Is new MCPS superintendent going to eliminate Math Acceleration in elementary schools?

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Finland is a pretty poor comparison to the U.S. They have very few of the challenges we do, plus they have a much better social support system, so kids don't come to school as ravaged by poverty as ours do. This means that there's much less diversity of ability and preparedness in any one classroom.

Also, having attended secondary schools and universities in Europe, I can affirm that the systems in France and Belgium, at least, don't do much for deep thinking. Kids learn to absorb and produce large amounts of information but I think critical thinking skills are not highly emphasized.

OK, OK, they (Fins) don't have black people, but when comapred to other Scandinavian countries who also don't have blacks, they come out way ahead of those countires too, so they are doing something different. When we compare our white affluent states to them, we still fall short.
Also, the French have some of the most successful mathematicians in the world. Pick another country.

Interesting because the PP did not say Black people. I am white, but when I think of diversity in MoCo, I not only think of Blacks, but I think of Hispanics, Asians, and other non-Native language speakers. I also think of socioeconomic diversity as well....in fact...at my DS' former ES, Blacks were the true minority and were outnumbered by Asians and Hispanics.

I know that she did not say black people, but so many people interpret diversity as just that. BTW, why do people think that there are some countries with no poor people? When the word diversity is used in the US, it generally refers to race since every country has its poor.

Uhhhh...no...YOU interpret it that way. Like I said, if you look at MCPS, even racially....black people are just a piece of the diversity pie. In my son's last ES class....very diverse group....out of 25 kids, 4 were Black, 7 were Hispanic, 6 were Asian (including East Indian) and the rest were White. Pretty diverse group and it would have been diverse without the Black kids.

That's a very nice mix of kids.

why?

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:wrt to France's preeminence in mathematics

If you look at Fields prize winners, you will see French winners but also many Americans.

Did you divide by population?
Also, did you look at the historical prizes?

Well, no, I didn't divide by population because I don't think mathematical geniuses per capita is a very good measure.

That's why I asked for data -- show me the historical prizes. (Although the Fields goes back to 1936 so that's historical data.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:wrt to France's preeminence in mathematics

If you look at Fields prize winners, you will see French winners but also many Americans.

Did you divide by population?
Also, did you look at the historical prizes?

Well, no, I didn't divide by population because I don't think mathematical geniuses per capita is a very good measure.

That's why I asked for data -- show me the historical prizes. (Although the Fields goes back to 1936 so that's historical data.)

oh, i see, if china wins 10 medals, it is the same as iceland winning 10.

[Anonymous]

No of course not but it's a pretty inexact way to compare two countries -- too many other factors creating noise in the data. Sorry that's not clear to you -- perhaps you should go back and take statistics again?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No of course not but it's a pretty inexact way to compare two countries -- too many other factors creating noise in the data. Sorry that's not clear to you -- perhaps you should go back and take statistics again?

i was a stats major. the issue is about mcps and the math program. needs improvement, we need to look at countries that do things better than we do, and france is one of them.
btw, mcps needs a text book for math.

[Anonymous]

Don't change the subject! If you were a stats major you know that your claim that you can compare per capita math geniuses between countries and come to a meaning ful conclusion is specious.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:What I have seen of the new curriculum is leaps and bounds better than what was there before. At our school, many students (I'm talking 50% of the grade level) were pushed into the next level math so that the school would look good. I suggest you do some research into the Common Core, which are the standards that the math reflects. This curriculum also incorporates 21st century skills so that students are more prepared for the real world once they leave school.

OP Here: You raise an important issue here. I don't think Common Core was really rolled out to parents very well. Teachers may have received training and advanced materials, but I have only just seen this curriculum added to the MCPS web site since the beginning of the school year. It wasn't on the MCPS web site last year as far as I can tell (for the record, I do check out the curriculum documentation on MCPS, so that is how I know). Officially, I have only been informed of this new curriculum since the beginning of this school year (2 weeks now). The letter did not point me to any resources about where I can check out the new curriculum, but I do see it out on MCPS website. The MCPS web site does not show this new curriculum for grades 3 and up, so I probably won't see it until it is already implemented and I can't really project how it will play out. I will look at the curriculum and I hope you are right.

