Achievement Gap in MoCo

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

So annoying that Valerie Ervin seems to be blaming the "achievement gap" on MCPS. What about talking about the responsibility of parents for a change and getting rid of all these racial categories for measuring performance?

Agree with this. If the parents don't care, there is no way to close this 'achievement gap'. Crazy if they continue to spend more money on this.

It's very rarely because parents don't care. It's usually because they don't have the time and/or resources to help.

So do we have to make them have time or force resources on them? I am sorry but it is YOUR JOB as a parent to make sure your child is succeeding in school and to BE A PARENT to them. There are families out there that have full time working parents (some that work 2 jobs) that make the time. Parents these days CHOOSE to let the schools take on so much more then they should. Teaching, life skills, better eating, exercise, sex ed. I am not saying the schools should not be teaching this but you as parents MUST supplement it. If you take 2-4 hours a week filling your kids with positive influence, teaching them, helping them learn how to study, making them feel important - it WILL make a difference. If you choose to spend that time at Chuckie Cheese, hanging out at the mall, or watching tv/video games, that is NOT the school system's problem. We live in an area with free museums, free zoo, free libraries with free computer use. Tons of resources online, free interpreters, free ESOL classes for kids and adults, highly discounted summer learning help. There is no excuse. I work 40hrs a week and my husband works 60hrs. We have no outside help. We MAKE the time. I am so sick of excuses for the LAZY in all walks of life, which I believe weighs heavily on the "achievement gap."

I always find it amusing when people who have so much in life get so angry at those who don't. You are lucky to have such a good, easy life. Not everyone does. This gap is NOT a question of a bunch of lazy parents who don't care about school. It's about an inability to act on that desire to see their kids do well.

What about a single woman working two jobs to put a roof over her kid's head? She's often not home to make dinner, much less sit over her kid to make sure he does his homework. What about the family that has trouble putting food on the table each day? A third of the kids in MoCo schools qualify for FARMS. They often can't put dinner together, and Manna Food sends home smart sacks for kids who otherwise wouldn't eat on the weekends. School is where they get their most nutritious meals. A perpetually hungry kid often has trouble learning well. If you have ever lived like that, you know a parent's priority becomes food first, and school takes a back seat.

I've lived both sides of the income-achievement gap. It is worlds easier being middle class than poor. There is no comparison.

I agree with all of your points, but the problem is systemic, not with the school system specifically. What happens is that these problems are dumped at the schoolhouse doors, and the schools somehow become answerable for a variety of societal ills better addressed by the various social services that are (or should be) available.

I am a left-leaning Democrat and 100% in favor of providing whatever infrastructure and services are needed to help the working poor, but the problem cannot be dumped on the schools in the ways that it is.

[Anonymous]

You get rid of the illegals you get rid of most of the dumb and poor in our county. Problem solved. They have doubled in numbers in less than 10yrs. But somehow people keep wanting to pay for them. Coming from a family who worked 10 years to become legal citizens and show how we would contribute to US and not take, I will honestly never understand this. Why do the legal way when you can commit a crime and receive free meals, education, work tax free, get subsidized housing, food stamps and welfare, discounted tuition and STILL have legal citizens who pay for all of that with their own taxes to sympathize with you. What if they just open the borders and increase taxes to 50% for all middle class to pay for it. Is that still okay because we are "helping." I call it enabling.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

So annoying that Valerie Ervin seems to be blaming the "achievement gap" on MCPS. What about talking about the responsibility of parents for a change and getting rid of all these racial categories for measuring performance?

Agree with this. If the parents don't care, there is no way to close this 'achievement gap'. Crazy if they continue to spend more money on this.

It's very rarely because parents don't care. It's usually because they don't have the time and/or resources to help.

So do we have to make them have time or force resources on them? I am sorry but it is YOUR JOB as a parent to make sure your child is succeeding in school and to BE A PARENT to them. There are families out there that have full time working parents (some that work 2 jobs) that make the time. Parents these days CHOOSE to let the schools take on so much more then they should. Teaching, life skills, better eating, exercise, sex ed. I am not saying the schools should not be teaching this but you as parents MUST supplement it. If you take 2-4 hours a week filling your kids with positive influence, teaching them, helping them learn how to study, making them feel important - it WILL make a difference. If you choose to spend that time at Chuckie Cheese, hanging out at the mall, or watching tv/video games, that is NOT the school system's problem. We live in an area with free museums, free zoo, free libraries with free computer use. Tons of resources online, free interpreters, free ESOL classes for kids and adults, highly discounted summer learning help. There is no excuse. I work 40hrs a week and my husband works 60hrs. We have no outside help. We MAKE the time. I am so sick of excuses for the LAZY in all walks of life, which I believe weighs heavily on the "achievement gap."

