MCPS is cuttting compacted math and cohorted literacy enrichment
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Anonymous
There is a Math placement test, so perhaps your child did not perform well on that exam??? |
Anonymous
Also no advanced math student needs to take calc AB and then BC. They should look at the SMCS pathways for very advanced learners. I do agree with the current broken state of acceleration. Way too many kids pushed ahead and the wealthy ones propped up with tutors. |
Anonymous
DP. Combine these notions and supplement with the notions that: 1) a cohort of similarly abled students large enough to make a full class facilitates provisioning (staffing, budgeting, etc.) for a school 2) such a cohort, along with that greater manageability and resulting budgetary flexibility for an individual school (under current MCPS budgeting paradigms), tends to draw more highly competent teachers 3) with current MCPS identification practices, which are disproportionately influenced by resource-requiring early outside enrichment, and with relatively high principal autonomy facilitating differential response to local family pressure (also highly correlated with family resource levels) for exceptions to allow cohort building/advancement, such large cohorts appear at local schools in wealthier areas in greatly disproportionate levels We arrive at the realization that allusions to freely available outside resources for Calculus study as a salve for teaching quality issues are something of a platitude that distracts from attention to systemic inequity. It's a shame that MCPS's new approach has not been presented with reasonably deep explanation as to how it would deliver excellence with equity. |
Anonymous
I'm this PP and I agree, BUT....MCPS did this to themselves. I have a kid who probably should have been on the regular track, and has been "propped up" (successfully!) by tutors ever since Honors Pre-Calculus. However, we didn't really have a choice. At the time, MCPS put more than half of the kids in my child's (Title 1) school into compacted math. That meant that the on-level math progression was basically all kids who were far behind grade level for whatever reason. So they created a too-fast track and put every single English speaking middle class kid onto that track and then wished them luck moving forward. |
Anonymous
agree, MCPS swings wildly one way, then wildly the other way. They first put too many kids in CM. Now they want to take it away completely. They took away SROs completely (even though all HS Principals asked them not to), then decided to bring in CEOs because, gosh darn it, who knew problem kids wouldn't stop their bad behavior, then now after several gun incidents, there's talk again of bringing back SROs. They are constantly trying the best new thing on our kids and treating them like guinea pigs. I feel like it's a way to justify the existence of some central office staff. |
Anonymous
I actually think it's that none of them expect to be in the job long enough for their actions to have consequences, so they are looking for quick wins. Where I grew up, teachers/administrators expected to be in their specific jobs for a decade+ which meant that they were held accountable if their experiments didn't work. In MCPS, these folks come in and take a big swing. "Oh, I put 50% more kids on the path to Algebra by 8th grade." Then they move to the next thing and by the time those kids crash out in 10th grade, they are long gone. |
Anonymous
That is sociopathic |
Anonymous
DP. They wouldn't be swinging one way and another as much if 1) the Maryland State Department of Education didn't keep handing down new requirements that they had to follow with about as much meaningful engagement with the local school systems needing to implement them (say, to ensure they don't purchase a curriculum for a multi-year-year period that will not meet a new MSDE requirement planned, but not made widely known, going into effect in year 2 of the purchase agreement) as MCPS tends to give to to the community when it makes its own decisions, and 2) the County not only met the funding needs as proposed, but offered amounts commensurate with ensuring adequate delivery of education to individuals across the entire system such that needs were met equivalently no matter where a student went to school (so that MCPS wasn't constantly trying to address the inequities resulting from current funding/dleivery paradigms with the "next thing"), and 3) MCPS decided to collaborate proactively with MSDE in the first instance and faithfully dedicated county funding to the ends described in the second. |
Anonymous
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A lot of folks don't seem to understand the difference between AP Calc AB and AP Calc BC. There isn't just overlap of the "B" portion -- the naming convention is to blame for that misunderstanding. From the College Board, which runs the AP program:
