Why does mcps do a crappy job with magnet/enriched opportunities

[Anonymous]

I agree that differentiation is what we need to argue for.

Meet each group of kids at their level instead of mixing them all up together. It helps nobody. And the teachers are left feeling like they can’t serve any of the students well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I agree that differentiation is what we need to argue for.

Meet each group of kids at their level instead of mixing them all up together. It helps nobody. And the teachers are left feeling like they can’t serve any of the students well.

It is actually possible to meet most kids at their level while mixing them together. But the assignments need to allow for different results. Teachers would have to grade papers and projects that didn’t necessarily come with a one size fits all answer key or result in all children coloring in the same quickly recognizable pattern.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I don't disagree with this generally, with a child new to a CES this year, but notwithstanding what some say on this forum, the CES classroom is filled with really bright, generally enthusiastic and motivated kids. That makes a lot of what they do in class work. One could replicate that in the larger ES's and MS's by simply tracking kids, but nobody, apparently, wants to do that.

Nobody wants to do that because it's bad for all of the kids who are, for whatever reason, in lower tracks. Research has established this over and over and over.

I get that kids on a lower track for whatever reason need great teachers and great curricula. What I don't get is why their needs should come before the needs of kids who can perform on a higher track to do so. It doesn't make sense to me to hold back better-performing kids because it benefits other kids. The better-performing kids have just as much right to get their educational needs met.

If anyone were to flip the paradigm -- let's not track because it's better for the higher-performing kids at the expense of the lower-performing kids -- people would lose their lunch.

It's not "kids on a lower track need great teachers and great curricula". It's "tracking harms kids on the lower tracks".

OK, well what about "not tracking harms kids on the upper tracks?" Again, why is it OK to slow down the higher-performers (who can and do get bored and turned off when classes are too slow, materials are not challenging, and teachers have to spend their time with the kids who need more help?

The answer is differentiated instruction, not tracking.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I agree that differentiation is what we need to argue for.

Meet each group of kids at their level instead of mixing them all up together. It helps nobody. And the teachers are left feeling like they can’t serve any of the students well.

It is actually possible to meet most kids at their level while mixing them together. But the assignments need to allow for different results. Teachers would have to grade papers and projects that didn’t necessarily come with a one size fits all answer key or result in all children coloring in the same quickly recognizable pattern.

It really depends on the type of class. For classes that most kids (advanced/less advanced) need a lot of the teachers's guidance during class time (e.g. math classes where most kids still need the teacher to show how to solve various problems), this (mixing them up) will not work.

For classes where the aftershool assignments account for most of the learning process (e.g. reading, writing), the teacher can probably make this work by assigning different levels of homework etc. to different levels of students (and providing extensive feedback of course).

[Anonymous]

Also, not all kids are strong in all subjects. We have a kid at a CES and some are amazing writers, but have trouble in Math.

Allow for different levels, so that the kids can learn at their level. Sure, some kids may be advanced in both ELA and Math, but some are not.

The teachers can teach at that level. Versus the nonsense that goes on in ES right now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I don't disagree with this generally, with a child new to a CES this year, but notwithstanding what some say on this forum, the CES classroom is filled with really bright, generally enthusiastic and motivated kids. That makes a lot of what they do in class work. One could replicate that in the larger ES's and MS's by simply tracking kids, but nobody, apparently, wants to do that.

Nobody wants to do that because it's bad for all of the kids who are, for whatever reason, in lower tracks. Research has established this over and over and over.

NP

It has showed that if the classes all have the same kids/teacher ratios. Research after research has shown that lower track kids need better teacher ratios. They also need accountability.

Make the higher track classes 25-30 to 1
Make grade-level track classes 20-25 to 1
Make the lower track classes 15 to 1 and supply aides to rotate as needed.

