New Math Program - NO Differentiation until Grades 11-12?!?
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Anonymous
I fully understand how differentiation should work in theory, but I have yet to see it work well in practice. The teachers are already overwhelmed by the sheer number of kids in their class and having to find their own materials. Not even half of the teachers my children have had would be skilled and experienced enough to manage differentiation for the full range of abilities in one class. This is also not a totally new educational idea. They tried this crap when I was in school in the 90s. Guess what? It didn't work then, the teachers hated it, and it was abandoned. I don't know why the educational world insists on recycling failed trends. What's next? No more phonics? (Oh, and I have an M.Ed and did plenty research/writing on pedagogy and educational theory, so I'm not relying on my childhood experiences here.) Oh, and only one of my kids is a genius. The other one is struggling and very aware of the fact that their peers get things faster than they do. I'm less worried about the genius and more concerned that the one that needs more support will not get it and will have more self-esteem issues and feel uncomfortable asking "dumb" questions. We can barely get this in current gen ed classrooms, and it's not going to get better when the accelerated kids are lumped back in. |
Anonymous
Tracking isn't permanent, and I had the same experience in HS. Math is not my strength, so I took honors and AP classes in English and history and regular track classes for math and science. It's so much easier to do once you can pick your classes. (The middle school told us repeatedly when we had our IEP meeting that they'd put together the schedule that was right for them.) Also, you can enroll your kid in any class you want starting in middle school (except MS AAP). The school can try to talk you out of it, but they can't force you into a lower class if you want your kid in honors or a higher math class. My "circle of concern" is for BOTH of my children - the AAP kid AND the one who struggles to keep up, and the latter concerns me more. |
Anonymous
Corporal punishment is still legal in about 20 states and still in practice in 15 of them. Supreme Court ruled it was fine in the 70s, and it wasn't banned in Virginia until 1989. My spouse got paddled in middle school once. |
Anonymous
| As a teacher, I am pro-tracking. I also don’t like that students can enroll in AP or Honors if they just feel like it. Differentiation is impossible with the class sizes we are dealing with. |
Anonymous
I also dislike the fact that there is no bar to entry to Honors. At least AP has the test to keep the pace up. “ teachers are already overwhelmed by the sheer number of kids in their class and having to find their own materials. ” This right here. If the teachers had small enough classes like about 20 kids AND they were handed good curriculum done for them - and including the differentiation activities - rather than having to each recreate the wheel then MAYBE it could work tolerably. But neither of those are going to happen so it will be awful. |
Anonymous
Most Singaporean schools teach everyone advanced math, and it's the responsibility of the kids who are struggling to attend tutoring so they can keep up. This isn't at all remotely analogous to US schools, which instead would slow the class down to help the struggling kids at the expense of the kids who are ready to move on. The idea of heterogeneous classes and in-class differentiation sounds great in theory, but the problem is that it doesn't work. Teachers promise that they will challenge top kids and even provide extra enrichment materials or higher in-class groupings to meet the need of those kids. Then, they get overburdened with the kids who need more help, and the challenge never materializes for the top kids. This even happens in AAP. |
Anonymous
Haven't we already been doing the bolded in the form of blended literacy? Our ES is finally waking up and adding more phonics back in. |
Anonymous
| So how do we stop this at the state and county level? |
Anonymous
Contact your state legislators and tell them to oppose. Contact Ralph Northam and tell him to oppose. Fill out the feedback form or send an email to the listed email address with your best arguments why it's a bad idea. Contact local media outlets and make them aware of this change so more people know about it. Contact the Democratic candidates for governor and see if any of them will oppose. The Rs already do, I believe. |
Anonymous
| What feedback form? |
Anonymous
This one: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSesz3YtqVqXtAioJKX0xtYbPxUW6l7dfpbwfdbQyEQ5eTgZMQ/viewform Email address they list: vdoe.mathematics@doe.virginia.gov |
Anonymous
My mom was an English teacher and reading specialist, and phonics was her hill to die on. She taught all of us how to read before kindergarten because some non-phonic strategy was trendy at the time, and she wanted to make sure we didn't end up not being able to sound things out. I know my older kid got phonics because that's the curriculum their private school used and they were reading early in K. My other ones got a mix of phonics and sight words, and were still reading fluently by the end of K. This is also why I love the "you uneducated parents just aren't up on MODERN educational theory and practice" people - ALL of this stuff is just recycled and repackaged for the next generation, who think that they've discovered something that will revolutionize school. You haven't, it's been tried before, and there's a reason it was abandoned. And too bad for the kids who got stuck in the middle of the failed experiment. |
Anonymous
Especially the bolded. On a FCPS discussion facebook group some people are talking about asking our local SB questions about this or getting assurances from them. Those are useless in my view since this is state-level driven plus whatever assurances our SB gives now could be overridden by mandates from the state and/or replaced by what a new SB thinks that gets elected after this passes at the VA level. Regrettably I think the biggest thing that needs done is to make state-level Democrats nervous that this could cut into the huge majorities they run up in NOVA to carry the state - and so risk turning VA red in the governor's race and/or next legislature election cycle. Not that NOVA as a whole would go red but they need the overwhelming share up here to offset the super red parts of most of the rest of the state. |
Anonymous
First quoted PP, and I agree. The Ds need to see that this will impact elections. A bunch of delegates are up this fall, so those people are the most likely to respond to constituent pressure. |
Anonymous
| Parents need to be good at Maths and teach their kids themselves. |