"How AP Calculus AB and AP Calculus BC are similar The two courses cover content and skills that are introduced in a first-semester calculus course at the college level. All topics in the eight units of AP Calculus AB are included in AP Calculus BC. These are the topics taught in both courses: Limits and continuity (Unit 1) Differentiation: Definition and fundamental properties (Unit 2) Differentiation: Composite, implicit, and inverse functions (Unit 3) Contextual applications of differentiation (Unit 4) Analytical applications of differentiation (Unit 5) Integration and accumulation of change (Unit 6) Differential equations (Unit 7) Applications of integration (Unit 8) Because both courses and exams cover many of the same topics, the prerequisites needed for both courses and exams are comparable. Recommended mathematics courses to take before either AP Calculus AB or AP Calculus BC include those in which you study algebra, geometry, trigonometry, analytic geometry, and elementary functions. How AP Calculus AB and AP Calculus BC are different AP Calculus AB focuses on topics that are taught in the college-equivalent first-semester calculus class. AP Calculus BC focuses on topics covered in both first- and second-semester calculus classes. All topics in the eight units of AP Calculus AB are also included in AP Calculus BC. However, AP Calculus BC contains two additional units (Units 9 and 10), plus some extra topics in Units 6─8. These topics are only taught in AP Calculus BC: Additional techniques of integration (Unit 6) Euler's method and logistic models with differential equations (Unit 7) Arc length and distance traveled along a smooth curve (Unit 8) Parametric equations, polar coordinates, and vector-valued functions (Unit 9) Infinite sequences and series (Unit 10)" No MCPS school should not be telling students successfully having completed the PreCalc prerequisite that they need to take Calc AB (as a Junior or prior) before Calc BC. They might suggest to students that they might take that path if they wanted to take it easy (i.e., of their own volition). Or Calc AB followed by AP Stats if they were more interested in Statistics and had no plan to pursue the second semester college Calc content within Calc BC. For similar reasons, they could suggest Calc AB alone for a rising Senior. Or AP Stats alone for the same. But they absolutely, positively should not be holding Math-interested students back by encouraging (much less requiring) Calc AB before Calc BC -- that is totally unnecessary and artificially limiting. |
Anonymous
It does not suprise me at all that MCPS put this in the slides. The AP/IB coordinator does not know the difference between AB and BC, and she doesn't understand that AP Precalculus is less challenging than Honors Precalclulus. This is the leadership we have in central office. |
Anonymous
| If it makes you feel better, MCPS isn't proposing forcing AB before BC. They just don't know what AB and BC are so they slapped something down on the page with wrong class names. |
Anonymous
CM covers the content by merging some elements that are covered in each grade's standard curriculum (the spiral nature of elementary curriculum, especially, sees the same concepts touched on again and again, but in greater depth/with more complexity) and by rearranging the elements of the three years in a way that facilitates both those merges and a faster pace. Concepts aren't really skipped, though more repetitive content may be. |
Anonymous
The state-mandated move from Algebra 1/Geometry/Algebra 2 to Integrated Algebra 1 & 2 is very different from the compacting that makes up Math 4/5 & 5/6, AMP6+ & 7+ and PreAlgebra. Those accelerated classes don't really skip concepts of the grade-level classes they accelerate. In contrast, IA is not meant to cover all the concepts that A1/Geo/A2 cover -- it cuts out a lot, like Trig, and this is why it can be delivered in two years without putting kids on a particularly accelerated pace. The idea MSDE has with IA is that some of the current HS Math (like that Trig) is unnecessary to the (state-defined/industry-desired) career needs of many students. Of course, that presumption may not be true, but there we have it. Only one of the four delineated post-Integrated Algebra pathways envisions needing the content that would lead to Calc, and MCPS is assuming it can fit all of that into an already-difficult PreCalc, since they are not planning to introduce a bridge course on the Calc pathway. Of course, the spectre of an even-more-daunting path to Calc will tend to dissuade some of those who currently expect to access Calc on their way to college. Or it might see more students, after struggling with that, willing to take Calc AB first instead of going directly to Calc BC. From MCPS's perspective, that might be a good thing 
It is so telling of their interests that, whether presenting the regions/programs/"advanced classes at all schools" model over the past year or presenting the HS pathways with this new approach to elementary acceleration/enrichment, they maintain an unwillingness to specify the courses they would need to ensure are available (for all, not just at more fortunate schools) after AP Calc BC. Except AP Stats, of course
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Anonymous
No there isn’t. I asked. |