Serious Answers Only—How to Fix MCPS?

[Anonymous]

Are teachers suppose to save their salaries to buy hundreds of thousands of dollars of supplies from Pearson because the current books are covered in swastikas and grafiti

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Are teachers suppose to save their salaries to buy hundreds of thousands of dollars of supplies from Pearson because the current books are covered in swastikas and grafiti

Nobody needs textbooks in this day and age. They are obsolete notions from the past that are no longer necessary. You should check out the Internet someday.There are some really great resources out there that blow away the offerings of the text-book industry.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The real answer is to break it up into a lot of smaller school districts. Different parts of the county have different needs and everyone would be better off with decisions more tailored to particular schools.

Ah...the sweet refrain of those who do not want to pay taxes to fund reasonably equivalent educational experiences, knowing their local pyramid's needs are more easily addressed.

This the rub. You can have schools designed to meet the needs of the population they serve or you can have a more equal system across the county, but you can’t have both. This is why many people who can leave for private school in our county.

There is a lot of cross-district/statewide funding in those blue states that take this approach like NJ. Spending per student is way higher in poorer school districts.

"A lot" is relative. Is it enough to result in a kid in Camden getting a reasonably equivalent educational experience to a kid in Cherry Hill? Paterson to Princeton? Elmer to Saddle River?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Pay the board full time salaries?? Are you kidding?? More bloat and more mediocre people. Hells no.

You expect excellent oversight from people who are part-time and getting paid $25,000? Are you serious? Would YOU do that job for that compensation?

+1. Their board meeting today starts at 9 am and ends at 9 pm. Who's up for sitting through 12-hour meetings for a $25K salary?

[Anonymous]

How to fix MCPS?

Evidence-based reading, writing and math curriculum packages with daily lessons, practices and tests already prepared for the teacher.

All teachers from K-5 should be OG trained and reading should be phonics-based in preK-3rd grade. ELA curriculum should include vocabulary acquisition curriculum (evidence-based).

Increase salary for teachers who graduate from the most competitive universities with double majors in education and a core subject, particularly for math and sciences and HS core classes. I am tired of my kids being taught by Towson grads whose undergrad years were littered with education classes teaching unproven pedagogical philosophy who can barely score 500 on the SAT and who teach math but don't actually know exponents, probability, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are teachers suppose to save their salaries to buy hundreds of thousands of dollars of supplies from Pearson because the current books are covered in swastikas and grafiti

Nobody needs textbooks in this day and age. They are obsolete notions from the past that are no longer necessary. You should check out the Internet someday.There are some really great resources out there that blow away the offerings of the text-book industry.

Tutor here. This is not true. Many kids need "textbooks". They need all the lessons written down in one place, in words that they can refer back to, with practice problems, half of which have the answers.

Instead, they get, random scraps of paper in class and online. They don't understand why the units are about because nothing has a proper title. There is no written lecture or lesson to refer back to, and anyway teachers aren't "teaching" nowadays, they are letting kids "struggle" because that is the current practice (thanks Anglea Duckworth) that kids need to struggle in order to learn. Kahn Academy, Desmos and other stuff isn't a good substitute because kids have to wade through a lot of time consuming video and can't necessarily find something that is the same as the level/lesson they are working on in school. Plus, particularly in math, working online promotes doing things in your head, which is a terrible habit in math.

I would have 50% less business if schools still bought textbooks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How to fix MCPS?

Evidence-based reading, writing and math curriculum packages with daily lessons, practices and tests already prepared for the teacher.

All teachers from K-5 should be OG trained and reading should be phonics-based in preK-3rd grade. ELA curriculum should include vocabulary acquisition curriculum (evidence-based).

Increase salary for teachers who graduate from the most competitive universities with double majors in education and a core subject, particularly for math and sciences and HS core classes. I am tired of my kids being taught by Towson grads whose undergrad years were littered with education classes teaching unproven pedagogical philosophy who can barely score 500 on the SAT and who teach math but don't actually know exponents, probability, etc.

At least you get Towson grads.

Our high school is littered with teachers fresh out of McDaniel College.

[Anonymous]

Details of MCPS's letter to the three unions are included here, including more details about the potential RIF actions: https://montgomeryperspective.com/2024/05/23/will-mcps-implement-layoffs/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Details of MCPS's letter to the three unions are included here, including more details about the potential RIF actions: https://montgomeryperspective.com/2024/05/23/will-mcps-implement-layoffs/

I completely agree with the "three crazy things" are the bottom of the blog post. This makes absolutely no sense. WTF is going on?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How to fix MCPS?

Evidence-based reading, writing and math curriculum packages with daily lessons, practices and tests already prepared for the teacher.

All teachers from K-5 should be OG trained and reading should be phonics-based in preK-3rd grade. ELA curriculum should include vocabulary acquisition curriculum (evidence-based).

Increase salary for teachers who graduate from the most competitive universities with double majors in education and a core subject, particularly for math and sciences and HS core classes. I am tired of my kids being taught by Towson grads whose undergrad years were littered with education classes teaching unproven pedagogical philosophy who can barely score 500 on the SAT and who teach math but don't actually know exponents, probability, etc.

At least you get Towson grads.

Our high school is littered with teachers fresh out of McDaniel College.

The snobbery here

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How to fix MCPS?

Evidence-based reading, writing and math curriculum packages with daily lessons, practices and tests already prepared for the teacher.

All teachers from K-5 should be OG trained and reading should be phonics-based in preK-3rd grade. ELA curriculum should include vocabulary acquisition curriculum (evidence-based).

Increase salary for teachers who graduate from the most competitive universities with double majors in education and a core subject, particularly for math and sciences and HS core classes. I am tired of my kids being taught by Towson grads whose undergrad years were littered with education classes teaching unproven pedagogical philosophy who can barely score 500 on the SAT and who teach math but don't actually know exponents, probability, etc.

At least you get Towson grads.

Our high school is littered with teachers fresh out of McDaniel College.

It's so awful how most of the teachers have their degrees from the colleges/universities where most of the teachers get their degrees.

[Anonymous]

One hour a day (for planning) is not even enough time to plan Or grade Or create a curriculum. What is the logic to force teachers to fill out their time sheets fraudulently with iccorrect data stating 40 hr work weeks. I don't know what the obsession is with encouraging blatant data fraud.

[Anonymous]

Further, schools have video cameras and the footage proves that I come in everyday at 6 and leave at 4 or 5 pm. Also timestamps on emails,Google docs, and gradebookonline prove that we are working the majority of the weekend too. It's not right for me to say my school system wants me to state that I only work 40 hrs per week but I know I am frauding the data against my own best interest. Its not like they are going to support me in any facet. The fact that the union and the Boe are complacent with this is disturbing.

[Anonymous]

Lastly this is where they coerce and intimidate teachers to resign so those teachers can not take advantages of social safety nets like unemployment insurance ( which taxes pay for).

Watch out, they will fib/lie to unemployment and try to say that you quit/resigned so that those bullies can block your benefits as a citizen of this fine cou try. It happened to me and I doubt it was an isolated incident.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Details of MCPS's letter to the three unions are included here, including more details about the potential RIF actions: https://montgomeryperspective.com/2024/05/23/will-mcps-implement-layoffs/

I completely agree with the "three crazy things" are the bottom of the blog post. This makes absolutely no sense. WTF is going on?

One can watch all the Fiscal a mgmt committee meetings and hear all the budget sessions
https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/boe/meetings/live/