The state of MCPS is atrocious

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:MCPS is a shell of its past. First no SRO's, now more protection for the principals? WTF

I find it interesting that MCPS is getting the blame here not the quoted problem:

And that aggressive behavior isn’t from students — it’s “parents and community members.

+1. The thread should be "The state of MCPS parents is atrocious"

+1. Schools are microcosm of society. So until we begin to fix those problems in earnest schools will continue to deteriorate. The funny thing is that studying other education systems in the world pointed to the fact that the problem that exist in the US education system actual are cultural in nature and larger than one school district.

Don’t believe this, let’s look at Finland

Sure. Let’s look at the demographics of Finland. Are you prepared to fight for similar demographics here in Montgomery County?

Interestingly enough when you compare the 2018 PISA scores across countries and break down US scores across racial lines, education in the US looks pretty good. US Asians outscore every Asian country except Singapore. US Whites outscore every European country except Estonia. They outscore Japan and Korea. US Hispanics outscore every Latin-American country out there. They just slightly worse than countries like Italy and are significantly better than Greece. There aren’t a lot of African countries that collect PISA data but I would assume that US Blacks would compare favorably as well. They outperform places like Mexico, Romania and Thailand.

But Asian Americans are Americans, as are African Americans, and Hispanic Americans, and even white Americans. Why are you comparing them by race? What are you trying to say here?

I don't doubt that the difference in test scores is largely down to SES and English language learners. Most countries don't have a large population of non native speakers like the US has.

But I don't think comparing by race or ethnicity is accurate. It's not about race. It's about the culture and how society perceives and treats education. The US, for all its richness, does not support K-12 education as much as other countries. However, one's future in the US also does not hinge on one exam score or a path set by the education system at the age of 14 or 16, unlike many other countries. College admissions in a lot of countries is purely based on test scores and marks, so students in K-12 will put a lot more effort into academics because they live and die by those marks.

Having stated that, I do agree that the education system in this entire country, not just MCPS, is atrocious. We are dumbing down everything in the name of equity. It's awful. We have 3 more years in MCPS. I can't wait till we are done.

Be careful about 2018 PISA. The only state to release results was Massachusetts and they are a major outlier to the upside. Ever since they did their 1993 reforms they were near top internationally- but even they did not escape the ‘no child’ so called reforms. They have not repeated their 2018 success. Interestingly if I’m not mistaken some Maryland students - likely MCPS high schoolers - sat that very exam but Starr or Smith took one look at the results and sealed them. Lo and behold we have our own attempt at Mass reform - the Blueprint for MD. But it will be 10 billion more down the drain.

Why do people on DCUM like to post so many lies?

[Anonymous]

Many times they just seem like lies bc they are so outrageous. When you find out the truths is when you will truly be appalled.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Many times they just seem like lies bc they are so outrageous. When you find out the truths is when you will truly be appalled.

They are lies, period.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:MCPS is a shell of its past. First no SRO's, now more protection for the principals? WTF

I find it interesting that MCPS is getting the blame here not the quoted problem:

And that aggressive behavior isn’t from students — it’s “parents and community members.

+1. The thread should be "The state of MCPS parents is atrocious"

+1. Schools are microcosm of society. So until we begin to fix those problems in earnest schools will continue to deteriorate. The funny thing is that studying other education systems in the world pointed to the fact that the problem that exist in the US education system actual are cultural in nature and larger than one school district.

Don’t believe this, let’s look at Finland

Sure. Let’s look at the demographics of Finland. Are you prepared to fight for similar demographics here in Montgomery County?

Interestingly enough when you compare the 2018 PISA scores across countries and break down US scores across racial lines, education in the US looks pretty good. US Asians outscore every Asian country except Singapore. US Whites outscore every European country except Estonia. They outscore Japan and Korea. US Hispanics outscore every Latin-American country out there. They just slightly worse than countries like Italy and are significantly better than Greece. There aren’t a lot of African countries that collect PISA data but I would assume that US Blacks would compare favorably as well. They outperform places like Mexico, Romania and Thailand.

But Asian Americans are Americans, as are African Americans, and Hispanic Americans, and even white Americans. Why are you comparing them by race? What are you trying to say here?

I don't doubt that the difference in test scores is largely down to SES and English language learners. Most countries don't have a large population of non native speakers like the US has.

