My average/somewhat slacker 6th grader got straight As...WTH???

[Anonymous]

The title pretty much says it all. So why is the bar set so low? Does everyone get As in 6th grade? Remember: this is the 2.0 guinea pig class. Are they giving all the kids a free pass?

Honestly, my kid struggles with reading comprehension and is a very poor writer. He's in regular classes (nothing advanced and no foreign language) and has always been solidly average (with borderline MAP scores). Yet straight A's (even with a D on his last chapter test in one class).

Something must be up. The bar must have been lowered for 6th grade. And now he's confident that he can continue to put in minimal effort since that approach resulted in straight As. Thanks, mcps.

[Anonymous]

this is why we started with a writing tutor in 6th grade. they don't teach writing skills at all in elementary school here (despite occasionally assigning writing "prompts". then kids who thought things were fine get slammed in middle school.

[Anonymous]

Sad that they have dumbed down the education in MCPS. It used to be a great school district.

[Anonymous]

But he's in MS and wasn't slammed. His actual written summatives in English received Cs...and yet he ended up with an A. WTH?

A writing tutor is a great idea.

[Anonymous]

What school?

[Anonymous]

It seems that this is the bar for the non-advanced classes and your child is doing well under that bar. Presumably if he were in advanced classes it would be more of a challenge/struggle.

My child is in 6th in a humanities magnet. The English class is very challenging and it's hard to get an A.

[Anonymous]

Op, not happening here in FCPS. Not in our pyramid.
They make kids pretty miserable just in order to pass high school.

[Anonymous]

I'm talking about mcps.

[Anonymous]

Hey, in HRCS this happens every day ... you either have to be very well connected or give big donations.

Not with MCPS.
Just be proud that you have a really smart kid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The title pretty much says it all. So why is the bar set so low? Does everyone get As in 6th grade? Remember: this is the 2.0 guinea pig class. Are they giving all the kids a free pass?

Honestly, my kid struggles with reading comprehension and is a very poor writer. He's in regular classes (nothing advanced and no foreign language) and has always been solidly average (with borderline MAP scores). Yet straight A's (even with a D on his last chapter test in one class).

Something must be up. The bar must have been lowered for 6th grade. And now he's confident that he can continue to put in minimal effort since that approach resulted in straight As. Thanks, mcps.

Maybe the teacher drops the lowest grade, or used a curve. My kid a 116% on a test because of a curve.

[Anonymous]

Anyone else with a 6th grader with straight As despite struggling in 5th grade? My theory is the bar is set too low--perhaps in an effort to compensate for the harm inflicted upon the 2.0 guinea pigs. Any other parents of 6th graders care to weigh in?

[Anonymous]

Don't you have Edline? You can watch every grade and see how it is weighted relative to the other assignments. In our MCPS 6th grade, students can retake 2 assignments per quarter in each subject to improve their grade. My 6th grader got mostly Bs and we sweated every last point after he had a rocky start to the year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Don't you have Edline? You can watch every grade and see how it is weighted relative to the other assignments. In our MCPS 6th grade, students can retake 2 assignments per quarter in each subject to improve their grade. My 6th grader got mostly Bs and we sweated every last point after he had a rocky start to the year.

Yes, we have edline. And I'm befuddled as to how he wound up with straight As...particularly since he writes like a 7 year old FES.

[Anonymous]

OP I"m with you. (The one who hired a tutor). We have had some great teachers (those typically graded medium or hard) and some total loser teachers who convey zero additional knowledge over the school year but who say "wow your child is doing great!"

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sad that they have dumbed down the education in MCPS. It used to be a great school district.

I'm a teacher in MCPS. The dumbing down has occurred in response to rampant parent pressure to crank out those As at all costs. My older child was able to get an excellent education in this system, but we felt we had to put the younger one in private school.