MCPS is cuttting compacted math and cohorted literacy enrichment

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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

It’s this message that continues to cause problems. Algebra is a HS math course. MCPS (and other districts) altered pacing to allow for more kids getting to Algebra by 8th and thus Calculus by 12th. This is an acceleration, it’s just more broadly applied.

Lids taking Algebra in 9th are not behind and could actually go on to take Honors Math every year thereafter.

Algebra and geometry are middle school courses in other countries. They’re NOT high school classes. 9th grade would be too late to learn algebra.

In many other countries, Algebra is an integrated course taught alongside many other topics where it’s applicable such as geometry, statistics, trig, equations,etc. So just saying it’s taught in MS is not accurate for a lot of places.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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

It’s this message that continues to cause problems. Algebra is a HS math course. MCPS (and other districts) altered pacing to allow for more kids getting to Algebra by 8th and thus Calculus by 12th. This is an acceleration, it’s just more broadly applied.

Lids taking Algebra in 9th are not behind and could actually go on to take Honors Math every year thereafter.

Algebra and geometry are middle school courses in other countries. They’re NOT high school classes. 9th grade would be too late to learn algebra.

In many other countries, Algebra is an integrated course taught alongside many other topics where it’s applicable such as geometry, statistics, trig, equations,etc. So just saying it’s taught in MS is not accurate for a lot of places.

We do RSM and the curriculum has included algebraic concepts (finding the missing variable or variables) since the beginning. I think it’s so smart.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We were on the fence about CES last year, but I'm really glad we did it.

Why? This math curriculum change impacts CES as well

[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

It’s this message that continues to cause problems. Algebra is a HS math course. MCPS (and other districts) altered pacing to allow for more kids getting to Algebra by 8th and thus Calculus by 12th. This is an acceleration, it’s just more broadly applied.

Lids taking Algebra in 9th are not behind and could actually go on to take Honors Math every year thereafter.

In an area with a lot of educated people, Alg in 9th is behind.

I went to a low achieving HS, and Alg in 9th was standard.

also, everyone in MCPS knows the "honors" designation is a joke. You must be an MCPS central office employee if you think the "honors" designation here has any meaning close to that word.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It seems like kids currently in second grade are totally neglected in this plan - slides 13-14 totally glosses over them. I don’t understand how to help my kid get what he needs

Kids in 2nd grade get "enrichment" -- they've never been accelerated

Starting next year, the state requires that kids in grades 2-5 be regrouped by level for math class. It's not totally explicit that they have to have them in separate classrooms based on their level (although I think that's what they mean), but at minimum it seems like it at least has to be cluster grouping. But they are leaving 2nd grade out of the cluster grouping in the presentation.

"By SY 2026-2027, school schedules should be aligned to the MTSS expectations and the expectations below:
a. In early grades PreK-1, schools must maintain heterogenous mathematics classrooms. Flexible grouping should be utilized to support and enrich student learning.
b. In elementary grades 2-5, schools should purposefully and regularly regroup students for math instruction based on LEA developed MTSS math structures, including accelerated math classes."

https://marylandpublicschools.org/about/documents/dcaa/math/math-policy-version-adopted-march-25-a.pdf

“Regularly” is a loose definition. My third grader has math FIT once a week. It seems like this would meet the definition.

[Anonymous]

OH NO!!!! OMG!!!!

But...wait...doesn't this country rewards incompetence? What is the use of your kids studying if AI is going to anyways eat their jobs.

[Anonymous]

Yes, well, RIP to your kid's education, but we were never impacted in any real way. Why? Because we were not relying on the US education system for academics since last 25 years. We sent our kids to school for socialization mainly and of course at that time the magnet program was still alive. Now with AI, our task of supplementing our kids will become even easier.

I no longer feel any sadness about MCPS decline. This country is stupid anyways. I no longer feel bad for stupid people who cannot discern what is good or bad for them. Damn lazy parents. Serves them right!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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

It’s this message that continues to cause problems. Algebra is a HS math course. MCPS (and other districts) altered pacing to allow for more kids getting to Algebra by 8th and thus Calculus by 12th. This is an acceleration, it’s just more broadly applied.

Lids taking Algebra in 9th are not behind and could actually go on to take Honors Math every year thereafter.

Algebra and geometry are middle school courses in other countries. They’re NOT high school classes. 9th grade would be too late to learn algebra.

I'm from one of those countries, and Algebra and Geometry are indeed MS courses, for those children who are allowed to be educated.

