Is Boars trying to destroy McPS?

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:If your youngest is not in HS, it will not impact them but we have multiple good teachers leaving MCPS or to other schools, which makes me question our admin. If they treat the teachers just as bad as the parents, or worse, I can see why they'd leave.

The compacted math elimination will also drive teachers away, as they will be expected to cover all levels of learning in one class which is basically impossible. Again, teachers don’t want this, parents don’t want this — and the Board and Taylor are just shoving it down our throats.

Actually the cluster grouping is meant to reduce that. So if there are say six levels of students, teachers are only dealing with 2-3 of those levels.

Right now there are only two levels in compacted math, and with cohort grouping, teacher only deal with 1 group. What's the advantage of dealing with 2-3 levels simultaneously? Could you elaborate?

I'm not Team MCPS on this, but if you think there are only 2 levels in compacted math, you are sorely mistaken. Even high-needs schools are sending up to half of their kids to the compacted math track. Even with a compacted classroom, there are already 2-3 levels.

Does MCPS have the money to divide kids into 6 cohorts with separate instructors? In most elementary schools, no, there isn't the size for each grade level. But I can't understand why would you argue that it's better to have everyone in one grouping across these 6 cohorts in one classroom so the teacher teaches no one effectively.

Huh? No one is advocating deciding all the groups across. At teacher might get Group 1 and Group 2 students. Another might get Group 3 & 4 students. Another Group 5&6. Another might get Group 3&4 again.

What are you talking about? There aren't 3 separate teachers to address each of these groups individually in many schools. There's just one teacher who will be doing pull outs who will spend maybe 10-15 minutes with each group, and probably much longer with the kids who are struggling the most leaving the other learners to teach themeselves. Which is far worse than what kids get now which is a full class of instruction with kids in their cohort in compact math.

Any "enrichment" or "acceleration" will come from a computer game. Teachers will spend small-group time with struggling students only.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If your youngest is not in HS, it will not impact them but we have multiple good teachers leaving MCPS or to other schools, which makes me question our admin. If they treat the teachers just as bad as the parents, or worse, I can see why they'd leave.

The compacted math elimination will also drive teachers away, as they will be expected to cover all levels of learning in one class which is basically impossible. Again, teachers don’t want this, parents don’t want this — and the Board and Taylor are just shoving it down our throats.

Actually the cluster grouping is meant to reduce that. So if there are say six levels of students, teachers are only dealing with 2-3 of those levels.

Right now there are only two levels in compacted math, and with cohort grouping, teacher only deal with 1 group. What's the advantage of dealing with 2-3 levels simultaneously? Could you elaborate?

I'm not Team MCPS on this, but if you think there are only 2 levels in compacted math, you are sorely mistaken. Even high-needs schools are sending up to half of their kids to the compacted math track. Even with a compacted classroom, there are already 2-3 levels.

I keep hearing these claims about kids being over accelerated and that just doesn’t seem to be true at our school. We have a pretty heterogeneous student body with a fair percentage FARMs but also a ton of parents with a PhD or MD due to proximity to FDA and to a lesser degree NIH. Under 30 percent of the grade is in accelerated math. I have been in the classroom to observe and it seemed students were following just fine. With that said the one child who I know struggled with 4/5 simply dropped back and is doing well this year. I have no problem with better guidance on how to identify and on/off ramp kids but that is an implementation issue, not a reason to destroy the program.

To add on, I would have thought this was an argument for compacted math. Putting a lot of relatively independent kids in a bigger class and giving them appropriate instruction allows for a smaller class of kids who are struggling for whatever reason (ESOL or learning disabilities or whatever). It’s actually giving fewer resources to advanced kids, but actually preferable because they are appropriately focused/paced resources.

The challenge is that there are many schools where 10-15 kids or less should be in compacted math. So they would actually be in the smaller classes and it would force the kids who are on level or behind into the oversized classes.

No, if there are not enough students for a class, they take it virtually.