S/0 if you could improve low school performance, what would you do?

[Anonymous]

What would you do to actually raise the performance of the lower performing students? Not lower the gap by hoping others would drop but actually raise the performance of lower performing students and schools?

1. Offer after school and weekend school that isn't overly complicated and dumbed down by the MCPS curriculum office. Copy what the Asians do. Offer classes in the kid's native language using normal approaches to math, reading, and writing. Offer separate ESL classes.

2. Provide a monetary incentive. Make school their "job" and give lower SES families cash for kids that score high.

3. Re-instate actually assessment and testing. Don't try to ignore or hide student performance behind "P". Track growth closely and offer regular unit testing and writing evaluations. If students drop below a line, catch them before they end the year or take the final test. Set them up for success and hold them back if they do not succeed.

[Anonymous]

Reading, reading, and more reading. Too many kids never learn to read well or to enjoy reading. Students who read well have the greatest advantage of all in school.

Also in these austere time this will never happen, but I believe extending school to a 14th grade would benefit all students. Some students for a variety of reasons mature later than others. Those who are ready would graduate in 12th grade but those who are not could remain and take advanced classes they were not prepared for at 15 at age 18. It would also eliminate Senioritis which causes 12th grade to be a wash for many students.

[Anonymous]

Also in these austere time this will never happen, but I believe extending school to a 14th grade would benefit all students. Some students for a variety of reasons mature later than others. Those who are ready would graduate in 12th grade but those who are not could remain and take advanced classes they were not prepared for at 15 at age 18. It would also eliminate Senioritis which causes 12th grade to be a wash for many students.

This used to be very common at elite prep schools. It may still be around. Students who didn't get into the colleges of their choice would go post-grad for a fifth year of high school and then onto a good liberal arts schools.

[Anonymous]

Free after school enrichment programs. I posted on the other thread about experience with both "good" and "bad" schools -- I was shocked that there were no after school programs in the "bad" school. In the good schools my DC took Mad Science, Lego Robotics, etc. In the bad school there was just aftercare. Which is fine, but not the same. In the bad school, every single student got free breakfast just for walking in the door, no questions asked, no forms. They should do the same for after school enrichment programs.

[Anonymous]

I don't think many of these afterschool programs offer much educational value. At our school they offer an after school "homework" club for low income students. This does wonders. This is run by a set of teachers on a volunteer basis.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't think many of these afterschool programs offer much educational value. At our school they offer an after school "homework" club for low income students. This does wonders. This is run by a set of teachers on a volunteer basis.

One of my kids got a lot out of those programs. The other, not so interested. But these kids should be given a chance, exposed to this stuff at least. Home work club sounds good too.

[Anonymous]

Reading, reading, and more reading. Too many kids never learn to read well or to enjoy reading. Students who read well have the greatest advantage of all in school.

I'm not so sure. I think this shows a bias toward english lit and people who go into teaching. I would argue that math and STEM are more important. Real math, not MCPS 2.0 math. Math and STEM are less problematic for ESL students (again real math not MCPS math).

There are more lucrative jobs to lift them out of poverty from these fields too. These jobs are focused much more on skills, intelligence and what you produce than other fields that trend toward more racially and gender divided with minorities on the bottom. Its also a real opening for US job growth. STEM in US education is so terrible that companies focus on sponsoring professionals educated outside the US.

[Anonymous]

Make sure that every low performing has a fantastic principal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Reading, reading, and more reading. Too many kids never learn to read well or to enjoy reading. Students who read well have the greatest advantage of all in school.

I'm not so sure. I think this shows a bias toward english lit and people who go into teaching. I would argue that math and STEM are more important. Real math, not MCPS 2.0 math. Math and STEM are less problematic for ESL students (again real math not MCPS math).

There are more lucrative jobs to lift them out of poverty from these fields too. These jobs are focused much more on skills, intelligence and what you produce than other fields that trend toward more racially and gender divided with minorities on the bottom. Its also a real opening for US job growth. STEM in US education is so terrible that companies focus on sponsoring professionals educated outside the US.

This is so true. My husband's tech company has maybe 10-15% US educated software engineers. All the rest come from all over the world.