No one has ever addressed to me, however, how will MCPS handle when some kids can do long division and other kids are still working on 3x7? How will MCPS handle kindergaren kids that can read as well as a typcial 2nd grader and others are learning the alphabet. In both these cases, I don't see how putting them in the same class helps.

OP, I will try to say this nicely.
The common core curiculum is not new outside of the US. It has its roots in Russia, then spread to the rest of Europe and China, then to the rest of Asia and other nations. It somehow never made its way to the US until recently. It is not about acceleration in the early grades, but rather deeper understanding of basic principles.
Questions like: Betty, Sue and Tom's total weight is 123 kg, Betty weighs 32 kg, Sue weighs twich as much as Betty. How much does Sue weigh, how much does Tom weigh? for 3rd grade.
These questions do not require long division, but they get the kids thinking.
Anyway, the most important thing to remember is that we in the US have used ability grouping for eons with poor outcomes. Finland starts ability grouping much later than we do (I believe age 14) and their gifted kids do better than our gifted kids.
Bring me the long divion expert, and I bet you I can pluck some questions out of a core text that only involve arithmetic, that will be challenging.
Cool it.

OP Here Again:

Thanks for being nice. I hope I am too I really am open to other views, but you haven't convinced me. You say that we have tried ability grouping for eons with poor outcomes. I disagree. We have had tracking in the past, not ability grouping. Ability grouping is different. Tracking sets you on a pathway that is difficult or impossible to change. Tracking can be based on an assessment taken early in your educational life. It fails to account for late bloomers and hard workers. Ability grouping involves constant re-evaluation. It also may independently differentiate kids by subject matter (reading vs math). Finally, ability grouping should allow for parental input. If a kid tests poorly, but the parent and child can commit to working hard, they should be challenged at a higher level. Likewise, if a kid is overwhelmed, the parents and school may want to slow him down to the right pace. If you can share any empirical evidence that ability grouping doesn't work, I would love to see it. I am not trying to be flip, I actually have been trying to find such evidence because ability grouping makes so much sense. I have read articles that are positive to ability grouping, but I do worry that I am only drawn to one side of the argument. Ultimately, though, if we have magnet schools and within class ability groups, I think we are still doing ability grouping. We are just doing it poorly.

Meanwhile, acceleration only works for some kids. When acceleration is done as a policy to a broad range of kids without parental input, acceleration appears to fail. This happened in MCPS a few years ago (I know this from both sources within and outside of MCPS). I think rigid policies like this from the top are doomed to fail because every kid is different. When the local school and the parents decide to accelerate based on the unique situation of an individual evidence, then I think acceleration will work. The problem with acceleration to a higher grade is that it is a big discrete jump. It won't help a kid that could go a little faster, but is not ready to jump a grade. That is why ability grouping is preferred.

Finally, I can separate curriculum and acceleration. I am not really against the new curriculum (although MCPS is not rolling it out well, so I reserve the right to change my mind as I learn more). I am against any policy that would prevent a child from being taught to his or her capabilities when the school has the resources to do so. My question to you is whether Finland does perform ability grouping or does it have less educational variation in it's population so that ability grouping is not needed? MCPS has huge variation in educational levels in it's population, so I think teaching to the average kid will be boring from some kids and challenging for others.

I go back to my question above:

"how will MCPS handle when some kids can do long division and other kids are still working on 3x7? How will MCPS handle kindergaren kids that can read as well as a typcial 2nd grader and others are learning the alphabet?"

