Root cause of issues at MOCO schools?

[Anonymous]

Here’s one of the problems with MCPS, relative to a district like Chappaqua NY:

As big as MCPS’s budget seems, the per student expenditure is less than half of what Chappaqua is able to spend. It’s $15,000 vs $32,000.

That’s one of the reasons why Chappaqua schools, and those like it, are doing so well, while MCPS isn’t.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
I was working in bethesda in 2009-2016. The first couple years everyone was happy, honky dorey about MCPS and such "good schools." Then Common Core started and the C2.0 worksheets, portals, curricula on the fly. My male and female co-workers with kids age 6-13 changed their tune fast and many went to catholic schools or started hardcore supplementing or getting tutors. Many had kids on either side of the "new curriculum" and were pissed off. The families that graduated class of 2018 or earlier were silently happy and relieved.

Yes, you've posted about this repeatedly - and also that you don't even have any kids in MCPS, so all of your experience is hearsay at best.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Town run schools—that’s one difference. Less diffuse. Parents feel more in control.

way better. a handful of ESs, one MS, one HS. 200-400 kids per grade. can customize.

large county systems are just tax revenue sink holes and underachiever administrators in lifer roles destroying value weekly.

Yep. Chappaqua has 3 ESs, 2 MSs, and one HS. I grew up there and it would have been insane and unthinkable to have a Westchester County School System, since not only do 980,000 people live there, but the needs of Chappaqua are vastly different than, say, Yonkers or other southern parts of the county. If you proposed that to anyone there, they’d think you had gone insane.

Chappaqua is one of the hundred richest places in the United States. Of course residents of Chappaqua (median family income $180,000, population 1,500) don't want their kids to be in the same school system as kids from Yonkers (median family income $53,000, population 200,000).

Referring to Chappaqua as a typical town-run school system is like referring to Michael Phelps as a typical swimmer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My oldest and youngest is almost a decade apart in age. I will say MCPS has seriously slid downhill from where it was 10 years ago. My oldest received a decent education at a W school. We are now considering private for my youngest. The privates as far as class options, class size, and positivity in the school climate just seemed like a happier place to go to school when we toured them. Curriculum has a higher standard and they focus more on developing basic foundations with proven curriculums vs. the nightmare 2.0 debacle. There is also no need for wasted school days on PARCC instruction and assessments.

How much time did your oldest spend on MSA instruction and assessments?

Not as much as PARCC and the MSA was paper and pencil. With PARCC, the computers sometimes crash and loose the child's answers.

Really? My kid spent way more time on the MSAs than my younger kid spent on the PARCCs. Especially MSA prep.

Schools might have different prep plans. Our middle school was insane about the amount of class time preparing for PARCC.

I must add, there was a principal change between MSA and PARCC transition so that could also be the issue. The last principal could have been more focussed on trying to bump up scores for tests vs. actual student engagement and learning than the first.

I do think teaching to the test vs. teaching students to learn and retain knowledge long past the test is part of the problem with MCPS. The non-existent curriculum is the other. MCPS doesn't know what pathway to choose and students have paid the price. For my kids, I saw issues early on with 2.0 so I bought textbooks and workbooks of proven curriculums to fill in gaps at home. Even in our W school cluster, so many families didn't realize the need to do so that my children easily outperformed them in school.

I was working in bethesda in 2009-2016. The first couple years everyone was happy, honky dorey about MCPS and such "good schools." Then Common Core started and the C2.0 worksheets, portals, curricula on the fly. My male and female co-workers with kids age 6-13 changed their tune fast and many went to catholic schools or started hardcore supplementing or getting tutors. Many had kids on either side of the "new curriculum" and were pissed off. The families that graduated class of 2018 or earlier were silently happy and relieved.

My 2018 Grad was hit with 2.0 for high school math. The teachers kept to their old textbooks and old lesson plans. For students who xid not supplement, they were not taught material that MCPS held them accountable for. Every year, the curriculum wasn't being written fast enough for teachers to adnusr.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Town run schools—that’s one difference. Less diffuse. Parents feel more in control.

way better. a handful of ESs, one MS, one HS. 200-400 kids per grade. can customize.

large county systems are just tax revenue sink holes and underachiever administrators in lifer roles destroying value weekly.

