How to help MCPS' lowest performing students?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:MCPS lowest performing students are not predicted by rich or poor kids. It is predicted by race mainly.

which is correlated to rich and poor

MCPS doesn’t collect data on family income, family numbers, parent structure, religion, etc. The only thing they collect real data on for all students is race. So, everything is focused on race. Obviously, race is not the problem. But it is a very lazy way of analyzing problems and solutions.

Race is what teachers and admin use to make assumptions about a student. Please no need to reply with a: no they don't.

This is the most anti-bias place on earth. You know that, right?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hopefully Taylor et al taking notes of many fabulous feedback here. Educators seeing it first hand and know what works and doesn't.

Nothing "works." These are antidote.

Look at LeBron James' school and the amount of money that has been poured into it
The outcome?

The "I Promise" School, established by LeBron James, has seen mixed academic outcomes despite its substantial resources and support services. While the school’s mission is commendable—serving students from challenging backgrounds with additional resources like tutoring, counseling, and extended school days—test results and graduation rates have not fully met expectations.

In 2023, reports showed that only about 8% of seventh-grade students at I Promise were proficient in English, and math proficiency was very low across multiple grades. For example, proficiency rates were 1% in fifth and seventh grades, with no sixth graders meeting the math proficiency standard. This puts the school well below the Ohio state average proficiency rates, which range from approximately 45% to over 60%, depending on grade and subject area.


If the county wants to have impact on underperforming students they should focus on neurodivergent students, instead. Students with adhd, anxiety and autism are dropping out of school at alarming rates. They are also highly likely to be unemployed and economically disadvantaged. The difference is that with much simpler modifications, they excel.

At the expense of students deserving enrichment?

Why do they deserve enrichment over other students who are struggling?

IDK. One group tries and the other one don’t give F??

Thank you for being such an amazing case example in why teachers and admins need training in dealing with neurodiverse students. Any teacher who believes that a child just doesnt care about being successful, needs serious, comprehensive reeducating.

-Did you know that kiddos with adhd and autism tend to have "flat affect " meaning they struggle to show how theyre feeling in their facial expressions. Their facial expressions come off as bored or angry, some even call this resting b#@& face. Its an entirely physiological condition that they can't control easily. When they do control it, or mask, it requires more mental and physical energy and leaves kids feeling more tired.

- Did you know kids with ADHD are estimated to have recieved 20,000 more negative messages by AGE TEN than their peers? Obviously alot of this comes from teachers like yourself who have put exactly zero effort into understanding them, but it comes from peers and parents, too. Imagine how frustrated and burned out you would be if you recieved majority negative feedback. So many of these kids also process slowly so when a teacher gives them a nasty message like "you dont take your work seriously!" They are processing how to respond to this and may say nothing or learn to defend themselves with sharp quips or eye rolls or humor instead of being equipped to say, "but i do take my work seriously. Its just that i dont know how to ask the right questions and i need your help"

-Did you know that word problems can be challenging for autistic students because they struggle with abstract language and ambiguity? Word problems often use figurative or indirect language that can be hard for autistic students to interpret. If the language is ambiguous, they may struggle to understand what the question is really asking.
Theres also:
Sensory Overload: Word problems often contain a lot of information, and students need to filter out what’s relevant. This can be overwhelming, particularly if they struggle with processing large amounts of information at once or feel stressed by the school environment.
Executive Functioning: Many word problems require multiple steps to solve, and executive functioning challenges can make it difficult to organize these steps and solve them in the correct order.
Literal Thinking: Autistic students may interpret language literally, so metaphors, idioms, or any implied meaning in word problems can cause confusion.
Social Contexts: Some word problems include references to social situations or perspectives, which may be hard to relate to or fully understand. Problems that don’t align with their experiences or interests may feel particularly abstract or irrelevant.
Difficulty Generalizing Skills: Word problems require students to apply mathematical skills in different contexts, which can be challenging if they struggle to generalize learned skills to new situations.