But I don't think comparing by race or ethnicity is accurate. It's not about race. It's about the culture and how society perceives and treats education. The US, for all its richness, does not support K-12 education as much as other countries. However, one's future in the US also does not hinge on one exam score or a path set by the education system at the age of 14 or 16, unlike many other countries. College admissions in a lot of countries is purely based on test scores and marks, so students in K-12 will put a lot more effort into academics because they live and die by those marks.

Having stated that, I do agree that the education system in this entire country, not just MCPS, is atrocious. We are dumbing down everything in the name of equity. It's awful. We have 3 more years in MCPS. I can't wait till we are done.

Be careful about 2018 PISA. The only state to release results was Massachusetts and they are a major outlier to the upside. Ever since they did their 1993 reforms they were near top internationally- but even they did not escape the ‘no child’ so called reforms. They have not repeated their 2018 success. Interestingly if I’m not mistaken some Maryland students - likely MCPS high schoolers - sat that very exam but Starr or Smith took one look at the results and sealed them. Lo and behold we have our own attempt at Mass reform - the Blueprint for MD. But it will be 10 billion more down the drain.

So frustrating. The amount of money wasted.

We need smaller class sizes, better enforcement of discipline and a solid curriculum. The rest is nonsense.

Before you call it money wasted you should realize that a portion of that goes to raise teacher entry level salaries to 60k. And even with that counties have to assume responsibility for the level of funding over time. It also funds more CTE. There are rural counties in Maryland trying to figure out how they are going to pay for/handle it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So to the people who complain about MCPS: what are you doing about it for your kid?

well, I'm not shelling out $50K/year for private school, so I bought some workbooks for my kid when they were younger. I have never sent them to a tutoring place.

I also read through their essays and made them re-write portions of it that were awful, but the teacher didn't bother marking up or providing feedback - grammatical mistakes, punctuation issues, disorganized sentences and paragraphs. I did this when the kids were in ES. They hated it at the time, but now that they are teens, they have admitted to me that this helped them become better writers.

Are you confident that you can supplement to that extent? That’s always been my concern. I help reinforce what my daughter is learning, but don’t feel confident in my ability to make up for lack of foundational skills.

If you’re on here having a discussion and following along you can supplement foundational skills. There is thousands of workbooks and curriculum available, classes, and even resources available at the public library., MCPS also offers LOTS of resources(tutoring, parent academy, Saturday academy, summer school for students needing to catch-up,etc etc). MCPS does need to do a better job explaining all the available resources and how to access.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:MCPS is a shell of its past. First no SRO's, now more protection for the principals? WTF

I find it interesting that MCPS is getting the blame here not the quoted problem:

And that aggressive behavior isn’t from students — it’s “parents and community members.

+1. The thread should be "The state of MCPS parents is atrocious"

+1. Schools are microcosm of society. So until we begin to fix those problems in earnest schools will continue to deteriorate. The funny thing is that studying other education systems in the world pointed to the fact that the problem that exist in the US education system actual are cultural in nature and larger than one school district.

Don’t believe this, let’s look at Finland

Sure. Let’s look at the demographics of Finland. Are you prepared to fight for similar demographics here in Montgomery County?

Interestingly enough when you compare the 2018 PISA scores across countries and break down US scores across racial lines, education in the US looks pretty good. US Asians outscore every Asian country except Singapore. US Whites outscore every European country except Estonia. They outscore Japan and Korea. US Hispanics outscore every Latin-American country out there. They just slightly worse than countries like Italy and are significantly better than Greece. There aren’t a lot of African countries that collect PISA data but I would assume that US Blacks would compare favorably as well. They outperform places like Mexico, Romania and Thailand.

But Asian Americans are Americans, as are African Americans, and Hispanic Americans, and even white Americans. Why are you comparing them by race? What are you trying to say here?

I don't doubt that the difference in test scores is largely down to SES and English language learners. Most countries don't have a large population of non native speakers like the US has.

But I don't think comparing by race or ethnicity is accurate. It's not about race. It's about the culture and how society perceives and treats education. The US, for all its richness, does not support K-12 education as much as other countries. However, one's future in the US also does not hinge on one exam score or a path set by the education system at the age of 14 or 16, unlike many other countries. College admissions in a lot of countries is purely based on test scores and marks, so students in K-12 will put a lot more effort into academics because they live and die by those marks.

