The only way to have equity is to drag down the top performers

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Throwing resources at low performers absolutely will lift them up. And if your kid is really a high performers, they will be a high performer with or without resources.

Yep. Most high performing kids do well at any school. Their test scores say high wherever they go.

Why spend more money catering to kids who will be fine either way instead of focusing on kids who need the extra help?

Tell me you don't have a top performer without telling me... It's not about "doing fine". The kids are wasting their time, going excruciatingly slowly over stuff they already know. This happens even at the magnets.

And there are low performers who are wasting their time in classes where they are behind and need more attention to catch up. Without the extra attention, they are too far behind to learn anything.

There aren't enough resources to go around. I'd rather have my tax dollars help the low performers because the high performers will be just fine. Boredom does not cause illness in an otherwise healthy child. Now is a good time to figure out if your child might have some underlying issues.

You can pick up a second job to afford paying private school for your high performer instead of being so entitled that you have to make stupid assumptions concerning people who disagree with you. Spend your energy wisely.

I was a high performer who went to community college, still scored in the 99 percentile on the LSAT and ended up in an Ivy league law school. I have a friend from a similar background who is a cardiologist. We might have been bored throughout school, but we are just fine.

They cannot catch up and will never catch up. They need to leave school as early as possible and go on with their lives. Both low and high performers are trapped at schools for too long. The schools could least in principle serve top performers because there is a lot of stuff they could learn.

[Anonymous]

The white and Asian parents know that education begins at home before their kids even begin school. The BOY benchmark in kindergarten is not zero. Black s d Hispanic kids start from a deficit and it’s incredibly difficult to catch up because the target keeps moving.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Throwing resources at low performers absolutely will lift them up. And if your kid is really a high performers, they will be a high performer with or without resources.

We don't have an infinite amount of resources though. And why should high performers be ignored? Making the magnets all regional is ignoring the very high performers.

FWIW, I grew up lower income and went to an awful school.

+100

The state should really invest the most in the top quartile in order promote excellence and achievement to benefit our society overall.

Any honest teacher will tell you that the differences intellectual capacity are significant and important. Some kids work hard and have good personalities but are never going to be acing organic chemistry or advanced calculus. And that is OK. There are many low-skilled jobs that are essential to our society and confer value and dignity to those who perform them.

[phone]

Also when we talk about equity, why should we limit it to just academics. Why not, extend it to sports. Anyone who wants to play high school football should be able to play not just the best players.

In athletics, we have a system where most of the resources go to supporting PE classes that are available to everyone and which offer virtually no differentiation for excellent performers. If you excel, you can possibly participate in a limited school program staffed by people who barely get paid. If we had a system like that for math, people would be going crazy about how it's equity run amok.

If equity meant the same for everyone with no room for excellence, varsity sports wouldn’t exist .. we’d all just take PE and pretend that was enough. Nobody would dream of telling talented athletes they don’t deserve teams, coaches, or competition. Yet when it comes to academics, especially math, that’s exactly what some people are proposing. Equity should mean a fair chance for all and real opportunities for those who excel — anything less is just lowering the bar.

I’m not sure how you are suggesting that athletics has more options here than math. At our school you can be behind, at grade level, or ahead of grade level by one or more years. You can take honors, AP or regular sections. You can choose from a reasonable set of options. You cannot have every option just because it is what you want, or would be best for you as a single outlier.

Varsity sports are the same. You can be on a team or not, based on skill and interest. If you are on the national team you are still on the same varsity team with kids from your school who aren’t on the national team. If you are amazing at the steeplechase they don’t add it to track and field just for you.

Math pathways are based on skill and motivation, varsity sports are based on skill and motivation. Neither offers unlimited options and customization.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Throwing resources at low performers absolutely will lift them up. And if your kid is really a high performers, they will be a high performer with or without resources.

Yep. Most high performing kids do well at any school. Their test scores say high wherever they go.

Why spend more money catering to kids who will be fine either way instead of focusing on kids who need the extra help?

Tell me you don't have a top performer without telling me... It's not about "doing fine". The kids are wasting their time, going excruciatingly slowly over stuff they already know. This happens even at the magnets.

And there are low performers who are wasting their time in classes where they are behind and need more attention to catch up. Without the extra attention, they are too far behind to learn anything.

There aren't enough resources to go around. I'd rather have my tax dollars help the low performers because the high performers will be just fine. Boredom does not cause illness in an otherwise healthy child. Now is a good time to figure out if your child might have some underlying issues.