Imagine that your teacher has drawn a graduated cylinder as part of a problem. In order to show there is liquid inside, they draw a dipped curve across the middle of the cylinder next to the mark for 5ml. They ask the students to answer how much liquid is in the cylinder. Most students write 5ml. But the ND students are litersl thinkers and they assume the teacher is asking them to determine how much less than 5 ml is in the cylinder because they dont understand the curve is there for any other resson thsn to show that the liquid is less than 5. Since that hasnt been covered in class, they raise their hand and ask. The teacher assumes they sre being a wise ass. The rest of the class laughs at them. This happens from kindergarten up, again and again.

So you are certainly correct that one group doesnt care. Youre in it.

Is that the new term now? No wonder Dems got wiped out this year. Good lord.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hopefully Taylor et al taking notes of many fabulous feedback here. Educators seeing it first hand and know what works and doesn't.

Nothing "works." These are antidote.

Look at LeBron James' school and the amount of money that has been poured into it
The outcome?

The "I Promise" School, established by LeBron James, has seen mixed academic outcomes despite its substantial resources and support services. While the school’s mission is commendable—serving students from challenging backgrounds with additional resources like tutoring, counseling, and extended school days—test results and graduation rates have not fully met expectations.

In 2023, reports showed that only about 8% of seventh-grade students at I Promise were proficient in English, and math proficiency was very low across multiple grades. For example, proficiency rates were 1% in fifth and seventh grades, with no sixth graders meeting the math proficiency standard. This puts the school well below the Ohio state average proficiency rates, which range from approximately 45% to over 60%, depending on grade and subject area.


If the county wants to have impact on underperforming students they should focus on neurodivergent students, instead. Students with adhd, anxiety and autism are dropping out of school at alarming rates. They are also highly likely to be unemployed and economically disadvantaged. The difference is that with much simpler modifications, they excel.

At the expense of students deserving enrichment?

Why do they deserve enrichment over other students who are struggling?

IDK. One group tries and the other one don’t give F??

Thank you for being such an amazing case example in why teachers and admins need training in dealing with neurodiverse students. Any teacher who believes that a child just doesnt care about being successful, needs serious, comprehensive reeducating.

-Did you know that kiddos with adhd and autism tend to have "flat affect " meaning they struggle to show how theyre feeling in their facial expressions. Their facial expressions come off as bored or angry, some even call this resting b#@& face. Its an entirely physiological condition that they can't control easily. When they do control it, or mask, it requires more mental and physical energy and leaves kids feeling more tired.

- Did you know kids with ADHD are estimated to have recieved 20,000 more negative messages by AGE TEN than their peers? Obviously alot of this comes from teachers like yourself who have put exactly zero effort into understanding them, but it comes from peers and parents, too. Imagine how frustrated and burned out you would be if you recieved majority negative feedback. So many of these kids also process slowly so when a teacher gives them a nasty message like "you dont take your work seriously!" They are processing how to respond to this and may say nothing or learn to defend themselves with sharp quips or eye rolls or humor instead of being equipped to say, "but i do take my work seriously. Its just that i dont know how to ask the right questions and i need your help"

-Did you know that word problems can be challenging for autistic students because they struggle with abstract language and ambiguity? Word problems often use figurative or indirect language that can be hard for autistic students to interpret. If the language is ambiguous, they may struggle to understand what the question is really asking.
Theres also:
Sensory Overload: Word problems often contain a lot of information, and students need to filter out what’s relevant. This can be overwhelming, particularly if they struggle with processing large amounts of information at once or feel stressed by the school environment.
Executive Functioning: Many word problems require multiple steps to solve, and executive functioning challenges can make it difficult to organize these steps and solve them in the correct order.
Literal Thinking: Autistic students may interpret language literally, so metaphors, idioms, or any implied meaning in word problems can cause confusion.
Social Contexts: Some word problems include references to social situations or perspectives, which may be hard to relate to or fully understand. Problems that don’t align with their experiences or interests may feel particularly abstract or irrelevant.
Difficulty Generalizing Skills: Word problems require students to apply mathematical skills in different contexts, which can be challenging if they struggle to generalize learned skills to new situations.

