MCPS is cuttting compacted math and cohorted literacy enrichment

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You know what graph you will never get from MCPS?

MCAP scores corrated to what out of school math education the student does, and parent level of math ability.

I don’t think parental math ability has anything to do with it. My kid is very advanced in math, I was not. I supplemented through ES, then we got a tutor. Both those things made the difference.

Highly able parents can provide home tutoring. (and for K-5 math, "highly able" isn't that high for an adult, even though MCPS has trouble finding enough teachers that are highly able at K-5 math.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So admittedly I am far removed from my own high school experience and my kids are still in ES, but the MS/HS math pathways surprised me a bit- do kids no longer take geometry and trig?

Pre-calc in 9th also seems a bit crazy to me (again this is coming from someone who graduated in the 90s where "accelerated" meant pre-calc in 11th and AP Calc in 12th). But I don't understand what some of these students are meant to take in 12th if they've already had two years of calculus by then.

Acceleration looks like this:

Alg 7th
Geometry 8th
Alg2/Trig 9th
Precalc 10th
Calc 11th
MVC/Diffeq/Stats 12th

That's the route both my kids took (now in college, one about to go). The one in college is a dual math major. They easily passed all their accelerated math classes including MVC/Diffeq. MAPS scores always at highest %ile, PARCC scores always exceeding expectations, 5 on AP cal, 800 on SAT math. Kid would've been incredibly bored in ES without HGC (former name of CES) and compacted math. No, we did not ever tutor DC.

There are a lot of highly educated parents around here, so it's no surprise that there are a lot advanced learners here.

MCPS really is racing to the bottom. We had intentionally moved here for the magnets and acceleration programs. So glad to be done with MCPS before they killed every program that made it great.

On the link provided in the OP, it looks like starting in 2027-2028, there are three potential math pathways students will take (slide 14) where pre-calc may be taken anywhere from 9th-11 grade. Am I understanding this correctly? What is the difference between Math 6, Accel Math 6, and Grade 6 Pre-Alg?

I am partly asking this because we are currently overseas and I've been trying to keep track of where my kids (who currently attend an international school) will land when we return in a couple years. Which is hard when MCPS keeps making changes!

Math 6 = 6th grade math, on track to start algebra in 9th
Accel Math 6/AMP 6+ = 6th & half of 7th grade math (with the other half of 7th+8th taken in 7th grade), on track to start algebra in 8th-- for strong kids in grade-level 5th grade math or kids who did compacted 5/6 who could use a slowdown/reinforcement
Grade 6 Pre-Alg = 7th & 8th grade math (with 6th grade math completed in grade 5 as part of compacted math), on track to start algebra in 7th

Algebra in..

7th - advanced
8th - on track
9th - behind

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So admittedly I am far removed from my own high school experience and my kids are still in ES, but the MS/HS math pathways surprised me a bit- do kids no longer take geometry and trig?

Pre-calc in 9th also seems a bit crazy to me (again this is coming from someone who graduated in the 90s where "accelerated" meant pre-calc in 11th and AP Calc in 12th). But I don't understand what some of these students are meant to take in 12th if they've already had two years of calculus by then.

Acceleration looks like this:

Alg 7th
Geometry 8th
Alg2/Trig 9th
Precalc 10th
Calc 11th
MVC/Diffeq/Stats 12th

That's the route both my kids took (now in college, one about to go). The one in college is a dual math major. They easily passed all their accelerated math classes including MVC/Diffeq. MAPS scores always at highest %ile, PARCC scores always exceeding expectations, 5 on AP cal, 800 on SAT math. Kid would've been incredibly bored in ES without HGC (former name of CES) and compacted math. No, we did not ever tutor DC.

There are a lot of highly educated parents around here, so it's no surprise that there are a lot advanced learners here.

MCPS really is racing to the bottom. We had intentionally moved here for the magnets and acceleration programs. So glad to be done with MCPS before they killed every program that made it great.

On the link provided in the OP, it looks like starting in 2027-2028, there are three potential math pathways students will take (slide 14) where pre-calc may be taken anywhere from 9th-11 grade. Am I understanding this correctly? What is the difference between Math 6, Accel Math 6, and Grade 6 Pre-Alg?

I am partly asking this because we are currently overseas and I've been trying to keep track of where my kids (who currently attend an international school) will land when we return in a couple years. Which is hard when MCPS keeps making changes!

We moved here for the schools. I wouldn't move here now for the schools if I were you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So admittedly I am far removed from my own high school experience and my kids are still in ES, but the MS/HS math pathways surprised me a bit- do kids no longer take geometry and trig?

Pre-calc in 9th also seems a bit crazy to me (again this is coming from someone who graduated in the 90s where "accelerated" meant pre-calc in 11th and AP Calc in 12th). But I don't understand what some of these students are meant to take in 12th if they've already had two years of calculus by then.

