Curriculum 2.0, is it too easy?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just want to interject as reasonably as I can that Montgomery County does need to educate all of its students as well as it can. It's possible that the old system worked better for the few kids at the very top, and it's possible their mothers are disproportionately represented on this board. But it is really not the county's problem if you want your kindergartener to do 2 hours of challenging homework at night or your 4th grader to be taking algebra. And it's also not the county's problem that you paid a million dollars for your house because you heard it was the best school system ever, and now you find that in fact the school system has to educate all the other kids in the county too.

But it may be county's problem if the top students start exiting towards private or Northern Virginia.
Actually it is not difficult to educate top, bottom or middle with a good system. The current problem is "ignoring the top students".

I am the pp, and I think this is an interesting question. Does the county care if some of its top students leave the system? This is not private school, so it's not like they are losing money if people leave. They get the tax dollars anyway. In fact, losing some kids would mean less overcrowded schools. True, it might mean fewer National Merit Scholars and such, but it seems like the county benefits more by increasing levels of proficiency overall than by maintaining a small number of superstar students.

Are you suggesting that the county would be happy if say the top 10% students exit the public school? Until recently the county was attracting educated, upper middle income people based to some extent on its schools. That has benefited the county from all angles, including increasing the tax revenue you mention. Now if pendulum starts swinging the other way, I don't agree with you that this is something the county does not care.

[Anonymous]

The county relies on the high scoreres to keep their SAT scores etc high. Too many families opt out and things will slide. No eveidence of that yet but 2.0 is still young.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I just want to interject as reasonably as I can that Montgomery County does need to educate all of its students as well as it can. It's possible that the old system worked better for the few kids at the very top, and it's possible their mothers are disproportionately represented on this board. But it is really not the county's problem if you want your kindergartener to do 2 hours of challenging homework at night or your 4th grader to be taking algebra. And it's also not the county's problem that you paid a million dollars for your house because you heard it was the best school system ever, and now you find that in fact the school system has to educate all the other kids in the county too.

Under this theory, you must also believe that Special Needs kids in Moco should expect very little also, right? According to your opinion, they are outliers too, so they shouldn't expect much. What type of worldview is this?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Neither of these is correct. On a math test, getting 100% is a P. Under the old system, that would have been an A.

said by someone in authority...are you an mcps teacher...or a parrot? Don't you think that a student with an ES grade may also have scored 100% on a given test? In the old system 100% on a given test doesn't guarantee you an A!

Please do not spew rubbish.

100% on every math test, absent anything else extraordinary would earn an A in the old system. 100% on every math test now, again absent anything else extraordinary, will earn a P.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
I am the pp, and I think this is an interesting question. Does the county care if some of its top students leave the system? This is not private school, so it's not like they are losing money if people leave. They get the tax dollars anyway. In fact, losing some kids would mean less overcrowded schools. True, it might mean fewer National Merit Scholars and such, but it seems like the county benefits more by increasing levels of proficiency overall than by maintaining a small number of superstar students.

Are you suggesting that the county would be happy if say the top 10% students exit the public school? Until recently the county was attracting educated, upper middle income people based to some extent on its schools. That has benefited the county from all angles, including increasing the tax revenue you mention. Now if pendulum starts swinging the other way, I don't agree with you that this is something the county does not care.

Well I'm not a school administrator so I guess I couldn't say. But I don't think MCPS is frightened by the prospect of 10% of their students leaving. I do think they are frightened by the prospect of exponential growth (the result of all those educated, upper middle income professionals rushing in) coupled with budget pressures in a bad economy. Most schools are over capacity, especially in the "good" areas people on here like to promote. Right now MCPS is trying very hard to address the huge gap in test scores by income and ethnicity, and I don't think they are worried as much about whether the scores at the tippy top decline slightly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just want to interject as reasonably as I can that Montgomery County does need to educate all of its students as well as it can. It's possible that the old system worked better for the few kids at the very top, and it's possible their mothers are disproportionately represented on this board. But it is really not the county's problem if you want your kindergartener to do 2 hours of challenging homework at night or your 4th grader to be taking algebra. And it's also not the county's problem that you paid a million dollars for your house because you heard it was the best school system ever, and now you find that in fact the school system has to educate all the other kids in the county too.

Under this theory, you must also believe that Special Needs kids in Moco should expect very little also, right? According to your opinion, they are outliers too, so they shouldn't expect much. What type of worldview is this?

I don't have a theory, just an observation that right now, the schools are under pressure to bring up everyone's proficiency and close the test score gap within the county and between demographic groups. But I don't think MCPS is feeling pressure from anywhere to get the kids who are 98th percentile up to 99th. And that was why I gave the examples I did about the 4th grader taking algebra. That is just not the district's priority right now.

[Anonymous]

The reason they massively slowed the pace of every subject is so the "less enlightened" children can up their test scores. Better test scores equals more federal and state dollars. Wo cares about the bored, stagnating students who could handle more topics! It's all about the dollars!

Meanwhile school systems in Asia are laughing quite hard and this dumbing down of America.

P.S. we will not hesitate to sell our Bethesda house and move back to the District and do private or go to Arlington.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I just want to interject as reasonably as I can that Montgomery County does need to educate all of its students as well as it can. It's possible that the old system worked better for the few kids at the very top, and it's possible their mothers are disproportionately represented on this board. But it is really not the county's problem if you want your kindergartener to do 2 hours of challenging homework at night or your 4th grader to be taking algebra. And it's also not the county's problem that you paid a million dollars for your house because you heard it was the best school system ever, and now you find that in fact the school system has to educate all the other kids in the county too.

