How quickly can MCPS fix the curriculum nightmare?

[Anonymous]

The original idea - which is laughable now - was that the MCPS curriculum would be so excellent that MCPS would MAKE MONEY selling it to other districts.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am a parent who has posted on this forum for years. Regardless of what MCPS was doing - pre 2.0 and during 2.0 - we have always bought textbooks for Math, Science and Foreign language for all the grades for all my kids, I am surprised that people did not do that, Mcgraw Hill, Houghton Mifflin, pearson, prentice hall, glencoe. There are textbooks galore. Pick one, any one textbook and teach that to your kid.

My parents didn't do that for my sister and me in the 90s, and they definitely valued education. I don't remember having any academic supplementation at all. We definitely did extracurriculars (music, mostly, for us, just based on our interests), but no textbook work outside of school.

Have things changed so drastically that this is now a given?

Yes. Times have changed. I did not grow up with supplementation. Most people took SAT without prep. Studying for a few weeks for SAT was considered a whole lot of prep. Kids who basically did their assigned work (homework) were successful. US was a superpower. Most factory jobs were here. No jobs were being outsourced to other countries. No obs were going offshore or near-shore (Canada). US was attracting talent from around the world leading to a brain-drain crisis in other countries.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am a parent who has posted on this forum for years. Regardless of what MCPS was doing - pre 2.0 and during 2.0 - we have always bought textbooks for Math, Science and Foreign language for all the grades for all my kids, I am surprised that people did not do that, Mcgraw Hill, Houghton Mifflin, pearson, prentice hall, glencoe. There are textbooks galore. Pick one, any one textbook and teach that to your kid.

My parents didn't do that for my sister and me in the 90s, and they definitely valued education. I don't remember having any academic supplementation at all. We definitely did extracurriculars (music, mostly, for us, just based on our interests), but no textbook work outside of school.

Have things changed so drastically that this is now a given?

Yes. Times have changed. I did not grow up with supplementation. Most people took SAT without prep. Studying for a few weeks for SAT was considered a whole lot of prep. Kids who basically did their assigned work (homework) were successful. US was a superpower. Most factory jobs were here. No jobs were being outsourced to other countries. No obs were going offshore or near-shore (Canada). US was attracting talent from around the world leading to a brain-drain crisis in other countries.

Did you graduate from high school in the 1970s?

[Anonymous]

That textbook suggestion makes no sense to me. I volunteered for years tutoring kids in math and they always provided us with all the textbooks in use by the school district, because it’s nearly impossible to provide assistance if you can’t see what the kids are being taught.

I 100% think they should have textbooks for math. I’m less impressed with the need in other subjects.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am a parent who has posted on this forum for years. Regardless of what MCPS was doing - pre 2.0 and during 2.0 - we have always bought textbooks for Math, Science and Foreign language for all the grades for all my kids, I am surprised that people did not do that, Mcgraw Hill, Houghton Mifflin, pearson, prentice hall, glencoe. There are textbooks galore. Pick one, any one textbook and teach that to your kid.

My parents didn't do that for my sister and me in the 90s, and they definitely valued education. I don't remember having any academic supplementation at all. We definitely did extracurriculars (music, mostly, for us, just based on our interests), but no textbook work outside of school.

Have things changed so drastically that this is now a given?

Yes. Times have changed. I did not grow up with supplementation. Most people took SAT without prep. Studying for a few weeks for SAT was considered a whole lot of prep. Kids who basically did their assigned work (homework) were successful. US was a superpower. Most factory jobs were here. No jobs were being outsourced to other countries. No obs were going offshore or near-shore (Canada). US was attracting talent from around the world leading to a brain-drain crisis in other countries.

Did you graduate from high school in the 1970s?

PP who asked about supplementing -- yeah, I was going to say, that doesn't sound like my experience. Yes, I didn't do supplementing outside of school, but everyone I know did an SAT prep class, and we all heard about the offshoring of jobs and the competition for college spots with international students. I graduated from high school in 2005.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am a parent who has posted on this forum for years. Regardless of what MCPS was doing - pre 2.0 and during 2.0 - we have always bought textbooks for Math, Science and Foreign language for all the grades for all my kids, I am surprised that people did not do that, Mcgraw Hill, Houghton Mifflin, pearson, prentice hall, glencoe. There are textbooks galore. Pick one, any one textbook and teach that to your kid.

