The state of MCPS is atrocious

[Anonymous]

Just because someone has a PhD doesn’t make them knowledgeable or effective at running a school system. The Carver Center has lots of examples of people with those credentials.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would think for someone with a PhD in Physics would understand the value of step by step instructions when teaching math and science. If a child is missing the steps or a previous foundational skill, they are stuck with struggling on homework and have gaps when taking quizzes and tests.

An online textbook is as helpful as a hard copy textbook. The school system just needs to purchase them which means buying a university designed and tested curriculum. The whole notion that MCPS could effectively write their own curriculum and resources was a disaster under Curriculum 2.0 that MCPS has yet to fix.

BTW - colleges still use textbooks. Students use textbooks to review information and be prepared for class discussions.

Some kids do better with physical textbooks and no, often they are not equal nor are schools using them. We got workbooks for some classes and the teachers didn't use them once.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would think for someone with a PhD in Physics would understand the value of step by step instructions when teaching math and science. If a child is missing the steps or a previous foundational skill, they are stuck with struggling on homework and have gaps when taking quizzes and tests.

An online textbook is as helpful as a hard copy textbook. The school system just needs to purchase them which means buying a university designed and tested curriculum. The whole notion that MCPS could effectively write their own curriculum and resources was a disaster under Curriculum 2.0 that MCPS has yet to fix.

BTW - colleges still use textbooks. Students use textbooks to review information and be prepared for class discussions.

Living rent free in your head...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would think for someone with a PhD in Physics would understand the value of step by step instructions when teaching math and science. If a child is missing the steps or a previous foundational skill, they are stuck with struggling on homework and have gaps when taking quizzes and tests.

An online textbook is as helpful as a hard copy textbook. The school system just needs to purchase them which means buying a university designed and tested curriculum. The whole notion that MCPS could effectively write their own curriculum and resources was a disaster under Curriculum 2.0 that MCPS has yet to fix.

BTW - colleges still use textbooks. Students use textbooks to review information and be prepared for class discussions.

Some kids do better with physical textbooks and no, often they are not equal nor are schools using them. We got workbooks for some classes and the teachers didn't use them once.

And some evidently don't. So what's your point?

[Anonymous]

College freshman here. We absolutely don’t use physical textbooks. Everything is online. Sorry to the extremely angry dinosaur here but that’s the truth.

[Anonymous]

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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.

Nope. That is school choice for the wealthy. When you have unlimited funds, it is much easier to send your kid to private or ‘move to another location’ (what?? Who suggests that as a solution to working class parents?? You are so out of touch with reality.)

Am I or have you not done the full research around school choice because I have. First, MCPs offers immersions programs, magnets, consortiums, and a host of HS special programs. More than most school districts across the nation. This is choice. And in all of these choices there is still bus transportation to the school even if it means starting at a central location as opposed to your neighborhood.

In many a “school choice” districts bus transportation is not an option and when it is it requires kids get up much earlier (a fact a host of MCPS DCUM already complain about for ES students or their magnet student). How are these not rich parents getting their kids to school?

A key idea of school choice would be choice, but in order to make it fair it would need to be a lottery or require admission criteria. Hello things that DCUM complains about. What happens to your choice when you’re not selected. Shall we go ask the DC parents?

Let’s talk vouchers to go to private school. Oh, do you mean those mostly full private schools in the DMV, many of whom cost 20-60k per year w/ tuition that rises 3-5% each year and require applications and interviews? Oh and those that offer bus service that is an extra expense not included in tuition. I wonder how much expansion those schools would consider doing to accommodate vouchers? How much much do you think that most poor or working class families would need to attend these schools? And let’s not forgot social impact because guess what your new friends are going to live all over the DMV, so you need to account for travel time to hang out w/ them. Did you also know that Maryland offers the BOOST program which is vouchers and a private school investment plan(more choice).

Just because it’s called “school choice” doesn’t actually mean it offers everyone more choice than they currently have, especially in a district like MCPS where choices abound.

[Anonymous]

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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.

I KNOW that many people can teach their own kid foundational math and reading skills with internet resources, rented or purchased curriculum and workbooks. Whether they choose to do so or not is a different situation. Also being able to teach your own child vs being able to teach a classroom of other people’s kids is a whole different ball game.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:College freshman here. We absolutely don’t use physical textbooks. Everything is online. Sorry to the extremely angry dinosaur here but that’s the truth.