I always find it amusing when people who have so much in life get so angry at those who don't. You are lucky to have such a good, easy life. Not everyone does. This gap is NOT a question of a bunch of lazy parents who don't care about school. It's about an inability to act on that desire to see their kids do well.

What about a single woman working two jobs to put a roof over her kid's head? She's often not home to make dinner, much less sit over her kid to make sure he does his homework. What about the family that has trouble putting food on the table each day? A third of the kids in MoCo schools qualify for FARMS. They often can't put dinner together, and Manna Food sends home smart sacks for kids who otherwise wouldn't eat on the weekends. School is where they get their most nutritious meals. A perpetually hungry kid often has trouble learning well. If you have ever lived like that, you know a parent's priority becomes food first, and school takes a back seat.

I've lived both sides of the income-achievement gap. It is worlds easier being middle class than poor. There is no comparison.

I agree with all of your points, but the problem is systemic, not with the school system specifically. What happens is that these problems are dumped at the schoolhouse doors, and the schools somehow become answerable for a variety of societal ills better addressed by the various social services that are (or should be) available.

I am a left-leaning Democrat and 100% in favor of providing whatever infrastructure and services are needed to help the working poor, but the problem cannot be dumped on the schools in the ways that it is.

I'm just glad that DC gentrification is forcing the suburbs to begin to address some of the problems that come with regional poverty. Hopefully as the suburbanization of poverty continues apace, we can start to look at regional solutions to this regional problem.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You get rid of the illegals you get rid of most of the dumb and poor in our county. Problem solved. They have doubled in numbers in less than 10yrs. But somehow people keep wanting to pay for them. Coming from a family who worked 10 years to become legal citizens and show how we would contribute to US and not take, I will honestly never understand this. Why do the legal way when you can commit a crime and receive free meals, education, work tax free, get subsidized housing, food stamps and welfare, discounted tuition and STILL have legal citizens who pay for all of that with their own taxes to sympathize with you. What if they just open the borders and increase taxes to 50% for all middle class to pay for it. Is that still okay because we are "helping." I call it enabling.

If you have a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. If you have a lump of iron for a brain, every problem looks like an illegal immigrant.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

So annoying that Valerie Ervin seems to be blaming the "achievement gap" on MCPS. What about talking about the responsibility of parents for a change and getting rid of all these racial categories for measuring performance?

Agree with this. If the parents don't care, there is no way to close this 'achievement gap'. Crazy if they continue to spend more money on this.

It's very rarely because parents don't care. It's usually because they don't have the time and/or resources to help.

So do we have to make them have time or force resources on them? I am sorry but it is YOUR JOB as a parent to make sure your child is succeeding in school and to BE A PARENT to them. There are families out there that have full time working parents (some that work 2 jobs) that make the time. Parents these days CHOOSE to let the schools take on so much more then they should. Teaching, life skills, better eating, exercise, sex ed. I am not saying the schools should not be teaching this but you as parents MUST supplement it. If you take 2-4 hours a week filling your kids with positive influence, teaching them, helping them learn how to study, making them feel important - it WILL make a difference. If you choose to spend that time at Chuckie Cheese, hanging out at the mall, or watching tv/video games, that is NOT the school system's problem. We live in an area with free museums, free zoo, free libraries with free computer use. Tons of resources online, free interpreters, free ESOL classes for kids and adults, highly discounted summer learning help. There is no excuse. I work 40hrs a week and my husband works 60hrs. We have no outside help. We MAKE the time. I am so sick of excuses for the LAZY in all walks of life, which I believe weighs heavily on the "achievement gap."

I always find it amusing when people who have so much in life get so angry at those who don't. You are lucky to have such a good, easy life. Not everyone does. This gap is NOT a question of a bunch of lazy parents who don't care about school. It's about an inability to act on that desire to see their kids do well.

What about a single woman working two jobs to put a roof over her kid's head? She's often not home to make dinner, much less sit over her kid to make sure he does his homework. What about the family that has trouble putting food on the table each day? A third of the kids in MoCo schools qualify for FARMS. They often can't put dinner together, and Manna Food sends home smart sacks for kids who otherwise wouldn't eat on the weekends. School is where they get their most nutritious meals. A perpetually hungry kid often has trouble learning well. If you have ever lived like that, you know a parent's priority becomes food first, and school takes a back seat.