The biggest need is getting kids in early grades up to grade level. You will never ever get a child a few levels back to grade ability in a mixed classroom no matter how many times you pull them out for small groups (which we all know is not a lot.) Small groups also leave hours of wasted time when you aren't in a group and most of these kids are too embarrassed to ask for help from peers. And we all know the teacher is too busy. Small group sessions may work if there were two teachers or a teacher and an aide in the class, but right now MCPS has about 25 kids in a class with 1 teacher and about 6-7 ability groups for reading. If you have ever volunteered in any grade K-5th, you can see that it is a hot mess.

The problem everyone seems to think is that these kids will all know they are in the worst class and that kids will see a pattern (more hispanic and AA males in the lower class.) Well, I sure don't think mixing everything up perfectly between race, sex, and ability is working either. Not addressing the issues is what MCPS does best. Knowing they can't bring up the rear and decrease the front has been terrible. Why not have mixed classrooms and then at least mix whole classrooms for math for an hour in the morning and then reading for an hour in the afternoon. The 90 minutes of busy work so a teacher can attempt to get thru 5-6 groups a days for 10 minutes each is a negative for all of the kids. Our test scores show it too. The only schools doing well are the kids with parents that piggyback things at home.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I agree that differentiation is what we need to argue for.

Meet each group of kids at their level instead of mixing them all up together. It helps nobody. And the teachers are left feeling like they can’t serve any of the students well.

It is actually possible to meet most kids at their level while mixing them together. But the assignments need to allow for different results. Teachers would have to grade papers and projects that didn’t necessarily come with a one size fits all answer key or result in all children coloring in the same quickly recognizable pattern.

It really depends on the type of class. For classes that most kids (advanced/less advanced) need a lot of the teachers's guidance during class time (e.g. math classes where most kids still need the teacher to show how to solve various problems), this (mixing them up) will not work.

For classes where the aftershool assignments account for most of the learning process (e.g. reading, writing), the teacher can probably make this work by assigning different levels of homework etc. to different levels of students (and providing extensive feedback of course).

Learning measurement and perimeter, rigidly or differentiated:

Class lesson on the term perimeter and some examples of how to measure it. Then...

Rigidly: Here is worksheet with an aerial picture of a building on it. Measure the all the sides of the building in this drawing. Add them up to show the length of the perimeter. Teacher checks for same answer on each page.

Allowing for differentiation: Here is a blank piece of graph paper. Draw our school building on your page and then measure each of the sides. Add them up to show the perimeter. Teacher will get some papers with just four sides and some in which children remembered to include the shape of the entryways and the courtyard. Some will remember that the gym steps out and draw that, too. There will be many different drawings and answers and children will have largely adjusted to their own ability.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It is super important that we restrict the best opportunities for high quality intensive math and science education to a tiny fraction of the hundreds, if not thousands, of smart and motivated high school students in the region that could handle the work. Why would we want more kids to have a strong grounding in these areas, it's not like these are foundational skills that make a huge difference in our fastest growing industries...oh, wait.

And we wonder why the U.S. ranks so poorly on math and science performance compared with other nations...

+2 million. Seriously, you should set this as a petition and send to the BoE.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My kid is in a CES this year, and the program is just awesome. They teach the way I think almost all kids should be taught, and the curriculum and activities they use are absolutely stellar. I appreciate that my child is in a class with academic peers, but really, he would be pretty happy if he could have even half this program, “watered down” at his home school. A key thing I see about the activities they do is that they allow the kids to reach their own limits. An example: they begin writing a poem and the teacher has them write down all the words they can think of that have to do with the topic. Then, they have to write their poem without using a single one of those words. This would work in ANY classroom, and is a wonderful way to let an assignment allow natural differentiation. This doesn’t happen once a week, this kind of teaching seems to happen throughout the day, every day. Too many of the “regular” classroom activities in the current ELA curriculum are rigid and limited, so that many kids feel trapped instead of inspired.

MCPS has been looking for a new curriculum for ELA and I really think they should look to the CES programs for fantastic ideas. I also think that there is comparatively little pressure on the CES teachers to get test scores up, and as a result, the teachers and kids have a real joy of teaching and learning together. Less worksheets, less drilling, more doing and talking and experiencing together. I, for one, would happily give up CES if all those things could come back to all the home classrooms.

