MCPS Is Broken What Are Your Ideas to Fix It?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:To the poster who mentioned that teachers are the lowest 1/3 of the class. I would agree that subject area teachers in MS and HS should know their content area well. For ES, the qualities of a great ES teacher are not necessarily knowing content areas well. If you've ever volunteered in a classroom in ES or chaperoned on a field trip, think about what you saw in an excellent classroom teacher. He/she was extremely patient. Extremely. He/she was able to manage the class with ease. The teacher set up the class for success with well throughout procedures and expectations. Students were happy to be there and were learning because of it. Now, that type of teacher may not be from the top of his/her class. He/she may not have had the highest SAT/ACT scores. It takes a certain person to be able to be an excellent ES teacher and it may not be the head of the class. Just something to think about when you blame bad teachers because they weren't top students. I'm sure many DCUMS were top students and they wouldn't last a week in an ES classroom.

The problem is one teacher can be great for a student/family and that same teacher can be terrible for another student/family. We had been with teachers others raved about and did't get the fuss. We've been with hated teachers and had a good experience but what they hated, we liked.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Vote for anyone but Elrich

Who has no authority over MCPS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Break it up. We need a few smaller school districts.

This.

[Anonymous]

The answer has been right in front of us all along:

Break up the county.
Too big to thrive.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:👏👏👏+1000 to everyone who responded. I soo wish folks would stop acting like complex issues are easily solved. I soo wish people would be willing to put in the same amount of time to help fix issues as they do in complaining about them. And I really wish people would stop saying MCPS is broken when in reality it has challenges or areas of improvement like any organization, but on the whole is doing much better than most school districts.

My child hasn't learned how to properly capitalize in writing. She's 14.
Don't tell me the system isn't broken.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:👏👏👏+1000 to everyone who responded. I soo wish folks would stop acting like complex issues are easily solved. I soo wish people would be willing to put in the same amount of time to help fix issues as they do in complaining about them. And I really wish people would stop saying MCPS is broken when in reality it has challenges or areas of improvement like any organization, but on the whole is doing much better than most school districts.

My child hasn't learned how to properly capitalize in writing. She's 14.
Don't tell me the system isn't broken.

Then why havent you helped her? People post stupid things like this all the time, trying to blame the system. It IS broken, but so are parents. Parents blame everyone else for their kid's problems except themselves. At some point, you need to put in the work too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:👏👏👏+1000 to everyone who responded. I soo wish folks would stop acting like complex issues are easily solved. I soo wish people would be willing to put in the same amount of time to help fix issues as they do in complaining about them. And I really wish people would stop saying MCPS is broken when in reality it has challenges or areas of improvement like any organization, but on the whole is doing much better than most school districts.

My child hasn't learned how to properly capitalize in writing. She's 14.
Don't tell me the system isn't broken.

Then, maybe you should get some workbooks and work with them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:👏👏👏+1000 to everyone who responded. I soo wish folks would stop acting like complex issues are easily solved. I soo wish people would be willing to put in the same amount of time to help fix issues as they do in complaining about them. And I really wish people would stop saying MCPS is broken when in reality it has challenges or areas of improvement like any organization, but on the whole is doing much better than most school districts.

My child hasn't learned how to properly capitalize in writing. She's 14.
Don't tell me the system isn't broken.

Does her school not do things like those “Csught ya” exercises to catch writing errors like this? Our MS does. Does she really not know, or not care? My 13 year old skips that stuff all the time because he just doesn’t think it’s that important.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To the poster who mentioned that teachers are the lowest 1/3 of the class. I would agree that subject area teachers in MS and HS should know their content area well. For ES, the qualities of a great ES teacher are not necessarily knowing content areas well. If you've ever volunteered in a classroom in ES or chaperoned on a field trip, think about what you saw in an excellent classroom teacher. He/she was extremely patient. Extremely. He/she was able to manage the class with ease. The teacher set up the class for success with well throughout procedures and expectations. Students were happy to be there and were learning because of it. Now, that type of teacher may not be from the top of his/her class. He/she may not have had the highest SAT/ACT scores. It takes a certain person to be able to be an excellent ES teacher and it may not be the head of the class. Just something to think about when you blame bad teachers because they weren't top students. I'm sure many DCUMS were top students and they wouldn't last a week in an ES classroom.

The problem is one teacher can be great for a student/family and that same teacher can be terrible for another student/family. We had been with teachers others raved about and did't get the fuss. We've been with hated teachers and had a good experience but what they hated, we liked.