You can pick up a second job to afford paying private school for your high performer instead of being so entitled that you have to make stupid assumptions concerning people who disagree with you. Spend your energy wisely.

I was a high performer who went to community college, still scored in the 99 percentile on the LSAT and ended up in an Ivy league law school. I have a friend from a similar background who is a cardiologist. We might have been bored throughout school, but we are just fine.

Part of the issue is that I don't really see MCPS doing anything to help the lower performers.

Take the proposed split regions and regional magnet programs. It's helping ensure all students get access to the desired courses. I'm personally not a fan of so many of the specialized or niche academy type of schools they're having But if there's a demand out there, it's good they're providing it.

But it's only helping students who are already qualified to be eligible for the programs.

MCPS should be focusing tax dollars on improving the foundation/elementary school level. Once those students have a solid mastery, as they advance grades they'll have the demand for the higher and more rigorous classes. The more students at that level at the school, the more justification for the higher level classes at their school.

Math is supposed to be one of the most unbiased and fair subject areas (according to Furious Styles in Boyz in the Hood). True it gets to a point where word problems are introduced. But it seems like before that point, it should be a reasonable expectation that language barriers wouldn't get in the way of a student's understanding and success in math. Maybe the instruction needs to be in another language. And maybe they should consider administering the math test in multiple languages because it's not an English Language Arts test. So doesn't necessarily have to be in English.

But to help the low performing students, MCPS should be focusing on the elementary school level first. And I don't see them making any big splashes or headlines in efforts to do so. Maybe they are doing things for the elementary school level that I'm not aware of.

But as the OP is saying, they shouldn't be holding back the top performers in trying to help the low performers. "Some students are advancing too quickly" and creating the gap and some students aren't grasping the concepts. MCPS shouldn't be holding back and penalizing the students who are able to do well. And if students are struggling in something, that means they didn't have a firm grasp of the subject area and MCPS advanced them before they should have. (inflated grades, just pushing them through, etc)

In another thread, a poster mentioned that new college grads are jobless now. Well almost all of the high performing college grads I know are working desirable jobs like at Apple, Alphabet, etc. To be successful in the job market, applicants need to stand out among the big sea of applicants. Meaning they need to be competitive against the other ones.

But it looks like MCPS is looking to get rid of giving students this competitive edge, which some people are saying they are okay with. But there are families who do want their students to have that competitive edge, so they can have a shot at the exclusive schools, then the coveted jobs, etc. It's like someone once told me, most schools in MCPS only focus on getting students be able to go to college. But there are other schools that are preparing students to go to the ivies. Personally I thought it was a douchey comment but guess it's kind of true.

And if people say, well MCPS has bigger problems and they need to focus on the whole instead of the few who have other means, then the families of the top performers need to consider if MCPS has what they need or are looking for. Maybe current families are already stuck. But future families will look at it and evaluate if MCPS has what they're looking for. Leading to the brain drain of the county and not doing anything to attract anyone coming in to replace them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Throwing resources at low performers absolutely will lift them up. And if your kid is really a high performers, they will be a high performer with or without resources.

Yep. Most high performing kids do well at any school. Their test scores say high wherever they go.

Why spend more money catering to kids who will be fine either way instead of focusing on kids who need the extra help?

Tell me you don't have a top performer without telling me... It's not about "doing fine". The kids are wasting their time, going excruciatingly slowly over stuff they already know. This happens even at the magnets.

And there are low performers who are wasting their time in classes where they are behind and need more attention to catch up. Without the extra attention, they are too far behind to learn anything.

There aren't enough resources to go around. I'd rather have my tax dollars help the low performers because the high performers will be just fine. Boredom does not cause illness in an otherwise healthy child. Now is a good time to figure out if your child might have some underlying issues.

You can pick up a second job to afford paying private school for your high performer instead of being so entitled that you have to make stupid assumptions concerning people who disagree with you. Spend your energy wisely.

I was a high performer who went to community college, still scored in the 99 percentile on the LSAT and ended up in an Ivy league law school. I have a friend from a similar background who is a cardiologist. We might have been bored throughout school, but we are just fine.

They cannot catch up and will never catch up. They need to leave school as early as possible and go on with their lives. Both low and high performers are trapped at schools for too long. The schools could least in principle serve top performers because there is a lot of stuff they could learn.

Are you saying dyslexic kids should not get extra reading help because they’ll never catch up and they should just leave school?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Equity should mean that everyone gets what they need to succeed to their highest potential. Gifted kids need challenge and rigor or they are highly likely to disengage in school (read the literature on gifted kids). Focusing only on the lowest achievement group is not equity.

