Disturbing news on math

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Actually 2.0 will still allow Algebra in 8th grade for stronger students so that will not exactly fix things for MCPS.

this is getting phased out and the Curric 2.0 students get up to middle school. by the time a full-fledged students gets through K-8 in Core Curric 2.0 they will have covered a fraction of what they would have w/o the *new* curriculum.
good luck competing or handling a real courseload. maybe Starr can dumb down the university system and job interview processes too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This was not supposed to get out. This is pathetic for a "super" school system. I am appalled. MoCo loves welcoming and paying for illegals. I am sure this has a lot to do with it. It is a shame our taxes aren't going to legal kid's education. Instead it is going to ESOL and FARMS for illegals who don't pay a dime in taxes for their "free" education and meals. Say I am a bigot (aren't all those against amnesty a bigot, right?) but someone has got to understand that it is stretching education dollars too thin for this county. Illegal immigration up in MoCo by 550% in 8 years and the failing grades increasing more and more. The fact that kids can fail the test but still pass the class is a joke. Just keep moving along all these kids just to get them the heck out of the school. There are kids in my child's 1st grade class that absolutely can not speak English. How did they make it out of Kindergarten??

agree.
I thought it was kind of interesting that all the signs at our ES were also in Spanish. but then when I saw them put up signs at the MS in spanish too, I knew something is not working. All the new ESL aides, translators, breakfast/lunch/weekend food packs and slowing back curricula are not moving the needle for these needy immigrants.
Perhaps the math test should be proctored in Spanish?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Actually 2.0 will still allow Algebra in 8th grade for stronger students so that will not exactly fix things for MCPS.

this is getting phased out and the Curric 2.0 students get up to middle school. by the time a full-fledged students gets through K-8 in Core Curric 2.0 they will have covered a fraction of what they would have w/o the *new* curriculum.
good luck competing or handling a real courseload. maybe Starr can dumb down the university system and job interview processes too.

No. Algebra I in 8th grade is on grade level under 2.0. (Which, please note, is a year ahead of math in the school systems the children of my friends elsewhere go to. In their school systems, Algebra I in 8th grade is above-grade-level.)

(Anyway, even if it were true, what fraction would they have covered? 12/11? 22/7? 187/5? Those are fractions too.)

What's more -- these children did not do 2.0. So the failure rates have nothing to do with 2.0. So why are we talking about 2.0?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
agree.
I thought it was kind of interesting that all the signs at our ES were also in Spanish. but then when I saw them put up signs at the MS in spanish too, I knew something is not working. All the new ESL aides, translators, breakfast/lunch/weekend food packs and slowing back curricula are not moving the needle for these needy immigrants.
Perhaps the math test should be proctored in Spanish?

Shorter PP: Those stupid, lazy, ungrateful, poor, Spanish-speaking immigrants, ruining it for the normal people.

Even shorter PP: I say racist things.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
agree.
I thought it was kind of interesting that all the signs at our ES were also in Spanish. but then when I saw them put up signs at the MS in spanish too, I knew something is not working. All the new ESL aides, translators, breakfast/lunch/weekend food packs and slowing back curricula are not moving the needle for these needy immigrants.
Perhaps the math test should be proctored in Spanish?

Shorter PP: Those stupid, lazy, ungrateful, poor, Spanish-speaking immigrants, ruining it for the normal people.

Even shorter PP: I say racist things.

Even shorter PP.2: I am also a bigot.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
agree.
I thought it was kind of interesting that all the signs at our ES were also in Spanish. but then when I saw them put up signs at the MS in spanish too, I knew something is not working. All the new ESL aides, translators, breakfast/lunch/weekend food packs and slowing back curricula are not moving the needle for these needy immigrants.
Perhaps the math test should be proctored in Spanish?

Shorter PP: Those stupid, lazy, ungrateful, poor, Spanish-speaking immigrants, ruining it for the normal people.

Even shorter PP: I say racist things.

So you believe in open borders? Are you okay that now that Obama is considering amnesty that border jumping has increased by 350% in less than 2 months. That $966 million dollars of MD taxes go towards education for illegal immigrants in 2009 alone. $250 million for ESOL.
If you are so for illegals that break the law and decrease the taxes that go towards legal kids - all while calling anyone against backing the current American laws, racist or bigot. You are a perfect employee for the currupt Casa De Maryland.

[Anonymous]

NP, I'm Hispanic and being against illegal immigration and coddling/pandering to Spanish speakers does not make one a bigot or racist. I'm also annoyed by these trends.

