How do you supplement if public school education not meeting student's needs?

[Anonymous]

That’s about all they can fit in due to mandatory system-wide testing, RI, formative and summative assessments, drilling down on how to answer constructed responses, and reteaching so that nobody is failing, because no one is allowed to fail, or the teaching gets dinged on IMPACT.

[Anonymous]

Teacher

[Anonymous]

at Deal you also need to spend time on IB. So there’s not much time to focus on reading

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:at Deal you also need to spend time on IB. So there’s not much time to focus on reading

Huh? Isn't depth supposed to be the main focus of IB?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:That’s about all they can fit in due to mandatory system-wide testing, RI, formative and summative assessments, drilling down on how to answer constructed responses, and reteaching so that nobody is failing, because no one is allowed to fail, or the teaching gets dinged on IMPACT.

WTF

Ugh, I guess we better start saving money for private. Do the charters also not read entire books?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have had students attend summer programs at John Hopkins gifted and talented program. They also offer classes during the school year from grade 2-12.

Do you have to be accepted or can anyone sign up?

[Anonymous]

I’m not sure the charters are much better. You can do some smart supplementing at home. Take a look at the CK Sequence. You can download it for free. Look at the 6-8 grade sequence for language arts.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have had students attend summer programs at John Hopkins gifted and talented program. They also offer classes during the school year from grade 2-12.

Do you have to be accepted or can anyone sign up?

You have to be accepted based on IQ test. However, they are running a pilot program now in which they accept other tests. One is the DC PARCC--you just need a 98% or better which a smart kid in DC will have.

[Anonymous]

https://www.coreknowledge.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/CKFSequence_Rev.pdf

[Anonymous]

Art of problem solving is good. Also if you can find a tutor who helps with the AMC/AIME that would be great. Here are some math programs/camps: https://promys.org/resources/math-links

For science, the Smithsonian has internship and other programs https://www.si.edu/youth-programs and as she gets older she might be able to volunteer at a hospital, animal shelter, science museum, environmental group, or other place that does the science she's interested in. Does she like botany? The DC urban forestry administration or Casey Trees could be interesting. If she's into marine biology or geology or astronomy or meteorology or something else, there would be different options.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is where you can look to see which texts your child should have read for any given year https://dcps.dc.gov/page/english-language-arts-01

This is interesting. My kid at Deal this year interacted with 4/4 of the required texts in 6th, 2/4 in 7th and 3/4 in 8th.
I just showed her the list. She had 12 quarters of A's in ELA at Deal.

I say "interacted with" because she didn't actually READ the entire books. They read passages from each of them----this year several chapters (3?) from Raisin in the Sun. Several pages from Chains. Two chapters from "To Kill a Mockingbird".

What the hell is the point in reading a chapter or 2, really? Do people actually find that acceptable? What, then read the cliff notes? This is terrible if this is what encompasses ELA on the ground in the classes in middle school at DCPS.

Then what, the students write a pathetic paragraph summary? It’s bad enough they don’t teach grammar. Now no need to read a whole book. No wonder the kids writing is terrible.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is where you can look to see which texts your child should have read for any given year https://dcps.dc.gov/page/english-language-arts-01

This is interesting. My kid at Deal this year interacted with 4/4 of the required texts in 6th, 2/4 in 7th and 3/4 in 8th.
I just showed her the list. She had 12 quarters of A's in ELA at Deal.

I say "interacted with" because she didn't actually READ the entire books. They read passages from each of them----this year several chapters (3?) from Raisin in the Sun. Several pages from Chains. Two chapters from "To Kill a Mockingbird".

What the hell is the point in reading a chapter or 2, really? Do people actually find that acceptable? What, then read the cliff notes? This is terrible if this is what encompasses ELA on the ground in the classes in middle school at DCPS.

Then what, the students write a pathetic paragraph summary? It’s bad enough they don’t teach grammar. Now no need to read a whole book. No wonder the kids writing is terrible.

I agree. Deal used to be able to set its own English curriculum but now is supposed to follow downtown. It’s been extremely watered down over the last few years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:at Deal you also need to spend time on IB. So there’s not much time to focus on reading

Huh? Isn't depth supposed to be the main focus of IB?

maybe in theory, but in practice, all it does is add a layer of gobbledygook to every other mandate from DCPS.

[Anonymous]

When I was young, we had to read our novels during the summer. We were given a list of books, progressively more as we got older, and during the summer we read. We had to write journal entries and one essay and turn them all in at the end of summer. Then, during the school year, we focused on reading plays, poetry, short stories, and maybe one or two novels. This was at a mediocre public school.

Anyway- my kids are not old enough- for this discussion. But at the elementary level, we make them read a chapter of their book per day all summer. They read one newspaper article per week (length depends on age/ability). And we watch one documentary per week. This is on top of the "normal" supplements like a variety of camps, activities, classes on Outschool, maps around the house, books all over the house, listening to audio books in the car, etc.

[Anonymous]

I have 2 ES kids so we are not quite there. After reading all of this damming information about ELA at Deal MS, I hope something changes. I guess the teachers need to demand students read the entire book. One book a term is far from demanding. Now that parents know, they too should be on top of their kids and also demanding they read the books required.