Imagine that your teacher has drawn a graduated cylinder as part of a problem. In order to show there is liquid inside, they draw a dipped curve across the middle of the cylinder next to the mark for 5ml. They ask the students to answer how much liquid is in the cylinder. Most students write 5ml. But the ND students are litersl thinkers and they assume the teacher is asking them to determine how much less than 5 ml is in the cylinder because they dont understand the curve is there for any other resson thsn to show that the liquid is less than 5. Since that hasnt been covered in class, they raise their hand and ask. The teacher assumes they sre being a wise ass. The rest of the class laughs at them. This happens from kindergarten up, again and again.

So you are certainly correct that one group doesnt care. Youre in it.

Is that the new term now? No wonder Dems got wiped out this year. Good lord.

It's certainly one of the big reasons I voted out the board members I could, voted for Diaz and Trump. My first time ever not voting straight democratic/liberal. When the system speaks out of one side of its mouth but refuses to help my children, might as well tear it down. Scoffing at students with disabilities should get you fired just like scoffing at poor kids should. But it doesn't. The department of education has done nothing to help neurodiverse students but continues to lower the bar for poor students and burn money for poor kids to zero effect. Let it the whole system burn. It's already failed my kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Cristo Rey is made up of motivated low income kids. We had a few kids from my Title 1 school go to one of their schools. They all dropped out. They weren’t used to the academic demands and the strict rules.

But imagine if mcps introduced rigorous academics along with setting expectations and instilling personal responsibility from the get go?

^^^
That’s catholic school. Guess what? It works!

MCPS does have rigorous academics. You just have to make some effort and show aptitude. My kids were in CES+magnets for all of their school years. It worked out great even. They both ended up at Ivies and are doing well.

How long ago? Now there is zero homework, no reading of whole novels, no real grammar, spelling, writing instruction. It’s just sad this race to the bottom.

What exactly are they doing in the classroom all day?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Cristo Rey is made up of motivated low income kids. We had a few kids from my Title 1 school go to one of their schools. They all dropped out. They weren’t used to the academic demands and the strict rules.

But imagine if mcps introduced rigorous academics along with setting expectations and instilling personal responsibility from the get go?

^^^
That’s catholic school. Guess what? It works!

MCPS does have rigorous academics. You just have to make some effort and show aptitude. My kids were in CES+magnets for all of their school years. It worked out great even. They both ended up at Ivies and are doing well.

How long ago? Now there is zero homework, no reading of whole novels, no real grammar, spelling, writing instruction. It’s just sad this race to the bottom.

What exactly are they doing in the classroom all day?

Imagine if we dropped off 25 kids to your home today and then said we hope you can get them all to a certain level this year and here’s and the topics you need to cover at least once. Make sure they eat, go to the bathroom, have recess, don’t get hurt, and also have fun. Note you must spend 80% of your day in this one room. Some parents will pickup, some kids will need to get in the bus to go home and others will be walking home. Also parents wants feedback. Here’s a little info about your group: some can’t spell their name, have never been helped to hold a pencil or crayon correctly, can’t zip up their own clothes, don’t know the alphabet. Some won’t learn to tie their shoe strings until 4th grade, many won’t get training wheels off their bike until upper ES (if they even learn to ride a bike). Some have learning disabilities and some know little English.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Cristo Rey is made up of motivated low income kids. We had a few kids from my Title 1 school go to one of their schools. They all dropped out. They weren’t used to the academic demands and the strict rules.

But imagine if mcps introduced rigorous academics along with setting expectations and instilling personal responsibility from the get go?

^^^
That’s catholic school. Guess what? It works!

MCPS does have rigorous academics. You just have to make some effort and show aptitude. My kids were in CES+magnets for all of their school years. It worked out great even. They both ended up at Ivies and are doing well.

How long ago? Now there is zero homework, no reading of whole novels, no real grammar, spelling, writing instruction. It’s just sad this race to the bottom.

What exactly are they doing in the classroom all day?

