Why is there no levelling for middle school English/ELA (is there a backstory?), and is that possible to change?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a teacher, when you try to differentiate in the classroom, the children always see and understand which group is the advanced group, and which group is the on level group. Try as a teacher might, the children perceive the difference and are embarrassed.

Are we trying to educate kids or tend to their fragile egos?

Kids don’t learn as well when they feel stupid and ashamed. For some reason!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a teacher, when you try to differentiate in the classroom, the children always see and understand which group is the advanced group, and which group is the on level group. Try as a teacher might, the children perceive the difference and are embarrassed.

Are we trying to educate kids or tend to their fragile egos?

Kids don’t learn as well when they feel stupid and ashamed. For some reason!

Kids don't learn as well when they are in no way challenged. For some reason!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Rita Montoya seemed to be really speaking to this at the latest board meeting-- that while it sounds good in theory for teachers to differentiate, that it's incredibly hard to do well in a class of 30 students.

(It seemed like Niki Hazel was just saying they'd be in the same classes, but divide kids into a below-level small group and an on-or-above small group, and that the teacher would work with the below-level kids and then could maybe have someone else to come in to keep working with below-level kids while the teacher works with the other kids? Which I would guess in most cases means the on-or-above kids get very little teacher attention.)

Good for Montoya. Now let's put the pressure on for others to follow. Politicians are not going to "lead" on this but they will follow public pressure.

I mean, Montoya sounded really skeptical but when Hazel and the other person said "oh we'll give them lots of training and they're adaptable, we'll get mixed classrooms right" she ultimately said "thanks" and moved on.

Does the Board actually have any power to push for changes like this or not really? Because it seems to me like they act like Central Office makes the decisions on this stuff and all the Board can do is ask questions and express general concerns. Are they right about that, or is there any real decision-making authority on this at the Board level?

The board has the power to set policies, which are more general in nature. Central office then writes the regulations, which cover more specifics on how policies are implemented.

[Anonymous]

Notice that Margaret Cage who advocated for the CKLA curriculum referred to Dartmouth yesterday as “Dart Mouth”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As a teacher, when you try to differentiate in the classroom, the children always see and understand which group is the advanced group, and which group is the on level group. Try as a teacher might, the children perceive the difference and are embarrassed.

Thats because they are not idiots. Teachers and Staff job is to refocus the kids on their learning and understanding that everyone can meet the standards that just might do it at different times.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So, all middle schools English classes are taught in advanced level? What are AP and Honor English classes then? Are those for HS only?

All middle school ELA classes are "advanced" on paper, but in reality they are barely at grade level. I mean that literally. I have a current 6th grader. This year they have read two books in "Advanced" English. One had a lexile level of 810L and the other was in the low 900s. That's roughly the 25th percentile and 50th percentile for grade level in 6th grade. On the flip side, before this change in 2020, the norm for Advanced English in 6th grade was books in the 1400s, and that is still the norm at the Humanities Magnet (admission to which is now famously by lottery).

For HS, the current pathway is "Honors English 9" and "Honors English 10" both of which are again barely on grade level, and then AP Literature and AP Language in 11th and 12th. Some schools have begun offering AP Seminar in 10th to deal with the lack of a true Honors option, but that's not universal and it still means that highly able kids go from 6th - 9th grade barely reading at grade level for school.

That’s sadly better than the “honors” English 9 texts, which have some HL texts in the 400s.

I'm sure the excerpts the kids are getting in MS are equally bad, but I was shocked at how low level the books were.

My kid was assigned 'The Pact' in MS. She thought it was terrible and asked me to read it. She was right. But at least they read the entire book. Sometimes it's just random excerpts.

I read plenty of books in HS I thought were terrible. So what.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Rita Montoya seemed to be really speaking to this at the latest board meeting-- that while it sounds good in theory for teachers to differentiate, that it's incredibly hard to do well in a class of 30 students.

(It seemed like Niki Hazel was just saying they'd be in the same classes, but divide kids into a below-level small group and an on-or-above small group, and that the teacher would work with the below-level kids and then could maybe have someone else to come in to keep working with below-level kids while the teacher works with the other kids? Which I would guess in most cases means the on-or-above kids get very little teacher attention.)

