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Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS)
Support the Montgomery Virtual Academy (MVA) from Budget Cuts!
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Anonymous
Every state sets up their educational system and most aren't comparable. MD is NOT offering a state program so it really is silly to argue over it. It's not happening. They do not provide educational services. They outsource it to the counties. So, if the MVA is shut down, families are on their own. So much for equality MCPS claims to have. |
Anonymous
There no notion of equality that means you have to like the options you're given. |
Anonymous
Yup. There’s are several things I don’t like about MCPS, but I’ve accepted the trade offs that come with public education. You either move to a new district that suits your family better, pay for private, homeschool, or work with what MCPS offers. This isnt to say you can’t advocate for what you want - e.g., many of us implored MCPS for years to improve the way it taught reading in the younger grades- 2.0 and benchmark were terrible. That changed a bit with the addition RGR and now there is finally a strong comprehensive ELA curricula coming (yay) but in the meantime we had to supplement with phonics at home. Now moving on to improving middle school…. But anyway, you have choices, use them. Most MVA parents are coming across as entitled at this point. |
Anonymous
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NO! Shut down the virtual academy and support in person teachers and students!
Enough of this BS! We are failing our IN PERSON children! Say NO NO NO TO VIRTUAL ACADEMY! |
Anonymous
Exactly!!! If there were a surplus I would support MVA but the money is needed elsewhere! |
Anonymous
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MVA is one of the most valuable programs in MCPS and MCPS needs draconian reforms
The time is NOW to make draconian changes to a school system that costs too much, has inadequate, undesirable outcomes, is inefficient, ineffective, incompetent, pays too much to unnecessary administrators, it relies on obsolete methods created over 2,000 years ago (lectures in a room to students) instead of learning online via the best audiovisuals prepared by the best teachers, with teacher supervision to match gaps and special needs of everyone. It is now feasible, relatively easy, to change the education system to improve desirable outcomes, provide far better learning in STEM and health, far greater scores in standardized tests (reflecting better learning of essential concepts in life), at a cost below 70% of current costs. It was proven feasible during COVID19. It needs minor administrative improvements. There should be at most 3 versions of each course, and students should be able to download the courses (assignments, lectures, notes, etc.) to view offline. MCPS pays too much to administrators, may hire administrators with low SATs, GREs, from low-ranking colleges, without adequate expertise in task management, optimal allocation of resources. MCPS is run like the Emperor’s clothes, a fiction for people who are not experts and cannot see that administrators lack expertise. The School’s emperor has no clothes. Changes must be made now because the US economic system, including the State and County, are badly designed for our modern world. The US has HUGE budget and trade deficits. It compensates by printing money. Thankfully, the US dollar still dominates world markets. Otherwise, the US would be like Argentina or Greece, or even worse. However, large countries like China are no longer accumulating dollars or equivalent (e.g., US Treasury debt). Slowly but consistently, countries are shifting away from the US dollar (e.g., China buys and stores commodities). States like MD, and Counties like MoCo, face current and increasing deficits in future years due to simple, irreversible social and economic conditions. The County and State has huge unmet needs for immigrants, children, elderly, housing, health care, etc. These costs are huge and will increase. There are substantial infrastructure problems on roads, bridges, electricity, etc. The US has huge deficits. The US Congress has and will continue to impose substantial ceilings on debt. It means government economic transfers (e.g., Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid), government contracts, payments to employees, will, overall, be close to flat or not increase equal to inflation. In practice, to adapt to higher costs and cost of living adjustments, it means fewer employees, employees paid less. MoCo, dependent on federal employees and contractors, will likely have close to flat income with flat or reduced income taxes. Properties will not appreciate too much, so property taxes will remain close to flat. MoCo requires fairly flat budgets. Situation is similar for the State of MD. However, government expenses will increase, causing reductions in employees and compensation to employees and contractors. It means less money for education. This trend is probably irreversible for many years, though the magnitude will fluctuate. Shifting expenses to the future, and shifting future income to the present (or borrowing) are undesirable, not sustainable solutions. Voters should terminate those who support this improper financial accounting. We need efficient, effective, competent government, run by the best. We must ask the questions: Is MCPS run by some administrators who score less than 95% in SATs and GREs? Approximately, 5% of MCPS students score better than 