When I went to a W school in the 90s, the accelerated path was 11th graders took Calculus AB then took BC in 12th grader. When I glanced at the slides yesterday, it looks like that path is still there.

Anything above that, students went to Montgomery College for the math courses back then.

MC has a lot of rules for doing advanced classes and told me no for my child. They wanted her to start back to Calc 1, saying that the Calc in MCPS may not be good enough. No way. They were really nasty about it.

What year was this? AP exam score is a standard method of MC placement.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So admittedly I am far removed from my own high school experience and my kids are still in ES, but the MS/HS math pathways surprised me a bit- do kids no longer take geometry and trig?

Pre-calc in 9th also seems a bit crazy to me (again this is coming from someone who graduated in the 90s where "accelerated" meant pre-calc in 11th and AP Calc in 12th). But I don't understand what some of these students are meant to take in 12th if they've already had two years of calculus by then.

Acceleration looks like this:

Alg 7th
Geometry 8th
Alg2/Trig 9th
Precalc 10th
Calc 11th
MVC/Diffeq/Stats 12th

That's the route both my kids took (now in college, one about to go). The one in college is a dual math major. They easily passed all their accelerated math classes including MVC/Diffeq. MAPS scores always at highest %ile, PARCC scores always exceeding expectations, 5 on AP cal, 800 on SAT math. Kid would've been incredibly bored in ES without HGC (former name of CES) and compacted math. No, we did not ever tutor DC.

There are a lot of highly educated parents around here, so it's no surprise that there are a lot advanced learners here.

MCPS really is racing to the bottom. We had intentionally moved here for the magnets and acceleration programs. So glad to be done with MCPS before they killed every program that made it great.

On the link provided in the OP, it looks like starting in 2027-2028, there are three potential math pathways students will take (slide 14) where pre-calc may be taken anywhere from 9th-11 grade. Am I understanding this correctly? What is the difference between Math 6, Accel Math 6, and Grade 6 Pre-Alg?

I am partly asking this because we are currently overseas and I've been trying to keep track of where my kids (who currently attend an international school) will land when we return in a couple years. Which is hard when MCPS keeps making changes!

Math 6 = 6th grade math, on track to start algebra in 9th
Accel Math 6/AMP 6+ = 6th & half of 7th grade math (with the other half of 7th+8th taken in 7th grade), on track to start algebra in 8th-- for strong kids in grade-level 5th grade math or kids who did compacted 5/6 who could use a slowdown/reinforcement
Grade 6 Pre-Alg = 7th & 8th grade math (with 6th grade math completed in grade 5 as part of compacted math), on track to start algebra in 7th

Except this is the "old" way. It is not clear this is at all what's going to happen in the "new" proposal.

This is the new proposal There is no significant change proposed for the MS-level math below Alg 1 / Integrated Algebra 1.

[Anonymous]

Not reading all 27 pages of this but advanced math students don't need to take Calc A/B then B/C. An advanced student should go right into B/C. WTF is MCPS doing

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So admittedly I am far removed from my own high school experience and my kids are still in ES, but the MS/HS math pathways surprised me a bit- do kids no longer take geometry and trig?

Pre-calc in 9th also seems a bit crazy to me (again this is coming from someone who graduated in the 90s where "accelerated" meant pre-calc in 11th and AP Calc in 12th). But I don't understand what some of these students are meant to take in 12th if they've already had two years of calculus by then.

Acceleration looks like this:

Alg 7th
Geometry 8th
Alg2/Trig 9th
Precalc 10th
Calc 11th
MVC/Diffeq/Stats 12th

That's the route both my kids took (now in college, one about to go). The one in college is a dual math major. They easily passed all their accelerated math classes including MVC/Diffeq. MAPS scores always at highest %ile, PARCC scores always exceeding expectations, 5 on AP cal, 800 on SAT math. Kid would've been incredibly bored in ES without HGC (former name of CES) and compacted math. No, we did not ever tutor DC.

There are a lot of highly educated parents around here, so it's no surprise that there are a lot advanced learners here.

MCPS really is racing to the bottom. We had intentionally moved here for the magnets and acceleration programs. So glad to be done with MCPS before they killed every program that made it great.

On the link provided in the OP, it looks like starting in 2027-2028, there are three potential math pathways students will take (slide 14) where pre-calc may be taken anywhere from 9th-11 grade. Am I understanding this correctly? What is the difference between Math 6, Accel Math 6, and Grade 6 Pre-Alg?

I am partly asking this because we are currently overseas and I've been trying to keep track of where my kids (who currently attend an international school) will land when we return in a couple years. Which is hard when MCPS keeps making changes!