Having stated that, I do agree that the education system in this entire country, not just MCPS, is atrocious. We are dumbing down everything in the name of equity. It's awful. We have 3 more years in MCPS. I can't wait till we are done.

Be careful about 2018 PISA. The only state to release results was Massachusetts and they are a major outlier to the upside. Ever since they did their 1993 reforms they were near top internationally- but even they did not escape the ‘no child’ so called reforms. They have not repeated their 2018 success. Interestingly if I’m not mistaken some Maryland students - likely MCPS high schoolers - sat that very exam but Starr or Smith took one look at the results and sealed them. Lo and behold we have our own attempt at Mass reform - the Blueprint for MD. But it will be 10 billion more down the drain.

So frustrating. The amount of money wasted.

We need smaller class sizes, better enforcement of discipline and a solid curriculum. The rest is nonsense.

Before you call it money wasted you should realize that a portion of that goes to raise teacher entry level salaries to 60k. And even with that counties have to assume responsibility for the level of funding over time. It also funds more CTE. There are rural counties in Maryland trying to figure out how they are going to pay for/handle it.

It is money wasted. What we need is school choice.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:MCPS is a shell of its past. First no SRO's, now more protection for the principals? WTF

I find it interesting that MCPS is getting the blame here not the quoted problem:

And that aggressive behavior isn’t from students — it’s “parents and community members.

+1. The thread should be "The state of MCPS parents is atrocious"

+1. Schools are microcosm of society. So until we begin to fix those problems in earnest schools will continue to deteriorate. The funny thing is that studying other education systems in the world pointed to the fact that the problem that exist in the US education system actual are cultural in nature and larger than one school district.

Don’t believe this, let’s look at Finland

Sure. Let’s look at the demographics of Finland. Are you prepared to fight for similar demographics here in Montgomery County?

Interestingly enough when you compare the 2018 PISA scores across countries and break down US scores across racial lines, education in the US looks pretty good. US Asians outscore every Asian country except Singapore. US Whites outscore every European country except Estonia. They outscore Japan and Korea. US Hispanics outscore every Latin-American country out there. They just slightly worse than countries like Italy and are significantly better than Greece. There aren’t a lot of African countries that collect PISA data but I would assume that US Blacks would compare favorably as well. They outperform places like Mexico, Romania and Thailand.

But Asian Americans are Americans, as are African Americans, and Hispanic Americans, and even white Americans. Why are you comparing them by race? What are you trying to say here?

I don't doubt that the difference in test scores is largely down to SES and English language learners. Most countries don't have a large population of non native speakers like the US has.

But I don't think comparing by race or ethnicity is accurate. It's not about race. It's about the culture and how society perceives and treats education. The US, for all its richness, does not support K-12 education as much as other countries. However, one's future in the US also does not hinge on one exam score or a path set by the education system at the age of 14 or 16, unlike many other countries. College admissions in a lot of countries is purely based on test scores and marks, so students in K-12 will put a lot more effort into academics because they live and die by those marks.

Having stated that, I do agree that the education system in this entire country, not just MCPS, is atrocious. We are dumbing down everything in the name of equity. It's awful. We have 3 more years in MCPS. I can't wait till we are done.

Be careful about 2018 PISA. The only state to release results was Massachusetts and they are a major outlier to the upside. Ever since they did their 1993 reforms they were near top internationally- but even they did not escape the ‘no child’ so called reforms. They have not repeated their 2018 success. Interestingly if I’m not mistaken some Maryland students - likely MCPS high schoolers - sat that very exam but Starr or Smith took one look at the results and sealed them. Lo and behold we have our own attempt at Mass reform - the Blueprint for MD. But it will be 10 billion more down the drain.

So frustrating. The amount of money wasted.

We need smaller class sizes, better enforcement of discipline and a solid curriculum. The rest is nonsense.

Before you call it money wasted you should realize that a portion of that goes to raise teacher entry level salaries to 60k. And even with that counties have to assume responsibility for the level of funding over time. It also funds more CTE. There are rural counties in Maryland trying to figure out how they are going to pay for/handle it.

It is money wasted. What we need is school choice.

