My average/somewhat slacker 6th grader got straight As...WTH???

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You don't believe that my average/slacker kid with borderline map scores throughout elementary school pulled in straight As in his first quarter of ms? I promise it's true...and sad. Now he thinks school is easy. I suspect HS will be a big wake up call.

Mcps has lowered the bar significantly. Ask any teacher.

You really need to talk to the school. If it is a mistake, your child needs to know where he really stands. If it isn't, they owe you an explanation.

[Anonymous]

I'm the PP who asked about Edline on page 1. Fwiw, my 6th grader is having a very different experience - he got a slew of really lousy grades even in classes where he normally has done well. For him it has been a huge shock to go from the land of Ps and Is to the number/letter grades of middle school. He's seen the direct consequence of forgetting to put name on a paper or sloppy writing. Stuff that would have easily been a P in 5th grade has been graded at a C or worse. Edline was crucial for us in helping him to understand the consequences of all these little sloppy mistakes. He managed to pull his final term grades up to Bs, but only with a decent amount of effort.

I do see a lot of effort in our MCPS school to give kids second chances and other opportunities to raise their grades, so I get the grade inflation sense. (Which is hardly unique to MCPS - I teach at a university and you wouldn't believe the grade inflation in that environment.) But at least in terms of initial work and expectations for 6th grade MCPS, my kid is getting a fairly rigorous grading experience.

[Anonymous]

I believe this is a troll thread and a bunch of other little trolls responding.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You don't believe that my average/slacker kid with borderline map scores throughout elementary school pulled in straight As in his first quarter of ms? I promise it's true...and sad. Now he thinks school is easy. I suspect HS will be a big wake up call.

Mcps has lowered the bar significantly. Ask any teacher.

No, I don't believe that your average/slicker kids with lots of non-A grades on tests/assignments in middle school (including at least one D on a big one) got straight As. The math doesn't work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm the PP who asked about Edline on page 1. Fwiw, my 6th grader is having a very different experience - he got a slew of really lousy grades even in classes where he normally has done well. For him it has been a huge shock to go from the land of Ps and Is to the number/letter grades of middle school. He's seen the direct consequence of forgetting to put name on a paper or sloppy writing. Stuff that would have easily been a P in 5th grade has been graded at a C or worse. Edline was crucial for us in helping him to understand the consequences of all these little sloppy mistakes. He managed to pull his final term grades up to Bs, but only with a decent amount of effort.

I do see a lot of effort in our MCPS school to give kids second chances and other opportunities to raise their grades, so I get the grade inflation sense. (Which is hardly unique to MCPS - I teach at a university and you wouldn't believe the grade inflation in that environment.) But at least in terms of initial work and expectations for 6th grade MCPS, my kid is getting a fairly rigorous grading experience.

That is the fault of MCPS who took away letter grades form 3-5th grade. Terrible

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm the PP who asked about Edline on page 1. Fwiw, my 6th grader is having a very different experience - he got a slew of really lousy grades even in classes where he normally has done well. For him it has been a huge shock to go from the land of Ps and Is to the number/letter grades of middle school. He's seen the direct consequence of forgetting to put name on a paper or sloppy writing. Stuff that would have easily been a P in 5th grade has been graded at a C or worse. Edline was crucial for us in helping him to understand the consequences of all these little sloppy mistakes. He managed to pull his final term grades up to Bs, but only with a decent amount of effort.

I do see a lot of effort in our MCPS school to give kids second chances and other opportunities to raise their grades, so I get the grade inflation sense. (Which is hardly unique to MCPS - I teach at a university and you wouldn't believe the grade inflation in that environment.) But at least in terms of initial work and expectations for 6th grade MCPS, my kid is getting a fairly rigorous grading experience.

That is the fault of MCPS who took away letter grades form 3-5th grade. Terrible

And yet most students are having no problems adjusting to the switch to A/B/C -- judging from the number of posters who report that everybody is getting straight As for no effort. But that's probably the fault of MCPS too. It all is, after all.