As a parent of a kid that currently hates school, is bored, only missed a couple questions on the 60 question 2nd grade GT screening test, who has multiplication and division memorized forwards and backwards, who finishes homework at school, and who was wait-listed for the elementary magnet program (so we are back at the local school), my biggest fear is that this kid will go through school thinking learning is easy and boring. Then someday, when DC is in a future job or graduate school program competing against better prepared peers from around the world, what will happen? My guess is that DC will fail against the better prepared kids if DC continues on this current path. To summarize, all of our kids will compete for future jobs with hundreds of millions of kids from around the world. Why not teach them to their potential, rather than to an average level. Education reform is about closing the test score gap by lowering standards and keeping some kids from getting too far ahead That is a problem for me. I hope you are right and I am wrong, but I don't have a good feeling about the current situation.

[Anonymous]

First, ability grouping becomes tracking for the most part, but that is not impotant since I can argue just about ability grouping.
Another thing that I want to ask is why parents of bright children say that their kids are bored because things are too easy? I have one gifted child and one average. They both complain all the time about boredom.

Back to ability grouping and Finland (and other countries). They also have children from a wide ability background. I suspect that their level of boredom is about the same as for any child in school. They actually have bragged that their kids enjo school more and that contributes to the success.
Does ability grouping "work"? it depends on ow you define "work". If it makes parents happier, then the answer is yes and no. Parents of kids in the high groups are usually happy, I suspect because they have their kids' success to show and they think that their kids are doing "better". Outcomes in aggregate show no better for gifted kids, worse for everyone else. LOTS of theories on why. Not everything that seems intuitive is necessarily good.
You mentioned resources. We really do not have them.
Many children will be taught outside of their ability. The slower ones will be pushed a little harder and the quicker ones will see more redundancy. In theory, this will happen all day long. Even PE will have laggards with star athletes. So far, it is efficient. In the end, we discover who will succeed after years of training.
The reason that I am against ability grouping is that it does set up lower expectations for children in lower groups who might have the ability to achieve more. This hurts the whole sysytem and the child. There is ample evidence that children who are late bloomers are most affetcted by this. The brain has a ton of growth until puberty and still a little more until age 25. We just don't know where these kids will end up. That is one big reason that the Fins got rid of ability grouping. Too many kids being written off too early. Some say that the number of misdiagnosed late blooomers could be as high as 20% or even higher for boys. This is separate from learning issues like ADD. A late bloomer is not pathologic. On the flip side, some children show amazing self control and maturity that makes athem appear to be gifted but later we find that the child loses ground as they age.
To lose that 20%, when there is no benefit to the gifted children, is a sad waste. BTW, ability grouping has itts place: in high school.
Trust me, many kids could achieve "more" in all ways at school. My child is in private school with an excellent music program. DC sings so well that people stop talking when they hear. That would never have happened in public school because they would never have trained that voice. Does that mean that my child would have been short changed in public school? Perhaps, but the system can not have special classes for every child with this or that talent.
We need to focus on doing a good job for everyone. The experts are saying stop the ability grouping, and that souds counterintuitive, but lets give their approach a try since it has worked elsewhere. I don't feel that this is an experiment.

Pardon the typos, late at night and can barely see the screen.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the follow-up post. It was late night for me as well. I will look into Finland a bit more and be a be open minded about it. My concern is that Finland has a more homogenous classroom population as does your typical DC private school. When the variation is small, I have no problem with mixed classrooms. Afterall, even in a class of 25 gifted kids, there are differences in educational level in that room (some are better readers, other better in math). What I think is that we shouldn't have a either global ban on ability grouping or mixed classrooms. It should be up to the local school and parents. My gut tells me that one-size fits all policies from the top down don't work (either for mass acceleration or a complete ban on acceleration. Every case is different. A school should not have barriers put in place if it wants to try ability grouping to accommodate a diverse classroom.

