Teachers having a hard time teaching the new math

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

There's a big difference between "MCPS's roll-out of the new geometry curriculum has problems" and "MCPS's new math teaching is awful, and we have to go back to the good old way."

The ONLY people who make this distinction are the MCPS boobs trying to cling to 2.0 because they can't admit they screwed up. They have problems on both fronts. Very flawed curriculum design has led to a complete failure in implementation.

No, not the only people. I don't work for MCPS. I'm a parent with two children in Montgomery County public schools.

What I find interesting is how often this happens on DCUM:

Poster A: Curriculum 2.0 is not the worst thing ever.
Poster B: Obviously you work for MCPS.

As though Poster B found it impossible to imagine that anybody could disagree with Poster B unless they got paid for it.

[Anonymous]

The scariest part about the Geometry 2.0 fiasco is that every school teaching the course is doing their own thing. What is "common" about that?

If you have a stellar teacher that is able to teach and come up with new lesson plans on the fly - Kuddos. Those are the classrooms that will have kids getting A's on the Geometry final exams.

For the other 3/4 of the county - good luck to your kids with learning what is considered to be a basic high school math course. Your kids may fail but more importantly, they will lack key skills for college and beyond.

I thought it was a goal in MCPS for kids to have the same opportunities and be held up to the same rigor no matter where they take the course. Obviously that MCPS mission has been scrapped.

[Anonymous]

How do you know that every school is doing there own thing?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How do you know that every school is doing there own thing?

The principal and the head of the math department told me when I showed them examples of materials from another school. I have a nephew taking Geometry at different high school than my child. My sister and I have compared the resources, homework assignments, and tests. Simple concepts such as vocabulary lists are different as well as the order that the concepts are being taught.

Basically the principal explained that the math department gets the student learning tasks that the kids need to achieve but each school and teacher individually has to develop the plan for teaching that task. The vocabulary example is that the kids need to learn basic geometry vocabulary. Each school makes a determination as to what that is. It sounded like to me that they teach what they think needs to be taught, in the order they want, because there is not enough guidance on what they need to do. The principal also said the curriculum has not been fully written so sometimes there are lags while the staff are waiting for the next unit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How do you know that every school is doing there own thing?

Not the PP, but Common Core are just standards. Each district comes up with their own curriculum to meet those standards.

[Anonymous]

This might be a dumb question, but if the new curriculum wasn't ready yet, why not use the old one until it was? Even if it wasn't 100% aligned with common core standards, wouldn't that still be better than trying to roll out something that isn't ready? Wierd.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How do you know that every school is doing there own thing?

Every school does their own thing in many, many respects. For example, some middle schools have block scheduling, some have A days and B days, some allow sixth-graders to take a foreign language, some don't. If instruction were exactly the same at all of the schools, there wouldn't be so much agony on DCUM about where to live so that your child can go to a "good" school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The scariest part about the Geometry 2.0 fiasco is that every school teaching the course is doing their own thing. What is "common" about that?
.

The word "common" appears in the Common Core standards, not in Curriculum 2.0. Curriculum 2.0 is the MCPS curriculum, which is aligned to the Common Core standards. They are two separate things.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How do you know that every school is doing there own thing?

Every school does their own thing in many, many respects. For example, some middle schools have block scheduling, some have A days and B days, some allow sixth-graders to take a foreign language, some don't. If instruction were exactly the same at all of the schools, there wouldn't be so much agony on DCUM about where to live so that your child can go to a "good" school.

Courses should be teaching the same basic concepts though, shouldn't they? No wonder so many children are failing exams. If every school is teaching what they think is important and no one is on the same page as to what really needs to be taught, then how can children uniformly be prepared to take the same test? It's a crap shoot as to whether or not a child has been taught the information.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How do you know that every school is doing there own thing?

Every school does their own thing in many, many respects. For example, some middle schools have block scheduling, some have A days and B days, some allow sixth-graders to take a foreign language, some don't. If instruction were exactly the same at all of the schools, there wouldn't be so much agony on DCUM about where to live so that your child can go to a "good" school.

