Curriculum 2.0

[Anonymous]

Question for the lazy two posters, why do you think MCPS is implementing the new curriculum. They don't gain any benefit from having angry parents or students who can't or won't take advanced math in high school. My understanding was that the new curriculum was developed because the students didn't understand the concepts behind the math they were doing. I can relate since when I was a child we learned multiplication, addition, etc. primarily through flash cards and memorization in 2nd and 3rd grade. We didn't learn the concepts behind those processes until 5th grade.

[Anonymous]

Which or whose students didn't understand the underlying concepts? And this is now corrected with curriculum 2.0? Any evidence-based data to support this?

[Anonymous]

19:00 here *last, not lazy *

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Which or whose students didn't understand the underlying concepts? And this is now corrected with curriculum 2.0? Any evidence-based data to support this?

No, I dont. That is why I'm asking the question. I have read that reason, but I have no basis to believe whether or not it is true. It does seem reasonable that MCPS is trying to fix a problem, which could be just a perceived problem. I can't think of an alternative motivator. I was wondering if the prior posters had an alternative theory.

[Anonymous]

No, I dont. That is why I'm asking the question. I have read that reason, but I have no basis to believe whether or not it is true. It does seem reasonable that MCPS is trying to fix a problem, which could be just a perceived problem. I can't think of an alternative motivator. I was wondering if the prior posters had an alternative theory.

Do you believe elimination of potential pathways for advancement and acceleration in anyway addresses the problem?

[Anonymous]

Poster at Time 1900:

I've been to a forum and read lots from specific high school teachers who are concerned about over-acceleration and children not getting a strong enough grasp of the basics.

I don't discount that. Rather, I think there's truth to it. But I think that, in part, that is the county's own implementation of the pathways that has been the problem. Older son's elementary school over-accelerated children who weren't ready. The county (or maybe schools themselves?) put quotas on the NUMBER of children who needed to be placed in advanced math. I once heard a principal talk with parents about college readiness being tied to such acceleration. She insisted that X number of children needed to be accelerated because the county was requiring it. I used to hear from parents of children struggling in my child's math class. "Is your son struggling, my child is" kinds of comments.

Now, the county is going in the complete opposite direction. Let's not accelerate at all because we failed children so badly with acceleration.

The truth is that children don't fit in either of the boxes. Different children need different amounts of acceleration. My older child is THRIVING with 2-yr math acceleration. He doesn't struggle, he gets the concepts easily and he's amazing at math reasoning. But he's always been that way, pretty much from birth. Now writing on the other hand ... not so much. He has to work much harder there. Meanwhile, your child might be able to write and write, but might need far more time on math concepts than my child. Both are okay, but MCPS isn't willing to accept that.

There's a balance to accelerating and it's time that MCPS find it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Question for the lazy two posters, why do you think MCPS is implementing the new curriculum. They don't gain any benefit from having angry parents or students who can't or won't take advanced math in high school. My understanding was that the new curriculum was developed because the students didn't understand the concepts behind the math they were doing. I can relate since when I was a child we learned multiplication, addition, etc. primarily through flash cards and memorization in 2nd and 3rd grade. We didn't learn the concepts behind those processes until 5th grade.

MCPS and BOE don't give a cr@#p about parents. If they did, they would have consulted us before ramming this down our throats. Parents are a pain to MCPS.

[Anonymous]

Poster at Time 1900:

I've been to a forum and read lots from specific high school teachers who are concerned about over-acceleration and children not getting a strong enough grasp of the basics.

I don't discount that. Rather, I think there's truth to it. But I think that, in part, that is the county's own implementation of the pathways that has been the problem. Older son's elementary school over-accelerated children who weren't ready. The county (or maybe schools themselves?) put quotas on the NUMBER of children who needed to be placed in advanced math. I once heard a principal talk with parents about college readiness being tied to such acceleration. She insisted that X number of children needed to be accelerated because the county was requiring it. I used to hear from parents of children struggling in my child's math class. "Is your son struggling, my child is" kinds of comments.

Now, the county is going in the complete opposite direction. Let's not accelerate at all because we failed children so badly with acceleration.

The truth is that children don't fit in either of the boxes. Different children need different amounts of acceleration. My older child is THRIVING with 2-yr math acceleration. He doesn't struggle, he gets the concepts easily and he's amazing at math reasoning. But he's always been that way, pretty much from birth. Now writing on the other hand ... not so much. He has to work much harder there. Meanwhile, your child might be able to write and write, but might need far more time on math concepts than my child. Both are okay, but MCPS isn't willing to accept that.

There's a balance to accelerating and it's time that MCPS find it.

I appreciate the background. Do you believe elimination of potential pathways for advancement and acceleration in anyway addresses the problem?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Poster at Time 1900:

I've been to a forum and read lots from specific high school teachers who are concerned about over-acceleration and children not getting a strong enough grasp of the basics.