Your idea is far too sensible for the bureaucrats.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is super important that we restrict the best opportunities for high quality intensive math and science education to a tiny fraction of the hundreds, if not thousands, of smart and motivated high school students in the region that could handle the work. Why would we want more kids to have a strong grounding in these areas, it's not like these are foundational skills that make a huge difference in our fastest growing industries...oh, wait.

And we wonder why the U.S. ranks so poorly on math and science performance compared with other nations...

+2 million. Seriously, you should set this as a petition and send to the BoE.

If it isn't competitive, then it will be watered down to where they may as well cancel the program since it will be the same as the non-magnet classes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I don't disagree with this generally, with a child new to a CES this year, but notwithstanding what some say on this forum, the CES classroom is filled with really bright, generally enthusiastic and motivated kids. That makes a lot of what they do in class work. One could replicate that in the larger ES's and MS's by simply tracking kids, but nobody, apparently, wants to do that.

Nobody wants to do that because it's bad for all of the kids who are, for whatever reason, in lower tracks. Research has established this over and over and over.

NP

It has showed that if the classes all have the same kids/teacher ratios. Research after research has shown that lower track kids need better teacher ratios. They also need accountability.

Make the higher track classes 25-30 to 1
Make grade-level track classes 20-25 to 1
Make the lower track classes 15 to 1 and supply aides to rotate as needed.

The biggest need is getting kids in early grades up to grade level. You will never ever get a child a few levels back to grade ability in a mixed classroom no matter how many times you pull them out for small groups (which we all know is not a lot.) Small groups also leave hours of wasted time when you aren't in a group and most of these kids are too embarrassed to ask for help from peers. And we all know the teacher is too busy. Small group sessions may work if there were two teachers or a teacher and an aide in the class, but right now MCPS has about 25 kids in a class with 1 teacher and about 6-7 ability groups for reading. If you have ever volunteered in any grade K-5th, you can see that it is a hot mess.

The problem everyone seems to think is that these kids will all know they are in the worst class and that kids will see a pattern (more hispanic and AA males in the lower class.) Well, I sure don't think mixing everything up perfectly between race, sex, and ability is working either. Not addressing the issues is what MCPS does best. Knowing they can't bring up the rear and decrease the front has been terrible. Why not have mixed classrooms and then at least mix whole classrooms for math for an hour in the morning and then reading for an hour in the afternoon. The 90 minutes of busy work so a teacher can attempt to get thru 5-6 groups a days for 10 minutes each is a negative for all of the kids. Our test scores show it too. The only schools doing well are the kids with parents that piggyback things at home.

Exactly. It is politically incorrect to point out the obvious. Kids who come from illiterate parents will not be initially be on the same level as the spawn of NIH researchers. We would all be better off if the kids were separated for the first few years and then brought back together. Instead, the policy is to let the bright kids languish.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The actual programs they do provide are awesome.

Subscale in size.

Half of Bethesda does private school- skip the smoke and mirror games of MCPS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I agree that differentiation is what we need to argue for.

Meet each group of kids at their level instead of mixing them all up together. It helps nobody. And the teachers are left feeling like they can’t serve any of the students well.

It is actually possible to meet most kids at their level while mixing them together. But the assignments need to allow for different results. Teachers would have to grade papers and projects that didn’t necessarily come with a one size fits all answer key or result in all children coloring in the same quickly recognizable pattern.

Not with 28 K or first graders per teacher non title 1 schools!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The actual programs they do provide are awesome.

Subscale in size.

Half of Bethesda does private school- skip the smoke and mirror games of MCPS.

And yet the schools in Bethesda are all over capacity. How about that!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Exactly. It is politically incorrect to point out the obvious. Kids who come from illiterate parents will not be initially be on the same level as the spawn of NIH researchers. We would all be better off if the kids were separated for the first few years and then brought back together. Instead, the policy is to let the bright kids languish.

Segregating kids in their first few years of public schooling - what could go wrong?