As for Finland, I also need to understand why you say that Finland is producing better outcomes than other countries. I don't really hear about Finland much in terms of innovation, creativity and economic output. They may be great, but I just don't hear enough to think that they are better than others. You do hear about Asian countries putting out smart graduates, so an Asian example like China or Japan would resonate more with me. I am ignorant here and just thinking out load.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Thanks for the follow-up post. It was late night for me as well. I will look into Finland a bit more and be a be open minded about it. My concern is that Finland has a more homogenous classroom population as does your typical DC private school. When the variation is small, I have no problem with mixed classrooms. Afterall, even in a class of 25 gifted kids, there are differences in educational level in that room (some are better readers, other better in math). What I think is that we shouldn't have a either global ban on ability grouping or mixed classrooms. It should be up to the local school and parents. My gut tells me that one-size fits all policies from the top down don't work (either for mass acceleration or a complete ban on acceleration. Every case is different. A school should not have barriers put in place if it wants to try ability grouping to accommodate a diverse classroom.

As for Finland, I also need to understand why you say that Finland is producing better outcomes than other countries. I don't really hear about Finland much in terms of innovation, creativity and economic output. They may be great, but I just don't hear enough to think that they are better than others. You do hear about Asian countries putting out smart graduates, so an Asian example like China or Japan would resonate more with me. I am ignorant here and just thinking out load.

Keep in mind that there are differences in academic ability in Finland, all in one classroom. To make a comparison, look at Norway, Sweden and Denmark different culturally, but also homogeneous, Norway being a very rich country. They have poorer academic outcomes. This may have nothing to do with whether or not they have ability grouping, it is just a point that you can have poor outcomes, even when you have homogeneous populations. Old chart, but you can find newer ones:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/education/7126388.stm

The thing that you have to keep in mind is that even when a child appears to do well, something in their training might be overlooked if the teacher does not go through everything thoroughly. You might find a deficiency later on that is foundational and needs to be corrected. You don't want that child to end up in 6th grade and have some basic deficit. That is more work for the 6th grade teacher and it can be disruptive.

In terms of economic output, Finland does well. They have their fair share of patents and a smooth running well organized government which was set in place by competent people. Norway, Sweden and Denmark are not poor. Norway is very rich, but more from natural resources, oil.
I guess I don't want my kids to be Bill Gates, I would rather they work as a group and have positive input and make a great nation. Also, keep in mind, after a good education, there is parental pressure to succeed that might not be a strong in Scandinavia as say in China. There is less desperation in Scandinavia, so I guess less pressure. Different value system. I am not sure that we can say which is right.

[Anonymous]

I can't speak to Finland but I can speak to ability grouping as it is done in the elementary and middle school gifted programs at MCPS.

These programs have been so exceptional for my child that I can hardly express it adequately. The depth of material, the interesting conversations and debate, the challenges .... it blows me away. He's able to write, read and argue on a level that I think would challenge many college students, and what he has been able to learn and achieve has been extraordinary. And he has NEVER complained about being bored.

I wish all kids could have a similar experience, and I think more could if teachers were allowed to focus on what would make things interesting and engaging for kids within a certain ability level, rather than trying to run around and serve all the varied levels in a typical east county classroom. I have listened to Dr. Starr's ideas about serving many levels in one classroom through differentiation, and basically they boil down to the highly able kids working on their own and helping other kids. That's not an education.

We have a dual challenge in the U.S. -- help the kids who need to be brought up to an adequate level of education, and continue to challenge and enrich the kids who are able to work at a quicker pace with more challenging material so that they continue to be challenged. There's a reason that we have so few STEM majors in the U.S. relative to prior years and relative to students coming from other countries -- we are not developing and fostering them.

So I think there has to be a dual solution -- excellent schools for all and plenty of opportunity for extra challenge and enrichment for kids who can handle that.

To succeed as a country, we have to do BOTH.

[Anonymous]

As a parent of a kid that currently hates school, is bored, only missed a couple questions on the 60 question 2nd grade GT screening test, who has multiplication and division memorized forwards and backwards, who finishes homework at school, and who was wait-listed for the elementary magnet program (so we are back at the local school), my biggest fear is that this kid will go through school thinking learning is easy and boring. Then someday, when DC is in a future job or graduate school program competing against better prepared peers from around the world, what will happen? My guess is that DC will fail against the better prepared kids if DC continues on this current path. To summarize, all of our kids will compete for future jobs with hundreds of millions of kids from around the world. Why not teach them to their potential, rather than to an average level. Education reform is about closing the test score gap by lowering standards and keeping some kids from getting too far ahead That is a problem for me. I hope you are right and I am wrong, but I don't have a good feeling about the current situation.

