Letter to MCPS Superintendent Sent

[Anonymous]

GTA has sent the letter (through email) with attachments to MCPS Superintendent. It reads:

GIFTED AND TALENTED ASSOCIATIONOF MONTGOMERY COUNTY, INC.
Frederick Stichnoth, President
Silver Spring, MD
fred.stichnoth@...
March 21, 2012
Via email

Dr. Joshua Starr, Superintendent
Montgomery County Public Schools
Joshua_Starr@...

Re: Forum on Gifted Education

Dr. Starr:

The Gifted and Talented Association of Montgomery County, its members, and parents throughout the County with advanced-level learners are looking forward to your Forum on Gifted Education this Thursday, March 22, 7:00 p.m., at Magruder High School.

Attached to this email are:

1. Questions and Comments for Forum on Gifted Education, addressed to you by parents and students in anticipation of this Forum (http://www.gtamc.org/2012-gt-forum);

2. Research Recommendations compiled for the Forum by GTA (http://www.gtamc.org/2012-gt-forum/reseach-recommendations-3-22-2012); and

3. Questions for Montgomery County Education Decision Makers (http://www.gtamc.org/2012-gt-forum/2012-gt-forum-questions).

These documents express the concerns and perspectives of MCPS parents, and are submitted in advance to facilitate communication at the Forum.

Parents need to engage with you personally and directly, and to hear your vision for how to improve gifted education in Montgomery County Public Schools. They already engage with each other every day on the GTAletters listserv; they already are familiar with national issues related to gifted education, MCPS Gifted and Talented programs and current implementation in MCPS schools. (In these respects they may differ from your audience at the March 12 Forum on English Language Learners.) They were not heard by your predecessor; they are not heard by the Board or its Committee on Special Populations; they depart, frustrated, from one-way presentations by your staff.

We hope this meeting will be different. As you can see from the many comments, parents (and students) have high praise for MCPS magnet programs for the highly gifted. But they are very concerned about local school opportunities for advanced-level learners. Frustration is mounting among parents with young elementary school-aged children, trapped in the new Curriculum 2.0 de-leveled math instruction; they are frustrated at the lack of ability grouping, and express a need for cluster groups of like-ability students for reading and writing, and core subjects like science and social studies; they express concern over the new one-size-fits-all “advanced� middle school courses, increasingly delivered in heterogeneous classrooms.

Parents will come to this Forum expecting to hear from you, to address you directly, and to receive a response directly from you, in the way you made possible at your fall Listen and Learn sessions; they are not expecting to be led by staff members in encounter groups with each other. Parents are eager to hear your ideas for gifted education, but they also hope that you will take seriously their experiences and concerns about what is happening in MCPS right now. This is an opportunity for you to begin to build bridges by engaging in a real give-and-take with a segment of the MCPS community that has up to now been excluded from all substantive conversation about how to educate their own children. We are glad you have opened this door, and we hope the format of the meeting will allow parents to feel it was worth their time to step through it.

We look forward to a productive exchange on Thursday.

Very truly yours,
Frederick Stichnoth, President

cc: Board of Education
Ms. Beth Schiavino-Narvaez, Deputy Superintendent
Mr. Erick J. Lang, Assistant Superintendent
Mr. Martin Creel, Director, DEIP
Dr. Monique Felder, Director, AEI
Ms. Kristin Trible, President, MCCPTA
Ms. Michelle Gluck, Chair, MCCPTA GCC
Mr. Ted Willard, Chair, MCCPTA Curriculum Committee
Mr. Doug Prouty, President, MCEA
AEI Feedback Council
Dr. Jeanne Paynter, MSDE
Ms. Keri Guilbault, President, MCGATE
GTAletters listserv
GTliaisons listserv
Parents Coalition listserv

[Anonymous]

Thank you so much GTA.
After enduring months of slogging through acrimonious posts on the GTA listserve, I was beginning to wonder about the organization itself. The letter to Mr. Starr is so on point - it reflects the GTA's "Challenge every child" platform and equally important, it is a faithful summary of the main comments and requests, parents posted on the GTA website in recent days. It feels like we (parents) are finally presenting a united front to MCPS.

Is there anyway to get the listserve back on track so that the kind of people who posted comments on the website (the ones addressed to Mr. Starr) can feel safe and welcome on the GTA listserve?

Thanks again for your wonderful letter to Mr. Starr.

[Anonymous]

Thank you for sending this letter. I am new to this conversation because my child is at a school that has not yet implemented the 2.0 curriculum. That said, the curriculum will be implemented next year and I am very, very concerned about it. My child is currently in advanced level math and I fear what the 2.0 will bring next year. Thank you for taking the lead for the many parents that share these concerns.

[Anonymous]

Thank you GTA for accurately representing all the concerns expressed through many comments and question. You are doing a great job in spite of all the naysayers.

Keep it up and work yourself "out of job" one day when each and every child is academically challenged in MCPS.

[Anonymous]

Is there a written policy that eliminates the homogeneous pull-outs for advanced students under Curriculum 2.0?