If you have 3 gifted kids and 1,000 kids who are lagging, where should you invest resources?

Again, if you kids is truly gifted they will figure themselves out. If your kid can’t figure out for themselves how to get the best out of MCPS you should maybe reconsider if they are truly gifted or motivated. My kid found all sorts of ways to get MCPS to be exactly what she wanted and needed, but it required work and effort on her part, not the entire school district twisting itself into a pretzel for one kid.

Tell us how?

I don’t know how your child is gifted or what that means for you. Try dual enrollment at one of several college options and see if you can join the professor’s research project. Or become a TA for an advanced math section at your school. Or do an internship. Or do outside enrichment. Or join the math team. Or take easier classes during the summer at an accelerated pace to make more space for harder sciences during the school year. The options aren’t a secret.

What doesn’t work is to claim the local school isn’t good enough for your gifted child because they need something unique and not be willing to do something unique.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Throwing resources at low performers absolutely will lift them up. And if your kid is really a high performers, they will be a high performer with or without resources.

Yep. Most high performing kids do well at any school. Their test scores say high wherever they go.

Why spend more money catering to kids who will be fine either way instead of focusing on kids who need the extra help?

Tell me you don't have a top performer without telling me... It's not about "doing fine". The kids are wasting their time, going excruciatingly slowly over stuff they already know. This happens even at the magnets.

And there are low performers who are wasting their time in classes where they are behind and need more attention to catch up. Without the extra attention, they are too far behind to learn anything.

There aren't enough resources to go around. I'd rather have my tax dollars help the low performers because the high performers will be just fine. Boredom does not cause illness in an otherwise healthy child. Now is a good time to figure out if your child might have some underlying issues.

You can pick up a second job to afford paying private school for your high performer instead of being so entitled that you have to make stupid assumptions concerning people who disagree with you. Spend your energy wisely.

I was a high performer who went to community college, still scored in the 99 percentile on the LSAT and ended up in an Ivy league law school. I have a friend from a similar background who is a cardiologist. We might have been bored throughout school, but we are just fine.

They cannot catch up and will never catch up. They need to leave school as early as possible and go on with their lives. Both low and high performers are trapped at schools for too long. The schools could least in principle serve top performers because there is a lot of stuff they could learn.

Very low students might never catch up with top performers, but that means that they really do need all 13 years of public education so that they can develop their reading, writing, math, and critical thinking skills as much as possible before adulthood.

I’ve seen students make huge leaps even after age 15 when they had access to reading intervention on a daily basis. It’s expensive and time consuming, but it makes the difference between being functionally illiterate and being an average reader.

A functionally illiterate person is likely stuck in working minimum wage jobs doing physical labor. They will end up with late fees, penalties, and other financial issues because they cannot understand their lease, bills, and other important documents. They cannot help their children with homework. This can create the next generation of the functionally illiterate. I’m all for spending what we can to break the cycle.

This administration is pushing for teenage births so we get a lot of unskilled workers who lack the ability to advocate for themselves. Encourage dropouts is just one step on that path.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The white and Asian parents know that education begins at home before their kids even begin school. The BOY benchmark in kindergarten is not zero. Black s d Hispanic kids start from a deficit and it’s incredibly difficult to catch up because the target keeps moving.

Not all white and Asian parents do. Not all Black and Hispanic parents don’t. It’s an income thing. I’ve worked with enough poor white and Vietnamese kids and well-off Black and Hispanic ones to see what a difference it makes to have parents who aren’t too exhausted by physical labor to read to their kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Throwing resources at low performers absolutely will lift them up. And if your kid is really a high performers, they will be a high performer with or without resources.

Yep. Most high performing kids do well at any school. Their test scores say high wherever they go.

Why spend more money catering to kids who will be fine either way instead of focusing on kids who need the extra help?

Tell me you don't have a top performer without telling me... It's not about "doing fine". The kids are wasting their time, going excruciatingly slowly over stuff they already know. This happens even at the magnets.

And there are low performers who are wasting their time in classes where they are behind and need more attention to catch up. Without the extra attention, they are too far behind to learn anything.

There aren't enough resources to go around. I'd rather have my tax dollars help the low performers because the high performers will be just fine. Boredom does not cause illness in an otherwise healthy child. Now is a good time to figure out if your child might have some underlying issues.

