MCPS Is Broken What Are Your Ideas to Fix It?

[Anonymous]

Remove all mandates and get back to work

[Anonymous]

Get a new Superintendent

[Anonymous]

To the poster who mentioned that teachers are the lowest 1/3 of the class. I would agree that subject area teachers in MS and HS should know their content area well. For ES, the qualities of a great ES teacher are not necessarily knowing content areas well. If you've ever volunteered in a classroom in ES or chaperoned on a field trip, think about what you saw in an excellent classroom teacher. He/she was extremely patient. Extremely. He/she was able to manage the class with ease. The teacher set up the class for success with well throughout procedures and expectations. Students were happy to be there and were learning because of it. Now, that type of teacher may not be from the top of his/her class. He/she may not have had the highest SAT/ACT scores. It takes a certain person to be able to be an excellent ES teacher and it may not be the head of the class. Just something to think about when you blame bad teachers because they weren't top students. I'm sure many DCUMS were top students and they wouldn't last a week in an ES classroom.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:To the poster who mentioned that teachers are the lowest 1/3 of the class. I would agree that subject area teachers in MS and HS should know their content area well. For ES, the qualities of a great ES teacher are not necessarily knowing content areas well. If you've ever volunteered in a classroom in ES or chaperoned on a field trip, think about what you saw in an excellent classroom teacher. He/she was extremely patient. Extremely. He/she was able to manage the class with ease. The teacher set up the class for success with well throughout procedures and expectations. Students were happy to be there and were learning because of it. Now, that type of teacher may not be from the top of his/her class. He/she may not have had the highest SAT/ACT scores. It takes a certain person to be able to be an excellent ES teacher and it may not be the head of the class. Just something to think about when you blame bad teachers because they weren't top students. I'm sure many DCUMS were top students and they wouldn't last a week in an ES classroom.

I’m not teacher shaming. If you notice I wrote a solid curriculum backed by good teacher training can make up for this deficit. What MCPS does now - no science backed curricula (and constantly changing it) combined with no outside training has created an enmeshed dysfunctional bureaucratic mess. I am a believer of Rumsfeld’s rule - you fight the war with the army you have, not the army you wish for. It’s on leadership to make that army fight with honor and professionalism. But you will not be attracting the women who taught me in the 1970s who only had nurse, secretary or teacher (with more freedom) as career options. They are now in c-suite, senior gov service, sales folks for computer companies or docs and lawyers.

Yet you have to be more than a jobs program MCPS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My personal view is that they need to return to a focus on high standards and expectations for both staff and students. This can be accomplished through a number of different ways, but the details are probably not that important right now. What are your ideas?

we need new leadership and new BOE.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My personal view is that they need to return to a focus on high standards and expectations for both staff and students. This can be accomplished through a number of different ways, but the details are probably not that important right now. What are your ideas?

we need new leadership and new BOE.

Well, get working on that. It's a multi-year project, though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:so many people don't realize how good they have it. Still one of the best school systems in the nation

give teachers hazard pay during this difficult time too

This must be a joke, right? I just pulled my kids out to go to private out of state. They have learned more in 10 school days then in 3 years in MCPS. They actually have tests they need to study for and aren’t given sentence starters for their writing assignments. It’s not a terrible district, but let’s not call it the BEST.

[Anonymous]

The high school my kid is at seems to be challenging and well run.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:broken school system is not the cause, it's the result of poor county policies. low SES families = f'ed school system

It's not just because of low SES families. It's the culture of low expectations. There is a boy in my DC's MS who is a troublemaker and has done some terrible things. DC tells me that he's from a well off family. Zero consequences. MCPS doesn't do restorative justice the way it was intended.

IMO, MCPS leadership are too concerned with the optics of certain demographics not performing well. They are obsessed with the achievement gap without any good plans to address it other than lowering the bar and half-a$$ implementation of restorative justice.

They push certain groups to challenge themselves by taking more AP classes when that same group has an abysmal record on performing even at grade level. What a way to set them up for failure.

MCPS needs to focus on two things:
1. continuing to provide challenging curriculum and programs for the high achieving students
2. get the lower performing students to at least perform at grade level. Stop focusing on the fact that this group has low representation in test in magnets and such. There's a reason why that group has a low pass rate for AP exams. It would be one thing if they had a high pass rate and low representation in test in magnets, but if they can't even pass AP exams at a high rate, then there's no point in pushing them into test in magnets. Way to set them up for failure.

Focus instead on smaller class sizes and after school tutors where they are needed. I don't mind paying taxes to provide support for certain groups who need it. I myself grew up lower income to parents who don't speak English.

+1000%

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My personal view is that they need to return to a focus on high standards and expectations for both staff and students. This can be accomplished through a number of different ways, but the details are probably not that important right now. What are your ideas?

My kids are getting a fantastic education. I guess you must either not really make any effort or be at one of those really bad schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My personal view is that they need to return to a focus on high standards and expectations for both staff and students. This can be accomplished through a number of different ways, but the details are probably not that important right now. What are your ideas?

we need new leadership and new BOE.

Most of us support the BOE as the next landslide election will show. It's just a few right-wing cranks on DCUM that are always complaining largely because they resent public education and expect everyone to cater to their every need.

[Anonymous]

I don’t think MCPS is a disaster—it’s definitely better than my home district!
But I do think it’s slipping because it’s not attracting or retaining the best teachers anymore. Some of that is societal changes that is hard for MCPS to change. But I think they could:
1) increase teacher pay. Be head and shoulders above others in pay and pension benefits. Trade that for making it easier to cut teachers who are not good at their jobs. But don’t measure success by kids’ test scores. We all know who the bad teachers are. It has nothing to do with kids’ test scores.
2) give schools more discretion to set their own policies and curricula changes.
3) give teachers curriculum that makes sense, tech that works, and train them sufficiently on all of it. This making them build the plane whole they are flying it is ridiculous. The curriculum doesn’t need constant reinvention. I’m hoping that with 2.0 in the rear view, we can start to settle into some consistency so teachers can become familiar with the new curricula and then be able to modify/adapt as appropriate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My personal view is that they need to return to a focus on high standards and expectations for both staff and students. This can be accomplished through a number of different ways, but the details are probably not that important right now. What are your ideas?

we need new leadership and new BOE.

Most of us support the BOE as the next landslide election will show. It's just a few right-wing cranks on DCUM that are always complaining largely because they resent public education and expect everyone to cater to their every need.

Do you realize that you sound sort of like Baghdad Bob?

You are seriously under estimating the levels of resentment out there.

[Anonymous]

MCPS should be more concerned with quality teaching and staff rather than equity. We can see what equity has done to MCPS. It isn’t good and it doesn’t work well for anyone.

[Anonymous]

Vote for anyone but Elrich