I've lived both sides of the income-achievement gap. It is worlds easier being middle class than poor. There is no comparison.

I agree with all of your points, but the problem is systemic, not with the school system specifically. What happens is that these problems are dumped at the schoolhouse doors, and the schools somehow become answerable for a variety of societal ills better addressed by the various social services that are (or should be) available.

I am a left-leaning Democrat and 100% in favor of providing whatever infrastructure and services are needed to help the working poor, but the problem cannot be dumped on the schools in the ways that it is.

I agree with you as well. And MoCo actually provides many wraparound support services, more so than most jurisdictions. I think the school system does pretty well narrowing the achievement gap, personally. It's not perfect, but for a system its size, with an extremely diverse student population, it's really good. That doesn't mean we should stop looking for ways to improve, though.

[Anonymous]

Has anyone considered that the achievement gap may simply show that MCPS isn't good at teaching any students? Is it correct to assume that MCPS must be good if some types of kids get high test scores? Wouldn't these types of students be predisposed to high scores anyway?

I don't know anyone who sent their kid to kindergarten without some basic reading capabilities and most were solid readers. The same goes for math. I haven't seen much in the curriculum that almost every kid doesn't already know to an extent before even starting the school year. These kids may get practice at school but they come in knowing the concepts. The high test scores may reflect the parent population that is highly educated and supplementing at home or wealthy able to pay for enrichment classes and tutors. If you took the same curriculum, resources and teachers out of a high performing MCPS school and swapped it with the resources, curriculum and teachers of a low performing school, do you really think that the kid's getting high scores would all of sudden drop to the bottom? My guess is that they would be exactly where they are today. MCPS likes to take credit for their scores but it may not be credit they deserve.

MCPS can't really push down the high performers. They can do less to keep these kids interested in school and piss off parents but the high performing kids will still score high. If MCPS is free to avoid non-MCPS standardized tests then they can pretend they have closed the gap by assessing everyone at the same level. They could maybe get away with this for a few years but eventually there will be some external assessment showing that they widened the gap instead of closing it.

[Anonymous]

What about a single woman working two jobs to put a roof over her kid's head? She's often not home to make dinner, much less sit over her kid to make sure he does his homework. What about the family that has trouble putting food on the table each day? A third of the kids in MoCo schools qualify for FARMS. They often can't put dinner together, and Manna Food sends home smart sacks for kids who otherwise wouldn't eat on the weekends. School is where they get their most nutritious meals. A perpetually hungry kid often has trouble learning well. If you have ever lived like that, you know a parent's priority becomes food first, and school takes a back seat.

Wouldn't a logical solution be to provide before and after school tutoring services to these kids? The difference between kid's who have parents who can spend time educating them outside of class and kids that don't is access to one on one assistance. Dumbing down the curriculum and increasing class sizes isn't going to solve the problem.

The single mom working two jobs needs childcare and why couldn't it be something that includes tutors that tutor the way parents with time work with their kid? This isn't just supervising homework but reading to them and with them, encouraging them, and introducing the lessons before they see it in school.

[Anonymous]

School day should be extended in red zone and provide homework help time during that extra period. That would help on a number of front: 1) help give the kids who need it extra time w/ people who can cactually help w/ the HW and ensure it is done; 2) help draw more middle class families to the east side in order to help dilute out the overall % of high needs kids in the class.

The flaw with this line of thinking is that you assume middle and upper income people 1.) want the school day to get even longer and 2.) will drive across the county for schools where their kids can spend more hours at a desk. Or move across the county, even, from Bethesda to Langley Park.

Strong SES parents, as a rule, don't clamor for extended school day. Frankly, their kids don't need it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Has anyone considered that the achievement gap may simply show that MCPS isn't good at teaching any students? Is it correct to assume that MCPS must be good if some types of kids get high test scores? Wouldn't these types of students be predisposed to high scores anyway?

I don't know anyone who sent their kid to kindergarten without some basic reading capabilities and most were solid readers. The same goes for math. I haven't seen much in the curriculum that almost every kid doesn't already know to an extent before even starting the school year. These kids may get practice at school but they come in knowing the concepts. The high test scores may reflect the parent population that is highly educated and supplementing at home or wealthy able to pay for enrichment classes and tutors. If you took the same curriculum, resources and teachers out of a high performing MCPS school and swapped it with the resources, curriculum and teachers of a low performing school, do you really think that the kid's getting high scores would all of sudden drop to the bottom? My guess is that they would be exactly where they are today. MCPS likes to take credit for their scores but it may not be credit they deserve.