Imagine if we dropped off 25 kids to your home today and then said we hope you can get them all to a certain level this year and here’s and the topics you need to cover at least once. Make sure they eat, go to the bathroom, have recess, don’t get hurt, and also have fun. Note you must spend 80% of your day in this one room. Some parents will pickup, some kids will need to get in the bus to go home and others will be walking home. Also parents wants feedback. Here’s a little info about your group: some can’t spell their name, have never been helped to hold a pencil or crayon correctly, can’t zip up their own clothes, don’t know the alphabet. Some won’t learn to tie their shoe strings until 4th grade, many won’t get training wheels off their bike until upper ES (if they even learn to ride a bike). Some have learning disabilities and some know little English.

This is why you don't keep passing students forward if they haven't reached certain goals.

I think elementary schools shouldn't focus on age, but rather on skill level and divide accordingly like how high schools are run.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hopefully Taylor et al taking notes of many fabulous feedback here. Educators seeing it first hand and know what works and doesn't.

Nothing "works." These are antidote.

Look at LeBron James' school and the amount of money that has been poured into it
The outcome?

The "I Promise" School, established by LeBron James, has seen mixed academic outcomes despite its substantial resources and support services. While the school’s mission is commendable—serving students from challenging backgrounds with additional resources like tutoring, counseling, and extended school days—test results and graduation rates have not fully met expectations.

In 2023, reports showed that only about 8% of seventh-grade students at I Promise were proficient in English, and math proficiency was very low across multiple grades. For example, proficiency rates were 1% in fifth and seventh grades, with no sixth graders meeting the math proficiency standard. This puts the school well below the Ohio state average proficiency rates, which range from approximately 45% to over 60%, depending on grade and subject area.


If the county wants to have impact on underperforming students they should focus on neurodivergent students, instead. Students with adhd, anxiety and autism are dropping out of school at alarming rates. They are also highly likely to be unemployed and economically disadvantaged. The difference is that with much simpler modifications, they excel.

At the expense of students deserving enrichment?

Why do they deserve enrichment over other students who are struggling?

IDK. One group tries and the other one don’t give F??

Thank you for being such an amazing case example in why teachers and admins need training in dealing with neurodiverse students. Any teacher who believes that a child just doesnt care about being successful, needs serious, comprehensive reeducating.

-Did you know that kiddos with adhd and autism tend to have "flat affect " meaning they struggle to show how theyre feeling in their facial expressions. Their facial expressions come off as bored or angry, some even call this resting b#@& face. Its an entirely physiological condition that they can't control easily. When they do control it, or mask, it requires more mental and physical energy and leaves kids feeling more tired.

- Did you know kids with ADHD are estimated to have recieved 20,000 more negative messages by AGE TEN than their peers? Obviously alot of this comes from teachers like yourself who have put exactly zero effort into understanding them, but it comes from peers and parents, too. Imagine how frustrated and burned out you would be if you recieved majority negative feedback. So many of these kids also process slowly so when a teacher gives them a nasty message like "you dont take your work seriously!" They are processing how to respond to this and may say nothing or learn to defend themselves with sharp quips or eye rolls or humor instead of being equipped to say, "but i do take my work seriously. Its just that i dont know how to ask the right questions and i need your help"

-Did you know that word problems can be challenging for autistic students because they struggle with abstract language and ambiguity? Word problems often use figurative or indirect language that can be hard for autistic students to interpret. If the language is ambiguous, they may struggle to understand what the question is really asking.
Theres also:
Sensory Overload: Word problems often contain a lot of information, and students need to filter out what’s relevant. This can be overwhelming, particularly if they struggle with processing large amounts of information at once or feel stressed by the school environment.
Executive Functioning: Many word problems require multiple steps to solve, and executive functioning challenges can make it difficult to organize these steps and solve them in the correct order.
Literal Thinking: Autistic students may interpret language literally, so metaphors, idioms, or any implied meaning in word problems can cause confusion.
Social Contexts: Some word problems include references to social situations or perspectives, which may be hard to relate to or fully understand. Problems that don’t align with their experiences or interests may feel particularly abstract or irrelevant.
Difficulty Generalizing Skills: Word problems require students to apply mathematical skills in different contexts, which can be challenging if they struggle to generalize learned skills to new situations.