No one cares about physical textbooks. We’ve been talking about texts, physical or digital.

So calm down and go to class.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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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.

I KNOW that many people can teach their own kid foundational math and reading skills with internet resources, rented or purchased curriculum and workbooks. Whether they choose to do so or not is a different situation. Also being able to teach your own child vs being able to teach a classroom of other people’s kids is a whole different ball game.

It’s actually often more difficult to teach your own kid than other people’s kids. More emotions involved.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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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.

I KNOW that many people can teach their own kid foundational math and reading skills with internet resources, rented or purchased curriculum and workbooks. Whether they choose to do so or not is a different situation. Also being able to teach your own child vs being able to teach a classroom of other people’s kids is a whole different ball game.

It’s actually often more difficult to teach your own kid than other people’s kids. More emotions involved.

Yet despite these emotions parents have managed to teach their kids dozens of things: chores, driving, sports. Is it frustrating at times, such, but people rise above emotion to do what is best or needed all the time. The percent of homeschooling is rising by 2-10% each year. Evidence that folks can teach their own kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

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.

I KNOW that many people can teach their own kid foundational math and reading skills with internet resources, rented or purchased curriculum and workbooks. Whether they choose to do so or not is a different situation. Also being able to teach your own child vs being able to teach a classroom of other people’s kids is a whole different ball game.

It’s actually often more difficult to teach your own kid than other people’s kids. More emotions involved.

Yet despite these emotions parents have managed to teach their kids dozens of things: chores, driving, sports. Is it frustrating at times, such, but people rise above emotion to do what is best or needed all the time. The percent of homeschooling is rising by 2-10% each year. Evidence that folks can teach their own kids.

Cool. You want me to teach my own kid? We’ve been supplementing for years since we saw early on the gaps in an MCPS education.

Since you feel that I should educate my own kids and the school system is clearly not providing the service it is meant to (just look at the stats), we all deserve a tax refund.

Why are we pouring millions and millions of dollars into an ineffective school system when you say we should just be educating our own kids anyway?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Agreed. Parents in Montgomery County are stuck with a dysfunctional, poorly run school system that we pay an enormous amount of money to support.

Let parents have school choice.

What does "school choice" look like to you? There are only so many seats and so many bus routes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

I KNOW that many people can teach their own kid foundational math and reading skills with internet resources, rented or purchased curriculum and workbooks. Whether they choose to do so or not is a different situation. Also being able to teach your own child vs being able to teach a classroom of other people’s kids is a whole different ball game.

It’s actually often more difficult to teach your own kid than other people’s kids. More emotions involved.

Yet despite these emotions parents have managed to teach their kids dozens of things: chores, driving, sports. Is it frustrating at times, such, but people rise above emotion to do what is best or needed all the time. The percent of homeschooling is rising by 2-10% each year. Evidence that folks can teach their own kids.

Homeschooling involves employing a full curriculum and being accountable for results based on it. Are you suggesting MCPS parents should be doing that, on top of working full-time?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

I KNOW that many people can teach their own kid foundational math and reading skills with internet resources, rented or purchased curriculum and workbooks. Whether they choose to do so or not is a different situation. Also being able to teach your own child vs being able to teach a classroom of other people’s kids is a whole different ball game.

It’s actually often more difficult to teach your own kid than other people’s kids. More emotions involved.

Yet despite these emotions parents have managed to teach their kids dozens of things: chores, driving, sports. Is it frustrating at times, such, but people rise above emotion to do what is best or needed all the time. The percent of homeschooling is rising by 2-10% each year. Evidence that folks can teach their own kids.

Cool. You want me to teach my own kid? We’ve been supplementing for years since we saw early on the gaps in an MCPS education.

Since you feel that I should educate my own kids and the school system is clearly not providing the service it is meant to (just look at the stats), we all deserve a tax refund.

Why are we pouring millions and millions of dollars into an ineffective school system when you say we should just be educating our own kids anyway?

And so many of you act as though people who choose private school are crazy. The cognitive dissonance is amazing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:College freshman here. We absolutely don’t use physical textbooks. Everything is online. Sorry to the extremely angry dinosaur here but that’s the truth.

I was curious so I asked my daughter (college junior, biochemistry major) and she said that ~2/3 of classes used textbooks, and almost all of her STEM classes.