You can pick up a second job to afford paying private school for your high performer instead of being so entitled that you have to make stupid assumptions concerning people who disagree with you. Spend your energy wisely.

I was a high performer who went to community college, still scored in the 99 percentile on the LSAT and ended up in an Ivy league law school. I have a friend from a similar background who is a cardiologist. We might have been bored throughout school, but we are just fine.

They cannot catch up and will never catch up. They need to leave school as early as possible and go on with their lives. Both low and high performers are trapped at schools for too long. The schools could least in principle serve top performers because there is a lot of stuff they could learn.

Very low students might never catch up with top performers, but that means that they really do need all 13 years of public education so that they can develop their reading, writing, math, and critical thinking skills as much as possible before adulthood.

I’ve seen students make huge leaps even after age 15 when they had access to reading intervention on a daily basis. It’s expensive and time consuming, but it makes the difference between being functionally illiterate and being an average reader.

A functionally illiterate person is likely stuck in working minimum wage jobs doing physical labor. They will end up with late fees, penalties, and other financial issues because they cannot understand their lease, bills, and other important documents. They cannot help their children with homework. This can create the next generation of the functionally illiterate. I’m all for spending what we can to break the cycle.

This administration is pushing for teenage births so we get a lot of unskilled workers who lack the ability to advocate for themselves. Encourage dropouts is just one step on that path.

Our neighbor was able to stay in school until he was 21 (I think maybe 22). He learned how to live alone, pay bills, get a job washing and folding sheets at a hospital, lives independently. Much more important to me than your kid going Ivy and working for a hedge fund.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Throwing resources at low performers absolutely will lift them up. And if your kid is really a high performers, they will be a high performer with or without resources.

Yep. Most high performing kids do well at any school. Their test scores say high wherever they go.

Why spend more money catering to kids who will be fine either way instead of focusing on kids who need the extra help?

Tell me you don't have a top performer without telling me... It's not about "doing fine". The kids are wasting their time, going excruciatingly slowly over stuff they already know. This happens even at the magnets.

And there are low performers who are wasting their time in classes where they are behind and need more attention to catch up. Without the extra attention, they are too far behind to learn anything.

There aren't enough resources to go around. I'd rather have my tax dollars help the low performers because the high performers will be just fine. Boredom does not cause illness in an otherwise healthy child. Now is a good time to figure out if your child might have some underlying issues.

You can pick up a second job to afford paying private school for your high performer instead of being so entitled that you have to make stupid assumptions concerning people who disagree with you. Spend your energy wisely.

I was a high performer who went to community college, still scored in the 99 percentile on the LSAT and ended up in an Ivy league law school. I have a friend from a similar background who is a cardiologist. We might have been bored throughout school, but we are just fine.

They cannot catch up and will never catch up. They need to leave school as early as possible and go on with their lives. Both low and high performers are trapped at schools for too long. The schools could least in principle serve top performers because there is a lot of stuff they could learn.

Very low students might never catch up with top performers, but that means that they really do need all 13 years of public education so that they can develop their reading, writing, math, and critical thinking skills as much as possible before adulthood.

I’ve seen students make huge leaps even after age 15 when they had access to reading intervention on a daily basis. It’s expensive and time consuming, but it makes the difference between being functionally illiterate and being an average reader.

A functionally illiterate person is likely stuck in working minimum wage jobs doing physical labor. They will end up with late fees, penalties, and other financial issues because they cannot understand their lease, bills, and other important documents. They cannot help their children with homework. This can create the next generation of the functionally illiterate. I’m all for spending what we can to break the cycle.

This administration is pushing for teenage births so we get a lot of unskilled workers who lack the ability to advocate for themselves. Encourage dropouts is just one step on that path.

If people knew % of the overall educational resources in this country that are spent on the bottom 10% they would demand reform.

Funneling the majority of education funds to the bottom is extremely counterproductive because their ceiling is so low.

Spending “whatever we can” is foolish, irresponsible, reckless, and counterproductive. Although it sounds like this pays your salary so I can see why you support it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Throwing resources at low performers absolutely will lift them up. And if your kid is really a high performers, they will be a high performer with or without resources.

Yep. Most high performing kids do well at any school. Their test scores say high wherever they go.

Why spend more money catering to kids who will be fine either way instead of focusing on kids who need the extra help?

Tell me you don't have a top performer without telling me... It's not about "doing fine". The kids are wasting their time, going excruciatingly slowly over stuff they already know. This happens even at the magnets.

And there are low performers who are wasting their time in classes where they are behind and need more attention to catch up. Without the extra attention, they are too far behind to learn anything.