[Anonymous]

Great work, great letter. Thanks for posting it, as well as sending it.

[Anonymous]

Didn't I read in the Washington Post a while back that something like 77 percent of Montgomery County students were in the GT program? Something's wrong with that picture.

[Anonymous]

Let us hope our community will not suffer yet another one way power point "no-show" typical of MCPS stewards or the "let's play in the sand box" encounter group psychotherapy exercises.

Given his salary and perks, the Superintendent should have the intestinal forttitude to outline his short and long term vision, aims, objectives and goals for MCPS students performing 1-3 standard deviations from mean MCPS student performance. What are the options (if any) for these students (challenging courses) and where, when and how can students clearly exercise these options -- at local or HCG/magnet schools?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Didn't I read in the Washington Post a while back that something like 77 percent of Montgomery County students were in the GT program? Something's wrong with that picture.

Sorry, no, this is completely false.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Is there a written policy that eliminates the homogeneous pull-outs for advanced students under Curriculum 2.0?

MCPS policy for Gifted Children guides providing appropriate challenge for advanced students. Curriculum 2.0 should follow the policy. It is the implementation where the breakdown happens. There is no tool defined in Curriculum 2.0 framework yet to assess students mastery over the skills, no path defined for acceleration and it is left to the local school to figure out. Local schools often are taking the easy route and saying Curriculum 2.0 ties their hands to no acceleration. The central office does not monitor the schools for adherance to the MCPS Gifted Education policy and hence finally the advanced student suffer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Didn't I read in the Washington Post a while back that something like 77 percent of Montgomery County students were in the GT program? Something's wrong with that picture.

i don't think WaPo ever said that. i did find one article http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/15/AR2008121503114.html?g=1

When I search gifted on MCPS website found this
http://montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/sharedaccountability/reports/2008/G2%20Global%20Screening%20in%20Spring%202008%20Brief%20and%20Tables%2011-19-08.pdf

there is something strange about GT in MCPS. Has the GTA taken a position on it? in my county we have far less (don't want to mention it and get attacked).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is there a written policy that eliminates the homogeneous pull-outs for advanced students under Curriculum 2.0?

MCPS policy for Gifted Children guides providing appropriate challenge for advanced students. Curriculum 2.0 should follow the policy. It is the implementation where the breakdown happens. There is no tool defined in Curriculum 2.0 framework yet to assess students mastery over the skills, no path defined for acceleration and it is left to the local school to figure out. Local schools often are taking the easy route and saying Curriculum 2.0 ties their hands to no acceleration. The central office does not monitor the schools for adherance to the MCPS Gifted Education policy and hence finally the advanced student suffer.

What is the difference between an advanced student and a GT student? I'm confused by all the labels.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is there a written policy that eliminates the homogeneous pull-outs for advanced students under Curriculum 2.0?

MCPS policy for Gifted Children guides providing appropriate challenge for advanced students. Curriculum 2.0 should follow the policy. It is the implementation where the breakdown happens. There is no tool defined in Curriculum 2.0 framework yet to assess students mastery over the skills, no path defined for acceleration and it is left to the local school to figure out. Local schools often are taking the easy route and saying Curriculum 2.0 ties their hands to no acceleration. The central office does not monitor the schools for adherance to the MCPS Gifted Education policy and hence finally the advanced student suffer.

What is the difference between an advanced student and a GT student? I'm confused by all the labels.

Its one and the same in MCPS. MCPS identifies a wide range of advanced learners as GT.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Let us hope our community will not suffer yet another one way power point "no-show" typical of MCPS stewards or the "let's play in the sand box" encounter group psychotherapy exercises.

Given his salary and perks, the Superintendent should have the intestinal forttitude to outline his short and long term vision, aims, objectives and goals for MCPS students performing 1-3 standard deviations from mean MCPS student performance. What are the options (if any) for these students (challenging courses) and where, when and how can students clearly exercise these options -- at local or HCG/magnet schools?

Damn right. We have a cross-county alliance of parents quietly fighting for these students. We are unencumbered by organizations trying to protect their clout. No offense to those folks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is there a written policy that eliminates the homogeneous pull-outs for advanced students under Curriculum 2.0?

MCPS policy for Gifted Children guides providing appropriate challenge for advanced students. Curriculum 2.0 should follow the policy. It is the implementation where the breakdown happens. There is no tool defined in Curriculum 2.0 framework yet to assess students mastery over the skills, no path defined for acceleration and it is left to the local school to figure out. Local schools often are taking the easy route and saying Curriculum 2.0 ties their hands to no acceleration. The central office does not monitor the schools for adherance to the MCPS Gifted Education policy and hence finally the advanced student suffer.

What is the difference between an advanced student and a GT student? I'm confused by all the labels.

Its one and the same in MCPS. MCPS identifies a wide range of advanced learners as GT.

That's the problem!!!! "Wide range of advanced learners as GT?" So, GT is a heterogeneous group? Is anyone advocating for clarity?