Math 6 = 6th grade math, on track to start algebra in 9th
Accel Math 6/AMP 6+ = 6th & half of 7th grade math (with the other half of 7th+8th taken in 7th grade), on track to start algebra in 8th-- for strong kids in grade-level 5th grade math or kids who did compacted 5/6 who could use a slowdown/reinforcement
Grade 6 Pre-Alg = 7th & 8th grade math (with 6th grade math completed in grade 5 as part of compacted math), on track to start algebra in 7th

Algebra in..

7th - advanced
8th - on track
9th - behind

No.

9th - on-level
8th - advanced / gifted&talented, including most of "selective college" prep.
7th - highly advanced, likely STEM-focused, "UMC" stereotype
6th - math-contest culture, "Asian immigrant scientist parent" stereotype

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not reading all 27 pages of this but advanced math students don't need to take Calc A/B then B/C. An advanced student should go right into B/C. WTF is MCPS doing

That was just an example. Not relevant at all to the Elementary School plan.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t get this model. Clustering just seems like groups in the classroom, which teachers already have. The students can change groups based on where they are at any given point. The challenge is that the most advance groups get the least amount of attention.

And without kids moving classrooms or schools moving to a functional model for teachers, how do they expect that students are going to move forward to the next grade level standards in an area? Most teachers don’t have the time or knowledge to provide a) increased depth of math in the current grade level, let alone an understanding of all the standards for say 2-3 grade levels.

And on behalf of the teachers, who is about to be writing all these individual acceleration plans?

I think their goal is to limit the number of levels within a classroom by grouping kids into 6 levels or whatever and then only giving each teacher 2 of them. That seems kind of nonsensical. It's not like by grouping kids they make all the kids within each group the same. It is just lipstick on a pig. And I think they are well, well aware of that.

No, cluster grouping is a model with a specific approach that spans 4 levels-- no teacher is supposed to both have "very high" and "very low" kids in the same class, but they are explicitly supposed to do classes of either "very high" to "below average" or "above average" to "very low.". https://www.cde.state.co.us/sites/default/files/documents/gt/download/pdf/scgm_summary.pdf

However, this model is generally used and recommended to support enrichment, not acceleration.

Cluster grouping would be a solid approach to shift to in K-3 (well, probably 1-3 since you wouldn't know the rising kindergarteners well enough yet to do it) to move the needle on enrichment in those grades and make things easier on teachers.

But it's a crazy way to try to do math acceleration when you are literally trying to teach entirely different content on an entirely different pace to different groups of kids

My son was in group #1 and the only student in group #1 at 3rd grade. He had an outlier MAP-M score so the result he got was zero instruction of math for the entire 3rd grade. He was given unlimited computer time back when MCPS still held desktops in every class room. That was a pessimistic year for us. We couldn't afford private education. He got saved at 4th grade by CES. Now compacted math is gone, and CES is on the edge to be eliminated in the next few years. I don't know how these "top 5%" truly gifted kids that need acceleration can survive within the enrichment-only framework.

Your kids just do the regular curriculum and you supplement outside. With a bit of workbooks it’s not hard to increase map scores by working ahead.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not reading all 27 pages of this but advanced math students don't need to take Calc A/B then B/C. An advanced student should go right into B/C. WTF is MCPS doing

Our school pushes both as there is no mvc. But, you are correct.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not reading all 27 pages of this but advanced math students don't need to take Calc A/B then B/C. An advanced student should go right into B/C. WTF is MCPS doing

We need a competent Chief Academic Officer- Niki Porter isn’t good enough.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So admittedly I am far removed from my own high school experience and my kids are still in ES, but the MS/HS math pathways surprised me a bit- do kids no longer take geometry and trig?

Pre-calc in 9th also seems a bit crazy to me (again this is coming from someone who graduated in the 90s where "accelerated" meant pre-calc in 11th and AP Calc in 12th). But I don't understand what some of these students are meant to take in 12th if they've already had two years of calculus by then.

When I went to a W school in the 90s, the accelerated path was 11th graders took Calculus AB then took BC in 12th grader. When I glanced at the slides yesterday, it looks like that path is still there.

Anything above that, students went to Montgomery College for the math courses back then.

MC has a lot of rules for doing advanced classes and told me no for my child. They wanted her to start back to Calc 1, saying that the Calc in MCPS may not be good enough. No way. They were really nasty about it.

What year was this? AP exam score is a standard method of MC placement.

They said no. Happened to others we know too. They were so nasty I’m not letting my kid take classes there. Mcps will need to find a class for senior year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not reading all 27 pages of this but advanced math students don't need to take Calc A/B then B/C. An advanced student should go right into B/C. WTF is MCPS doing

We need a competent Chief Academic Officer- Niki Porter isn’t good enough.

When I talked to central office they did not know the graduation requirements and said Econ was a good math option but that’s not within the graduation requirements of math.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So admittedly I am far removed from my own high school experience and my kids are still in ES, but the MS/HS math pathways surprised me a bit- do kids no longer take geometry and trig?

