Why are Maryland schools so anti-achievement?

[Anonymous]

I don't understand why montgomery county schools are so anti-academic achievement. It doesn't make sense. Why would an education system not want kids to rise to the level they are capable of achieving?

The teachers and schools will not tell you if your child is in a high, medium, or lower reading group.
Its not just that they don't want to offer accelerated classes anymore but they don't want anyone to be accelerated at home.
The grades are all Ps. Show up you get a P, go far beyond you get a P.
The science fair can't be a competition because someone might feel bad if they didn't win.

The sports culture in this area is completely the opposite. You get trophies for practicing hard and being the best. The coaches tell you what you are doing wrong, how to fix it and expect you to fix it. The coaches encourage you to practice. Everyone knows who the best athletes are and kids work harder not to let the team down.

Why is it OK to encourage sports achievement but you are expected to slow down, stop, or hide any academic achievement?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't understand why montgomery county schools are so anti-academic achievement. It doesn't make sense. Why would an education system not want kids to rise to the level they are capable of achieving?

The teachers and schools will not tell you if your child is in a high, medium, or lower reading group.
Its not just that they don't want to offer accelerated classes anymore but they don't want anyone to be accelerated at home.
The grades are all Ps. Show up you get a P, go far beyond you get a P.
The science fair can't be a competition because someone might feel bad if they didn't win.

The sports culture in this area is completely the opposite. You get trophies for practicing hard and being the best. The coaches tell you what you are doing wrong, how to fix it and expect you to fix it. The coaches encourage you to practice. Everyone knows who the best athletes are and kids work harder not to let the team down.

Why is it OK to encourage sports achievement but you are expected to slow down, stop, or hide any academic achievement?

That's interesting, because my experience has been exactly the opposite. My children's teachers have always told me which reading groups my children were in, even when I didn't ask. Their schools are still offering accelerated classes. Nobody has ever objected to acceleration at home. My children bring home Is and ESs as well as Ps. And the science fair isn't a competition because at the elementary school level, you'd be judging the parents' work, not the children's.

[Anonymous]

It is posts like this that make me want to slap all the anti-Curriculum 2.0 posters across the head and want to stop listening to your side. If you have a true problem, stop with the hyperbole and dramatics and state facts.

My 2nd grade daughter has brought home plenty of P's, and ES's with a few I's mixed in there. And her teacher wants her to succeed.

[Anonymous]

OP - what are you basing this on? You know how all the schools and classrooms in Mo CO are being run? Or is this just your personal experience?

[Anonymous]

OP, what school are you in?

[Anonymous]

Our experience is that the new curriculum is very anti- academic achievement. Math is horrendous. The grading system is bizarre. The consistency of the type of work is very strange. DC went to private school in another state for K-1 and we have now had 2.0 for 2nd, 3rd and now 4th grade. DC#2 is in 1st grade. The difference in quality is shocking and the private school that we went to isn't one of the fancy, top elite schools around here.

I don't think the problem is the teachers. This system just can't be used to effectively measure student progress which is what grading assessment is intended to achieve. The way MCPS has set this up most students should all be Ps. A system where the only measurement that is record and shared with students and parents provides no value and no motivation for kids to do better.

A few teachers are trying to differentiate but it backfires quickly because they can't do it consistently since the system doesn't allow it. From one teacher who tries to give out more a range, DC will receive an ES on one assignment for writing additional information, more facts and going beyond what was required for a P. On the next assignment, because DC was excited about getting an ES, she will go even further but end up with a P. I asked the teacher about this and she was honest in her response. She can't give out ES grades on every assignment but the second assignment that DC did was even better than the one that got an ES. The problem is that kids do respond to positive feedback and getting better grades. They get excited about ES and when they get one they work harder to get it again. In other systems this would be seen as teaching success. The kids would continue to ES grades as long as they kept up to that level. In this system ES is supposed to be rare so you can do the same or better the next time but the reward vanishes. This demotivates the kids.

So I agree that the new system is anti-acdemic achievement. It creates the worst environment. The work is easy but the kids constantly receive the message that it doesn't matter if they try to do more or think more. I don't think anyone intended to create a system that adversely affects student motivation but I don't think that the people who adopted this know what they are doing. Their goal was to get everyone to P and if you are at P you should just sit quietly and do nothing.

[Anonymous]

Our ES, which is considered a very good ES, has a strange mix of anti-achievement and competitive parents.

[Anonymous]

Well if you apply what we know about rats and intermittent reinforcement, random positive reinforcement will motivate better effort and for longer.

[Anonymous]

I volunteer often at our school. I have overhead school staff make rude comments about the parents that do enrichment at home and specific nationalities that do better academically. It really bothered me that the school staff has such small minds. If they aren't going to teach the kids in schools, they can't expect parents to sit back and do nothing.

I wish someone would compare test scores by students that receive enrichment at home vs students that do not. The schools ride on the coat tails of parents who provide education that the school does not.

[Anonymous]

Our MCPS is heavy on achievement. Publishes the honor roll every quarter. Publishes the list of national merit and commended scholars. Publishes the list of college destinations. Very proud of high SAT scores and AP scores. There are as many messages about the debate team successes as there are about sports team successes. So not all Maryland schools are anti achievement.