MCPS can't really push down the high performers. They can do less to keep these kids interested in school and piss off parents but the high performing kids will still score high. If MCPS is free to avoid non-MCPS standardized tests then they can pretend they have closed the gap by assessing everyone at the same level. They could maybe get away with this for a few years but eventually there will be some external assessment showing that they widened the gap instead of closing it.

Exactly. They need to teach better while at school. The advantaged kids will be fine either way. A bad curriculum in the name of narrowing the gap will harm the disadvantaged even more.

[Anonymous]

The whole curriculum is dumbed down. The main problem is they are too politically correct in elementary school. They redistrict so poor kids go a little but to every school. Then they keep a little bit of everything in each class. Stop redistricting, keep kids in the school close to them and put them in classes starting in kindergarten by intelligence. Keep the kids struggling in slightly smaller class sizes and have teachers work with that group.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You get rid of the illegals you get rid of most of the dumb and poor in our county. Problem solved. They have doubled in numbers in less than 10yrs. But somehow people keep wanting to pay for them. Coming from a family who worked 10 years to become legal citizens and show how we would contribute to US and not take, I will honestly never understand this. Why do the legal way when you can commit a crime and receive free meals, education, work tax free, get subsidized housing, food stamps and welfare, discounted tuition and STILL have legal citizens who pay for all of that with their own taxes to sympathize with you. What if they just open the borders and increase taxes to 50% for all middle class to pay for it. Is that still okay because we are "helping." I call it enabling.

If you have a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. If you have a lump of iron for a brain, every problem looks like an illegal immigrant.

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
I don't know anyone who sent their kid to kindergarten without some basic reading capabilities and most were solid readers. The same goes for math. I haven't seen much in the curriculum that almost every kid doesn't already know to an extent before even starting the school year.

Our daughter went to kindergarten unable to read or count much above 10. We didn't spend any time at an early age trying to prepare her for K. I figured that they would teach her that in K. I'm not of the opinion that cramming this stuff into kids heads early is at all good for them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

School day should be extended in red zone and provide homework help time during that extra period. That would help on a number of front: 1) help give the kids who need it extra time w/ people who can cactually help w/ the HW and ensure it is done; 2) help draw more middle class families to the east side in order to help dilute out the overall % of high needs kids in the class.

The flaw with this line of thinking is that you assume middle and upper income people 1.) want the school day to get even longer and 2.) will drive across the county for schools where their kids can spend more hours at a desk. Or move across the county, even, f[b]rom Bethesda to Langley Park.

Strong SES parents, as a rule, don't clamor for extended school day. Frankly, their kids don't need it.

Langley Park is not in Montgomery County.
I have heard that many Title I schools serve breakfast to all students in class each morning. Couldn't that also be a homework review time?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You get rid of the illegals you get rid of most of the dumb and poor in our county. Problem solved. They have doubled in numbers in less than 10yrs. But somehow people keep wanting to pay for them. Coming from a family who worked 10 years to become legal citizens and show how we would contribute to US and not take, I will honestly never understand this. Why do the legal way when you can commit a crime and receive free meals, education, work tax free, get subsidized housing, food stamps and welfare, discounted tuition and STILL have legal citizens who pay for all of that with their own taxes to sympathize with you. What if they just open the borders and increase taxes to 50% for all middle class to pay for it. Is that still okay because we are "helping." I call it enabling.

If you have a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. If you have a lump of iron for a brain, every problem looks like an illegal immigrant.

+1

+100 well said

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You get rid of the illegals you get rid of most of the dumb and poor in our county. Problem solved. They have doubled in numbers in less than 10yrs. But somehow people keep wanting to pay for them. Coming from a family who worked 10 years to become legal citizens and show how we would contribute to US and not take, I will honestly never understand this. Why do the legal way when you can commit a crime and receive free meals, education, work tax free, get subsidized housing, food stamps and welfare, discounted tuition and STILL have legal citizens who pay for all of that with their own taxes to sympathize with you. What if they just open the borders and increase taxes to 50% for all middle class to pay for it. Is that still okay because we are "helping." I call it enabling.

If you have a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. If you have a lump of iron for a brain, every problem looks like an illegal immigrant.

+1

+100 well said

So you all think illegal aliens have not contributed to overpopulated schools and Math 2.0?