Courses should be teaching the same basic concepts though, shouldn't they? No wonder so many children are failing exams. If every school is teaching what they think is important and no one is on the same page as to what really needs to be taught, then how can children uniformly be prepared to take the same test? It's a crap shoot as to whether or not a child has been taught the information.

How do you know that they're not?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How do you know that every school is doing there own thing?

Every school does their own thing in many, many respects. For example, some middle schools have block scheduling, some have A days and B days, some allow sixth-graders to take a foreign language, some don't. If instruction were exactly the same at all of the schools, there wouldn't be so much agony on DCUM about where to live so that your child can go to a "good" school.

Courses should be teaching the same basic concepts though, shouldn't they? No wonder so many children are failing exams. If every school is teaching what they think is important and no one is on the same page as to what really needs to be taught, then how can children uniformly be prepared to take the same test? It's a crap shoot as to whether or not a child has been taught the information.

How do you know that they're not?

Read the thread, then pause, and think. The answer may just come to you.

[Anonymous]

There's seems to be a lot of answering questions with "it's obvious, duh" on this forum at the moment. If it were obvious, I wouldn't be asking. If you don't want to answer, then don't answer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How do you know that every school is doing there own thing?

The principal and the head of the math department told me when I showed them examples of materials from another school. I have a nephew taking Geometry at different high school than my child. My sister and I have compared the resources, homework assignments, and tests. Simple concepts such as vocabulary lists are different as well as the order that the concepts are being taught.

Basically the principal explained that the math department gets the student learning tasks that the kids need to achieve but each school and teacher individually has to develop the plan for teaching that task. The vocabulary example is that the kids need to learn basic geometry vocabulary. Each school makes a determination as to what that is. It sounded like to me that they teach what they think needs to be taught, in the order they want, because there is not enough guidance on what they need to do. The principal also said the curriculum has not been fully written so sometimes there are lags while the staff are waiting for the next unit.

This was in the thread. Again, read, pause and think. Your question has been answered more than once.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How do you know that every school is doing there own thing?

The principal and the head of the math department told me when I showed them examples of materials from another school. I have a nephew taking Geometry at different high school than my child. My sister and I have compared the resources, homework assignments, and tests. Simple concepts such as vocabulary lists are different as well as the order that the concepts are being taught.

Basically the principal explained that the math department gets the student learning tasks that the kids need to achieve but each school and teacher individually has to develop the plan for teaching that task. The vocabulary example is that the kids need to learn basic geometry vocabulary. Each school makes a determination as to what that is. It sounded like to me that they teach what they think needs to be taught, in the order they want, because there is not enough guidance on what they need to do. The principal also said the curriculum has not been fully written so sometimes there are lags while the staff are waiting for the next unit.

This was in the thread. Again, read, pause and think. Your question has been answered more than once.

I don't see anything in there about schools not teaching the same concepts..

[Anonymous]

Does anyone know what the MCPS curriculum is for Geometry?

Thus far, very little information has been provided to the schools and parents. The teacher said at back to school night that they do not have the entire curriculum for the year. Units are given to them as they are written. The schools can supplement material from the old curriculum as they see fit and necessary. Each school is developing their own plan to deal with the chaos at hand. They are revising the curriculum as each school team sees fit and as difficulties arise through the process. No school is on the same page as far as what the kids need to learn to be successful in the course.

Meanwhile, while the teachers are saying "Oops. That didn't work." what is happening to the opportunity wasted for teaching kids a fundamental high school course? How is this going to impact kids who aspire for college and a well paying career after high school?

Does the MCPS Administration care that schools are independently choosing what to teach and that the implementation of Geometry 2.0 is in the toilet? Did the care about Algebra 2.0 last year?

Someone at the top of the food chain should be held accountable and loose their job for not investigating the implementation of the new curriculum to ensure teachers are trained, schools have the resources, and everyone is teaching the same course.