Common Core and Middle School Magnets

[Anonymous]

DC at Eastern reports that his magnet teachers are attending common core training sessions this week. Anyone know about this? My main concern is whether and how this will impact the magnet curriculum (which we think is fabulous). DC is in 6th grade.

[Anonymous]

Hopefully they go to the training session and throw away all the materials that they are given.

[Anonymous]

The Common Core sets standards for things children should be able to do at a given grade level, for math and English/language arts.

The Common Core does not say that children should be able to do only those things, AND NOTHING MORE!!!!1!!!!!1!.

Presumably the kids in the middle-school magnets can already do most of the grade-level things in the Common Core.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The Common Core sets standards for things children should be able to do at a given grade level, for math and English/language arts.

The Common Core does not say that children should be able to do only those things, AND NOTHING MORE!!!!1!!!!!1!.

Presumably the kids in the middle-school magnets can already do most of the grade-level things in the Common Core.

I hope you and the PP are right but you never know with MCPS! I am worried they might try to fix something that isn't broken.

[Anonymous]

MCPS has an obligation to the Maryland State Dept of Ed, who adopted the Common Core, to revise all curriculum (magnet and otherwise) to align to those standards. There is no wiggle room there.

That doesn't mean that there still won't be complex projects, interdisciplinary lessons, etc. It just means that the content that middle school students are expected to learn is different than what they were expected to learn under the old standards.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:MCPS has an obligation to the Maryland State Dept of Ed, who adopted the Common Core, to revise all curriculum (magnet and otherwise) to align to those standards. There is no wiggle room there.

That doesn't mean that there still won't be complex projects, interdisciplinary lessons, etc. It just means that the content that middle school students are expected to learn is different than what they were expected to learn under the old standards.

More accurately, the content may be different.

There are Common Core standards only for math and for English/language arts. The math standards do have specific topics (for example, statistics and probability is a topic for sixth-grade math). The English/language arts standards don't have specific topics, just what students should be able to do (for example, for literature, students should be able to determine a theme or central idea of a text and how it is conveyed through particular details, as well as provide a summary of the text distinct from personal opinions or judgments).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:MCPS has an obligation to the Maryland State Dept of Ed, who adopted the Common Core, to revise all curriculum (magnet and otherwise) to align to those standards. There is no wiggle room there.

That doesn't mean that there still won't be complex projects, interdisciplinary lessons, etc. It just means that the content that middle school students are expected to learn is different than what they were expected to learn under the old standards.

More accurately, the content may be different.

There are Common Core standards only for math and for English/language arts. The math standards do have specific topics (for example, statistics and probability is a topic for sixth-grade math). The English/language arts standards don't have specific topics, just what students should be able to do (for example, for literature, students should be able to determine a theme or central idea of a text and how it is conveyed through particular details, as well as provide a summary of the text distinct from personal opinions or judgments).

I hope you are right. The English/language arts curriculum in the magnet program is wonderful and goes above and beyond the standards you describe. My concern is whether MCPS (through AEI perhaps) will require the magnet teachers to change their lesson plans because AEI has developed new curriculum materials in conjunction with the Common Core rollout.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

I hope you are right. The English/language arts curriculum in the magnet program is wonderful and goes above and beyond the standards you describe. My concern is whether MCPS (through AEI perhaps) will require the magnet teachers to change their lesson plans because AEI has developed new curriculum materials in conjunction with the Common Core rollout.

Really, if you are worried, why not look up what the English/language arts standards are in the Common Core? Start here:

http://www.corestandards.org/ELA-Literacy

[Anonymous]

Yes, the magnet curriculum will be revised to align with the common core. The magnet curriculum has always been aligned with whatever the state standards are at the time for that grade, they just approach instruction and projects differently. You don't really think think that children in e magnet should not be held accountable to the same standards as children in the rest of the county, do you?