My parents didn't do that for my sister and me in the 90s, and they definitely valued education. I don't remember having any academic supplementation at all. We definitely did extracurriculars (music, mostly, for us, just based on our interests), but no textbook work outside of school.

Have things changed so drastically that this is now a given?

The major change since my HS graduation which I saw bring down my whole public school district was No Kid Left Behind, which today is Common Core. Once the federal government started interceding to local city, county and state school districts with their recommended high level standards and tying MONEY to it, things went downhill fast. 2-4 standardized tests a year started, ECs moved to after school since not on the tests, curriculum rewrites for K-8, experienced teachers just retired or left, science and social studies took a back seat, gym/music/art programs and frequency got halved. Schools went beserk trying to get any which set of kids scoring proficient on these standardized tests because, increasingly, the federal dollars were 10%, 20%, 30%+ of the districts budget. Oh, and you should see the step function in budgets when Fed $$$$$ get infused in 2000+ and again with CC. Not funny. Incentives all off.

So that's what changed drastically since graduating before 2005. NKLB rolled out in early 2000s.

[Anonymous]

Google Arne Duncan.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. ANY textbook would be better than 2.0 worksheets. If I could have a textbook next year, I could work with that book with DC instead of running to online resources and buying supplemental books.

Do they actually have official worksheets? We have not gotten anything that actually looks official but we only have a handful returned. Agree, text books would be nice, especially if they are allowed home.

The funny thing is that when common core came along, many textbook writers already had like 95% of the common core content. All they needed to do was add a few things and take out a few things. They did just that very quickly. So my question is, why did MCPS not simply buy those books.
I am saddened that $10M was spent on a consultation that would not have been necessary if the county had just bought a curriculum.
I am also disappointed about MCPS' arrogance.

This. My sister is a teacher in another state (MA) and thought the transition to meet the Common Core standards was pretty smooth because her district just made minor adjustments (rather than rewriting the entire curriculum).

MCPS aim was not just to meet common core standards. It was under pressure to address the achievement gap and figure out why URM students were failing to thrive. They slowed down acceleration so that every one could get depth of knowledge by repeating concepts. This did not get the desired results, Also, parents who were not paying attention started to supplement, further widening the gap. Then MCPS started to do away with final exams, do away with comprehensive student reports. Then after 7 years it was determined that the standards had fallen significantly with long lasting damage to the education of many students.

Throw this Board of Ed away, especially that incompetent woman Patricia O'Neil.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

MCPS aim was not just to meet common core standards. It was under pressure to address the achievement gap and figure out why URM students were failing to thrive. They slowed down acceleration so that every one could get depth of knowledge by repeating concepts. This did not get the desired results, Also, parents who were not paying attention started to supplement, further widening the gap. Then MCPS started to do away with final exams, do away with comprehensive student reports. Then after 7 years it was determined that the standards had fallen significantly with long lasting damage to the education of many students.

Throw this Board of Ed away, especially that incompetent woman Patricia O'Neil.

They slowed down acceleration because everybody, including math teachers and parents, agreed that there was too much acceleration.

Also, when I read the audit, it didn't say anything about standards falling significantly, let alone about comprehensive final exams.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

The major change since my HS graduation which I saw bring down my whole public school district was No Kid Left Behind, which today is Common Core. Once the federal government started interceding to local city, county and state school districts with their recommended high level standards and tying MONEY to it, things went downhill fast. 2-4 standardized tests a year started, ECs moved to after school since not on the tests, curriculum rewrites for K-8, experienced teachers just retired or left, science and social studies took a back seat, gym/music/art programs and frequency got halved. Schools went beserk trying to get any which set of kids scoring proficient on these standardized tests because, increasingly, the federal dollars were 10%, 20%, 30%+ of the districts budget. Oh, and you should see the step function in budgets when Fed $$$$$ get infused in 2000+ and again with CC. Not funny. Incentives all off.

So that's what changed drastically since graduating before 2005. NKLB rolled out in early 2000s.