Every child deserves to learn in school, whether she/he's at one end of the scale or the other. EVERY CHILD. With this new curriculum my child is learning very little other than school is boring and he doesn't need to try hard to get the highest marks. How is that MC "educating" him? It's simply setting him up for future failure when he eventually encounters truly challenging work and doesn't want to do it because he's not used to having to think hard.

For me it's not about the homework at all. My personal preference would be no homework in primary school. But I do care that all my son seems to be doing in school is worksheets, one stultifying worksheet after the next. And because he finishes so quickly he's simply given more of them to pass the time and keep him occupied.

--signed, mom who lives in red zone in a tiny house we paid less than $170K for.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just want to interject as reasonably as I can that Montgomery County does need to educate all of its students as well as it can. It's possible that the old system worked better for the few kids at the very top, and it's possible their mothers are disproportionately represented on this board. But it is really not the county's problem if you want your kindergartener to do 2 hours of challenging homework at night or your 4th grader to be taking algebra. And it's also not the county's problem that you paid a million dollars for your house because you heard it was the best school system ever, and now you find that in fact the school system has to educate all the other kids in the county too.

Every child deserves to learn in school, whether she/he's at one end of the scale or the other. EVERY CHILD. With this new curriculum my child is learning very little other than school is boring and he doesn't need to try hard to get the highest marks. How is that MC "educating" him? It's simply setting him up for future failure when he eventually encounters truly challenging work and doesn't want to do it because he's not used to having to think hard.

For me it's not about the homework at all. My personal preference would be no homework in primary school. But I do care that all my son seems to be doing in school is worksheets, one stultifying worksheet after the next. And because he finishes so quickly he's simply given more of them to pass the time and keep him occupied.

--signed, mom who lives in red zone in a tiny house we paid less than $170K for.

Yep, pretty much, rote exercises and no progress. Meanwhile bright kids elsewhere will be stimulated and challenged.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Yep, pretty much, rote exercises and no progress. Meanwhile bright kids elsewhere will be stimulated and challenged.

I just differ here. My child does indeed bring home worksheets. And they have interesting questions on them, and we work on them together, and he has learned a lot so far. And the only time I ever here any of these complaints is on DCUM. You guys literally might as well be talking about a different school system.

[Anonymous]

The above poster should be happy. Initially, I was not, since my children had mastered the content 2 - 3 years ago, I do get to look at what little homework comes home.
My child no longer complains since he has stopped hopeful waiting and moved on to outside self-learning materials in computer programming, math and literature that makes his day. This has made all the difference. According to him MCPS is now a place to socialize and catch up with friends. We had frank discussions with our elementary school children when they were complaining about the teaching and lack of challenging work. "Do not expect anything from your teachers." "They are overworked". "ifyou complain you will surely be in their dog house ...as has happened in the past." "Learn to learn on your own...we can help you get there." This worked for us.
We are not complaining about anti-intellectual MCPS mentality we cannot and will not change during the educational lifetime of these children.
The children understand this and do not care if MCPS has no curriculum...at least for now in the elementary years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Yep, pretty much, rote exercises and no progress. Meanwhile bright kids elsewhere will be stimulated and challenged.

I just differ here. My child does indeed bring home worksheets. And they have interesting questions on them, and we work on them together, and he has learned a lot so far. And the only time I ever here any of these complaints is on DCUM. You guys literally might as well be talking about a different school system.

Yeah, right on! Why build on knowledge and learn more, when you can do the same problem over and over and over with a little twist!?! Builds self confidence as well!

[Anonymous]

Okay, okay, Curriculum 2.0 isn't up to par.

Why not start a petition drive to inform MCPS about its shortcomings? How about picketing Carver? Venting about the curriculum anonymously may be personally satisfying but won't help your children.

If this is about your child being left behind, and you really care, the time to make a serious effort to address the deficiencies of the new curriculum is now.

Get on the social media, write to newspapers, and bring you concerns before the public.

Be aware that MCPS trolls will belittle you and try to demoralize you. Remember, they are trying to keep their jobs with obscene salaries. So, challenge them to come out from behind their shield of anonymity or ignore them.

[Anonymous]

In critiquing 2.0, I am seeing the 'my child is bored' vs 'my child is fine' arguments. Parents extrapolate to the whole system based on their limited experience with the kids around them. We have to recognize that for various reasons some kids are ahead of other kids. The question is whether it is acceptable to hold kids back when you have the resources to move them ahead.

I have two kids. One is doing fine in 2.0. My older child would have been bored silly. For those of you that don't have an outlier kid, either SN or HG, please don't tell those that do to suck it up. It is not about trying to get our kids into Harvard or get more resources . It is about watching all of your child's natural curiosity slowly sucked out of them due to boredom. In pre-school my one child wanted to be a scientist and we worked on experiments together. He loved reading, math and going to preschool. In K-2, which did not differentiate, this child used to come home and scream that he hated school (but liked his teachers) and that school was boring.

C2.0 is a disaster because it forces all these different learners into one square hole. Aside from that, I still can't believe how it bypassed parent input and how it is being rolled out so quickly without any kind of piloting. It may get changed and modified over 10 years, but this cohort of kids is getting short-changed.

I will vote against this BOE.

[Anonymous]

I've been thinking about this lately and it seems to me that parents should stop worrying about the grading system and worry more about getting the schools/board to provide enrichment.

I don't see the problem with getting a P instead of an A/B because it really doesn't matter to much for the lower grades. It will be hashed out later who the top performers are.. but I do think the parents should push somewhat to give the higher performing students more rigorous material.