Your child must not be as bright as you think since most children who have prepped for this test don't miss any of the 60 questions. Sorry to out you. The 60 questions have been in the public domain for years and you know this

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

As a parent of a kid that currently hates school, is bored, only missed a couple questions on the 60 question 2nd grade GT screening test, who has multiplication and division memorized forwards and backwards, who finishes homework at school, and who was wait-listed for the elementary magnet program (so we are back at the local school), my biggest fear is that this kid will go through school thinking learning is easy and boring. Then someday, when DC is in a future job or graduate school program competing against better prepared peers from around the world, what will happen? My guess is that DC will fail against the better prepared kids if DC continues on this current path. To summarize, all of our kids will compete for future jobs with hundreds of millions of kids from around the world. Why not teach them to their potential, rather than to an average level. Education reform is about closing the test score gap by lowering standards and keeping some kids from getting too far ahead That is a problem for me. I hope you are right and I am wrong, but I don't have a good feeling about the current situation.

Your child must not be as bright as you think since most children who have prepped for this test don't miss any of the 60 questions. Sorry to out you. The 60 questions have been in the public domain for years and you know this

At this point, I think we need to call TROLL on this poster and end the thread. This is ridiculous and totally inaccurate. There's also no need to insult other posters' children.

And really, who preps their kids for a second grade screening test, even if you could?

[Anonymous]

b/c it's a somewhat even breakdown among groups, which is my definition of diversity

I'd rather have my child (white) surrounded by a mix a kids.

I work in a school that's 70% Hispanic. I don't consider that diverse.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Finland is a pretty poor comparison to the U.S. They have very few of the challenges we do, plus they have a much better social support system, so kids don't come to school as ravaged by poverty as ours do. This means that there's much less diversity of ability and preparedness in any one classroom.

Also, having attended secondary schools and universities in Europe, I can affirm that the systems in France and Belgium, at least, don't do much for deep thinking. Kids learn to absorb and produce large amounts of information but I think critical thinking skills are not highly emphasized.

OK, OK, they (Fins) don't have black people, but when comapred to other Scandinavian countries who also don't have blacks, they come out way ahead of those countires too, so they are doing something different. When we compare our white affluent states to them, we still fall short.
Also, the French have some of the most successful mathematicians in the world. Pick another country.

Interesting because the PP did not say Black people. I am white, but when I think of diversity in MoCo, I not only think of Blacks, but I think of Hispanics, Asians, and other non-Native language speakers. I also think of socioeconomic diversity as well....in fact...at my DS' former ES, Blacks were the true minority and were outnumbered by Asians and Hispanics.

I know that she did not say black people, but so many people interpret diversity as just that. BTW, why do people think that there are some countries with no poor people? When the word diversity is used in the US, it generally refers to race since every country has its poor.

Uhhhh...no...YOU interpret it that way. Like I said, if you look at MCPS, even racially....black people are just a piece of the diversity pie. In my son's last ES class....very diverse group....out of 25 kids, 4 were Black, 7 were Hispanic, 6 were Asian (including East Indian) and the rest were White. Pretty diverse group and it would have been diverse without the Black kids.

That's a very nice mix of kids.

why?

[Anonymous]

At this point, I think we need to call TROLL on this poster and end the thread. This is ridiculous and totally inaccurate. There's also no need to insult other posters' children.

And really, who preps their kids for a second grade screening test, even if you could?

Troll, I'm not quite sure of your response; but is this an admission your child saw the 60 questions ahead of others sitting for the test in the 2nd Grade. If you are unsure of the test...I'll remind you of a species of bird!