Amplify Science is terrible...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What's bizarre -- and yet perhaps typical -- is that DCPS knows how bad Amplify science is, and still they remain wedded to it.

Oh well. It's not so important that they actually educate students. It's enough that they checked the "have science class" box.

Definitely something weird and possibly corrupt going on. How I wish a reporter would investigate this.

Consider contacting like the local Channel 5 fox news or NBC 4 for an investigational report. They love that stuff and can way deeper than what's in the DCPS "contracts" with XYZ school curriculum company.

[Anonymous]

Amplify cost DCPS over a million dollars in 2024. They’ve already spent $680,000 on it this year. And this is for a program which says that continental plates are floating on water and doesn’t mention DNA in Genetics except for in optional homeworks. Who approved this?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Amplify cost DCPS over a million dollars in 2024. They’ve already spent $680,000 on it this year. And this is for a program which says that continental plates are floating on water and doesn’t mention DNA in Genetics except for in optional homeworks. Who approved this?

Oh my god.

[Anonymous]

On one of the rcts that downtown chose (on purpose) there were 12 multiple questions. Two of them had no correct answer.

[Anonymous]

DCPS makes one poor decision after another in area after area. In the private sector, the head of DCPS would have been fired ages ago.

[Anonymous]

Who is in charge of buying these programs? Are they being given gifts and entertainment by these companies to sway their decisions? Amplify, CommonLit, and the list goes on and on.

The common thread with all these programs is to make it "easier" for the teachers to create a curriculum and provides them with out of the box classwork, homework and related materials.But this is not the answer- we need interesting and rigorous curriculum that ensures students are reading, understanding the material, intertwines projects and classwork and homework that solidifies that knowledge, and gets the kids engaged in the subject matter.

I keep hearing parents say things like: "I had to read so much more when I was in school" or "I had so much more homework" or "My teachers expected so much more". This is coming from parents who grew up in different states around the country. It is clear that our education standards have been lowered because we keep making the curriculum easier on the kids and the teachers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Who is in charge of buying these programs? Are they being given gifts and entertainment by these companies to sway their decisions? Amplify, CommonLit, and the list goes on and on.

The common thread with all these programs is to make it "easier" for the teachers to create a curriculum and provides them with out of the box classwork, homework and related materials.But this is not the answer- we need interesting and rigorous curriculum that ensures students are reading, understanding the material, intertwines projects and classwork and homework that solidifies that knowledge, and gets the kids engaged in the subject matter.

I keep hearing parents say things like: "I had to read so much more when I was in school" or "I had so much more homework" or "My teachers expected so much more". This is coming from parents who grew up in different states around the country. It is clear that our education standards have been lowered because we keep making the curriculum easier on the kids and the teachers.

You have to wonder. It's hard to understand otherwise.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Who is in charge of buying these programs? Are they being given gifts and entertainment by these companies to sway their decisions? Amplify, CommonLit, and the list goes on and on.

The common thread with all these programs is to make it "easier" for the teachers to create a curriculum and provides them with out of the box classwork, homework and related materials.But this is not the answer- we need interesting and rigorous curriculum that ensures students are reading, understanding the material, intertwines projects and classwork and homework that solidifies that knowledge, and gets the kids engaged in the subject matter.

I keep hearing parents say things like: "I had to read so much more when I was in school" or "I had so much more homework" or "My teachers expected so much more". This is coming from parents who grew up in different states around the country. It is clear that our education standards have been lowered because we keep making the curriculum easier on the kids and the teachers.

You have to wonder. It's hard to understand otherwise.

Yes someone seriously needs to investigate this.

[Anonymous]

This week amplify has more terrible questions. How hard is it to write 12 decent, specific questions? If your kid is a dcps middle schooler, you should be able to see the questions via clever this week because Halloween is a major deadline for the rcts. Please raise a stink with the chancellor and mayor.

The 7th grade questions ask about circulatory, respiratory, and digestive systems yet mention no organs, tissues or specific cells. This is amplify‘s “human body” test but doesn’t even mention the nervous or excretory systems. The nervous system is its own standard in ngss so I don’t know how they can say this program is “teaching” the standards.

