How quickly can MCPS fix the curriculum nightmare?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am a parent who has posted on this forum for years. Regardless of what MCPS was doing - pre 2.0 and during 2.0 - we have always bought textbooks for Math, Science and Foreign language for all the grades for all my kids, I am surprised that people did not do that, Mcgraw Hill, Houghton Mifflin, pearson, prentice hall, glencoe. There are textbooks galore. Pick one, any one textbook and teach that to your kid.

My parents didn't do that for my sister and me in the 90s, and they definitely valued education. I don't remember having any academic supplementation at all. We definitely did extracurriculars (music, mostly, for us, just based on our interests), but no textbook work outside of school.

Have things changed so drastically that this is now a given?

Yes. Times have changed. I did not grow up with supplementation. Most people took SAT without prep. Studying for a few weeks for SAT was considered a whole lot of prep. Kids who basically did their assigned work (homework) were successful. US was a superpower. Most factory jobs were here. No jobs were being outsourced to other countries. No obs were going offshore or near-shore (Canada). US was attracting talent from around the world leading to a brain-drain crisis in other countries.

Did you graduate from high school in the 1970s?

More like the 1940's -- Anyone suggesting that factory jobs are the future is living in a time warp. Geez people.

[Anonymous]

Fix the curriculum for your own child. Ed Hirsch's books, Beestar.Org, aleks.com, khan academy, Great Courses. All provide guidelines, coursework, etc. Look at the curriculum from the best school districts in the US.

[Anonymous]

pp, we have been doing all of that for years, and we are tired. It would be nice if the school would teach everything they need in the building, so that when we get ho,e from a tiring day, we can relax a little more.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:pp, we have been doing all of that for years, and we are tired. It would be nice if the school would teach everything they need in the building, so that when we get ho,e from a tiring day, we can relax a little more.

Agreed.

However, if they don't do a good job then you are left holding the bag? What is the recourse? And it is not as if private schools are better, because we have tried that too. Can we start by throwing this BOE away? Can we not dismantle the magnet programs but instead replicate and grow them?

Also, fight for year round school. You can't be getting your sun tan in Ocean City for additional days and also expect that there will be enough time for your kid to get their schooling in the school day. Vote Hogan out. There has to be consequences for MCPS, BOE and people in power.

[Anonymous]

If MCPS really wanted to turn things around they would start with a massive waive of firings.

1. Eric Lang and his curriculum need to be fired. One , they have demonstrated time and time who completely incompetent there are and its next to impossible that they have all somehow improved with time. Two, it send a ridiculous message that you can fail this badly and as long as you ignore complaints, isolate yourself from negative feedback and take no responsibility then you'll do just fine. If MCPS is at all serious about not continuing this decade long march down, it needs to fire these people.

2. Principals- the principals in MCPS have become either Stockholm syndrome enforcers or are simply acting like feudal warlords when there is ineptitude at the top. They ACT helpless in the face of the central office but they know if they kiss ass and shut down any complaints from parents of teachers in their school then they will get rewarded. They lap it up and are one of the worst problems in the entire system. Teachers need a mechanism to have their voices heard without having their principal make their lives difficult. Parents need to have a way to have their voices heard without fearing that the principal will assign their kid to the bad teacher for the next several years.

The principal that sent the poor MS kid back to class after the child reported that the teacher had molested her needs to be fired immediately.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:pp, we have been doing all of that for years, and we are tired. It would be nice if the school would teach everything they need in the building, so that when we get ho,e from a tiring day, we can relax a little more.

Agreed.

However, if they don't do a good job then you are left holding the bag? What is the recourse? And it is not as if private schools are better, because we have tried that too. Can we start by throwing this BOE away? Can we not dismantle the magnet programs but instead replicate and grow them?

Also, fight for year round school. You can't be getting your sun tan in Ocean City for additional days and also expect that there will be enough time for your kid to get their schooling in the school day. Vote Hogan out. There has to be consequences for MCPS, BOE and people in power.

No. You can't vote people out. You can only vote other people in. What do you know about the non-incumbent candidates who are running for a seat on the BoE?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. ANY textbook would be better than 2.0 worksheets. If I could have a textbook next year, I could work with that book with DC instead of running to online resources and buying supplemental books.

Do they actually have official worksheets? We have not gotten anything that actually looks official but we only have a handful returned. Agree, text books would be nice, especially if they are allowed home.

The funny thing is that when common core came along, many textbook writers already had like 95% of the common core content. All they needed to do was add a few things and take out a few things. They did just that very quickly. So my question is, why did MCPS not simply buy those books.
I am saddened that $10M was spent on a consultation that would not have been necessary if the county had just bought a curriculum.
I am also disappointed about MCPS' arrogance.

This. My sister is a teacher in another state (MA) and thought the transition to meet the Common Core standards was pretty smooth because her district just made minor adjustments (rather than rewriting the entire curriculum).

MCPS aim was not just to meet common core standards. It was under pressure to address the achievement gap and figure out why URM students were failing to thrive. They slowed down acceleration so that every one could get depth of knowledge by repeating concepts. This did not get the desired results, Also, parents who were not paying attention started to supplement, further widening the gap. Then MCPS started to do away with final exams, do away with comprehensive student reports. Then after 7 years it was determined that the standards had fallen significantly with long lasting damage to the education of many students.

Throw this Board of Ed away, especially that incompetent woman Patricia O'Neil.