Imagine that your teacher has drawn a graduated cylinder as part of a problem. In order to show there is liquid inside, they draw a dipped curve across the middle of the cylinder next to the mark for 5ml. They ask the students to answer how much liquid is in the cylinder. Most students write 5ml. But the ND students are litersl thinkers and they assume the teacher is asking them to determine how much less than 5 ml is in the cylinder because they dont understand the curve is there for any other resson thsn to show that the liquid is less than 5. Since that hasnt been covered in class, they raise their hand and ask. The teacher assumes they sre being a wise ass. The rest of the class laughs at them. This happens from kindergarten up, again and again.

So you are certainly correct that one group doesnt care. Youre in it.

Is that the new term now? No wonder Dems got wiped out this year. Good lord.

It's certainly one of the big reasons I voted out the board members I could, voted for Diaz and Trump. My first time ever not voting straight democratic/liberal. When the system speaks out of one side of its mouth but refuses to help my children, might as well tear it down. Scoffing at students with disabilities should get you fired just like scoffing at poor kids should. But it doesn't. The department of education has done nothing to help neurodiverse students but continues to lower the bar for poor students and burn money for poor kids to zero effect. Let it the whole system burn. It's already failed my kids.

Please take your rant over to Politics forum, there's probably already a thread about gutting the Dept of Ed to which you can continue your comments.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Cristo Rey is made up of motivated low income kids. We had a few kids from my Title 1 school go to one of their schools. They all dropped out. They weren’t used to the academic demands and the strict rules.

But imagine if mcps introduced rigorous academics along with setting expectations and instilling personal responsibility from the get go?

^^^
That’s catholic school. Guess what? It works!

MCPS does have rigorous academics. You just have to make some effort and show aptitude. My kids were in CES+magnets for all of their school years. It worked out great even. They both ended up at Ivies and are doing well.

How long ago? Now there is zero homework, no reading of whole novels, no real grammar, spelling, writing instruction. It’s just sad this race to the bottom.

What exactly are they doing in the classroom all day?

Stop with untrue comments. Students ARE reading novels. You may not like those novels and your kid maybe not reading, but students are assigned novels.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hopefully Taylor et al taking notes of many fabulous feedback here. Educators seeing it first hand and know what works and doesn't.

Nothing "works." These are antidote.

Look at LeBron James' school and the amount of money that has been poured into it
The outcome?

The "I Promise" School, established by LeBron James, has seen mixed academic outcomes despite its substantial resources and support services. While the school’s mission is commendable—serving students from challenging backgrounds with additional resources like tutoring, counseling, and extended school days—test results and graduation rates have not fully met expectations.

In 2023, reports showed that only about 8% of seventh-grade students at I Promise were proficient in English, and math proficiency was very low across multiple grades. For example, proficiency rates were 1% in fifth and seventh grades, with no sixth graders meeting the math proficiency standard. This puts the school well below the Ohio state average proficiency rates, which range from approximately 45% to over 60%, depending on grade and subject area.


If the county wants to have impact on underperforming students they should focus on neurodivergent students, instead. Students with adhd, anxiety and autism are dropping out of school at alarming rates. They are also highly likely to be unemployed and economically disadvantaged. The difference is that with much simpler modifications, they excel.

At the expense of students deserving enrichment?

Why do they deserve enrichment over other students who are struggling?

IDK. One group tries and the other one don’t give F??

Thank you for being such an amazing case example in why teachers and admins need training in dealing with neurodiverse students. Any teacher who believes that a child just doesnt care about being successful, needs serious, comprehensive reeducating.

-Did you know that kiddos with adhd and autism tend to have "flat affect " meaning they struggle to show how theyre feeling in their facial expressions. Their facial expressions come off as bored or angry, some even call this resting b#@& face. Its an entirely physiological condition that they can't control easily. When they do control it, or mask, it requires more mental and physical energy and leaves kids feeling more tired.

