Arlington Co. Schools receive sobering report on student literacy
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Anonymous
From a procurement/rollout it might be more expensive and complicated to get two new countywide programs. Looks like the CKLA includes phonics & LA? |
Anonymous
ATS poster here. I’m pretty sure more schools use it. I remember seeing a chart shared on AEM on the foundational skills curriculum that APS schools use. There were definitely more than two schools that use Wilson’s Fundations. Fundations is great. But my understanding is that it would not be necessary if APS adopts CKLA because CKLA has its own phonics program. I wonder what schools such as ATS and Campbell would do. Would they just get rid of Fundations? I looked into it more and apparently to connect Wilson’s Fundations to Wit & Wisdom and to teach them as one program schools would have to purchase Geodes. Geodes are the Wit & Wisdom phonics readers that align with Fundations. However Geodes is super expensive and many schools do not have the budget for them. Perhaps this factored into APS’ decision to pick CKLA over Wit & Wisdom. Both are great though. This is a massive improvement. I only wish I had a math background so that I could figure out if the math curriculum they are adopting is good as well. |
Anonymous
Yeah see my post above. Apparently Geodes which is the bridge between the two programs is really expensive. Plus like you said perhaps for roll out purposes two programs is more difficult than one. Now if all schools were using Wilson’s Fundations it would be a different issue. But that isn’t the case. |
Anonymous
Amplify is apparently owned by Steve Job’s widow so I guess you pick your billionaire when you get a curriculum. Isn’t it a lovely system? https://fortune.com/2015/11/23/jobs-widow-new-corp-amplify/ |
Anonymous
Keep speaking the truth! |
Anonymous
Nah, better to blame the schools and funding. Why expect parents to, you know, parent? |
Anonymous
How is this relevant to the actual quality of the curriculum being adopted? |
Anonymous
The current 2nd and 3rd grade classes are behavioral train wrecks at our school. Not all the kids obviously, but enough of the kids that it's a serious problem. Oddly enough the 1st graders are fine. Is that just the particular kids at this school or are others seeing the same pattern? |
Anonymous
ATS poster here. Not in my DD’s class. But she is in kindergarten and I’m thinking post pandemic, the behavioral issues are probably more with the older kids? First grade and above? That’s what I’m hearing from neighbors at least. |
Anonymous
You are equating Steve Job’s widow with Rupert Murdoch? WTAF? |
Anonymous
I have a second grade boy. I have been hearing A LOT of troubling reports about kids acting out--even from the parents themselves. I can't imagine that the disaster that was virtual learning did not significantly contribute to this--kids feeling frustrated and struggling when they can't keep up or follow along--learning loss, issues with attentiveness after being stuck in front of screens for 1. 5 years by their own school system. It was so wildly developmentally inappropriate. For my child, I know they are behind, and we hired a tutor for all of his first grade year, but, that alone cannot fix it. Honestly, it is so baffling. I cannot even begin to understand why APS isn't taking immediate and aggressive steps to remedy the learning loss. Across the board. At all schools, for kids who are identified by their teachers. The only thing that can be said about their, "hey, look over here!", approach to trying to redirect and highlight positives, is that it is STUPID. |
Anonymous
My 3rd grader had a good year. I didn't hear of many behavior issues, though I know the 3rd grade teachers were shocked at how far behind in writing the entire grade was at the beginning of the year. They redid the schedule to find more time for writing, spelling, grammar and remediation. Science and social studies got cut back a bunch. I got the sense that the fall of kindergarten was tough this year with many kids having never been in preschool or even in a group setting. It seemed to be better by February or so. |
Anonymous
Many APS schools use Wilson’s Fundations which is an excellent program. Next year APS will be adopting program called Amplify CKLA (see other thread). It is aligned with the science of reading and utilizes structured literacy. |
Anonymous
Which ones? I’ve only heard of three. Unconfirmed. |
Anonymous
You need to hire tutors. We spent $500/wk during the pandemic for our kid to basically have a private tutor/teacher come in 10hrs a week to teach my child where the school was failing miserably, we then moved to private after all that hard work so that my kid could be in an environment with children who had not been thrown to the wolves by the people tasked with educating them. |