[Anonymous]

I think this is mostly an issue at the elementary school level. It's part of the philosophy to not have competition. Why? I don't know; the current educational trends...

To add to the list, they don't do competitive activities in PE either.

The lack of a competitive environment had been good for my daughter, but disastrous for my son.

I've been really unsatisfied with the new grading system, and since we were a pilot school, we are now in our 6th year of it. I found many examples of arbitrary grades and it gave incorrect info about where my son was rather than more information as claimed. But this year, I really got the new grading system with my daughter's third grade teacher. She implemented it so well; I really felt like I was getting a whole picture of where my daughter was and what her problems areas were. I was amazed by the amount of data collected. I think the problem with the new grading system is that it requires a teacher working at a very, high professional level, a high level of intelligence, and the commitment to the new system. In time, I hope the kinks will be worked out, and the implementation won't have to rely so much on teacher ability.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Our experience is that the new curriculum is very anti- academic achievement. Math is horrendous. The grading system is bizarre. The consistency of the type of work is very strange. DC went to private school in another state for K-1 and we have now had 2.0 for 2nd, 3rd and now 4th grade. DC#2 is in 1st grade. The difference in quality is shocking and the private school that we went to isn't one of the fancy, top elite schools around here.

I don't think the problem is the teachers. This system just can't be used to effectively measure student progress which is what grading assessment is intended to achieve. The way MCPS has set this up most students should all be Ps. A system where the only measurement that is record and shared with students and parents provides no value and no motivation for kids to do better.

A few teachers are trying to differentiate but it backfires quickly because they can't do it consistently since the system doesn't allow it. From one teacher who tries to give out more a range, DC will receive an ES on one assignment for writing additional information, more facts and going beyond what was required for a P. On the next assignment, because DC was excited about getting an ES, she will go even further but end up with a P. I asked the teacher about this and she was honest in her response. She can't give out ES grades on every assignment but the second assignment that DC did was even better than the one that got an ES. The problem is that kids do respond to positive feedback and getting better grades. They get excited about ES and when they get one they work harder to get it again. In other systems this would be seen as teaching success. The kids would continue to ES grades as long as they kept up to that level. In this system ES is supposed to be rare so you can do the same or better the next time but the reward vanishes. This demotivates the kids.

So I agree that the new system is anti-acdemic achievement. It creates the worst environment. The work is easy but the kids constantly receive the message that it doesn't matter if they try to do more or think more. I don't think anyone intended to create a system that adversely affects student motivation but I don't think that the people who adopted this know what they are doing. Their goal was to get everyone to P and if you are at P you should just sit quietly and do nothing.

Here's the short version: Mommy is mad that Snowflake didn't get an A+++++ on every assignment. Here's the prescription: get a hobby. Or a job.

OP, I've got an MCPS 4th grader. He gets an occasional ES along with a lot of Ps and a few Is. I also happen to teach at the post-graduate level, so I know just how subjective grading is for most non-quantitative subjects. Believe me, teachers at all levels, under every grading system, hedge their grades - not too many high, not too many flunks. Whenever I wonder about my son's grades, I remind myself that I didn't see anyone else's work or sit through any of the instruction on this issue, so I really can't judge. And also that, he's 9yo and if I'm badgering his teachers about each quiz or book report, no one is going to enjoy the next 8 years of his primary/secondary education. And when he raises the issue of grades, I tell him: do your very best on everything you do. That should be motivation enough.

[Anonymous]

I find that ESs and Ps are meaningless. My kid received half ESS on last year's report cards. This year it's all Ps. Every teacher uses this report card differently. It's very hard to tell, at least based on the report cards, whether the county is anti-achievement. Maybe the question is whether the county wants to hide the underachievers.

[Anonymous]

14:16 AKA MCPS Snowflake poster has graced us again with their presence. Where do you teach when you aren't working on the curriculum committee, Strayer University or McDonalds U? Personally, I am fed up with your MCPS walks on water, this is so wonderful nonsense.

You may be happy that you are screwing parents who are more successful and educated than you but guess what....these parents will not sit by and just let their kids drop down to your levels. They will do outside enrichment, teach them at home, drop out for private schools, or go to Virginia. Your kid who inherited your lack of motivation and IQ will still be at the bottom not caring about how he does in school and on a path to community college. Nothing will change other than a decline of what was once a good school system.

The real damage is to the kids that have parents who don't have the education, time, or means to educate their kids beyond the lowered expectations of you and your colleagues in MCPS. For these kids, education is their only shot to change their circumstances but they have less of a chance now thanks to people like you. You may think your job is just to justify your own existence, hide the underachievers, and pass them through the system but this is wrong. Just dead wrong for kids who need education.

[Anonymous]

Fwiw PP, you sound a little nuts, since I don't routinely post on this sub-forum. I'm not screwing anyone, I'm not teaching at a fictional clown college or work for MCPS. I'm a parent with a fourth grader who is mostly satisfied with his education so far. If you feel compelled to insult everyone who disagrees with you, then I'm not surprised that your child is having difficulties. Please take your vitriol and channel that energy into some more productive purpose.