- Did you know kids with ADHD are estimated to have recieved 20,000 more negative messages by AGE TEN than their peers? Obviously alot of this comes from teachers like yourself who have put exactly zero effort into understanding them, but it comes from peers and parents, too. Imagine how frustrated and burned out you would be if you recieved majority negative feedback. So many of these kids also process slowly so when a teacher gives them a nasty message like "you dont take your work seriously!" They are processing how to respond to this and may say nothing or learn to defend themselves with sharp quips or eye rolls or humor instead of being equipped to say, "but i do take my work seriously. Its just that i dont know how to ask the right questions and i need your help"

-Did you know that word problems can be challenging for autistic students because they struggle with abstract language and ambiguity? Word problems often use figurative or indirect language that can be hard for autistic students to interpret. If the language is ambiguous, they may struggle to understand what the question is really asking.
Theres also:
Sensory Overload: Word problems often contain a lot of information, and students need to filter out what’s relevant. This can be overwhelming, particularly if they struggle with processing large amounts of information at once or feel stressed by the school environment.
Executive Functioning: Many word problems require multiple steps to solve, and executive functioning challenges can make it difficult to organize these steps and solve them in the correct order.
Literal Thinking: Autistic students may interpret language literally, so metaphors, idioms, or any implied meaning in word problems can cause confusion.
Social Contexts: Some word problems include references to social situations or perspectives, which may be hard to relate to or fully understand. Problems that don’t align with their experiences or interests may feel particularly abstract or irrelevant.
Difficulty Generalizing Skills: Word problems require students to apply mathematical skills in different contexts, which can be challenging if they struggle to generalize learned skills to new situations.

Imagine that your teacher has drawn a graduated cylinder as part of a problem. In order to show there is liquid inside, they draw a dipped curve across the middle of the cylinder next to the mark for 5ml. They ask the students to answer how much liquid is in the cylinder. Most students write 5ml. But the ND students are litersl thinkers and they assume the teacher is asking them to determine how much less than 5 ml is in the cylinder because they dont understand the curve is there for any other resson thsn to show that the liquid is less than 5. Since that hasnt been covered in class, they raise their hand and ask. The teacher assumes they sre being a wise ass. The rest of the class laughs at them. This happens from kindergarten up, again and again.

So you are certainly correct that one group doesnt care. Youre in it.

Is that the new term now? No wonder Dems got wiped out this year. Good lord.

It's certainly one of the big reasons I voted out the board members I could, voted for Diaz and Trump. My first time ever not voting straight democratic/liberal. When the system speaks out of one side of its mouth but refuses to help my children, might as well tear it down. Scoffing at students with disabilities should get you fired just like scoffing at poor kids should. But it doesn't. The department of education has done nothing to help neurodiverse students but continues to lower the bar for poor students and burn money for poor kids to zero effect. Let it the whole system burn. It's already failed my kids.

Please take your rant over to Politics forum, there's probably already a thread about gutting the Dept of Ed to which you can continue your comments.

Get back under your bridge pp

[Anonymous]

MCPS is very focused on this problem. They have several initiatives to help address this, such as honors for all. They've found they can't raise the performance of kids who aren't into school, but they can close the gap by bringing everyone else down.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Cristo Rey is made up of motivated low income kids. We had a few kids from my Title 1 school go to one of their schools. They all dropped out. They weren’t used to the academic demands and the strict rules.

But imagine if mcps introduced rigorous academics along with setting expectations and instilling personal responsibility from the get go?

^^^
That’s catholic school. Guess what? It works!

MCPS does have rigorous academics. You just have to make some effort and show aptitude. My kids were in CES+magnets for all of their school years. It worked out great even. They both ended up at Ivies and are doing well.

How long ago? Now there is zero homework, no reading of whole novels, no real grammar, spelling, writing instruction. It’s just sad this race to the bottom.

What exactly are they doing in the classroom all day?

Imagine if we dropped off 25 kids to your home today and then said we hope you can get them all to a certain level this year and here’s and the topics you need to cover at least once. Make sure they eat, go to the bathroom, have recess, don’t get hurt, and also have fun. Note you must spend 80% of your day in this one room. Some parents will pickup, some kids will need to get in the bus to go home and others will be walking home. Also parents wants feedback. Here’s a little info about your group: some can’t spell their name, have never been helped to hold a pencil or crayon correctly, can’t zip up their own clothes, don’t know the alphabet. Some won’t learn to tie their shoe strings until 4th grade, many won’t get training wheels off their bike until upper ES (if they even learn to ride a bike). Some have learning disabilities and some know little English.