95%, which means about 5,000 students (probably including most students at magnet schools like Blair). Should MCPS hire its best students to run MCPS and terminate administrators who score well below students in standardized tests? Would you like your surgeon to be a graduate from a low ranked school who scored poorly in standardized tests, and gets it right 4 out of 5 times, or would you prefer one who attended one of the top 50 medical schools, scored high in tests that measure knowledge and competence, and gets it right 99.99%? My goal for School, with K-12, is for my children to learn essential concepts to do well in life, attend college, get good jobs, learn to manage the complexities of life. The goal is NOT for them to be professional or great sport players. Or learn to drink, or use drugs, or procrastinate, or master the art of spending time on social media. My focus is with STEM and health care. Other parents have different goals. But we all want our children to master essential concepts in English, Math, Science, financial analysis, and the bureaucracy of life. Otherwise, they will fail in our complex society. I measure desirable outcomes as high scores in MAP, PSAT, SAT (scores, knowledge, that would currently be expected for the top 90%, though my goal is 95%+). There are excellent websites that teach math, English. MCPS in its current state is not significantly better. For MCPS, a reasonable, easy, feasible, achievable goal should be that 80% of students get 80% of questions correct in SATs and other tests. I do not focus on GPA or attendance. The school desks, floor tiles, etc. attend school 100% of the time, but do not learn. Clearly, there is more to education than attendance. Students who do well virtually (which requires less resources to teach due to not needing to maintain buildings, prevent fights, etc.) do not need to go in-person, which frees resources for students who need help only available in-person. Summary issues MCPS Budget reports, MCPS goals, purposes. Wishy washy word salad of nice words, for goals, purposes, with colors. MCPS should focus on implementation, not on nice plans. MCPS fails to focus resources on education essential for jobs, life, such as STEM and health care. MCPS uses outcome measures of low validity, low reliability, poorly correlated to employment, jobs, survival in life. They conceal poor performance of education system. MCPS has too many administrators who must justify their activities by creating paperwork, bureaucracy, inefficiencies. Additionally, too many MCPS activities harass or make life unnecessarily more difficult for parents (and students). HUGE duplication of efforts. Every year teachers spend huge amounts of time and money to speak in front of students (lectures) about the same topics, prepare homework and tests, etc. There are huge gaps among key groups. They likely reflect family and environment. I propose that the best students will do well without attending school, simply taking online courses. Others will do about the same with far less money and virtual schooling. School simply needs to improve virtual learning. It is now feasible, practical, rational, desirable, to reduce the MCPS budget about 30% while improving desirable outcomes, namely better knowledge and education in STEM, health care, employment, life, mental health and others. This is achieved, in part, by reducing unnecessary, highly paid administrators, particularly those who score poorly in SATs, GREs, or who graduated from low-ranking colleges or universities, and those who violate civil rights. Replacing courses via in-person lectures with digital, virtual classrooms and courses. MCPS evaluation of MVA is incorrect, misleading, inaccurate. It uses inappropriate data analysis. It misrepresents, overlooks fundamental benefits of MVA. A proper evaluation would prove that MVA is one of the best MCPS programs; participation should be expanded substantially to improve desirable outcomes and reduce costs. Recommendations Teachers teach students, must be more knowledgeable, more competent. Administrators who supervise teaching, curriculum and related matters must be more knowledgeable, competent than teachers, far better than 95% of students. Hire highly competent administrators, with expertise in management, efficient, effective learning. They should score 95% or more in SATs, GREs. Hire from top 50 colleges/ universities, at least top 75. Anyone who attended a school ranked 125 or higher (unless there is an extraordinary reason), should NOT be an administrator with substantial responsibility. Focus on improving performance in MAP, PSAT, SAT, or teaching courses directly related to jobs in life, such as plumbing, electricity, appliance repair, etc., like technical schools in other countries. Reduce activities that do not improve mental health, useful knowledge (likely measured by scores in standardized tests), reduce crime or other undesirable behavior. Solve problems with student’s performance, do not ignore parents. Minimize liability, avoid unnecessary disputes. Apparently, some administrators use their power to punish students or parents, compel them to take unnecessary courses or behave in undesirable ways. Train administrators better or terminate them. Offer the majority of courses, particularly middle and high school, digitally. Prepared by the best teachers in the US and abroad. These courses and websites already exist, such as Khan academy. MVA expand. Make it mandatory for Middle and High School students to take classes virtually. Minimum twice/ week, and when school closed