That already exist. Public, private, virtual academy public, homeschool, move to another location. Lots of choices.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This poster is 100 percent on-target. I'm the mcps educator who is supplementing with my daughter an hour a day this summer. I have supplemented with her since kindergarten. My difficulties are compounded because my daughter has some attention and mild learning differences in addition to the substandard education she is receiving. She is too high functioning to receive services (not that they would be good or sufficient). I can't even imagine how deficient her skills would be without my constant intervention.


quote=Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The problem is the parents in this county. That’s it. If you’re offended by this, you’re probably part of the problem.

Well, some of the parents may not prioritize education and/or enforce behavior standards. That’s definitely A problem, and probably the one you had in mind.

But there’s another problem where well-educated parents see gaps in their children’s education and make up the shortfall by hiring a private tutor/tutoring center, or “afterschooling”. This means that while the education provided in the schools tends to be awful, they are still able to boast about having “one of the best school systems in the country”. I grew up in school systems that made no such claims. They may not have had as many special programs, but the basic curriculum was stronger, and a booming tutoring industry wasn’t required to get an education. So to the extent that parents are able to identify and fulfill the need of educating their kids outside of school, it masks the lack of education in our public education. Ultimately this may be the bigger problem, because as long as the problem remains hidden, it’s unlikely to be addressed.

I guess I’m part of the problem because I taught my kids how to read, that they didn’t need a calculator in elementary, how to hold their pencil, form print letters, write in cursive, use a dictionary, understand negative numbers, understand long division, understand that a sentence needs both a subject and a verb, understand when they FINALLY got a textbook that it actually had explanations and other useful features, etc. However, I also joined a curriculum committee, attended PTA meetings, attended school board candidate forums (where I had to ask the individual candidates about curriculum because the moderators never asked the questions I duly submitted on index cards), attended MCPS community forums (which were specifically designed to discourage actual discussion), not to mention posting on DCUM. The concerns I raise are usually dismissed by yet another claim that “Montgomery County has one of the best school systems in the nation” citing as evidence the achievements of my kids and their friends.

“Finally got a textbook” showing that you’re super out of touch. Textbooks are a relic of the past and they aren’t coming back. Might want to brush up on evolution.

NP — sure, let’s just teach kids with crap Chromebooks.

Nope. Not on Chromebooks. Regular good old fashioned teaching- you just don’t need textbooks to do it. It’s not 1988.

When you say "regular good old fashioned teaching," what specifically do you mean?

Dp why does teacher owe you anything? You’re the problem. I say this as informed parent. Do you your own research. No one wonder no one wants to be a teacher.0

Umm, because that’s the teachers job and they are getting paid to do it.

Teachers are getting paid to debate with morons on DCUM? News to...everyone.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So to the people who complain about MCPS: what are you doing about it for your kid?

well, I'm not shelling out $50K/year for private school, so I bought some workbooks for my kid when they were younger. I have never sent them to a tutoring place.

I also read through their essays and made them re-write portions of it that were awful, but the teacher didn't bother marking up or providing feedback - grammatical mistakes, punctuation issues, disorganized sentences and paragraphs. I did this when the kids were in ES. They hated it at the time, but now that they are teens, they have admitted to me that this helped them become better writers.

Are you confident that you can supplement to that extent? That’s always been my concern. I help reinforce what my daughter is learning, but don’t feel confident in my ability to make up for lack of foundational skills.

If you’re on here having a discussion and following along you can supplement foundational skills. There is thousands of workbooks and curriculum available, classes, and even resources available at the public library., MCPS also offers LOTS of resources(tutoring, parent academy, Saturday academy, summer school for students needing to catch-up,etc etc). MCPS does need to do a better job explaining all the available resources and how to access.

This is so insulting to teachers. You think someone who can have a discussion on a message board is qualified to teach a child fundamental math and reading skills? If that’s true, then why waste money on training teachers? I guess we could just throw any able-bodied adult in there and they should be able to teach kids with resources they find on the internet.

What a joke. No wonder our kids are scoring so low.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Students often need a resource to review and fill in gaps that random worksheets (that can be out of order or lost) don’t provide. A hard textbook or a digital textbook is a great resource especially for subjects such as math or social studies that are taught in a sequential order. Textbooks are also a great resource for parents who are helping their children at home so they are following the same curriculum as the teacher.