That’s true—there’s a lot of different styles that may work better for some than others. But I can also think of some teachers who are 100% loved, and a very few who are 100% dreaded. It should be a little easier to avoid the latter. We’ve got a situation now where a Hs subject matter teacher clearly does not know the subject. Parents are complaining but the school really has no options, as anyone that knows the subject area can find a much better job outside teaching. The kids are basically teaching each other.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:broken school system is not the cause, it's the result of poor county policies. low SES families = f'ed school system

It's not just because of low SES families. It's the culture of low expectations. There is a boy in my DC's MS who is a troublemaker and has done some terrible things. DC tells me that he's from a well off family. Zero consequences. MCPS doesn't do restorative justice the way it was intended.

IMO, MCPS leadership are too concerned with the optics of certain demographics not performing well. They are obsessed with the achievement gap without any good plans to address it other than lowering the bar and half-a$$ implementation of restorative justice.

They push certain groups to challenge themselves by taking more AP classes when that same group has an abysmal record on performing even at grade level. What a way to set them up for failure.

MCPS needs to focus on two things:
1. continuing to provide challenging curriculum and programs for the high achieving students
2. get the lower performing students to at least perform at grade level. Stop focusing on the fact that this group has low representation in test in magnets and such. There's a reason why that group has a low pass rate for AP exams. It would be one thing if they had a high pass rate and low representation in test in magnets, but if they can't even pass AP exams at a high rate, then there's no point in pushing them into test in magnets. Way to set them up for failure.

Focus instead on smaller class sizes and after school tutors where they are needed. I don't mind paying taxes to provide support for certain groups who need it. I myself grew up lower income to parents who don't speak English.

Wrong they need to fix the gerrymandered boundaries and stop listening to the right-wing crazies. Sure, a bunch or people here hate the MCEA and all but most people support the Apple ballot. You gjuys are just way out of touch.

Which boundaries are “gerrymandered”? And how would that improve achievement?

You. Are. Joking.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Needs to be split up into smaller districts. Too big to run effectively.

Or school vouchers so that parents have a choice. Right now we are stuck with this disaster of a system.

Nobody’s getting vouchers. Sorry. If you want private, pay for it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Remove all mandates and get back to work

Yawwwwnnnnn.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My personal view is that they need to return to a focus on high standards and expectations for both staff and students. This can be accomplished through a number of different ways, but the details are probably not that important right now. What are your ideas?

we need new leadership and new BOE.

Most of us support the BOE as the next landslide election will show. It's just a few right-wing cranks on DCUM that are always complaining largely because they resent public education and expect everyone to cater to their every need.

Do you realize that you sound sort of like Baghdad Bob?

You are seriously under estimating the levels of resentment out there.

Oh, we know. You’re loud and you whine endlessly. But you’re still going to lose come BOE election time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:👏👏👏+1000 to everyone who responded. I soo wish folks would stop acting like complex issues are easily solved. I soo wish people would be willing to put in the same amount of time to help fix issues as they do in complaining about them. And I really wish people would stop saying MCPS is broken when in reality it has challenges or areas of improvement like any organization, but on the whole is doing much better than most school districts.

My child hasn't learned how to properly capitalize in writing. She's 14.
Don't tell me the system isn't broken.

Wow, imagine brazenly admitting a parenting failure like that on a public message board.

[Anonymous]

*These suggestions primarily relate to high school. Coming from a high school teacher.

- Require final exams at the end of each semester like we used to.
- At the high school level, eliminate Progress Checks given mid second and third quarters in favor of semester exams as listed above. We haven't even been allowed to count them as grades recently.
- Get rid of the due date/deadline nonsense and the 50% rule. Teach children the importance of meeting due dates.
- Calculate the semester transcript grade by adding first and second quarter percentages and dividing them by two.
- Calculate class rank and put it on the transcript.
- Have valedictorians and salutatorians at graduation and call them that.
- Reinstitute the loss of credit rule whereby students with a certain number of unexcused absences lose credit for high school courses.
- Get rid of all of these random days off. We hardly have a 5-day work week during the year. Once the year starts, keep it going.
- Incorporate virtual snow days so that instruction can continue in some form during inclement weather. This eliminates calendar changes, as well.
- Tweak SSL credit. Eliminate meaningless virtual means to earn SSL hours and allow SSL credit for students who do things like rake or shovel snow for people in their neighborhoods.
- Allow participate in club or varsity sports to count for PE credit to open up schedules for other courses.
- If high school students now have to take a full year of health, incorporate other life skills like financial literacy into this year-long course. Make it more of a healthy/functional living course.
- The student member of the board should not be a voting member as he/she is not elected by taxpayers.