for weather or other reasons. Reduce bus service to 3/5 days per week or lower. Replace or terminate, and reduce compensation, for a substantial number of administrators. Unless they substantially contribute to high performance in STEM, health care, and practical jobs, few are needed. None should be paid more than GS 15 (with very few exceptions). Plenty of competent people exist willing to work for a GS-15 salary. School safety should be a top priority. Behavior modification to terminate wrongdoers should be a top priority. This will make teachers more willing to teach. Currently there are many redundant, poorly coordinated emails and other communications. Need better organization, fewer administrators creating unnecessary work. Poorly maintained websites. Simplify them. Poorly written regulations. Get expert writers. Simplify, cover all relevant issues. Inadequate data system for grades and activities. Review, improve. Extremely poor school data, data systems, data analysis. Review all data systems. Coordinate and match data. Use off-the-shelf software via experts in data visualization and data analysis. Replace existing staff or terminate them. Simplify IEPs, make them meaningful. Less paperwork. Too many people involved. School activities and budget Virtual education is the way of the future. Instead of reducing or cancelling MVA, MCPS should expand it. Many valuable suggestions exist for improving it. Increase social interactions. Allow MVA students to attend physical school for clubs, sports, etc. The budget of MVA is tiny compared with the budget of MCPS. There are MANY areas of unnecessary MCPS expenses. The data analysis of MVA is poor, I consider it misleading, incorrect, practically useless or counter-productive. Thus, I believe there are other reasons, which I do not know, why MCPS BoE is considering cancelling MVA. Reminds me of traditional budget response tactics: close the valuable activities, encourage fraud, abuse, crime, so that politicians get scared and undo budget cuts. Schools provide child care. We need to group children into two groups: those that can be left alone at home, and those who cannot. Usually, most children in middle school and HS can be left alone at home, and can be trained to attend classes at home, alone. Every student in middle and HS should be eligible to attend virtual school. No need for waiting period. Special education as currently done, is inefficient, ineffective. There are improvements in behavioral modification and the use of technology to educate students read, writing, math, which can be used to significantly improve special education. With appropriate programs and inexpensive technology, many students in special ed can do much better. The school supports inadequate methods. It covers up inadequate education with simpler tests, and replacements for knowledge in math and English. For example, outcomes are measured as 4 out of 5. Consider an example program to teach students to cross high traffic streets. If program is deemed effective when students cross without accidents 4 out of 5 times, it would be a scam. Supervisors of special education are not adequately trained. Schools spend too much money in litigation. In my experience, simple, inexpensive or practically zero cost requests for IEP are denied or ignored, requiring multiple letters, meetings, dispute resolution. School teams decide what they deem best for school and students. Parents either agree or give up or litigate (which is time consuming and expensive, supporting armies of administrators). MCPS evaluation of MVA has poor data analysis, invalid or meaningless or deceptive interpretation The MVA is one of the most valuable components of MCPS. It is not well-managed. The person in charge, the Dean, should be a graduate from a top 50 school in the US, with a high score in GREs. Properly managed, MVA would (and should) save considerable money to MCPS, and achieve better education outcomes. Instead of reducing attendance to MVA, MCPS should increase it. For most middle school students, and all high school students, all courses (with a few exceptions) should be available digitally, virtually, at any time. A majority of students, including most high school students, should attend physical school 2 to 4 times per week. This will reduce the number of buses and number of schools in the county, as well as maintenance, staff, etc. Thus, significantly reducing costs while maintaining or improving useful/positive education outcomes. Class size should be irrelevant for lectures. Every student takes the course digitally, at a convenient time. At their own speed. This is essential to learn well. The current teaching methods, in practice since the Greeks 2,000+ years ago, are obsolete. Each course should be prepared with different levels of complexity, to be taken at individualized speeds. Smarter students skip sections; other students take the course slower. The distinction between honors and regular courses should be removed. Instead, students should learn as much as they can, prepare for exams to measure essential knowledge. Exams should be prepared with increasing degree of difficulty. Students must pass a minimum number of correct answers on essential topics, for graduation. After that, they get a score like in SATs, according to the number of correct answers in questions with increasing level of difficulty. Schools nationwide create a data base of 10,000+ questions for exams (public). Computers present and grade different questions to each student, making cheating more difficult. Similarly for homework. Teachers