The diagram of the heart in their “sim” (online lab) for this unit shows an empty box. If you select “choking” in the sim, it blocks the digestive system rather than the respiratory. I’d say esophagus vs trachea but neither of those parts are labeled/included. The “human” cell is shown as a rectangle without a nucleus. It’s malpractice to require all kids to be in this program.

$680,000 was spent this year for this? $1,000,000 last year?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This week amplify has more terrible questions. How hard is it to write 12 decent, specific questions? If your kid is a dcps middle schooler, you should be able to see the questions via clever this week because Halloween is a major deadline for the rcts. Please raise a stink with the chancellor and mayor.

The 7th grade questions ask about circulatory, respiratory, and digestive systems yet mention no organs, tissues or specific cells. This is amplify‘s “human body” test but doesn’t even mention the nervous or excretory systems. The nervous system is its own standard in ngss so I don’t know how they can say this program is “teaching” the standards.

The diagram of the heart in their “sim” (online lab) for this unit shows an empty box. If you select “choking” in the sim, it blocks the digestive system rather than the respiratory. I’d say esophagus vs trachea but neither of those parts are labeled/included. The “human” cell is shown as a rectangle without a nucleus. It’s malpractice to require all kids to be in this program.

$680,000 was spent this year for this? $1,000,000 last year?

Was this made by AI? Seriously so strange.

These poor kids. It is malpractice to lay an incorrect foundation in science to every single DCPS middle schooler. What happens if they want to go into a STEM field later on and are competing with peers who learned properly (at privates and many charters)?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This week amplify has more terrible questions. How hard is it to write 12 decent, specific questions? If your kid is a dcps middle schooler, you should be able to see the questions via clever this week because Halloween is a major deadline for the rcts. Please raise a stink with the chancellor and mayor.

The 7th grade questions ask about circulatory, respiratory, and digestive systems yet mention no organs, tissues or specific cells. This is amplify‘s “human body” test but doesn’t even mention the nervous or excretory systems. The nervous system is its own standard in ngss so I don’t know how they can say this program is “teaching” the standards.

The diagram of the heart in their “sim” (online lab) for this unit shows an empty box. If you select “choking” in the sim, it blocks the digestive system rather than the respiratory. I’d say esophagus vs trachea but neither of those parts are labeled/included. The “human” cell is shown as a rectangle without a nucleus. It’s malpractice to require all kids to be in this program.

$680,000 was spent this year for this? $1,000,000 last year?

Was this made by AI? Seriously so strange.

These poor kids. It is malpractice to lay an incorrect foundation in science to every single DCPS middle schooler. What happens if they want to go into a STEM field later on and are competing with peers who learned properly (at privates and many charters)?

I honestly wonder at this point who took a bribe to approve this. No one could look at the lessons in this program and choose it on purpose.

[Anonymous]

Nothing will change unless the media report on this. The central office person I spoke to about CommonLit seemed to me to be an ideologue who talked about making the lift lighter on teachers and helping children relate more to the content. A friend who is a DCPS science teacher has confirmed that Amplify is awful. It’s doing all children a disservice to be giving them poorer quality and/or fewer materials to learn from in public school. Plus the heavy reliance on screens is not supported by research.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Np— Off the top of my head:

The Genetics unit skips DNA structure, dominant and recessive genes as well as Punnett Squares.

The human body unit skips the nervous, urinary, and reproductive systems.

Food chains don’t start with producers.

Human cells are shown as rectangular in a lot of diagrams.

[Anonymous]

Can't do it myself because of a conflicting connection but someone should reach out: [e-mail]

[Anonymous]

I agree that Amplify has lots of issues.

However, my hot take is that DCPS providing a full science curriculum with units mapped out, resources ready etc is actually extremely valuable to science in DCPS as a whole. It’s a big improvement from years ago when there was essentially nothing for teachers to work off of except standards.

I admit it likely does not help the strongest science teachers in DCPS. However I think providing a full curriculum is a huge step forward for many newer science teachers, and will help many students learn science in classes with less experienced teachers. Science teacher is also a hard-to-fill position, so sometimes an inexperienced teacher might really need a curriculum to work off, and adjust as needed.

Before the flaming commences, yes there still needs to be improvements and the strongest science teachers need to be vocal with ways to adjust the curriculum.