Curriculum 2.0 Compacted Grades 4/5 Math
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Anonymous
| Can someone please tell me if this is being implemented at all MCPS elementary schools. From what I've read on the MCPS website it looks like this was supposed to be introduced this school year. I hadn't heard anything mentioned at Back to School night in August, parent/teacher conferences in November, etc. Are only certain schools doing this? Is it going to be "rolled out" to different schools at different times? Please let me know. Thank you in advance. |
Anonymous
| It has happened. Not all students were tested and schools are keeping it very quiet. |
Anonymous
| Contact your principal directly to see if your child was tested, what his scores were and how many from your school are in compacted. |
Anonymous
| Schools keeping it very quiet but it was implemented across county this year for 4th graders. Some schools have a class full of kids, some school have none. Many schools have a few students and they go to a Middle School in their cluster with other kids to fomr a class. This is a bummer because the 4th graders start school at MS bell times. Across the county 12% of 4th graders are in compacted Math but HGC have over 80%, so traditional schools are well below this. As I mentioned, some schools did not have anyone qualify after taking the county-wide assessment in 3rd grade. |
Anonymous
Where did you get these numbers from? |
Anonymous
| So do these students just go to the middle school for part of the day? Do they take the rest of their classes at their home school? Are HGC and Magnets the same thing (highly gifted children?) Is the percentage at 80% at the magnets because these are already the top performing students and the other 12% are the ones in limbo at their home schools? Is it always better to apply to a magnet then? |
Anonymous
| Ask your child if anyone in his her class is in math 4/5. My child told me the kids (about 4 or 5 of 30 kids in the class) one day when we were working on the "regular" 4th grade HW, which was given along with the "Math 4/5" HW. |
Anonymous
| It is a pullout class of about 10 at our school. It hasn't been kept a secret. Maybe it is happening at your school, but you are not aware? |
Anonymous
Math is not part of the HGC curriculum. At my child's HGC, all but two of the children in his class are in compacted math. They go to a separate teacher for math. There are about 5 children from the non-HGC classes at the school who are also in their math class. These students are receiving the same exact compacted 4/5 curriculum for math that 4th grade students (who qualify) receive throughout the county. If my child had chosen not to go to an HGC, he would be in a pull out in his home school. The pull out would teach 4/5 math. So math is not a reason to go to an HGC. |
Anonymous
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Our kids' school has finessed some solution that does not involve the kids in compacted math being bussed to the middle school - which seems perfectly reasonable to me as the parent of a non-compacted math kid. However, what I strongly resent is that it has created wildly imbalanced class sizes for the "regular" math - more than 30 kids, although there is an assistant and someone else to help with "centers." No one announced this BTW - I only heard about it from other parents just recently.
My bigger problem is that my child's math teacher iterally NEVER assigns homework and we almost never see graded classwork. We have our child in regular tutoring sessions due to previous math struggles so we have another source of information on capabilities and learning, but as far as MCPS goes, I have zero evidence that my child is learning anything in math. BTW I'm not a 2.0 hysteric; I'm mostly pro-MCPS. But boy, when your child gets a teacher who is phoning it in, it shows. And when the county games its own curriculum to please the tiger moms and dumps all the "regular" kids in a situation where no learning appears to be taking place, it's really obnoxious. |
Anonymous
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Hey 19:24, maybe the so-called curriculum 2.0 "hysterics" aren't "2.0 hysterics" anymore than you. Maybe we (yes, I cannot stand 2.0!) are just normal parents like you who happen to have seen the grave problems with 2.0 for ourselves.
Curriculum 2.0 is all about hiding information from parents. I don't have my child in private tutoring and I have NO IDEA if he is learning anything in math this year. No work comes home, no unit tests are given, the report card says "P" but there is no objective measurement about what that means. |
Anonymous
If you have NO IDEA if your kid is learning anything in math this year, and you haven't asked the teacher about it, or if you have asked the teacher and you still have NO IDEA, then the problem is not Curriculum 2.0. |
Anonymous
| My daughter is one of 6 from her Elementary school that has to go to a middle school for her compacted math class. Instead of getting out the door for a 9.15 am start to the day, we now have to haul her up at 7 am and be out the door by 7.30 am to get her to the middle school for a 7.55 am class. Total PITA. And this is for TWO YEARS. We only found out about it late August and not being familiar with the US public school system, I did not ask many questions and just accepted the place. |
Anonymous
Um, nope. Are you new to MCPS? A teacher can have an entire conference with you where they use buzz words like "we're getting a deeper understanding of fractions" and he's proficient, we're happy with his progress. All of that means essentially nothing. It doesn't tell you what you need to know as a parent and it IS a huge problem with curriculum 2.0. When I say that I have NO IDEA whether my kid is learning anything in math this year, I stand by that. I stand by that b/c my child did Math 4 as a 2nd grader (when acceleration was allowed), then did Math 3 last year b/c under 2.0 ALL 3rd graders had to do Math 3 (after lots of complaining from many parents, some pull-out groups of acceleration were allowed a few times per week), now is doing Math 4/5 as a 4th grader b/c that is the most challenge allowed under 2.0! So, yes, after 3 years of repeating essentially the very same work, I have no reason to believe that my child is learning anything. It would be like your child reading your child the same ABC book for 3 years in school - trust me at the end of 3 years you'd be very frustrated! And if after those 3 years the teacher "assured" you that your child is "proficient" at that ABC book and that the county is sure that your child doesn't need to move on to a different book, she simply needs to "go deeper" and "get a deeper understanding" of the ABC book! Sure you could listen to the teacher and if you chose to do so, you could believe that your child was learning deep things about that ABC book, but in the absence of objective proof, you'd be foolish to do so. Under curriculum 2.0, children can not be moved (up or down) to address their math needs and to ensure that they are challenged. When there is a curriculum that imposes that type of stasis: these kids will ALL do math 4 or math 4/5 and will not move up to something more challenging if they need it. Under that system, a teacher (employed by the folks that have just rolled out this massive and expensive 2.0) has no incentive to tell parents that their child needs more challenge even when it is painfully obvious to the parents, the teacher and the kids. The teacher has no incentive to do so (and as some teachers will privately admit, they aren't allowed to advocate for more enrichment/acceleration for kids who need it). THAT most certainly is a 2.0 problem. |
Anonymous
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No, I am not new to MCPS.
If you want to know what your child is doing in math, and you have not asked the teacher, that is not the fault of Curriculum 2.0. If you want to know what your child is doing in math, and you have asked the teacher, and the teacher did not answer your question, that is also not the fault of Curriculum 2.0. If you know what your child is doing in math, and you think that your child should be doing something else, that may be the fault of Curriculum 2.0. But that is a different issue. |