I don't discount that. Rather, I think there's truth to it. But I think that, in part, that is the county's own implementation of the pathways that has been the problem. Older son's elementary school over-accelerated children who weren't ready. The county (or maybe schools themselves?) put quotas on the NUMBER of children who needed to be placed in advanced math. I once heard a principal talk with parents about college readiness being tied to such acceleration. She insisted that X number of children needed to be accelerated because the county was requiring it. I used to hear from parents of children struggling in my child's math class. "Is your son struggling, my child is" kinds of comments.

Now, the county is going in the complete opposite direction. Let's not accelerate at all because we failed children so badly with acceleration.

The truth is that children don't fit in either of the boxes. Different children need different amounts of acceleration. My older child is THRIVING with 2-yr math acceleration. He doesn't struggle, he gets the concepts easily and he's amazing at math reasoning. But he's always been that way, pretty much from birth. Now writing on the other hand ... not so much. He has to work much harder there. Meanwhile, your child might be able to write and write, but might need far more time on math concepts than my child. Both are okay, but MCPS isn't willing to accept that.

There's a balance to accelerating and it's time that MCPS find it.

+1 This is exactly correct. Pathways allows kids to move at their own pace. Curriculum 2.0 is one-size-fits-all.

[Anonymous]

Exactly +1. The Pathways NEED to stay. And I truly think that we parents need to force the issue with the board and Dr. Starr. It's not the Pathways that are/were the problem. It's the Quota system implementation.

Curriculum 2.0 may have some strengths in how it integrates language arts, social studies and science. But it is falling far short on math with its one-size-fits-all inside a single classroom premise.

[Anonymous]

Curriculum 2.0 may have some strengths in how it integrates language arts, social studies and science. But it is falling far short on math with its one-size-fits-all inside a single classroom premise.

It falls very short in those areas as well. The "science" and "social studies" is simply reading and writing instruction using a paragraph or story with a science or social studies subject. Its expensive to have a science lab, purchase materials for experiments, and have teacher aids in class to work with groups but this how science should be taught rather than giving the kids a one page reading passage telling them the what and then a worksheet where they answer questions demonstrating their reading comprehension and ability to write. Science should be taught in a manner that allows kids to observe, develop a hypothesis, test this out, and discover things. This is about letting them see something change state (color, melt etc) and then ask them why do you think that happened? What could have changed? What things did we use that we could touch? What things did we use that we couldn't see? (heat, cold).

Language arts should also include foreign language instruction, especially in non-European languages, at the elementary school level. The goal should not be fluency or memorizing vocabulary or grammar rules but learning how to make sounds that are in different languages and learn language in context. It is very hard for high school kids and adults to pick up unfamiliar sound formation but preschoolers and elementary kids have an open window here.

[Anonymous]

One more thing...the bottom line on Curriculum 2.0 and any other curriculum that comes out is that there is no curriculum that can deliver a great education without resources or funding to provide more individuaized instruction. Good elementary school instruction requires funding teacher aides and hiring teaching specialists in different subjects not trying to design a magic curriculum that allows one teacher to be the only instructor for 25-30 kids for all subjects and achieve uniform test scores. Promethus boards will not do this. Better worksheets will not do this.

Furthermore, all kids should be assessed not just on what level they reach at the end of the year but on how many intervals they master from day 1 to the last day of class. If a kid comes in with mastery of the levels marked as appropriate for the end of the year, he shouldn't just be expected to pass those same levels at the end of the year. To get an O or A or whatever label they choose to assign, he should master X number of levels above where he started. The same is true for the student how comes in several levels below, he should be given extra instruction to master X number of intervals.

I really feel that in MCPS we are all teaching our kids everything that will be covered the next year, feeling great that out kids are so smart, letting the kids sit around 6 hours a day filling our worksheets, and letting administrators pat themselves on the back for doing a great job while the kids are not learning squwat about how to learn. I do think that the teachers get this and shake their heads but with no flexibility and no teacher aides to teach students appropriately, what are they going to do?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Curriculum 2.0 may have some strengths in how it integrates language arts, social studies and science. But it is falling far short on math with its one-size-fits-all inside a single classroom premise.

It falls very short in those areas as well. The "science" and "social studies" is simply reading and writing instruction using a paragraph or story with a science or social studies subject. Its expensive to have a science lab, purchase materials for experiments, and have teacher aids in class to work with groups but this how science should be taught rather than giving the kids a one page reading passage telling them the what and then a worksheet where they answer questions demonstrating their reading comprehension and ability to write. Science should be taught in a manner that allows kids to observe, develop a hypothesis, test this out, and discover things. This is about letting them see something change state (color, melt etc) and then ask them why do you think that happened? What could have changed? What things did we use that we could touch? What things did we use that we couldn't see? (heat, cold).

Language arts should also include foreign language instruction, especially in non-European languages, at the elementary school level. The goal should not be fluency or memorizing vocabulary or grammar rules but learning how to make sounds that are in different languages and learn language in context. It is very hard for high school kids and adults to pick up unfamiliar sound formation but preschoolers and elementary kids have an open window here.

