Does anyone like Curriculum 2.0?

[Anonymous]

I guess it may depend on the ulterior motive, or hidden agenda,of the policy makers?

Who is affected by the policy change?

Who stands to benefit the most from it?

Who stands to benefit the least from it?

The answers to these types of questions begins to get to the hidden, underlying, motivations and motives.

[Anonymous]

Acceleration in elementary school years when children have mastered a concept is entirely different than high school kids burning themselves out taking too many APs. ES kids get bored fast if they need to repeat things that they understood and did years earlier. It is hard enough for them to stay in their seats, not talk, and not run around. You add boredom into this and all it teaches them is that school is not important.

I think pathways and math acceleration is very important from a whole person standpoint. Kids should be learning how to love to learn not just fill out worksheets doing things they already know. They are missing important opportunities to understand that sometimes something is challenging and how you overcome this challenge in positive ways. I think that public schools should be assessed on how many levels a child grows over the course of the academic year compared to their baseline at the beginning of the year.

Ironically, MCPS doesn't seem to have a problem with reading groups. Its seems OK that kids read at different levels. Why can't they recognize that some kids also develop math skills at different levels?

[Anonymous]

MCPS has an ulterior motive. Some posters have already alluded to this. Things smell rotten in the State of Denmark.

[Anonymous]

Acceleration in elementary school years when children have mastered a concept is entirely different than high school kids burning themselves out taking too many APs. ES kids get bored fast if they need to repeat things that they understood and did years earlier. It is hard enough for them to stay in their seats, not talk, and not run around. You add boredom into this and all it teaches them is that school is not important.

I think pathways and math acceleration is very important from a whole person standpoint. Kids should be learning how to love to learn not just fill out worksheets doing things they already know. They are missing important opportunities to understand that sometimes something is challenging and how you overcome this challenge in positive ways. I think that public schools should be assessed on how many levels a child grows over the course of the academic year compared to their baseline at the beginning of the year.

Ironically, MCPS doesn't seem to have a problem with reading groups. Its seems OK that kids read at different levels. Why can't they recognize that some kids also develop math skills at different levels?

[Anonymous]

Your point is well taken. The burnout around the college sweepstakes and AP courses has nothing to do with curriculum 2.0 and allowing able and willing kids to advance in certain subjects. Isn't this why the gap year has become very popular after high school?

Any one doing a gap year in elementary and middle school for burn out? How can the MCPS "low bar" curriculum burn anyone out in elementary or middle school? Most kids in my neighborhood are on the honor rolls and play organized sports for 6 to 10 hours per week with ease. I'm not sure the foundation of the poster's anecdotes of college burn outs and its' relevance to this discussion.

In my day, the only kids who burned out were on the cocktail of LSD and weed. This was completely unrelated to too much academic work ...in high school or college. A little youthful indiscretion.

[Anonymous]

I do agree that education policy makers are not interested in gifted kids, but I don't think they are trying to put down any particular ethnic group. The fact is that schools are now judged on closing the achievement gap and also having as many kids as possible meet some minimum education level. Spending resources to optimize the well prepared kids hurts the achievement gap because it raises the bar needed to close the gap.

[Anonymous]

I also wonder if Curriculum 2.0 isn't more a reflection of what educators are comfortable doing. There are very few if any rigorous, hard math and science requirements for an education degree. Educators who choose the curriculum are comfortable with reading but not very comfortable with math and hard science. You can only find dedicated math and science teachers with a background in these fields in private schools. In public school, you must have an a degree in education so there is no balance between the subjects.

[Anonymous]

But, if you hate it for your kid, it's still here to stay. So, it comes down to this. You can accept it. You can hate it but subject your kids to it and spend years complaining. You can find an alternative to MOCOPS for your kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I do agree that education policy makers are not interested in gifted kids, but I don't think they are trying to put down any particular ethnic group. The fact is that schools are now judged on closing the achievement gap and also having as many kids as possible meet some minimum education level. Spending resources to optimize the well prepared kids hurts the achievement gap because it raises the bar needed to close the gap.

Of course the focus is not on gifted kids..we are living under no child left behind. The focus of which is the bottom.

[Anonymous]

I do agree that education policy makers are not interested in gifted kids, but I don't think they are trying to put down any particular ethnic group. The fact is that schools are now judged on closing the achievement gap and also having as many kids as possible meet some minimum education level. Spending resources to optimize the well prepared kids hurts the achievement gap because it raises the bar needed to close the gap.

No one so far has talked about "gifted" kids. Since I do not know wbat the hell you mean by this term I will revert back to the term high performing kids. You are correct MCPS is not interested in high performing kids because these children are largely not theirs. These kids are largely not the children of MCPS establishment or teachers. This observation gets to the core motive of the policy; a policy with little financial impact short of musical chairs. If MCPS embraced the diversity of this County such policy would never have seen the light of day. If the locals were the victims of this policy it would never have seen the light of day. Issuing an edict to prevent able and high performing children to advance after subject mastery in math has nothing to do with the new common core standards but everything to do with the locals and the establishment trying desperately to keep high performing children of immigrants in their sights. And of course the MCPS educational establishment and locals are going to disagree. They are the only "beneficiaries" of such a policy.