[Anonymous]

1. Great principal at the most struggling schools.
Vitally important.

2. Homework club or after school / weekend opportunities for those that need them

3. Boosting the amount of MC families at the school. You have to start with elementary since people have most likely made their choice already by MS on how to get away from their local schools if the ES options are bad. #1 is critical to this. Other factors to help are to properly ability group the kids that are ready for more. If you are going super aloe because kids did not all learn what most MC kids learn in preschool then for the love of god let the kids that know the stuff already be grouped together to push them further. This is by far the most important at ES level and would not cost more money so why the county refuses to do it must be based on principle not any actual goal of drawing less needy kids back into their local schools. Having the MC kids at the school helps the needier kids with the peer group they are exposed to as well as by drawing in families with the time and money to give more to the school.

4. After school activities. These are important both for existing kids and for achieving #3 above.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What would you do to actually raise the performance of the lower performing students? Not lower the gap by hoping others would drop but actually raise the performance of lower performing students and schools?


# 1) Put lower performing kids in a different class completely - I mean obviously, they need extra time and focus on certain skills they are lacking.

2) That separate class would focus more on preparing for standardized testing

3) That separate class would de-emphasize homework (at home) - and even provide a class time for homework. I can guarantee you many of these kids do not have the same resources or quiet places for homework. More single parents, more english as a second language, not as much access to computers, etc. I can attest that this can be just as good, because I switched from a top public to a private, and the private did not emphasize homework (at home) so much, plus we had an extra period for doing homework, and all but 2 kids went to college, and mine wasn't even a top school.

4) That separate class would add extra computer instruction or computer class time use.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: What would you do to actually raise the performance of the lower performing students? Not lower the gap by hoping others would drop but actually raise the performance of lower performing students and schools?

# 1) Put lower performing kids in a different class completely - I mean obviously, they need extra time and focus on certain skills they are lacking.

2) That separate class would focus more on preparing for standardized testing

3) That separate class would de-emphasize homework (at home) - and even provide a class time for homework. I can guarantee you many of these kids do not have the same resources or quiet places for homework. More single parents, more english as a second language, not as much access to computers, etc. I can attest that this can be just as good, because I switched from a top public to a private, and the private did not emphasize homework (at home) so much, plus we had an extra period for doing homework, and all but 2 kids went to college, and mine wasn't even a top school.

4) That separate class would add extra computer instruction or computer class time use.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What would you do to actually raise the performance of the lower performing students? Not lower the gap by hoping others would drop but actually raise the performance of lower performing students and schools?

1. Offer after school and weekend school that isn't overly complicated and dumbed down by the MCPS curriculum office. Copy what the Asians do. Offer classes in the kid's native language using normal approaches to math, reading, and writing. Offer separate ESL classes.

2. Provide a monetary incentive. Make school their "job" and give lower SES families cash for kids that score high.

3. Re-instate actually assessment and testing. Don't try to ignore or hide student performance behind "P". Track growth closely and offer regular unit testing and writing evaluations. If students drop below a line, catch them before they end the year or take the final test. Set them up for success and hold them back if they do not succeed.

What, exactly, do "the Asians" do?

[Anonymous]

You can't. It can't all be solved during the six hours a day in a school, no matter how fantastic the school is.

You can't make up for high stressed parents with low paying jobs whose car breaks down and they lose their job.

You can't make up for sick parents who can't be engaged with their kids enough to help with homework.

You can't make up for kids whose parents never finished high school, or have undiagnosed learning disabilities that impede their ability to help their kids through school.

You can't make up for homeless families.

You can't make up for abusive households.

You can't make up for drug addicted or untreated mentally ill parents.

You can't make up for parents whose command of English isn't good enough to help with school work.

You can't make up for parents who work two and three jobs and can't focus on dealing with learning difficulties or behavioral issues.

You can't make up for families that can't put food on the table on a regular basis.


Faced with all of this, I think MoCo does a pretty good job. They give many kids two meals a day, for example. Probably the most regular (even only) food many kids get. But you won't have lower SES schools pushing out scores comparable to high SES schools.

To fix schools, you have to significantly reduce social ills, like most aspects of poverty.

[Anonymous]

School would be 7am-7pm 5 days a week. Breakfast, lunch and dinner ... all homework and sports and tutoring is done at school.

School would be 11 months out of the year.