I'm a teacher in MCPS and what you described re: reading and writing instruction is not science and social studies under Curriculum 2.0 at all. If that is how your child's teacher is implementing it, that may be true in that classroom, but it's not how the curriculum is designed in the least.

[Anonymous]

Engineer/lawyer here again. I posed the question to my daughter's teacher "how's 2.0 going?" Response, "not great, but OK. Some of the content was clearly written by people who don't work with kids this age. So, we (the teachers) adjust. And we let the county know where the kinks are." It is clearly a work in progress, but I am pleased to know that the teachers get some flexibility. This teacher said they didn't get such flexibility under the old curriculum.

I have to believe that our teacher is doing just that, and that our daughter is doing so well with school, and still enjoying it, because of it. I think we, as parents, need to be vigilant, but we do not need to throw the curriculum under the bus yet. It doesn't do anyone any good.

And to anyone who feels the BOE "crammed this down our throats", then you need to (1) vote against the current board members and (2) perhaps lobby the board differently or run for the board yourself.

To my daughter's teacher: sorry to put your words out there without letting you know.

[Anonymous]

[quote=Anonymous]Question for the lazy two posters, why do you think MCPS is implementing the new curriculum. They don't gain any benefit from having angry parents or students who can't or won't take advanced math in high school. My understanding was that the new curriculum was developed because the students didn't understand the concepts behind the math they were doing. I can relate since when I was a child we learned multiplication, addition, etc. primarily through flash cards and memorization in 2nd and 3rd grade. We didn't learn the concepts behind those processes until 5th grade.[/quote]

To respond to post 19:00:

The reason MCPS is implementing the new curriculum with the timing of a new superintendent is obvious. It was someone's job at the Carver Center to develop the program and therefore the roll out of a "new" curriculum was needed to justify and budget the salary that person got paid (which is far more than the salary the general education teachers who work with our children get).

My children range from a high school to 2nd grade and I remember similar promises by MCPS of how great the Everyday Math program was to be when my oldest child was in elementary school. I also heard similar concerns from parents at PTA meetings on why the county was changing the math curriculum and the impact it was going to have on students.

How much did MCPS pay for all the textbooks and teaching materials for Every Day Math and the training required to teach it? And for what? To totally dismantle the program less than 10 years down the road? At least the teachers had a curriculum and text books to teach from when Every Day Math was brought on board. As a parent, I have always relied on my child's math text books to help them with homework to reinforce the methods of solving the problems the way the teacher taught at school. Thus far this year, I haven't seen a single math textbook for the Curriculum 2.0. My child (who again is in 2nd grade) is only bringing home worksheets she could have done in Kindergarten.

Math is still math and 2 + 2 will always equal 4. People get paid lots of money to come up with these new curriculums but new isn't always better. Besides the salary issue, there is also the cost of new textbooks, worksheets, and training to implement the new curriculum. In a time of tight budget constraints, the children in Montgomery County Public Schools would be better served with more teachers and smaller class sizes than a "new" curriculum. Anyone who has taught would tell you 1 teacher for 30-32 kids is too many. The smaller the class sizes the more effective the general education teacher can be in managing the many diverse needs of the children in the classroom. Additional aides and special educators would also be beneficial to aid instruction.

Finally, I am quite concerned about the lack of information on how much progress my child has made this year under Curriculum 2.0. For math, the report card no longer indicates if she is above grade level, on grade level, or below grade level. Isn't this the bottom line of what most parents want to know? Instead, the measurements are as follows:

Advanced - indicates that your child is currently working at the Advanced level in Grade 2; consistently demonstrating complete understanding of all Grade 2 mathematics content instructed during this marking period based on student work, teacher observations, and formative assessments.

(My child took 2nd grade math last year in 1st grade. Is there any data being collected that she has made any additional progress this year if she is only being taught 2nd grade concepts? Also, what is the definition of what's considered "complete" understanding? 100% on all work. If a child is getting 100% on everything, the curriculum is not challenging the child.)

Proficient - indicates that your child is currently working at the Proficient level in Grade 2; demonstrating understanding of most Grade 2 mathematics content instructed during this marking period based on student work, teacher observations, and formative assessments.

(What is considered "most"? 99.9% - 51%? Seems very subjective when the subject is math and grades, performance, and progress should be measurable)

Basic - indicates that your child is currently working at the Basic level in Grade 2; demonstrating minimal understanding of Grade 2 mathematics content instructed during this marking period based on student work, teacher observations, and formative assessments.

(What is considered "minimal"? Again, this is a very vague term. Does a child need to get less than 50% of the concepts to be flagged as minimal? Also, what support is to be added for children which such designation so they can do better? Are they ready to move on or should the information be repeated since the child is missing concepts? How is the general education teacher supposed to meet this child's needs and the needs of the advanced student at the same time?)