What's wrong with 2.0? Can someone break it down for me?

[Anonymous]

Reading the posts on this forum it sounds like the shortcomings of 2.0 are that it has assessment categories / skill areas that are either not appropriate for the age group and/or are somewhat ambiguous (someone mentioned Thinking Outside the Box as an assessment area). Also sounds like grading criteria are unclear. Lastly, I've read multiple complaints that the curriculum is not sufficiently rigorous, particularly in math. Have I captured the key issues or are there other things that make 2.0 frustrating? My daughter is still in pre school so I don't have any first hand experience to draw from.

[Anonymous]

These seem to be the main issues. Its unclear to me how bad it is, I am sure anytime anything is changed people have issues it.

I have a second grader and my main problem are with the math. There do not seem to be clear assessments or ways to demonstrate the "deeper understanding" that is constantly mentioned. Kids that love math are being turned off since they are bored.

[Anonymous]

Talk with any of the tutor agencies in Bethesda to get the scoop.

[Anonymous]

At a minimum there is no comments section. There is no space to praise or recommend specific areas of improvement that might be outside of broad and vaguely defined categories.

[Anonymous]

The problem is that Montgomery County has to 1) comply with national Common Core standards; 2) educate many relatively poor students who may have language barriers or educationally disadvantaged backgrounds; and 3) educate the highly able children of type-A professional parents.

It seems to me that the new curriculum was designed to address all three problems, but that the second category of parents are raising objections to it. I feel for the administrators, because I can't figure out how they would solve those three problems while making everyone happy either.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The problem is that Montgomery County has to 1) comply with national Common Core standards; 2) educate many relatively poor students who may have language barriers or educationally disadvantaged backgrounds; and 3) educate the highly able children of type-A professional parents.

It seems to me that the new curriculum was designed to address all three problems, but that the second category of parents are raising objections to it. I feel for the administrators, because I can't figure out how they would solve those three problems while making everyone happy either.

There isn't anything unusual about a government entity having a variety of stakeholders, some with competing agendas. I get tired of hearing how the need to accommodate those with "language barriers" is in conflict with the need to accommodate kids who need a slightly faster pace. Ability groups are not the same as tracking and as long as they don't apply to every subject, I see no reason why they can't be used at least in math.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The problem is that Montgomery County has to 1) comply with national Common Core standards; 2) educate many relatively poor students who may have language barriers or educationally disadvantaged backgrounds; and 3) educate the highly able children of type-A professional parents.

It seems to me that the new curriculum was designed to address all three problems, but that the second category of parents are raising objections to it. I feel for the administrators, because I can't figure out how they would solve those three problems while making everyone happy either.

There isn't anything unusual about a government entity having a variety of stakeholders, some with competing agendas. I get tired of hearing how the need to accommodate those with "language barriers" is in conflict with the need to accommodate kids who need a slightly faster pace. Ability groups are not the same as tracking and as long as they don't apply to every subject, I see no reason why they can't be used at least in math.

I think "tracking" is bad only when something else contributes to the tracking. For example, you should consider these courses because your mother is a house cleaner. That is bad. Ability grouping only means that each student gets a fair and suitable education.

[Anonymous]

This might be a bad suggestion but what's so wrong with a class for high ability kids, another for mid ability, and may e another for low ability? Isn't this how it used to be?
Seems like the only way to have kids not get bored or other get left behind

[Anonymous]

Because when that was the way it "used to be", kids would get stuck in their "track" and did not have an opportunity to move up. It's like telling a 5 year old that there is no chance they will go to an Ivy league university because right now, in kindergarten, they are "low ability". Do you want that to be the course for your child, or do you want him to have the chance to learn more flexibly? And before someone says it, no, tracking does not enable students to move up once they prove they can master the content-it's been found time and again that once students are tracked, they stay in that track. The gap just widens.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Because when that was the way it "used to be", kids would get stuck in their "track" and did not have an opportunity to move up. It's like telling a 5 year old that there is no chance they will go to an Ivy league university because right now, in kindergarten, they are "low ability". Do you want that to be the course for your child, or do you want him to have the chance to learn more flexibly? And before someone says it, no, tracking does not enable students to move up once they prove they can master the content-it's been found time and again that once students are tracked, they stay in that track. The gap just widens.