[Anonymous]

This whole story is ridiculous. I'm really curious what MS is being referred to in the post. This is certainly not happening at my child's MS. He's working for his grades and paying the consequences if he doesn't. Yes, some of his friends may be getting straight A's, but it's not because they are inflating the grades. I know plenty of other kids who aren't getting close to straight A's.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This whole story is ridiculous. I'm really curious what MS is being referred to in the post. This is certainly not happening at my child's MS. He's working for his grades and paying the consequences if he doesn't. Yes, some of his friends may be getting straight A's, but it's not because they are inflating the grades. I know plenty of other kids who aren't getting close to straight A's.

I'm not the OP, but a PP. I won't name my middle school. I think that kids get an A if they meet the criteria of the rubric. If you're good at following directions and smart, it's pretty easy to get an A at our middle school. They also help you study for bigger tests, by giving your worksheets that you complete and then study. So, I don't think there is a lot of independent learning, analysis, etc. being required at our middle school.

I have to say 6th grade was a little harder as there was the adjustment period of going from elementary school to middle school, but 7th and 8th have been relatively easy.

[Anonymous]

Also not OP but another PP, I suspect it is multiple MS but clearly not all from the reactions. I have some guesses based on what I'm noticing in the PARCC Algebra I results. There are a number of schools which are testing a lot of students but have a poor 4/5 pass rate. This would indicate they are actively trying to promote kids into more difficult classes. It's plausible that this is also going on in English/History/Science and the way they do it in those subjects is only offer the advanced curriculum. So here's a list of middles where over 20% of the total population is sitting for the Algebra I test but less than 10% of the school population has passed:

Col. E. Brooke Lee Middle
Argyle Middle
White Oak Middle
Silver Spring International Middle
Neelsville Middle

My DCs MS is in this list. I don't want to single them out as I don't think this could be a policy that began there, I can't believe a principal has that authority. I know the staff is dedicated and the parents are involved. But I've had kids there for the past 4 years and I know for a fact that all students are placed in Science and History classes that show as GT on their report cards. This is also true for English classes with the possible exception of students who are in Reading or double period English and with the caveat that there is some ability grouping in English and higher expectations for the top group. For English and Math there does seem to be a lot of extra support and creative ideas but for science/history the expectation feel very.

Clearly many posters don't believe this but I see that I'm not the only one who's noticed something. I actually didn't even realize that these were automatic GT grades, another parent pointed that out and looking at old report cards I see it's true. I'm just looking to make sure my child is challenged enough that HS isn't a shock to the system.

[Anonymous]

Op here. My kid doesn't go to one of those schools, pp. He goes to a fairly desirable ms with much less racial or socioeconomic diversity. It's a yuppie school. And while some rave about how great it is, I think it's mediocre at best.

And to answer another question: no, the grades aren't a mistake. I checked. And it's not like it's just one class--it's all the classes. There's a very low bar to get an A.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sad that they have dumbed down the education in MCPS. It used to be a great school district.

I'm a teacher in MCPS. The dumbing down has occurred in response to rampant parent pressure to crank out those As at all costs. My older child was able to get an excellent education in this system, but we felt we had to put the younger one in private school.

Thanks for the insight. Again, it's sad that parents think an A is all that matters. These kids are going to struggle when they get to college.

They'll struggle when they get to HS, too, my experience is expectations pick up significantly.
I witnessed exactly this when a teacher went out on long term leave. The sub started actually grading the kids on the material they should have been learning and a cabal of parents and students had her replaced in no time and the admin arbitrarily added a 10% bump to everyone's grade.

Ugh. That's horrible PP.

My DS never struggled in school but was never really a completely straight A student either (usually all As and a B...). In 6th grade, he pulled down straight As with barely a nod to homework. I didn't understand it. Now, in 7th, he's getting his butt kicked. It's as though they pushed the kids through 6th to make the transition to MS easier and, now, the ones in higher level classes (advanced or honors) are really getting nailed. I hear parents yelling about grades constantly now where last year they were bragging about their childrens' intelligence.

Frankly, I'm glad DS is facing some rigor prior to high school. We were seriously considering going to private but if the rigor keeps up, we'll reassess.