There aren't enough resources to go around. I'd rather have my tax dollars help the low performers because the high performers will be just fine. Boredom does not cause illness in an otherwise healthy child. Now is a good time to figure out if your child might have some underlying issues.

You can pick up a second job to afford paying private school for your high performer instead of being so entitled that you have to make stupid assumptions concerning people who disagree with you. Spend your energy wisely.

I was a high performer who went to community college, still scored in the 99 percentile on the LSAT and ended up in an Ivy league law school. I have a friend from a similar background who is a cardiologist. We might have been bored throughout school, but we are just fine.

Part of the issue is that I don't really see MCPS doing anything to help the lower performers.

Take the proposed split regions and regional magnet programs. It's helping ensure all students get access to the desired courses. I'm personally not a fan of so many of the specialized or niche academy type of schools they're having But if there's a demand out there, it's good they're providing it.

But it's only helping students who are already qualified to be eligible for the programs.

MCPS should be focusing tax dollars on improving the foundation/elementary school level. Once those students have a solid mastery, as they advance grades they'll have the demand for the higher and more rigorous classes. The more students at that level at the school, the more justification for the higher level classes at their school.

Math is supposed to be one of the most unbiased and fair subject areas (according to Furious Styles in Boyz in the Hood). True it gets to a point where word problems are introduced. But it seems like before that point, it should be a reasonable expectation that language barriers wouldn't get in the way of a student's understanding and success in math. Maybe the instruction needs to be in another language. And maybe they should consider administering the math test in multiple languages because it's not an English Language Arts test. So doesn't necessarily have to be in English.

But to help the low performing students, MCPS should be focusing on the elementary school level first. And I don't see them making any big splashes or headlines in efforts to do so. Maybe they are doing things for the elementary school level that I'm not aware of.

But as the OP is saying, they shouldn't be holding back the top performers in trying to help the low performers. "Some students are advancing too quickly" and creating the gap and some students aren't grasping the concepts. MCPS shouldn't be holding back and penalizing the students who are able to do well. And if students are struggling in something, that means they didn't have a firm grasp of the subject area and MCPS advanced them before they should have. (inflated grades, just pushing them through, etc)

In another thread, a poster mentioned that new college grads are jobless now. Well almost all of the high performing college grads I know are working desirable jobs like at Apple, Alphabet, etc. To be successful in the job market, applicants need to stand out among the big sea of applicants. Meaning they need to be competitive against the other ones.

But it looks like MCPS is looking to get rid of giving students this competitive edge, which some people are saying they are okay with. But there are families who do want their students to have that competitive edge, so they can have a shot at the exclusive schools, then the coveted jobs, etc. It's like someone once told me, most schools in MCPS only focus on getting students be able to go to college. But there are other schools that are preparing students to go to the ivies. Personally I thought it was a douchey comment but guess it's kind of true.

And if people say, well MCPS has bigger problems and they need to focus on the whole instead of the few who have other means, then the families of the top performers need to consider if MCPS has what they need or are looking for. Maybe current families are already stuck. But future families will look at it and evaluate if MCPS has what they're looking for. Leading to the brain drain of the county and not doing anything to attract anyone coming in to replace them.

The problem is in an attempt to make these programs available to all, they actually make them accessible to none. Look at “honors for all”… some kids just can’t handle honors English. So honors has become remedial and no one gets actual depth anymore.

Serve kids’ needs. Not everyone will be able to cut it in the magnet programs or honors. Let the kids who can, do.

[Anonymous]

Part of the problem is having MASSIVE school districts like MCPS and FCPS.

It is hard for change to take place with monoliths.

Work on changing state law to allow smaller districts in which your votes matter more.

Might take a decade but it doesn't look like things are changing anytime soon on the current course.

[Anonymous]

Why are you all saying gifted kids will figure it out for themselves and don’t need help/resources/harder classes? Gifted doesn’t necessarily mean hard working. A lot of these kids burn out and also need direction.

I personally would like harder classes for all. One of my kids is not gifted and she’s definitely been left behind. Her classes are insanely easy, there’s no good classroom debate on any subjects, and the teachers spends all of her time focuses on kids who can still barely read. My daughter is so curious about everything and loves math but there’s nothing for her.

[Anonymous]

We called and dumbing down 30 years ago and we aren't going to stop doing it now.

[Anonymous]

Truly AI learning will take over. Every child will be taught according to their pace, style and ability. There's no other way to handle it