meet with students to go over homework, teach students with difficulties, etc. It is a reversal of current system. Current system is lectures at school, homework at home. It should be lectures, virtually, at home, assignments at school. Everyone has an IEP, and learns at their own speed. MCPS conducted an evaluation of MVA for the years 2021-2022. Its analysis used inadequate data, inadequate outcomes, inadequate methods. Its conclusions are mostly useless, counter-productive. In my opinion, the conclusions of the MVA study sponsored by MCPS have low validity, low reliability. The data analysis is inadequate. It does not use adequate multivariate analysis. The information reported is inadequate to understand errors, flaws, biases. The comparison sample of students is not comparable. The implications are likely incorrect. See https://ww2.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/sharedaccountability/reports/2023/Virtual%20Academy%20FINAL.pdf The MVA student population is quite different from MCPS population. Students are self-selected due to individual factors. It is practically impossible to create an adequate “matching” group from regular MCPS students. Data analysis must use different methods than experimental v control group. The MVA evaluation report used the concept of “statistical significance” to evaluate differences between groups. This is invalid, inappropriate. These issues are known and discussed at meetings of professional statisticians for more than 40 years. I taught a graduate level course of statistics for psychologists at the psychology dept, U of Michigan. At that time, it was ranked about #1 in the US. Its students and professors were among the best in the US. I learned and taught that statistical significance is misleading because it depends on sample size. A small difference is statistically significant when the sample size is over 100. For MCPS data analysis, trivial, not meaningful differences between MVA and MCPS, are statistically significant because of the large sample size. Instead, MCPS should look for important, meaningful differences, usually in size about 30%+ (use common sense). These are differences NOT due to natural variability in measurements and student population. For example, differences in GPA of 3.9 v. 2.5 are substantial, but differences between 3.8 and 3.3 are not because, at MCPS, grades vary substantially due to the form of grading, such as assigning a high score to submission of homework even if mostly incorrect. Small GPA differences at MCPS are practically meaningless; large GPA differences are tricky to interpret. Instead, for overall outcome measurements, use MAP, PSAT, SAT scores. Other scores can be developed. Similar issues apply to attendance, which is practically the same for all groups (perhaps surprising, perhaps a consequence of administrator’s behavior). When using MAP scores, for comparing groups, it is better to use the actual score instead of the relative improvement in scores. Relative improvement depends on previous scores (students performing very well may have less improvement than those performing poorly, creating misleading perceptions about benefits). Consider two programs to teach running to two groups. One is students who had recent injuries and cannot run well. Another is a group of top performers. One program teaches fast running students how to run better. The other has injured students spend time watching TV. Evaluation may prove that watching TV improves running scores of injured students better than actual training used for fast students. My point is that rate of improvement on MAP can be misleading. MVA students, mostly self-select. In general, parents have choice, option, to send them to physical school. We must assume that there are substantial reasons for parents, students to choose MVA. It is probably better for them. Thus, we expect student and family characteristics to be quite different between MVA and physical school students. These characteristics are not obvious, likely unique. Standard statistical analysis is not applicable because MVA students are not randomly selected, variations do not average out, not “normal” distributions. For data analysis, evaluation should compare how the SAME students did in physical v. MVA school. Did their scores improve on MAP? (GPA not valid comparison due to many differences in grading). What about the effects of income (e.g., home assessed value), parent’s education, etc.? It appears ignored, despite being known to impact grades and learning. The surveys from students and parents had VERY low response. The data are meaningless, likely biased by the few who responded. The results are obvious. The questions not meaningful. The results are perplexing, reflecting issues not explained. For example, more Asians, more Black Americans, enrolled in MVA than physical school. But fewer whites and Hispanics. Why? The evaluation failed to include sports and attendance to clubs as a factor that makes the student groups different. GPA comparisons are not meaningful, as GPA includes inadequate submission, bias in grading. The report states: “students in in-person schools had significantly higher attendance rates than students in Virtual Academy” This is an incorrect statistical interpretation due to sample size. The differences were actually very small, not substantial. Due to measurement errors, variations in reasons for attendance, other factors, the only conclusion is that there were no substantial attendance differences. A substantial meaningful difference would be at least 20% or more. In