Middle School is way too easy

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Get a life, Tiger Mom.

My kid can handle a lot more especially in English and yet there is no work. Then I've seen kids struggle and drop out of classes in high school or college. Why wait so long? My child isn't in 2nd grade anymore. They can handle 1 hour of homework a day.

Oh please. My kid got 6 mos. of onsite MS due to Covid. We supplemented -yes, there is time if you make it a priority. DC is in 10th and doing all honors and an AP and is doing fine. All A's in 9th. Currently has one B at the end of Q1 in a class that is SUPPOSED to be hard.

MS curriculum prepared my kid for HS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Which electives did your child choose? Perhaps they selected ones that are too easy for their skill level? As far as the core classes, you should make sure that your child is reading at least 1 hour per day after school from a high level book of your or their choosing. (Let me know if you would like suggestions for books.) Also, I would recommend that they do extra practice through Khan Academy for math. Perhaps 30 min per day? Your child should also be filling their free time with several hours of sports practice or exercise every day. Do they play an instrument?

Why do I need to be scheduling Khan academy and buying books and setting reading times? Also what about writing? Do I have to plan that too? This is 7th grade. Now I need to be a teacher to my kid for 2 hours a day?

I'm not sure what set your expectations so high. It's MIDDLE school, not grad school. And, parents have been supplementing their kids' education since forever. This is nothing new. If you don't like what you're getting, Governor Youngkin, put your kid in private or homeschool. Sounds like you will do a much better job, in your opinion, anyway.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Get a life, Tiger Mom.

My kid can handle a lot more especially in English and yet there is no work. Then I've seen kids struggle and drop out of classes in high school or college. Why wait so long? My child isn't in 2nd grade anymore. They can handle 1 hour of homework a day.

Oh please. My kid got 6 mos. of onsite MS due to Covid. We supplemented -yes, there is time if you make it a priority. DC is in 10th and doing all honors and an AP and is doing fine. All A's in 9th. Currently has one B at the end of Q1 in a class that is SUPPOSED to be hard.

MS curriculum prepared my kid for HS.

I'm glad your child is doing well but the data doesn't support this. Kids' grades have gone down in FCPS and now there is a shortage of kids going to college in the US and AP class attendance has also decreased. It has been well documented by parents that the elementary and middle school curriculum has slowly been watered down and some at the high school level as well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Which electives did your child choose? Perhaps they selected ones that are too easy for their skill level? As far as the core classes, you should make sure that your child is reading at least 1 hour per day after school from a high level book of your or their choosing. (Let me know if you would like suggestions for books.) Also, I would recommend that they do extra practice through Khan Academy for math. Perhaps 30 min per day? Your child should also be filling their free time with several hours of sports practice or exercise every day. Do they play an instrument?

Why do I need to be scheduling Khan academy and buying books and setting reading times? Also what about writing? Do I have to plan that too? This is 7th grade. Now I need to be a teacher to my kid for 2 hours a day?

I'm not sure what set your expectations so high. It's MIDDLE school, not grad school. And, parents have been supplementing their kids' education since forever. This is nothing new. If you don't like what you're getting, Governor Youngkin, put your kid in private or homeschool. Sounds like you will do a much better job, in your opinion, anyway.

Because I can look to any neighboring school district and see it's more rigorous even in general ed and then also see that the private schools are more rigorous by a long shot even without AAP. What prompted this post in addition to the frustration over the past month of no homework and the end of the quarter was a 6th-grade video my friend just posted where the child read their several-page story to the class and I realized my child hadn't even written a page in school yet. Why should I supplement 2 hours with my child EVERY DAY when FCPS is saying that in their AAP level - their highest level - that they have nothing for my child to do after school on any day and no writing in school either? Why does it all fall on me when obviously in the neighboring county the kids are writing stories and presenting them in gen ed?

[Anonymous]

My child doesn't have time management issues or any difficulty with middle school. They have plenty of time and I've done some supplementation with them and they found an afterschool class they liked, but it just seems like the actual school day is lacking. All A's. Nothing of 7th-grade caliber.