Pre-calc in 9th also seems a bit crazy to me (again this is coming from someone who graduated in the 90s where "accelerated" meant pre-calc in 11th and AP Calc in 12th). But I don't understand what some of these students are meant to take in 12th if they've already had two years of calculus by then.

Acceleration looks like this:

Alg 7th
Geometry 8th
Alg2/Trig 9th
Precalc 10th
Calc 11th
MVC/Diffeq/Stats 12th

That's the route both my kids took (now in college, one about to go). The one in college is a dual math major. They easily passed all their accelerated math classes including MVC/Diffeq. MAPS scores always at highest %ile, PARCC scores always exceeding expectations, 5 on AP cal, 800 on SAT math. Kid would've been incredibly bored in ES without HGC (former name of CES) and compacted math. No, we did not ever tutor DC.

There are a lot of highly educated parents around here, so it's no surprise that there are a lot advanced learners here.

MCPS really is racing to the bottom. We had intentionally moved here for the magnets and acceleration programs. So glad to be done with MCPS before they killed every program that made it great.

On the link provided in the OP, it looks like starting in 2027-2028, there are three potential math pathways students will take (slide 14) where pre-calc may be taken anywhere from 9th-11 grade. Am I understanding this correctly? What is the difference between Math 6, Accel Math 6, and Grade 6 Pre-Alg?

I am partly asking this because we are currently overseas and I've been trying to keep track of where my kids (who currently attend an international school) will land when we return in a couple years. Which is hard when MCPS keeps making changes!

Math 6 = 6th grade math, on track to start algebra in 9th
Accel Math 6/AMP 6+ = 6th & half of 7th grade math (with the other half of 7th+8th taken in 7th grade), on track to start algebra in 8th-- for strong kids in grade-level 5th grade math or kids who did compacted 5/6 who could use a slowdown/reinforcement
Grade 6 Pre-Alg = 7th & 8th grade math (with 6th grade math completed in grade 5 as part of compacted math), on track to start algebra in 7th

Algebra in..

7th - advanced
8th - on track
9th - behind

No.

9th - on-level
8th - advanced / gifted&talented, including most of "selective college" prep.
7th - highly advanced, likely STEM-focused, "UMC" stereotype
6th - math-contest culture, "Asian immigrant scientist parent" stereotype

I don't disagree that Algebra I is a high school level course and some of it may be a result of the current curriculum.

But students taking Algebra I in high school are likely struggling students.

Just look at the MCAP Algebra I proficiency rates on mdreportcard for MCPS. Middle schools top the list.

The highest high school is Churchill, ranked at number 32 out of schools listed with Algebra I test takers, and with a proficiency of 22.2 percent. Followed by Poolesville at 20.8 percent, Whitman is two spots below that with 16.5 percent.

Students are capable of taking Algebra I in middle school and students will raise to the level they're pushed to.

Look at the charter school in DC that won the math competition recently:
https://wtop.com/dc/2026/03/how-students-in-southeast-outperformed-peers-in-some-of-dcs-wealthiest-neighborhoods-on-citywide-math-test/

And it's what the main character was saying in the film Stand and Deliver, which is based on a true story.

There's nothing wrong with taking Algebra I in high school and I believe that students should be placed appropriately at their level to make sure they fully learn what's being taught.

But it seems like MCPS's solution is to try to lower the bar instead of raising the bottom to reach the bar.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So will rising 5th graders have compacted math next year nor not?

This was just shared with the GEC listserv from the Board meeting yesterday. The answer seems to be that the kids currently in 4/5 will be grouped together but they may not be doing compacted math (i.e., math 5/6)...

Montoya: "Slide 13...I just want to make sure I'm understanding correctly because it looks like students who are currently in fourth grade that are taking what we call compacted math, the next year the will all be in this new model that you're proposing, but that was not my understanding that students that are currently because well it says, what will happen to my fourth grade student takit it now. And so in your left hand column for 26-27, both those blocks look the same.

Niki Porter: "The model for the students who are current in math 4/5 is that they will remain as a cohorted class, together, to take an accelerated math 5 acceleration, and they will be moving along the accelerated track and able to take, uh, algebra 1 -- integrated algebra 1 -- in grade 7 if the data supports that or accelerated math 7. So they will stay as a cohorted class, which is slightly different than what we were describing for other students.

Montoya: Great, so you can see my confusion because on slide 4 you have this same term "math 4, math 3 with acceleration" it looks exactly the same just with a different number but your explanations just now are two completely different things, right? Because the math on the next slide on slide 14 when you say math 3 with accel, math 4 with accel, you mean the cluster group model

Niki Porter: Correct

Montoya: But on slide 13, you have it labeled as math 5 with accel and I'm supposed to understand that that means...

Niki Porter: That is our confusion, we can clarify that"