I just think it is so ironic that in this area the preschools are doing more and more. Then the kids go to kindergarten and got bored.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Because when that was the way it "used to be", kids would get stuck in their "track" and did not have an opportunity to move up. It's like telling a 5 year old that there is no chance they will go to an Ivy league university because right now, in kindergarten, they are "low ability". Do you want that to be the course for your child, or do you want him to have the chance to learn more flexibly? And before someone says it, no, tracking does not enable students to move up once they prove they can master the content-it's been found time and again that once students are tracked, they stay in that track. The gap just widens.

Just because you throw all the kids in the same room does NOT mean that you have done ANYTHING to ensure that the low ability 5 year old in your example learns anything and becomes any closer to the Ivy League. Pretending not to notice that some kids have high ability and low ability -- which is what the new, stubborn refusal to group by ability does -- hurts ALL kids.

How about address the real problem. You state the problem as "tracking does not enable students to move up one they prove they can master the content." OK. Well, under the new 2.0, they have basically eliminated any such measurement of mastery of the content (ironically, b/c they believe it too is unfair b/c not all kids will master the content). So, do you know what you are left with? You have ensured that you have a two tiered system. Why? B/c parents with means will either leave the public system or they will pay for private enrichment (tutors, outside classes, etc). That is, in reality, the worst track you can have and one that guarantees to leave the poor smart kid behind.

[Anonymous]

Agreed. Throwing kids in one class doesn't really address the problem that some kids are ahead of others. Differences will always exist, nothing will change this. The achievement gap will never be closed honestly.

When you think about it, the real strategy behind putting all the kids in one class is to slow down the highly able kids. That seems immoral to me.

An honest approach would be to challenge every child and give children who are behind opportunities to catch up by giving them resources and opportunities to catch up.

My main problems with 2.0 are not necessarily around content. Instead, I have a problem with roll-out.
1) Heterogeneous grouping is not a productive way to challenge every child
2) There is a cohort of third graders that gets the new curriculum every year. Changes this big should be piloted and tested, not just rolled out blind every year. The pain should be distributed across different cohorts, not born by one group of kids.
3) Assessments are not helpful to parents at all. I want information about how my child does against his/her peers and MCPS does everything it can to hide that information. I don't want this for bragging rights. Instead, I want to understand if and where my child needs help. I have a child that I suspected was behind in reading, but I didn't realize how far behind until we got private testing. Dropping the Terra Nova test was a mistake.
4) Pearson - This curriculum is made by a private company for their profits. I expect we will eventually get testing from this company that shows how well C2.0 works. Pearson will also control how much parents can see of the testing because it will be copyrighted. There are too many conflicts of interest that bother me about the Pearson relationship. They may not be aligned with MCPS interests.

By the way, there is a law called COMAR that requires MCPS to provide education opportunities for gifted children that need it. I think MCPS is violating this law, at least in sprit. MCPS says as much when you listen to them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Agreed. Throwing kids in one class doesn't really address the problem that some kids are ahead of others. Differences will always exist, nothing will change this. The achievement gap will never be closed honestly.

When you think about it, the real strategy behind putting all the kids in one class is to slow down the highly able kids. That seems immoral to me.

An honest approach would be to challenge every child and give children who are behind opportunities to catch up by giving them resources and opportunities to catch up.

My main problems with 2.0 are not necessarily around content. Instead, I have a problem with roll-out.
1) Heterogeneous grouping is not a productive way to challenge every child
2) There is a cohort of third graders that gets the new curriculum every year. Changes this big should be piloted and tested, not just rolled out blind every year. The pain should be distributed across different cohorts, not born by one group of kids.
3) Assessments are not helpful to parents at all. I want information about how my child does against his/her peers and MCPS does everything it can to hide that information. I don't want this for bragging rights. Instead, I want to understand if and where my child needs help. I have a child that I suspected was behind in reading, but I didn't realize how far behind until we got private testing. Dropping the Terra Nova test was a mistake.
4) Pearson - This curriculum is made by a private company for their profits. I expect we will eventually get testing from this company that shows how well C2.0 works. Pearson will also control how much parents can see of the testing because it will be copyrighted. There are too many conflicts of interest that bother me about the Pearson relationship. They may not be aligned with MCPS interests.