[Anonymous]

But, if you hate it for your kid, it's still here to stay. So, it comes down to this. You can accept it. You can hate it but subject your kids to it and spend years complaining. You can find an alternative to MOCOPS for your kids.

Bimbo alert.

[Anonymous]

Sounds like MCPS is for bimbos. Perhaps this is their goal...a curriculum for the local bimbos.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Naivete is bliss. It's not the recent immigrants and their children who are the MCPS leadership and teachers in our schools. At least in the schools my kids attend the leadership and teachers do not reflect the race and ethnicity of the students being led and taught. There is a tremendous lag. The traditional leadership of MCPS and her schools are run still run by the old generation. They teach an increasing multi-cultural and diverse student body many of whom out perform their own children and thus get the "entitled" spoils: prizes, awards, magnet slots, Ivy slots and other prize college admissions ...

+100000


Your post doesn't make a whole lot of sense, really.

Let's try a different approach. In my children's MCPS school (upper west county) the leadership and teachers do not reflect the race and ethnicity of the students they lead and teach. Most of the students (recent immigrant generation) are outperforming most of the student body. If the MCPS leadership and teachers reflected the backgrounds of these high performers (witness the increasing diversity in Montgomery County) it would be a snowy day in hell before that group would prohibit students with subject mastery from advancing. The advocates of this policy, within MCPS, are the "entitled" or "establishment" group with kids losing out (or missing out on customary entitlements) to these high performers (There is a reason TJ magnet, Blair magnet Takoma Park magnet and just about any magnet school in the US are increasingly populated with children not of the traditional educational establishment). This observation worries the establishment and their children. This regressive policy has absolutely nothing to do with the new common core standards and everything to do with trying to close this glaring emerging gap. It is a desperate attempt to try to hold kids back so they don't get to far ahead.

This is utterly ridiculous. Why would they want to hold back high performers who make the school system as a whole look better.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Naivete is bliss. It's not the recent immigrants and their children who are the MCPS leadership and teachers in our schools. At least in the schools my kids attend the leadership and teachers do not reflect the race and ethnicity of the students being led and taught. There is a tremendous lag. The traditional leadership of MCPS and her schools are run still run by the old generation. They teach an increasing multi-cultural and diverse student body many of whom out perform their own children and thus get the "entitled" spoils: prizes, awards, magnet slots, Ivy slots and other prize college admissions ...

+100000


Your post doesn't make a whole lot of sense, really.

Let's try a different approach. In my children's MCPS school (upper west county) the leadership and teachers do not reflect the race and ethnicity of the students they lead and teach. Most of the students (recent immigrant generation) are outperforming most of the student body. If the MCPS leadership and teachers reflected the backgrounds of these high performers (witness the increasing diversity in Montgomery County) it would be a snowy day in hell before that group would prohibit students with subject mastery from advancing. The advocates of this policy, within MCPS, are the "entitled" or "establishment" group with kids losing out (or missing out on customary entitlements) to these high performers (There is a reason TJ magnet, Blair magnet Takoma Park magnet and just about any magnet school in the US are increasingly populated with children not of the traditional educational establishment). This observation worries the establishment and their children. This regressive policy has absolutely nothing to do with the new common core standards and everything to do with trying to close this glaring emerging gap. It is a desperate attempt to try to hold kids back so they don't get to far ahead.

This is utterly ridiculous. Why would they want to hold back high performers who make the school system as a whole look better.

Because it looks even better to claim they closed the gap between blacks/Hispanics and whites/Asians. It also helps attract more blacks/Hispanics since whites are leaving MC.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Naivete is bliss. It's not the recent immigrants and their children who are the MCPS leadership and teachers in our schools. At least in the schools my kids attend the leadership and teachers do not reflect the race and ethnicity of the students being led and taught. There is a tremendous lag. The traditional leadership of MCPS and her schools are run still run by the old generation. They teach an increasing multi-cultural and diverse student body many of whom out perform their own children and thus get the "entitled" spoils: prizes, awards, magnet slots, Ivy slots and other prize college admissions ...

+100000


Your post doesn't make a whole lot of sense, really.

Let's try a different approach. In my children's MCPS school (upper west county) the leadership and teachers do not reflect the race and ethnicity of the students they lead and teach. Most of the students (recent immigrant generation) are outperforming most of the student body. If the MCPS leadership and teachers reflected the backgrounds of these high performers (witness the increasing diversity in Montgomery County) it would be a snowy day in hell before that group would prohibit students with subject mastery from advancing. The advocates of this policy, within MCPS, are the "entitled" or "establishment" group with kids losing out (or missing out on customary entitlements) to these high performers (There is a reason TJ magnet, Blair magnet Takoma Park magnet and just about any magnet school in the US are increasingly populated with children not of the traditional educational establishment). This observation worries the establishment and their children. This regressive policy has absolutely nothing to do with the new common core standards and everything to do with trying to close this glaring emerging gap. It is a desperate attempt to try to hold kids back so they don't get to far ahead.

Ah - posts from the Asian basher again. I don't think we need to worry - this poster is a party of one.