MCPS is cuttting compacted math and cohorted literacy enrichment

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have been seeing that state guidance indicated those with a MCAP score of 4 should be accelerated. When will those scores be available for those in 3rd grade? Wouldn't we need them now to be able to advocate for class placement? I think they still have some testing dates coming up though.

It’s pretty hard to get a 4 on mcaps. I just pulled up my kid’s most recent report. He did get a 4, and it said only 3 percent of kids in the state did. The school average was just barely a low 3 and it’s a pretty well performing school. This kid has never gotten a MAP score below 99th percentile in his entire life.

Yup, my kid in grade 4 who is in compacted math has a 3 on MCAP Math last year, and hasn't ever gotten below a 97th pctile on MAP-M in her life, and the test report says only 5% of kids got a 4 on MCAP Math for her grade.

That's one way to reduce the percentage of MCPS kids who receive "accelerated" math-test kids in an exam that no one knows anything about, that probably isn't well tested for clarity compared to national tests like MAP, and curve the qualifying score for accelerated math to a distribution that makes it hard to excel.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have been seeing that state guidance indicated those with a MCAP score of 4 should be accelerated. When will those scores be available for those in 3rd grade? Wouldn't we need them now to be able to advocate for class placement? I think they still have some testing dates coming up though.

It’s pretty hard to get a 4 on mcaps. I just pulled up my kid’s most recent report. He did get a 4, and it said only 3 percent of kids in the state did. The school average was just barely a low 3 and it’s a pretty well performing school. This kid has never gotten a MAP score below 99th percentile in his entire life.

Yup, my kid in grade 4 who is in compacted math has a 3 on MCAP Math last year, and hasn't ever gotten below a 97th pctile on MAP-M in her life, and the test report says only 5% of kids got a 4 on MCAP Math for her grade.

That's one way to reduce the percentage of MCPS kids who receive "accelerated" math-test kids in an exam that no one knows anything about, that probably isn't well tested for clarity compared to national tests like MAP, and curve the qualifying score for accelerated math to a distribution that makes it hard to excel.

Want to know what % of students got a 4 in MCAP math in grade 7? Just 1% last year. I just checked my kid's score report. And the explanation of the scores in the score report is totally useless-it rates my kid at the highest level of "distinguished or proficient" for all 3 score categories (content/reasoning/modeling). So how exactly should my kid improve to get to the category 4 needed for accelerated math?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Good grief.

Sheila Berlinger was nothing like the higher-ups who, ahem, paint a less-than-forthright picture (by omission or otherwise) to bend MCPS implementations to their academic philosophy when they want to keep the latter from public awareness. She also wasn't at the level where the aims of the system were set -- that's 2 pay grades up for most of it -- and, like most, had to do things to comply with management directives/effect those philosophies (along with any federal/state mandates, etc.). Anyone in an admin position pretty much has to do the same, and we have plenty of government workers, here, who can attest to that.

If anything, she was brashly honest, though that brashness might rub some the wrong way, especially when confronted with information they don't like. And if you listened/looked carefully at the few BOE meetings where they let her present, you'd see the discomfort of some of those superiors as she answered a question in a way that might expose the intents more than those superiors desired. Certainly, there were elements of those philosophies with which she agreed, but she'd not hold back on a pretty full explanation of the "why," if asked and given time (even if she would be appropriately reticent about specifics of the "who").

FWIW, I don't think they got the new approach to acceleration right, yet (not that I have great confidence they will), and they should have had more of a discussion/greater detail already set & available. Nearly all the questions asked should have been unnecessary. With Sheila leaving, getting it right (or better, at least hopefully) may take some time, and I doubt we'll get a more favorable outcome with her gone.

You think she's good? Does that mean maybe she opposed the changed and was pushed out as a result?

[Anonymous]

I am now seeing principals repeat the lie that this is mandated by the state. How can we get someone at the state to go on record indicating this is not the case? I am not a government person, but I know there are many here who probably know better how this works. Can we get some sort of written statement from someone at the state that the change to cohorting proposed is NOT mandated by the state, and that the compacted class model is within their guidance?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am now seeing principals repeat the lie that this is mandated by the state. How can we get someone at the state to go on record indicating this is not the case? I am not a government person, but I know there are many here who probably know better how this works. Can we get some sort of written statement from someone at the state that the change to cohorting proposed is NOT mandated by the state, and that the compacted class model is within their guidance?

... just print out the damn guidance right on the MSDE website and give it to your principal, or email it to them?

https://marylandpublicschools.org/about/documents/dcaa/math/math-acceleration-guidance-a.pdf
https://marylandpublicschools.org/about/documents/dcaa/math/acceleration-progressions-guidance-a.pdf

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am now seeing principals repeat the lie that this is mandated by the state. How can we get someone at the state to go on record indicating this is not the case? I am not a government person, but I know there are many here who probably know better how this works. Can we get some sort of written statement from someone at the state that the change to cohorting proposed is NOT mandated by the state, and that the compacted class model is within their guidance?