[Anonymous]

I've also been able to look back at my own work from middle school and can see how the work has been lowered. A little lower high but much lower in middle school. At least the rate of work in high is regular even if the kids aren't writing the 10-page papers anymore. Middle school rigor is non-existent. I went to some second-rate public middle school with no honors classes.

[Anonymous]

You seem to be confusing "lots of outside work" with "challenging".

FWIW, we found private school way too easy with 0 differentiation. Transferred back to fcps for 8th grade and it was much more challenging.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You seem to be confusing "lots of outside work" with "challenging".

FWIW, we found private school way too easy with 0 differentiation. Transferred back to fcps for 8th grade and it was much more challenging.

Didn't you already post this twice already?

Rigor is usually challenging and more practice. They usually go together. FCPS has neither.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:School districts get funding based on each pupil enrolled, so no, they aren't trying to scare you away.

The amount they get from the state is only 20%

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You seem to be confusing "lots of outside work" with "challenging".

FWIW, we found private school way too easy with 0 differentiation. Transferred back to fcps for 8th grade and it was much more challenging.

Didn't you already post this twice already?

Rigor is usually challenging and more practice. They usually go together. FCPS has neither.

No, I am a new poster.

Seriously, complain all you want about fcps lacking "rigor" but the grass isn't always greener. Private school was so small there weren't multiple levels of classes, everyone took the same "7th grade science". It was a very sweet, nurturing community but challenging for a bright kid it was not. We went to private to escape covid virtual learning, so did public for most of elementary, and did 6th/7th in private. It was nice to switch back. I think private in person was better than virtual FCPS for sure, but in person FCPS is more rigorous by far.

Private is great for a middle of the road kid who will get lost in public. Our school flat out admitted they weren't prepared or interested in differentiating up or down.

[Anonymous]

This isn't a private versus public discussion. I can't compare every private school as if they are the same across the board. It is obvious that the FCPS honors and AAP currriculum have been watered down from past years during school and after school. It has no rigor or difficulty to it at least in the schools that don't heavily tilt towards going to TJ like Longfellow and Carson. There are generic middle schools across the country that have a stronger curriculum.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You seem to be confusing "lots of outside work" with "challenging".

FWIW, we found private school way too easy with 0 differentiation. Transferred back to fcps for 8th grade and it was much more challenging.

Didn't you already post this twice already?

Rigor is usually challenging and more practice. They usually go together. FCPS has neither.

Higher rigor =/= more practice. At least, not necessarily.

It could be a single challenge problem tackled in class with different strategies. It could be open ended math problems with multiple solutions vs. procedural knowledge. It could be teaching a different strategy in class (for example for factoring, rather than teaching the procedural methods I use with gen ed I teach the mental "guess and check" that requires far more number sense). None of these require any more practice than the regular standards, but all are far more rigorous.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You seem to be confusing "lots of outside work" with "challenging".

FWIW, we found private school way too easy with 0 differentiation. Transferred back to fcps for 8th grade and it was much more challenging.

Didn't you already post this twice already?

Rigor is usually challenging and more practice. They usually go together. FCPS has neither.

Higher rigor =/= more practice. At least, not necessarily.

It could be a single challenge problem tackled in class with different strategies. It could be open ended math problems with multiple solutions vs. procedural knowledge. It could be teaching a different strategy in class (for example for factoring, rather than teaching the procedural methods I use with gen ed I teach the mental "guess and check" that requires far more number sense). None of these require any more practice than the regular standards, but all are far more rigorous.

None of this is happening. It's not rigorous. I know what rigor is and it's various forms. Stop trying to make "rigor" happen in FCPS middle school.

[Anonymous]

One challenging history question to solve btw does not make up for a 5-page research paper or a 2-page fictional story of a historical figure. Less time equals less rigor most of the time.But regardless there are also no challenging questions.

[Anonymous]

Why can't you just accept the fact that the standards have been watered down and honors and AAP is just honors and AAP in name these days? Why can't that actually be a correct narrative?