Yep. Chappaqua has 3 ESs, 2 MSs, and one HS. I grew up there and it would have been insane and unthinkable to have a Westchester County School System, since not only do 980,000 people live there, but the needs of Chappaqua are vastly different than, say, Yonkers or other southern parts of the county. If you proposed that to anyone there, they’d think you had gone insane.

Chappaqua is one of the hundred richest places in the United States. Of course residents of Chappaqua (median family income $180,000, population 1,500) don't want their kids to be in the same school system as kids from Yonkers (median family income $53,000, population 200,000).

Referring to Chappaqua as a typical town-run school system is like referring to Michael Phelps as a typical swimmer.

Keep up. I originally compared it to upper CT Ave NW, where only 23% of kids go to public school, to refute the claims on this thread that DCPS is awesome and people are running to it in droves.

[Anonymous]

Also: when I posted that comparison, people started talking about town-based systems and comparing them to MCPS
. Nowhere did I say it’s a typical school district.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My oldest and youngest is almost a decade apart in age. I will say MCPS has seriously slid downhill from where it was 10 years ago. My oldest received a decent education at a W school. We are now considering private for my youngest. The privates as far as class options, class size, and positivity in the school climate just seemed like a happier place to go to school when we toured them. Curriculum has a higher standard and they focus more on developing basic foundations with proven curriculums vs. the nightmare 2.0 debacle. There is also no need for wasted school days on PARCC instruction and assessments.

How much time did your oldest spend on MSA instruction and assessments?

Not as much as PARCC and the MSA was paper and pencil. With PARCC, the computers sometimes crash and loose the child's answers.

Really? My kid spent way more time on the MSAs than my younger kid spent on the PARCCs. Especially MSA prep.

Schools might have different prep plans. Our middle school was insane about the amount of class time preparing for PARCC.

I must add, there was a principal change between MSA and PARCC transition so that could also be the issue. The last principal could have been more focussed on trying to bump up scores for tests vs. actual student engagement and learning than the first.

I do think teaching to the test vs. teaching students to learn and retain knowledge long past the test is part of the problem with MCPS. The non-existent curriculum is the other. MCPS doesn't know what pathway to choose and students have paid the price. For my kids, I saw issues early on with 2.0 so I bought textbooks and workbooks of proven curriculums to fill in gaps at home. Even in our W school cluster, so many families didn't realize the need to do so that my children easily outperformed them in school.

I was working in bethesda in 2009-2016. The first couple years everyone was happy, honky dorey about MCPS and such "good schools." Then Common Core started and the C2.0 worksheets, portals, curricula on the fly. My male and female co-workers with kids age 6-13 changed their tune fast and many went to catholic schools or started hardcore supplementing or getting tutors. Many had kids on either side of the "new curriculum" and were pissed off. The families that graduated class of 2018 or earlier were silently happy and relieved.

My 2018 Grad was hit with 2.0 for high school math. The teachers kept to their old textbooks and old lesson plans. For students who xid not supplement, they were not taught material that MCPS held them accountable for. Every year, the curriculum wasn't being written fast enough for teachers to adnusr.

I thought 2.0 was a K-8 curriculum. Is it really being used in high school too?

[Anonymous]

Yep. 2018 Grads were the high school guinea pigs. Thank God for free resources like Khan academy online. My kids used it almost every night to fill gaps.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yep. 2018 Grads were the high school guinea pigs. Thank God for free resources like Khan academy online. My kids used it almost every night to fill gaps.

I really thought 2.0 was a K-8 curriculum. They’re imposing this crap on the HS too?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My oldest and youngest is almost a decade apart in age. I will say MCPS has seriously slid downhill from where it was 10 years ago. My oldest received a decent education at a W school. We are now considering private for my youngest. The privates as far as class options, class size, and positivity in the school climate just seemed like a happier place to go to school when we toured them. Curriculum has a higher standard and they focus more on developing basic foundations with proven curriculums vs. the nightmare 2.0 debacle. There is also no need for wasted school days on PARCC instruction and assessments.