... just print out the damn guidance right on the MSDE website and give it to your principal, or email it to them?

https://marylandpublicschools.org/about/documents/dcaa/math/math-acceleration-guidance-a.pdf
https://marylandpublicschools.org/about/documents/dcaa/math/acceleration-progressions-guidance-a.pdf

Sadly I dont think that will be effective. I think we need some kind of statement addressing this specific situation directly for them to stop pretending that document supports their view.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have been seeing that state guidance indicated those with a MCAP score of 4 should be accelerated. When will those scores be available for those in 3rd grade? Wouldn't we need them now to be able to advocate for class placement? I think they still have some testing dates coming up though.

It’s pretty hard to get a 4 on mcaps. I just pulled up my kid’s most recent report. He did get a 4, and it said only 3 percent of kids in the state did. The school average was just barely a low 3 and it’s a pretty well performing school. This kid has never gotten a MAP score below 99th percentile in his entire life.

Yup, my kid in grade 4 who is in compacted math has a 3 on MCAP Math last year, and hasn't ever gotten below a 97th pctile on MAP-M in her life, and the test report says only 5% of kids got a 4 on MCAP Math for her grade.

That's one way to reduce the percentage of MCPS kids who receive "accelerated" math-test kids in an exam that no one knows anything about, that probably isn't well tested for clarity compared to national tests like MAP, and curve the qualifying score for accelerated math to a distribution that makes it hard to excel.

Want to know what % of students got a 4 in MCAP math in grade 7? Just 1% last year. I just checked my kid's score report. And the explanation of the scores in the score report is totally useless-it rates my kid at the highest level of "distinguished or proficient" for all 3 score categories (content/reasoning/modeling). So how exactly should my kid improve to get to the category 4 needed for accelerated math?

That's insane--to use a non-transparent state exam that only gives 1% of kids its highest score as the gatekeeper to put them in accelerated math means that they're planning on using MCAP to deny kids any meaningful math acceleration.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Good grief.

Sheila Berlinger was nothing like the higher-ups who, ahem, paint a less-than-forthright picture (by omission or otherwise) to bend MCPS implementations to their academic philosophy when they want to keep the latter from public awareness. She also wasn't at the level where the aims of the system were set -- that's 2 pay grades up for most of it -- and, like most, had to do things to comply with management directives/effect those philosophies (along with any federal/state mandates, etc.). Anyone in an admin position pretty much has to do the same, and we have plenty of government workers, here, who can attest to that.

If anything, she was brashly honest, though that brashness might rub some the wrong way, especially when confronted with information they don't like. And if you listened/looked carefully at the few BOE meetings where they let her present, you'd see the discomfort of some of those superiors as she answered a question in a way that might expose the intents more than those superiors desired. Certainly, there were elements of those philosophies with which she agreed, but she'd not hold back on a pretty full explanation of the "why," if asked and given time (even if she would be appropriately reticent about specifics of the "who").

FWIW, I don't think they got the new approach to acceleration right, yet (not that I have great confidence they will), and they should have had more of a discussion/greater detail already set & available. Nearly all the questions asked should have been unnecessary. With Sheila leaving, getting it right (or better, at least hopefully) may take some time, and I doubt we'll get a more favorable outcome with her gone.

Really? At the Board meeting, she seemed like a big supporter of shoving the accelerated kids into a mixed-level classroom and pretending elementary math teachers will be able to adequately serve both. Do you think she was just pretending to support it?

DP. She is 100% behind the decision to get rid of compacted math. No question. The PP you responded to was spewing a bunch of BS.

[Anonymous]

Per email correspondence several folks have received from central office now, current 4th graders in compacted will continue on in compacted math (rest of 5th, all of 6th) next year if and only if they are proficient on the MCAP…. And then in 6th they may drop to “accelerated 6th” instead of prealgebra if their scores don’t hold…

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Did folks see that Sheila Berlinger, head of elementary math, pushed this through and then immediately left to become a consultant?

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/sheila-berlinger-70034810_from-33-years-in-mcps-to-new-ventures-in-activity-7452325636167127043-zzk5

Wow. Pathetic. All the people making these big decisions truly don’t care about what they’re doing to the school system.

In fact she’s now set to make a ton of money consulting with MCPS to fix the huge problems she created.

This is so true! As head of elementary math for over 10 years, MCPS math scores have gotten worse. Being at the school level, this is directly related to decisions she made as the supervisor. They could've found another way to approach enrichment/acceleration but kept the same model when Eureka came out. Now telling everyone why compacted is a not effective when you perpetuated it along with the inequities that came along with it, is laughable. They doubled down on hiring more math specialists to "support" schools by working "side by side" with them. No positive results. Also, demanding that planning looks a certain way at every school was not effective and yielded no positive outcomes except frustrating teachers. Don't be fooled, everyone owns the decisions and failures in mathematics especially those leading the department.