This is factually incorrect. No Child Left Behind was the 2001 re-authorization by Congress of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. The Common Core State Standards were a set of standards developed beginning in 2009 by the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

The major change since my HS graduation which I saw bring down my whole public school district was No Kid Left Behind, which today is Common Core. Once the federal government started interceding to local city, county and state school districts with their recommended high level standards and tying MONEY to it, things went downhill fast. 2-4 standardized tests a year started, ECs moved to after school since not on the tests, curriculum rewrites for K-8, experienced teachers just retired or left, science and social studies took a back seat, gym/music/art programs and frequency got halved. Schools went beserk trying to get any which set of kids scoring proficient on these standardized tests because, increasingly, the federal dollars were 10%, 20%, 30%+ of the districts budget. Oh, and you should see the step function in budgets when Fed $$$$$ get infused in 2000+ and again with CC. Not funny. Incentives all off.

So that's what changed drastically since graduating before 2005. NKLB rolled out in early 2000s.

This is factually incorrect. No Child Left Behind (NCLB) was the 2001 re-authorization by Congress of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. The Common Core State Standards were a set of standards developed beginning in 2009 by the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers.

^^^^Also, the current re-authorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act is the Every Child Succeeds Act of 2015 (ESSA). So if you wanted to, you could say that NCLB today is ESSA.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

MCPS aim was not just to meet common core standards. It was under pressure to address the achievement gap and figure out why URM students were failing to thrive. They slowed down acceleration so that every one could get depth of knowledge by repeating concepts. This did not get the desired results, Also, parents who were not paying attention started to supplement, further widening the gap. Then MCPS started to do away with final exams, do away with comprehensive student reports. Then after 7 years it was determined that the standards had fallen significantly with long lasting damage to the education of many students.

Throw this Board of Ed away, especially that incompetent woman Patricia O'Neil.

They slowed down acceleration because everybody, including math teachers and parents, agreed that there was too much acceleration.

Also, when I read the audit, it didn't say anything about standards falling significantly, let alone about comprehensive final exams.

The audit said the curriculum failed to teach foundational skills. That seems like falling standards to me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

MCPS aim was not just to meet common core standards. It was under pressure to address the achievement gap and figure out why URM students were failing to thrive. They slowed down acceleration so that every one could get depth of knowledge by repeating concepts. This did not get the desired results, Also, parents who were not paying attention started to supplement, further widening the gap. Then MCPS started to do away with final exams, do away with comprehensive student reports. Then after 7 years it was determined that the standards had fallen significantly with long lasting damage to the education of many students.

Throw this Board of Ed away, especially that incompetent woman Patricia O'Neil.

They slowed down acceleration because everybody, including math teachers and parents, agreed that there was too much acceleration.

Also, when I read the audit, it didn't say anything about standards falling significantly, let alone about comprehensive final exams.

The audit said the curriculum failed to teach foundational skills. That seems like falling standards to me.

No, you'd have to compare the previous curriculum to the current curriculum in order to evaluate whether the standards are falling. That's basic data analysis.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

MCPS aim was not just to meet common core standards. It was under pressure to address the achievement gap and figure out why URM students were failing to thrive. They slowed down acceleration so that every one could get depth of knowledge by repeating concepts. This did not get the desired results, Also, parents who were not paying attention started to supplement, further widening the gap. Then MCPS started to do away with final exams, do away with comprehensive student reports. Then after 7 years it was determined that the standards had fallen significantly with long lasting damage to the education of many students.

Throw this Board of Ed away, especially that incompetent woman Patricia O'Neil.

They slowed down acceleration because everybody, including math teachers and parents, agreed that there was too much acceleration.

Also, when I read the audit, it didn't say anything about standards falling significantly, let alone about comprehensive final exams.

The audit said the curriculum failed to teach foundational skills. That seems like falling standards to me.

No, you'd have to compare the previous curriculum to the current curriculum in order to evaluate whether the standards are falling. That's basic data analysis.

*facepalm*

I'm referencing the audit, which stated that standards had fallen. I'm well aware of the basics of data analysis, having taken graduate-level statistics courses.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

*facepalm*

I'm referencing the audit, which stated that standards had fallen. I'm well aware of the basics of data analysis, having taken graduate-level statistics courses.

I didn't see that. Where does it say that?