That’s tough. But this is why they should’ve never gotten rid of three separate levels per grade, advanced, on grade level, and below grade level. It helps nobody. All of the students are mixed into one class and nobody gets the help they need.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Cristo Rey is made up of motivated low income kids. We had a few kids from my Title 1 school go to one of their schools. They all dropped out. They weren’t used to the academic demands and the strict rules.

But imagine if mcps introduced rigorous academics along with setting expectations and instilling personal responsibility from the get go?

^^^
That’s catholic school. Guess what? It works!

MCPS does have rigorous academics. You just have to make some effort and show aptitude. My kids were in CES+magnets for all of their school years. It worked out great even. They both ended up at Ivies and are doing well.

How long ago? Now there is zero homework, no reading of whole novels, no real grammar, spelling, writing instruction. It’s just sad this race to the bottom.

What exactly are they doing in the classroom all day?

Imagine if we dropped off 25 kids to your home today and then said we hope you can get them all to a certain level this year and here’s and the topics you need to cover at least once. Make sure they eat, go to the bathroom, have recess, don’t get hurt, and also have fun. Note you must spend 80% of your day in this one room. Some parents will pickup, some kids will need to get in the bus to go home and others will be walking home. Also parents wants feedback. Here’s a little info about your group: some can’t spell their name, have never been helped to hold a pencil or crayon correctly, can’t zip up their own clothes, don’t know the alphabet. Some won’t learn to tie their shoe strings until 4th grade, many won’t get training wheels off their bike until upper ES (if they even learn to ride a bike). Some have learning disabilities and some know little English.

So you're making the case for tracking?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Cristo Rey is made up of motivated low income kids. We had a few kids from my Title 1 school go to one of their schools. They all dropped out. They weren’t used to the academic demands and the strict rules.

But imagine if mcps introduced rigorous academics along with setting expectations and instilling personal responsibility from the get go?

^^^
That’s catholic school. Guess what? It works!

MCPS does have rigorous academics. You just have to make some effort and show aptitude. My kids were in CES+magnets for all of their school years. It worked out great even. They both ended up at Ivies and are doing well.

How long ago? Now there is zero homework, no reading of whole novels, no real grammar, spelling, writing instruction. It’s just sad this race to the bottom.

What exactly are they doing in the classroom all day?

Imagine if we dropped off 25 kids to your home today and then said we hope you can get them all to a certain level this year and here’s and the topics you need to cover at least once. Make sure they eat, go to the bathroom, have recess, don’t get hurt, and also have fun. Note you must spend 80% of your day in this one room. Some parents will pickup, some kids will need to get in the bus to go home and others will be walking home. Also parents wants feedback. Here’s a little info about your group: some can’t spell their name, have never been helped to hold a pencil or crayon correctly, can’t zip up their own clothes, don’t know the alphabet. Some won’t learn to tie their shoe strings until 4th grade, many won’t get training wheels off their bike until upper ES (if they even learn to ride a bike). Some have learning disabilities and some know little English.

That’s tough. But this is why they should’ve never gotten rid of three separate levels per grade, advanced, on grade level, and below grade level. It helps nobody. All of the students are mixed into one class and nobody gets the help they need.

+1

Or at the very least have kids grouped by ability and change classes for math and reading—and reading should include grammar, vocabulary, etc.

This isn’t rocket science.

[Anonymous]

I recommend Freddie DeBoer for this discussion since he seems to be one of the few commentators willing to employ common sense: https://freddiedeboer.substack.com/p/the-basics-school-reform?utm_source=publication-search

[Anonymous]

A point he makes well is that spending more money does not work, that is simply fact. He also points out that no matter what you do, you will not be able to eliminate differences in student performance. Some students are simply better at school than others. What you want to eliminate is the racial gap but that is not an easy thing to do and will require non-academic solutions. I'm not totally on board with his idea of what those are but I think his premise is correct.