There’s a funding issue with textbooks that MCPS is trying to avoid. However there’s also a cost with printing worksheets including the human resource time to print them in addition to toner and paper expenses. MCPS should prioritize good quality tools for learning including resources for students to study from. The argument that textbooks become quickly outdated doesn’t hold up for all subjects and definitely doesn’t hold true for digital formats.

Most people on this board think they can teach their kids math and reading with random internet resources. You’ll never convince them that kids sometimes really do need textbooks.

Our kids are screwed.

[Anonymous]

Dear anti-text people, it's easier to help your kids with school work if there is a textbook for the parents to review, especially for math.

Otherwise, the gap between the haves and have nots will get wider because the haves will just buy workbooks and textbooks to help their kids, while the have nots will stumble around trying to help their kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Dear anti-text people, it's easier to help your kids with school work if there is a textbook for the parents to review, especially for math.

Otherwise, the gap between the haves and have nots will get wider because the haves will just buy workbooks and textbooks to help their kids, while the have nots will stumble around trying to help their kids.

Yes. It’s astonishing to me that people don’t get this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This poster is 100 percent on-target. I'm the mcps educator who is supplementing with my daughter an hour a day this summer. I have supplemented with her since kindergarten. My difficulties are compounded because my daughter has some attention and mild learning differences in addition to the substandard education she is receiving. She is too high functioning to receive services (not that they would be good or sufficient). I can't even imagine how deficient her skills would be without my constant intervention.


quote=Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The problem is the parents in this county. That’s it. If you’re offended by this, you’re probably part of the problem.

Well, some of the parents may not prioritize education and/or enforce behavior standards. That’s definitely A problem, and probably the one you had in mind.

But there’s another problem where well-educated parents see gaps in their children’s education and make up the shortfall by hiring a private tutor/tutoring center, or “afterschooling”. This means that while the education provided in the schools tends to be awful, they are still able to boast about having “one of the best school systems in the country”. I grew up in school systems that made no such claims. They may not have had as many special programs, but the basic curriculum was stronger, and a booming tutoring industry wasn’t required to get an education. So to the extent that parents are able to identify and fulfill the need of educating their kids outside of school, it masks the lack of education in our public education. Ultimately this may be the bigger problem, because as long as the problem remains hidden, it’s unlikely to be addressed.

I guess I’m part of the problem because I taught my kids how to read, that they didn’t need a calculator in elementary, how to hold their pencil, form print letters, write in cursive, use a dictionary, understand negative numbers, understand long division, understand that a sentence needs both a subject and a verb, understand when they FINALLY got a textbook that it actually had explanations and other useful features, etc. However, I also joined a curriculum committee, attended PTA meetings, attended school board candidate forums (where I had to ask the individual candidates about curriculum because the moderators never asked the questions I duly submitted on index cards), attended MCPS community forums (which were specifically designed to discourage actual discussion), not to mention posting on DCUM. The concerns I raise are usually dismissed by yet another claim that “Montgomery County has one of the best school systems in the nation” citing as evidence the achievements of my kids and their friends.

“Finally got a textbook” showing that you’re super out of touch. Textbooks are a relic of the past and they aren’t coming back. Might want to brush up on evolution.

Tell us you don't have a kid in college without telling us you don't have a kid in college.
Or ever attended college.
Or are even educated. Getting rid of text books was being penny wise and pound foolish and one of many reasons why MCPS has gone down the crapper.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This poster is 100 percent on-target. I'm the mcps educator who is supplementing with my daughter an hour a day this summer. I have supplemented with her since kindergarten. My difficulties are compounded because my daughter has some attention and mild learning differences in addition to the substandard education she is receiving. She is too high functioning to receive services (not that they would be good or sufficient). I can't even imagine how deficient her skills would be without my constant intervention.


quote=Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The problem is the parents in this county. That’s it. If you’re offended by this, you’re probably part of the problem.

Well, some of the parents may not prioritize education and/or enforce behavior standards. That’s definitely A problem, and probably the one you had in mind.

But there’s another problem where well-educated parents see gaps in their children’s education and make up the shortfall by hiring a private tutor/tutoring center, or “afterschooling”. This means that while the education provided in the schools tends to be awful, they are still able to boast about having “one of the best school systems in the country”. I grew up in school systems that made no such claims. They may not have had as many special programs, but the basic curriculum was stronger, and a booming tutoring industry wasn’t required to get an education. So to the extent that parents are able to identify and fulfill the need of educating their kids outside of school, it masks the lack of education in our public education. Ultimately this may be the bigger problem, because as long as the problem remains hidden, it’s unlikely to be addressed.