Interesting that you mention honors and advanced courses. In our MCPS middle school, there are no honors classes and all classes are taught at the "advanced" level. I wonder if the "advanced" part of the class is being dumbed down since now all kids have to take the advanced class.

I'm the teacher who posted above. The "advanced" part of the course refers to a set of specific skills not normally taught in the course. It isn't intended for only gifted and talented students. With scaffolding all students should be able to perform those skills.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sad that they have dumbed down the education in MCPS. It used to be a great school district.

I'm a teacher in MCPS. The dumbing down has occurred in response to rampant parent pressure to crank out those As at all costs. My older child was able to get an excellent education in this system, but we felt we had to put the younger one in private school.

Thanks for the insight. Again, it's sad that parents think an A is all that matters. These kids are going to struggle when they get to college.

They'll struggle when they get to HS, too, my experience is expectations pick up significantly.
I witnessed exactly this when a teacher went out on long term leave. The sub started actually grading the kids on the material they should have been learning and a cabal of parents and students had her replaced in no time and the admin arbitrarily added a 10% bump to everyone's grade.

Ugh. That's horrible PP.

My DS never struggled in school but was never really a completely straight A student either (usually all As and a B...). In 6th grade, he pulled down straight As with barely a nod to homework. I didn't understand it. Now, in 7th, he's getting his butt kicked. It's as though they pushed the kids through 6th to make the transition to MS easier and, now, the ones in higher level classes (advanced or honors) are really getting nailed. I hear parents yelling about grades constantly now where last year they were bragging about their childrens' intelligence.

Frankly, I'm glad DS is facing some rigor prior to high school. We were seriously considering going to private but if the rigor keeps up, we'll reassess.

Interesting that you mention honors and advanced courses. In our MCPS middle school, there are no honors classes and all classes are taught at the "advanced" level. I wonder if the "advanced" part of the class is being dumbed down since now all kids have to take the advanced class.

I'm the teacher who posted above. The "advanced" part of the course refers to a set of specific skills not normally taught in the course. It isn't intended for only gifted and talented students. With scaffolding all students should be able to perform those skills.

Thanks for clarifying. I'm really not seeing it. Science and History are my biggest concern, they aren't requiring much. Every time I check Edline it's very high grades. And why are there other MS where both levels are taught?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Op here. My kid doesn't go to one of those schools, pp. He goes to a fairly desirable ms with much less racial or socioeconomic diversity. It's a yuppie school. And while some rave about how great it is, I think it's mediocre at best.

And to answer another question: no, the grades aren't a mistake. I checked. And it's not like it's just one class--it's all the classes. There's a very low bar to get an A.

Thanks, someone else did say this is how it is in the fancy pants part of the county but should that make me feel better. In my experience MS expectations are generally lower than ES. Yes, there's the juggling classes which some kids can't handle but the actual work, is too easy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Op here. My kid doesn't go to one of those schools, pp. He goes to a fairly desirable ms with much less racial or socioeconomic diversity. It's a yuppie school. And while some rave about how great it is, I think it's mediocre at best.

And to answer another question: no, the grades aren't a mistake. I checked. And it's not like it's just one class--it's all the classes. There's a very low bar to get an A.

I still want to know how it's possible to get a D on a chapter test and an A in the class. So would my kid, who all As all four quarters except for one B, which was the result of one in-class assignment where my kid didn't realize that there were also questions on the back of the paper, with every other assignment in that class in that quarter receiving an A.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Op here. My kid doesn't go to one of those schools, pp. He goes to a fairly desirable ms with much less racial or socioeconomic diversity. It's a yuppie school. And while some rave about how great it is, I think it's mediocre at best.

And to answer another question: no, the grades aren't a mistake. I checked. And it's not like it's just one class--it's all the classes. There's a very low bar to get an A.

Thanks, someone else did say this is how it is in the fancy pants part of the county but should that make me feel better. In my experience MS expectations are generally lower than ES. Yes, there's the juggling classes which some kids can't handle but the actual work, is too easy.

To clarify: not a Fancypants school/not in a W pyramid.