I don't agree with the achievement gap conspiratorial mind set, but regardless the study has shown vulnerable groups do worse in MCPS than in peer districts and actually loose ground as they move through the grades. So if addressing achievement gap was the secret purpose of c2.0, it's a complete failure. Personally I don't believe teaching these groups is hopeless (note the relative success of other districts with similar demographics would support that). And tracking the progress of sub-demographics is informative, if you just pay attention to how the affluent are doing, there's no way to know what is MCPS and what is supplementing.

[Anonymous]

Who should we write to about this?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Who should we write to about this?

To say what?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Fix the curriculum for your own child. Ed Hirsch's books, Beestar.Org, aleks.com, khan academy, Great Courses. All provide guidelines, coursework, etc. Look at the curriculum from the best school districts in the US.

We can't. we have demanding jobs, work travel, and have to manage clients plus junior teams. But when we're home we're in the present.
But I cannot also be home-schooling my kids at night and weekends - we want to do fun stuff. My K'r comes home beat tired from 7 hours in ES, and this was after age 2,3 and 4 in 9am-3pm montessorri program. No way she is going to want to do singapore math or learn cursive. We chat, do art, sometimes soccer, plan the weekend.

We are going to have to look at other schooling options. But first I am having an hour long mtg with the principal to confirm how things are done or not done.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Fix the curriculum for your own child. Ed Hirsch's books, Beestar.Org, aleks.com, khan academy, Great Courses. All provide guidelines, coursework, etc. Look at the curriculum from the best school districts in the US.

We can't. we have demanding jobs, work travel, and have to manage clients plus junior teams. But when we're home we're in the present.
But I cannot also be home-schooling my kids at night and weekends - we want to do fun stuff. My K'r comes home beat tired from 7 hours in ES, and this was after age 2,3 and 4 in 9am-3pm montessorri program. No way she is going to want to do singapore math or learn cursive. We chat, do art, sometimes soccer, plan the weekend.

We are going to have to look at other schooling options. But first I am having an hour long mtg with the principal to confirm how things are done or not done.

Be prepared to hear the company line from the principal. What you really need to do is volunteer in the classrooms. That's the best way to see what's really happening.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If MCPS really wanted to turn things around they would start with a massive waive of firings.

1. Eric Lang and his curriculum need to be fired. One , they have demonstrated time and time who completely incompetent there are and its next to impossible that they have all somehow improved with time. Two, it send a ridiculous message that you can fail this badly and as long as you ignore complaints, isolate yourself from negative feedback and take no responsibility then you'll do just fine. If MCPS is at all serious about not continuing this decade long march down, it needs to fire these people.

2. Principals- the principals in MCPS have become either Stockholm syndrome enforcers or are simply acting like feudal warlords when there is ineptitude at the top. They ACT helpless in the face of the central office but they know if they kiss ass and shut down any complaints from parents of teachers in their school then they will get rewarded. They lap it up and are one of the worst problems in the entire system. Teachers need a mechanism to have their voices heard without having their principal make their lives difficult. Parents need to have a way to have their voices heard without fearing that the principal will assign their kid to the bad teacher for the next several years.

The principal that sent the poor MS kid back to class after the child reported that the teacher had molested her needs to be fired immediately.

Is this true?
If my kids' principal is weak then our ES is particularly doomed?

I will find out at my mtg with our principal. I will be asking a lot of questions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Fix the curriculum for your own child. Ed Hirsch's books, Beestar.Org, aleks.com, khan academy, Great Courses. All provide guidelines, coursework, etc. Look at the curriculum from the best school districts in the US.

We can't. we have demanding jobs, work travel, and have to manage clients plus junior teams. But when we're home we're in the present.
But I cannot also be home-schooling my kids at night and weekends - we want to do fun stuff. My K'r comes home beat tired from 7 hours in ES, and this was after age 2,3 and 4 in 9am-3pm montessorri program. No way she is going to want to do singapore math or learn cursive. We chat, do art, sometimes soccer, plan the weekend.

We are going to have to look at other schooling options. But first I am having an hour long mtg with the principal to confirm how things are done or not done.

Be prepared to hear the company line from the principal. What you really need to do is volunteer in the classrooms. That's the best way to see what's really happening.

Great is she wants to sit there and parrot BS responses to my questions then I'll be very clear why we're pulling our two children from her school.
I'll follow up with a letter CC"ing the whole chain of command. They can do whatever with it, we'll be done.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Fix the curriculum for your own child. Ed Hirsch's books, Beestar.Org, aleks.com, khan academy, Great Courses. All provide guidelines, coursework, etc. Look at the curriculum from the best school districts in the US.

We can't. we have demanding jobs, work travel, and have to manage clients plus junior teams. But when we're home we're in the present.
But I cannot also be home-schooling my kids at night and weekends - we want to do fun stuff. My K'r comes home beat tired from 7 hours in ES, and this was after age 2,3 and 4 in 9am-3pm montessorri program. No way she is going to want to do singapore math or learn cursive. We chat, do art, sometimes soccer, plan the weekend.

We are going to have to look at other schooling options. But first I am having an hour long mtg with the principal to confirm how things are done or not done.

An hour with the principal? To talk about what?

[Anonymous]

The new curriculum sounds promising. I would not spend $40,000 on a tutor but would spend $1,500-3,000/year on enriching activities. Language schools on the weekend, experiential summer camps, music/ballet, etc.

You can get your child what they need without paying $40,000/year in tuition.