No textbook for kids in Montgomery County?

[Anonymous]

I was educated in India - so I am basing a lot of how I help my kids with school work - on how I was taught.

I'm sorry OP but you are in for a rude shock. US based elementary education is very bad AND dumb Americans are very protective of being stupid. The teachers here probably would have failed the curriculum in your country. If you want your kids to get a good education you either have to supplement with a full curriculum at home or go to private school. Just the way it is in MCPS.

[Anonymous]

No textbooks + 2.0 curriculum = soooo glad I defected to fairfax county!

[Anonymous]

with 2.0 they are trying to teach the whole child holistically.
Besides, MCPS contract companies to write curriculum for them.

[Anonymous]

Fairfax County is the same way. No textbooks. My friend in MoCo says they get more work home than we do plus have money for reading specialists to take the upper levels for reading. So far it's been 0-1 one work assignment per week home all year and no specialist to work with the higher level kids.

[Anonymous]

In Fairfax there also often aren't spelling tests and books brought home. In Montgomery County at least it seems books are brought home each week to read for language arts and they have spelling tests.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think no textbooks is a reason why American students are failing in Math. Because if they have a bad teacher, there is no way they can review it themselves or have parents explain.

As for cost, don't get me started on those big fat tedious ones. Singapore math is slim and does not teach less math.

+1 million Mom of an MCPS 6th grader

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:with 2.0 they are trying to teach the whole child holistically.
Besides, MCPS contract companies to write curriculum for them.

Can you stop spreading inaccuracies? Lots of people believe what they read on the internet.

MCPS did not contract a company to write the curriculum. They wrote it, with MCPS staff only, and then Pearson got to take what MCPS developed for MCPS and edit/do with it what they wanted to sell elsewhere.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think no textbooks is a reason why American students are failing in Math. Because if they have a bad teacher, there is no way they can review it themselves or have parents explain.

As for cost, don't get me started on those big fat tedious ones. Singapore math is slim and does not teach less math.

+1 million Mom of an MCPS 6th grader

Can I add another million? Or as my four year old would say one million thousand?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think no textbooks is a reason why American students are failing in Math. Because if they have a bad teacher, there is no way they can review it themselves or have parents explain.

As for cost, don't get me started on those big fat tedious ones. Singapore math is slim and does not teach less math.

+1 million Mom of an MCPS 6th grader

No textbooks is why American students are failing in math! Also, most of the textbooks are bad!

(This reminds me of the complaint about airline foods.)

(But I do agree with the idea that most of the textbooks are bad. My kid has used Harcourt and Glencoe math textbooks, and I wasn't impressed. I think we're better off without those textbooks.)

[Anonymous]

Can you stop spreading inaccuracies? Lots of people believe what they read on the internet.

MCPS did not contract a company to write the curriculum. They wrote it, with MCPS staff only, and then Pearson got to take what MCPS developed for MCPS and edit/do with it what they wanted to sell elsewhere.

Not quite. MCPS contracted with Pearson for Pearson to create the curriculum. MCPS did not have the staff, resources, or expertise to undertake a curriculum revision. They participated in the process but MCPS outsourced this badly for financial reasons. Pearson took this project to create a packaged curriculum that it can sell to other school systems. The combination of MCPS inability to deal with the achievement gap and Pearson's desire to market this to school systems that fall below Common Core standards is what created the low bar that you see in 2.0. 2.0 may be a step up in Arkansas but it was huge step back for MD. Originally, MCPS was supposed to get a % of the future profits, not sure how or why that tanked but the money isn't rolling in.

The curriculum for 2.0 is copyrighted and only administrators and teachers within a school system that has licensed can access it. Parents can't have access to any of the materials for this reason. If teachers use outside materials they can share those with parents and many happily do so.

So if you are in MCPS, your kids were sold out by fools thinking they could make a buck and look good in "closing the achievement gap". If you add in an arrogant fool for the next administrator who doesn't know what to do and can't admit any failing on his part for the implementation and end to acceleration, you have an extension of the stupidity.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Can you stop spreading inaccuracies? Lots of people believe what they read on the internet.

MCPS did not contract a company to write the curriculum. They wrote it, with MCPS staff only, and then Pearson got to take what MCPS developed for MCPS and edit/do with it what they wanted to sell elsewhere.

Not quite. MCPS contracted with Pearson for Pearson to create the curriculum. MCPS did not have the staff, resources, or expertise to undertake a curriculum revision. They participated in the process but MCPS outsourced this badly for financial reasons. Pearson took this project to create a packaged curriculum that it can sell to other school systems. The combination of MCPS inability to deal with the achievement gap and Pearson's desire to market this to school systems that fall below Common Core standards is what created the low bar that you see in 2.0. 2.0 may be a step up in Arkansas but it was huge step back for MD. Originally, MCPS was supposed to get a % of the future profits, not sure how or why that tanked but the money isn't rolling in.

The curriculum for 2.0 is copyrighted and only administrators and teachers within a school system that has licensed can access it. Parents can't have access to any of the materials for this reason. If teachers use outside materials they can share those with parents and many happily do so.

So if you are in MCPS, your kids were sold out by fools thinking they could make a buck and look good in "closing the achievement gap". If you add in an arrogant fool for the next administrator who doesn't know what to do and can't admit any failing on his part for the implementation and end to acceleration, you have an extension of the stupidity.

Nothing you wrote in your first paragraph is true in the least. I actually know what I'm talking about, as I was part of the team that wrote the curriculum. I work for MCPS. Every other specialist on the team worked for MCPS. We had no interaction with or communication with Pearson. What I wrote in my prior post is how it actually works. Sorry if that doesn't fit in to your conspiracy theory.

[Anonymous]

That ridiculous pamphlet doesn't come close to providing the info we need.

I admit that most parents don't need to worry. However, my son has a teacher who is so far behind. I see what the other classes are doing and his class doesn't do any of that. His teacher last year was always way ahead so my child is really not learning. He is reviewing what he learned last year and not moving forward. Yes, I know there is a lot of repetition but I know that we aren't covering what other classes in his grade are doing.
I spend 5-7 hours a week learning the curriculum and it would be a lot easier if I had a darn textbook. So thankful I can find so much online.

However, I cannot figure out the order of things so it's a little tricky. I'm also annoyed we have to work so hard at all of this. Teacher should be covering it and if she won't, I wish I could get access to specific parts of the curriculum a little bit easier.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:+1. I have already decided to get Singapore Math.

Can you give suggestions about the textbook and other materials you want to use?

http://www.singaporemath.com/ has everything. I would just use the text book along with the challenging word problems books. The books are very cheap as well.

Bump!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think no textbooks is a reason why American students are failing in Math. Because if they have a bad teacher, there is no way they can review it themselves or have parents explain.

As for cost, don't get me started on those big fat tedious ones. Singapore math is slim and does not teach less math.

+1 million Mom of an MCPS 6th grader

Can I add another million? Or as my four year old would say one million thousand?

I am in a science field and still work heavily with math. Every time my younger kids have a question, I try to teach them only to be meet with squeals of "that's not the way they taught us to do it". Problem is the kids don't remember and there is not a sample problem on the worksheet. It usually just involves drawing dots.

[Anonymous]

American books are used in so many countries in the world because they are very well written.
Countries where English is a foreign language (2nd even 3rd language) rent American textbooks to read (they are used gently and returned at the end of the year). Workbooks (vocabulary, Grammar, writing) are bought.
Teachers keep on saying that textbooks are not aligned to the curriculum, but there are so many options out there. Besides, most private schools do use them.
So I don't really understand not having textbooks.
Most students are relying on the internet to be their teacher nowadays.