That is, the parents who can afford the fees/bribes, and who were not tracked onto the "remedial" track at age 6.

I would MUCH rather live in a country that educates all of its children, but not all of them take Geometry until HS.

[Anonymous]

So, from my understanding, it is concluded that starting in fall 2026, grade 5 kids (currently doing compacted math & CES in grade 4) will do grade 5 with acceleration (no more compacted math 5/6) & regular literacy ( no more CES enriched literacy)? We are in one if the school with local CES program.

What about those currently 4th grade kids that left their home elementary school and attend CES school for both enriched literacy & compacted math? Are they better to go back to their home elementary school in 5th grade?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So, from my understanding, it is concluded that starting in fall 2026, grade 5 kids (currently doing compacted math & CES in grade 4) will do grade 5 with acceleration (no more compacted math 5/6) & regular literacy ( no more CES enriched literacy)? We are in one if the school with local CES program.

What about those currently 4th grade kids that left their home elementary school and attend CES school for both enriched literacy & compacted math? Are they better to go back to their home elementary school in 5th grade?

The CES program isn’t being touched… yet.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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

It’s this message that continues to cause problems. Algebra is a HS math course. MCPS (and other districts) altered pacing to allow for more kids getting to Algebra by 8th and thus Calculus by 12th. This is an acceleration, it’s just more broadly applied.

Lids taking Algebra in 9th are not behind and could actually go on to take Honors Math every year thereafter.

Algebra and geometry are middle school courses in other countries. They’re NOT high school classes. 9th grade would be too late to learn algebra.

In many other countries, Algebra is an integrated course taught alongside many other topics where it’s applicable such as geometry, statistics, trig, equations,etc. So just saying it’s taught in MS is not accurate for a lot of places.

We do RSM and the curriculum has included algebraic concepts (finding the missing variable or variables) since the beginning. I think it’s so smart.

We do Eureka in MCPS and the curriculum has included algebraic concepts (finding the missing variable or variables) since the beginning. I think it’s so smart!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We were on the fence about CES last year, but I'm really glad we did it.

Why? This math curriculum change impacts CES as well

CES will just cohort the kids altogether for math and do acceleration through cohort model. -DP

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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

It’s this message that continues to cause problems. Algebra is a HS math course. MCPS (and other districts) altered pacing to allow for more kids getting to Algebra by 8th and thus Calculus by 12th. This is an acceleration, it’s just more broadly applied.

Lids taking Algebra in 9th are not behind and could actually go on to take Honors Math every year thereafter.

Algebra and geometry are middle school courses in other countries. They’re NOT high school classes. 9th grade would be too late to learn algebra.

In many other countries, Algebra is an integrated course taught alongside many other topics where it’s applicable such as geometry, statistics, trig, equations,etc. So just saying it’s taught in MS is not accurate for a lot of places.

We do RSM and the curriculum has included algebraic concepts (finding the missing variable or variables) since the beginning. I think it’s so smart.

We do Eureka in MCPS and the curriculum has included algebraic concepts (finding the missing variable or variables) since the beginning. I think it’s so smart!

DP with a kid in RSM on the advanced track -- so not honors. There is no comparison between Eureka and RSM. RSM is much more challenging. And that's for advanced. Honors much more so, I imagine.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We were on the fence about CES last year, but I'm really glad we did it.

Why? This math curriculum change impacts CES as well

CES will just cohort the kids altogether for math and do acceleration through cohort model. -DP

I'm the first PP here and it's partially this and partially that literary enrichment is what we care about more. Our fourth grader is decent at math, and in compacted, but probably she'll end up on a path that does Algebra in eighth. She needs a lot more enrichment in ELA than she does in math.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OH NO!!!! OMG!!!!

But...wait...doesn't this country rewards incompetence? What is the use of your kids studying if AI is going to anyways eat their jobs.

Obama has been talking about how we've been falling behind in STEM (it was actually the first time I heard the term STEM) since his presidency:
https://www.edweek.org/policy-politics/obama-emphasizes-stem-education-in-state-of-the-union/2011/01

And judging by the direction MCPS is going in, I don't think we've been improving.

Donald Trump even angered his MAGA supporters saying that the US needs H-1b workers because the American workers just don't have the know how for some things:
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/immigration/trump-calls-h-1b-visas-necessary-bring-certain-talents-says-us-lacks-rcna243367

We're just falling further and further behind.