How much time did your oldest spend on MSA instruction and assessments?

Not as much as PARCC and the MSA was paper and pencil. With PARCC, the computers sometimes crash and loose the child's answers.

Really? My kid spent way more time on the MSAs than my younger kid spent on the PARCCs. Especially MSA prep.

Schools might have different prep plans. Our middle school was insane about the amount of class time preparing for PARCC.

I must add, there was a principal change between MSA and PARCC transition so that could also be the issue. The last principal could have been more focussed on trying to bump up scores for tests vs. actual student engagement and learning than the first.

I do think teaching to the test vs. teaching students to learn and retain knowledge long past the test is part of the problem with MCPS. The non-existent curriculum is the other. MCPS doesn't know what pathway to choose and students have paid the price. For my kids, I saw issues early on with 2.0 so I bought textbooks and workbooks of proven curriculums to fill in gaps at home. Even in our W school cluster, so many families didn't realize the need to do so that my children easily outperformed them in school.

The curriculum issue is so deeply concerning. The fact that kids will be learning with the failed curriculum for at least one more year is horrifying.

I heard from a teacher several people in the curriculum office were given pink slips. I am not upset they were given pink slips because of the 2.0 disaster. I just don't understand why it was done before a new curriculum could be bought. So much for MCPS making money on selling 2.0 to other school systems.

Then they’re back in the classroom. They would be placed elsewhere.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Town run schools—that’s one difference. Less diffuse. Parents feel more in control.

way better. a handful of ESs, one MS, one HS. 200-400 kids per grade. can customize.

large county systems are just tax revenue sink holes and underachiever administrators in lifer roles destroying value weekly.

Yep. Chappaqua has 3 ESs, 2 MSs, and one HS. I grew up there and it would have been insane and unthinkable to have a Westchester County School System, since not only do 980,000 people live there, but the needs of Chappaqua are vastly different than, say, Yonkers or other southern parts of the county. If you proposed that to anyone there, they’d think you had gone insane.

Chappaqua is one of the hundred richest places in the United States. Of course residents of Chappaqua (median family income $180,000, population 1,500) don't want their kids to be in the same school system as kids from Yonkers (median family income $53,000, population 200,000).

Referring to Chappaqua as a typical town-run school system is like referring to Michael Phelps as a typical swimmer.

I'd bet a small, nimble district could handle 20% ESOL and 20% FARMS better than a big, giant county district like Montgomery or Fairfax.
At least Fairfax does not have a F'd up curriculum for all of it's non-magnet students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

I'd bet a small, nimble district could handle 20% ESOL and 20% FARMS better than a big, giant county district like Montgomery or Fairfax.
At least Fairfax does not have a F'd up curriculum for all of it's non-magnet students.

How about 18% ESOL and 35% FARMs?

A small district with 35% FARMs would be a district that didn't have enough money to handle 20% ESOL and 20% FARMs well.

[Anonymous]

they all drop out by end of 8th grade and all that's left is that big bump in scores that MCPS sees in 11th grade testing by demographic. nevermind that some sample groups are considerably smaller.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I'd bet a small, nimble district could handle 20% ESOL and 20% FARMS better than a big, giant county district like Montgomery or Fairfax.
At least Fairfax does not have a F'd up curriculum for all of it's non-magnet students.

How about 18% ESOL and 35% FARMs?

A small district with 35% FARMs would be a district that didn't have enough money to handle 20% ESOL and 20% FARMs well.

No school or government or budget can compare to two responsible parents with jobs raising their children right.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I'd bet a small, nimble district could handle 20% ESOL and 20% FARMS better than a big, giant county district like Montgomery or Fairfax.
At least Fairfax does not have a F'd up curriculum for all of it's non-magnet students.

How about 18% ESOL and 35% FARMs?

A small district with 35% FARMs would be a district that didn't have enough money to handle 20% ESOL and 20% FARMs well.

No school or government or budget can compare to two responsible parents with jobs raising their children right.

What question does your post answer?