly our schools are failing them. When they come home disinterested even though on paper they are passing tests and doing well, that is also telling. Education is in many ways more problematic now than it was way back when resources and technology were limited. It's not unreasonable for families to expose their kids to actual learning (whether they do it themselves at home, or outside). So yes, for some of us it's not at all about credentialing and signaling; we actually want them to find some joy in school.

This. And, even for families that aren't aiming for Top 10 or 20 schools, they are hoping that their kid or kids will get some notice and some merit aid to assist with the crushing financial burden of most colleges. Even the ones that are not top tier.

[Anonymous]

wow. I might be in the minority who thinks that the Middle School is plenty challenging for my kid. She is coming from AAP in ES, AND she has some EF challenges.

She spends at least an hour on homework per night, plus whatever she does in advisory. She also doesn't do any formal extracurriculars.

So, I guess we're screwed for high school and college

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You should be using the after school hours to invest in high intensity sports, science, foreign language, music, arts, and community service training. Your kid needs to be flourishing in one or more of these areas at the start of high school to take part in the high level (state and national level) activities that get them noticed by colleges.

Academics will ramp up in 9th or 10th grade. Middle school is the time to invest in the activities that matter to you and your child that the school can’t provide.

Argh I hate this mentality. You all just look at your kids like freaking investments who need to end up at a T20 school vs. actual people. Instead of having kids explore various things that might interest them, they *need* to pick one or two things to "invest" on so they can be good enough for college. Growing up, kids could explore and be involved in different sports and ECs. You had fall sports, then spring sports. Now you need to pick one so can do travel and be competitive. You can't just pick up an instrument for fun. Oh no, you have to at the national level. It's all or nothing. If you can't be a superstar at it, you shouldn't go for it. That's such a F up thing to teach kids. And all this really, really tells you at the end is that you probably came from an UMC family who had the $$$ to "invest" in you. And then you end up with kids who crash and burn/commit suicide/excel but never feel good enough. Do you hear yourselves? You can encourage hard work/academics and support their interests but this....it's gone too far. There is a happy medium between mediocrity and this BS.

While you've aptly described the 'tiger' parents who mostly care about prestige and showing off (and there are certainly many in this area), you have to realize that there are also a significant # of families who honestly care about education and want their children to enjoy learning, be curious, and experience that in a stimulating environment. Is that too much to ask of kids in elementary school? Kids are capable of much more than what schools expect them to do (i.e mostly follow recipes and procedures), they are creative, they love a good challenge, and they love to think about things. Schools in this area are not meeting their needs because the curriculum is unchallenging, and frankly boring. If students enjoy learning more math from going to websites such as Khan academy, or learning more problem solving from playing games like Minecraft, that is pretty telling in how badly our schools are failing them. When they come home disinterested even though on paper they are passing tests and doing well, that is also telling. Education is in many ways more problematic now than it was way back when resources and technology were limited. It's not unreasonable for families to expose their kids to actual learning (whether they do it themselves at home, or outside). So yes, for some of us it's not at all about credentialing and signaling; we actually want them to find some joy in school.

But I wasn’t talking about parents like you. I agree with you. I was responding to the PP who was implying that MS students need to invest and be really good at specific ECs for college.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:wow. I might be in the minority who thinks that the Middle School is plenty challenging for my kid. She is coming from AAP in ES, AND she has some EF challenges.

She spends at least an hour on homework per night, plus whatever she does in advisory. She also doesn't do any formal extracurriculars.

So, I guess we're screwed for high school and college

No, you are not PP. It will be ok.