reality, attendance is similar for all grades. The study should focus on analyzing the reasons for attendance, which are probably different for MVA from regular school, and student characteristics may be substantially different. The multivariate analysis of the evaluation is poor. In my experience teaching courses on statistical analysis, is comparable to mediocre performance in an undergraduate course. The projected growth in math in Spring 2022 is not a valid indicator of outcome for many reasons. It depends how it was calculated, but projected growth, in my experience, is deceptive. For example, the data does not control for starting score, and other factors affecting score results. Instead, school should evaluate actual score, a better indicator of desirable outcome, using multivariate analysis. The matching students used is unlikely a good match, depending on the factors used to obtain matching samples. Were students matched according to family income (e.g., assessed value of their home) or MAP scores or IQ? Or parents’ education level, SAT scores? GPA increases by grade. Either the student population was vastly different (unlikely), or the grade increase is due to grading procedures, fake numbers. It is evidence that grades are not a meaningful indicator. The GPA of Whites is much lower than the GPA of Hispanic and Blacks. Seems wrong. Something may be wrong with the data or data analysis. Most of the analysis, interpretations, conclusions, are likely misleading or incorrect. I call them GIGO. MCPS needs to hire individuals with greater competence for data analysis. Main author must have substantial education in data analysis and statistics, including graduate level courses in mathematical statistics (several), stochastic processes, multivariate analysis, advanced calculus up to differential equations. High GRE scores. About me I have the equivalent of an MS in Physics, an MS in Psychology (with expertise in measurement theory), an MS in mathematics (with advanced graduate level courses in statistics and related areas), a PhD in math and psych (with focus on measurement theory, psychometrics, decision theory, econometrics), an MD (with focus on biomarkers, diagnosis), and JD (with focus on regulations, government policies). I taught statistics to graduate students at the Univ. of Michigan, at that time considered the #1 program in the US. My GRE scores in Math are high. I did data analysis for some of the largest government programs. My main jobs with private entities and the federal government involved data analysis. I was a pioneer in evaluating large data sets, using data analysis and econometrics to evaluate large government programs. I did the data analysis for some of the largest programs in the US. For example, I evaluated for economic discrimination over 30,000 cases at the EEOC, evaluated civil employment and federal contracts. I designed, supervised, evaluated drug abuse in the US, about 100,000 people in treatment every month at over 1,000 treatment centers in the US. I was responsible for providing drug abuse data and evaluation to government agencies, Congress, news media. I evaluated the US economic transfer programs. Created a computer model that concurrently calculates the costs and benefits of alternative policies, such as changes in taxes, social security payments, welfare payments, unemployment, etc. My model was used for welfare reform by several administrations (POTUS and Congress). For my PhD thesis, I evaluated most Community Mental Health Centers and psychiatric hospitals. I helped dozens of students get PhDs at the U of Michigan (helping them with their statistical analysis), worked in evaluation for the US Dept of Education, HHS, OMB, and others. I have substantial expertise in financial analysis, budget preparation, cost/benefit analysis. I have many years of experience with MVA, and physical schools K-12. I created my own education programs that converted my children from poor performers in standardized test to high performers. Unfortunately, I do not have the time to explain adequate data analysis and data interpretation. Further, it is a waste of my time. I wrote to MCPS many times over the years, and they ignore me. I offered to help with data analysis; I was ignored. Comments by MCPS BoE, Interim Superintendent of Schools (see emails) I found the comments poorly written, deceptive. Appears to indicate that MCPS must increase student to teacher ratio and reduce other desirable activities at MCPS because of budget issues. To me, this is misleading, incorrect. There are ways to reduce MCPS expenses that increase desirable outcome to students. Terminate unnecessary or incompetent administrators. Create digital versions of most courses. See my other recommendations. E.S |
Anonymous
| ^^ This might be the longest post I have ever seen on DCUM -- and that's saying something! |
Anonymous
I only made it about 10% of the way through, but it was already one of the craziest posts I've seen. |
Anonymous
I believe that's what clinical psychologists call a manifesto. |
Anonymous
What does one have to do with the other? How are you failing in person kids if the MVA is open? Are you that selfish? We should shut down your kids school as they are far more expensive and that would fix the budget. |
Anonymous
You made it further than I did. |
Anonymous
Simply being realistic, we can't shut down schools. But we can shut down MVA. |
Anonymous
Equality? You have the option of attending public school just like everyone else. |
Anonymous
LOL I finished reading the whole thing 😲 |
Anonymous
Same here 🙌 |