By the way, there is a law called COMAR that requires MCPS to provide education opportunities for gifted children that need it. I think MCPS is violating this law, at least in sprit. MCPS says as much when you listen to them.

I just skimmed your post but it takes a half a second to recognize that if your child is I then the are behind. There's nothing about 2.0 that hides the fact that a child isn't up to speed. If you already knew they were behind the terra nova wouldn't help you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Agreed. Throwing kids in one class doesn't really address the problem that some kids are ahead of others. Differences will always exist, nothing will change this. The achievement gap will never be closed honestly.

When you think about it, the real strategy behind putting all the kids in one class is to slow down the highly able kids. That seems immoral to me.

An honest approach would be to challenge every child and give children who are behind opportunities to catch up by giving them resources and opportunities to catch up.

My main problems with 2.0 are not necessarily around content. Instead, I have a problem with roll-out.
1) Heterogeneous grouping is not a productive way to challenge every child
2) There is a cohort of third graders that gets the new curriculum every year. Changes this big should be piloted and tested, not just rolled out blind every year. The pain should be distributed across different cohorts, not born by one group of kids.
3) Assessments are not helpful to parents at all. I want information about how my child does against his/her peers and MCPS does everything it can to hide that information. I don't want this for bragging rights. Instead, I want to understand if and where my child needs help. I have a child that I suspected was behind in reading, but I didn't realize how far behind until we got private testing. Dropping the Terra Nova test was a mistake.
4) Pearson - This curriculum is made by a private company for their profits. I expect we will eventually get testing from this company that shows how well C2.0 works. Pearson will also control how much parents can see of the testing because it will be copyrighted. There are too many conflicts of interest that bother me about the Pearson relationship. They may not be aligned with MCPS interests.

By the way, there is a law called COMAR that requires MCPS to provide education opportunities for gifted children that need it. I think MCPS is violating this law, at least in sprit. MCPS says as much when you listen to them.

I just skimmed your post but it takes a half a second to recognize that if your child is I then the are behind. There's nothing about 2.0 that hides the fact that a child isn't up to speed. If you already knew they were behind the terra nova wouldn't help you.

Not sure what you are talking about. How can a parent know where their child performs relative to their peers. The parent is not in the class and isn't exposed to kids all day in the office for comparison. The parent just knows their child at home. Both the child and the teacher might give vague responses to questions about academic readiness. The child may say "I'm dumb". The teacher may say "Your child is doing fine. He is reading on-grade level". After a little research, you realize that 80% of the kids in Montgomery county are on grade level or above. So what does on-grade level mean? If you read to your kid an hour every night, but they are on the 20th percentile, that is different than being at the 80th percentile. Let's take it further, what if your kid has an incredible vocabulary; is very verbal and creative; and seems just as bright as any of their friends, yet their other friends are reading at much higher levels. You can't know this for sure, but you sense it from talking to other parents. This all happens very slowly and takes a lot of delicate and vague conversations with these friends. All the parent knows is that the kid is on-grade level and the teacher is ok with it.

This story is exactly happened to us. After years of suspicion and some independent testing we discovered there was a learning disability that prevented progress in reading. It took a lot of our own initiative and constant communication with the school to confirm this problem. There is no way to convince the school there is a problem without some kind of independent testing. When you take away tools like Tera Nova, you now have no tools to communicate with the school. If the school doesn't want to deal with you, they just keep saying your kid is on-grade level when almost every kid is on-grade level and when it takes you enormous effort in working with your child at home to keep them on-grade level.

This is why testing and grades and report cards are important. Your feelings and your sense, don't really count in MCPS world.

[Anonymous]

22:30 - I agree with you 100%