I guess I’m part of the problem because I taught my kids how to read, that they didn’t need a calculator in elementary, how to hold their pencil, form print letters, write in cursive, use a dictionary, understand negative numbers, understand long division, understand that a sentence needs both a subject and a verb, understand when they FINALLY got a textbook that it actually had explanations and other useful features, etc. However, I also joined a curriculum committee, attended PTA meetings, attended school board candidate forums (where I had to ask the individual candidates about curriculum because the moderators never asked the questions I duly submitted on index cards), attended MCPS community forums (which were specifically designed to discourage actual discussion), not to mention posting on DCUM. The concerns I raise are usually dismissed by yet another claim that “Montgomery County has one of the best school systems in the nation” citing as evidence the achievements of my kids and their friends.

“Finally got a textbook” showing that you’re super out of touch. Textbooks are a relic of the past and they aren’t coming back. Might want to brush up on evolution.

NP — sure, let’s just teach kids with crap Chromebooks.

Nope. Not on Chromebooks. Regular good old fashioned teaching- you just don’t need textbooks to do it. It’s not 1988.

Lol people are still complaining about textbooks? I graduated in 2002 and we didn’t have textbooks then. No, we weren’t on computers all day either. Try and keep up with the times, Jesus.

What did your teachers use? Random worksheets? Specify the teaching materials.

OMG, why are you on a MCPS forum if you don't know this? They find random shit and print it off as work sheets. Even in HS. That is why virtual was such a clusterfork, there was no way for parents to help or follow along, everything was made up on the spot.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This poster is 100 percent on-target. I'm the mcps educator who is supplementing with my daughter an hour a day this summer. I have supplemented with her since kindergarten. My difficulties are compounded because my daughter has some attention and mild learning differences in addition to the substandard education she is receiving. She is too high functioning to receive services (not that they would be good or sufficient). I can't even imagine how deficient her skills would be without my constant intervention.


quote=Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The problem is the parents in this county. That’s it. If you’re offended by this, you’re probably part of the problem.

Well, some of the parents may not prioritize education and/or enforce behavior standards. That’s definitely A problem, and probably the one you had in mind.

But there’s another problem where well-educated parents see gaps in their children’s education and make up the shortfall by hiring a private tutor/tutoring center, or “afterschooling”. This means that while the education provided in the schools tends to be awful, they are still able to boast about having “one of the best school systems in the country”. I grew up in school systems that made no such claims. They may not have had as many special programs, but the basic curriculum was stronger, and a booming tutoring industry wasn’t required to get an education. So to the extent that parents are able to identify and fulfill the need of educating their kids outside of school, it masks the lack of education in our public education. Ultimately this may be the bigger problem, because as long as the problem remains hidden, it’s unlikely to be addressed.

I guess I’m part of the problem because I taught my kids how to read, that they didn’t need a calculator in elementary, how to hold their pencil, form print letters, write in cursive, use a dictionary, understand negative numbers, understand long division, understand that a sentence needs both a subject and a verb, understand when they FINALLY got a textbook that it actually had explanations and other useful features, etc. However, I also joined a curriculum committee, attended PTA meetings, attended school board candidate forums (where I had to ask the individual candidates about curriculum because the moderators never asked the questions I duly submitted on index cards), attended MCPS community forums (which were specifically designed to discourage actual discussion), not to mention posting on DCUM. The concerns I raise are usually dismissed by yet another claim that “Montgomery County has one of the best school systems in the nation” citing as evidence the achievements of my kids and their friends.

“Finally got a textbook” showing that you’re super out of touch. Textbooks are a relic of the past and they aren’t coming back. Might want to brush up on evolution.

NP — sure, let’s just teach kids with crap Chromebooks.

Nope. Not on Chromebooks. Regular good old fashioned teaching- you just don’t need textbooks to do it. It’s not 1988.

Lol people are still complaining about textbooks? I graduated in 2002 and we didn’t have textbooks then. No, we weren’t on computers all day either. Try and keep up with the times, Jesus.

What did your teachers use? Random worksheets? Specify the teaching materials.

There is still curriculum and teachers manuals they just don’t give every kid a physical textbook.

Mcps had textbooks.

When? Where?