However, I don't think these test scored have anything to do with one group or another. Results are indicative of a failure across the board.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
agree.
I thought it was kind of interesting that all the signs at our ES were also in Spanish. but then when I saw them put up signs at the MS in spanish too, I knew something is not working. All the new ESL aides, translators, breakfast/lunch/weekend food packs and slowing back curricula are not moving the needle for these needy immigrants.
Perhaps the math test should be proctored in Spanish?

Shorter PP: Those stupid, lazy, ungrateful, poor, Spanish-speaking immigrants, ruining it for the normal people.

Even shorter PP: I say racist things.

So you believe in open borders? Are you okay that now that Obama is considering amnesty that border jumping has increased by 350% in less than 2 months. That $966 million dollars of MD taxes go towards education for illegal immigrants in 2009 alone. $250 million for ESOL.
If you are so for illegals that break the law and decrease the taxes that go towards legal kids - all while calling anyone against backing the current American laws, racist or bigot. You are a perfect employee for the currupt Casa De Maryland.

Where did you get this statistic?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:


So you believe in open borders? Are you okay that now that Obama is considering amnesty that border jumping has increased by 350% in less than 2 months. That $966 million dollars of MD taxes go towards education for illegal immigrants in 2009 alone. $250 million for ESOL.
If you are so for illegals that break the law and decrease the taxes that go towards legal kids - all while calling anyone against backing the current American laws, racist or bigot. You are a perfect employee for the currupt Casa De Maryland.

Where did you get this statistic?

From the RNC/Glenn Beck/Rush Limbaugh database of course. Silly question!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:NP, I'm Hispanic and being against illegal immigration and coddling/pandering to Spanish speakers does not make one a bigot or racist. I'm also annoyed by these trends.

However, I don't think these test scored have anything to do with one group or another. Results are indicative of a failure across the board.

+1

[Anonymous]

This has nothing to do with ESOL students or over acceleration. Please do not play into the MCPS excuse game. MCPS collects enough money to teach math. Parents, students, and taxpayers should hold them accountable not offer up random excuses for why its hard to teach math.

The main problem in MCPS is that it lacks any attention toward actual education and teaching. Its all a game of playing with the data, hiding the data, promoting itself and avoiding accountability.

Math is not rocket science. If they would start actually teaching the subject, requiring students to perform on substantive tests throughout the school year rather than trying to guess what's on the standardized test/drill them on this, and support acceleration combined with proving mastery... then they would end up do well on the standardized tests.

Slowing down and increasing repetition (which is what 2.0 does) will not improve scores. It will make them worse. Every kid should receive challenging math work at every grade. They shouldn't get to move on until they master that level. This plan to teach fewer concepts is not about depth at all. Its about repetition and hoping that if kid doesn't get the first time around they will pick it up in subsequent years in time for the standardized tests. Stupid approaches will yield bad outcomes. Again, not rocket science.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Math is not rocket science.

Hee hee. Hee hee hee.

That's funny.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Math is not rocket science.

Hee hee. Hee hee hee.

That's funny.

Not Pp. But what is so funny? I think she was spot on.

School math is certainly not rocket science.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Math is not rocket science. If they would start actually teaching the subject, requiring students to perform on substantive tests throughout the school year rather than trying to guess what's on the standardized test/drill them on this, and support acceleration combined with proving mastery... then they would end up do well on the standardized tests.

I thought it was funny because, as I understand it, while math may not be rocket science, rocket science pretty much is math.

But, in any case, look at the quote from the post. What exactly does this mean? Are the math teachers not currently teaching math? Aren't the schools already requiring the students to take tests, other than standardized tests? (Note that I don't know what they do in high school, but in elementary school they sure are.) What specific actions would constitute "supporting acceleration combined with proving mastery"? And how does the PP know that the students would then do well on the standardized tests? Maybe the standardized tests are lousy.

My point is that it's easy for a person to pronounce grandly that all the schools need to do is [a bunch of phrases that sound good]. It's a whole lot harder to turn [a bunch of phrases that sound good] into real actual stuff that real actual people can do every day in the classroom, system-wide.

[Anonymous]

My point is that it's easy for a person to pronounce grandly that all the schools need to do is [a bunch of phrases that sound good]. It's a whole lot harder to turn [a bunch of phrases that sound good] into real actual stuff that real actual people can do every day in the classroom, system-wide.

This description fits MCPS and 2.0 to a tee!

Clearly, MCPS isn't doing a good job in the math department.