Niki Hazel's version of reality sounded more like wishful thinking. MCPS has been saying for years that it can do rigorous, heterogeneous instruction and they haven't. Rita's line of questioning was on point and she was gaslit by Niki and Dr. Cage.

I would always love to see footage of Dr cage and Nikki trying to keep all these 30 children on track reading different books and different activities

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Notice that Margaret Cage who advocated for the CKLA curriculum referred to Dartmouth yesterday as “Dart Mouth”

Dart Mouth is lucky their milktoast school gets referred to at all by anybody.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a teacher, when you try to differentiate in the classroom, the children always see and understand which group is the advanced group, and which group is the on level group. Try as a teacher might, the children perceive the difference and are embarrassed.

Thats because they are not idiots. Teachers and Staff job is to refocus the kids on their learning and understanding that everyone can meet the standards that just might do it at different times.

You believe that everyone can meet the standards? You are part of the problem, not the solution.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Notice that Margaret Cage who advocated for the CKLA curriculum referred to Dartmouth yesterday as “Dart Mouth”

Dart Mouth is lucky their milktoast school gets referred to at all by anybody.

Hi Margaret

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a teacher, when you try to differentiate in the classroom, the children always see and understand which group is the advanced group, and which group is the on level group. Try as a teacher might, the children perceive the difference and are embarrassed.

Thats because they are not idiots. Teachers and Staff job is to refocus the kids on their learning and understanding that everyone can meet the standards that just might do it at different times.

You believe that everyone can meet the standards? You are part of the problem, not the solution.

Yes, short of a severe special need, I do believe all kids can meet the standards. Will they all meet said standards at the same time and on the same pacing, No. You believing the greater majority of kids can’t meet the standards is part of the problem.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a teacher, when you try to differentiate in the classroom, the children always see and understand which group is the advanced group, and which group is the on level group. Try as a teacher might, the children perceive the difference and are embarrassed.

Thats because they are not idiots. Teachers and Staff job is to refocus the kids on their learning and understanding that everyone can meet the standards that just might do it at different times.

You believe that everyone can meet the standards? You are part of the problem, not the solution.

Yes, short of a severe special need, I do believe all kids can meet the standards. Will they all meet said standards at the same time and on the same pacing, No. You believing the greater majority of kids can’t meet the standards is part of the problem.

How do you propose that 5th graders who are unable to add two numbers or read, can pass the standards? There is no extra support for these children.

Do you also feel a doctor is the problem when they can’t save a patient who walks in with stage 4 cancer?

Teachers should work on progressing kids, but they can’t get all kids to the standard.

[Anonymous]

At some point in time, all English classes were identified as 'Advanced' because it was easier to deceive parents into believing their child was actually in an Advanced class. It alleviated all of the parent complaints addressing why their child wasn't 'Advanced'. Just like anything MCPS does - smoke and mirrors.

Years ago the middle school where I teach had on-level and advanced English. I am a special education teacher. There was no strict criteria for placement in advanced classes. Parents would request/demand that their child be moved to the advanced class. Parents could not believe that their child who was barely reading on grade-level was not in the advanced class. Over the years, the advanced classes became 'on-level' and the on-level classes became essentially below grade level. The on-level classes were very difficult to actually teach. We lost one of our best teachers because it was so difficult. The advanced classes was now not advanced, since many were just barely reading on-grade level.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a teacher, when you try to differentiate in the classroom, the children always see and understand which group is the advanced group, and which group is the on level group. Try as a teacher might, the children perceive the difference and are embarrassed.

Thats because they are not idiots. Teachers and Staff job is to refocus the kids on their learning and understanding that everyone can meet the standards that just might do it at different times.

You believe that everyone can meet the standards? You are part of the problem, not the solution.

Yes, short of a severe special need, I do believe all kids can meet the standards. Will they all meet said standards at the same time and on the same pacing, No. You believing the greater majority of kids can’t meet the standards is part of the problem.

How do you propose that 5th graders who are unable to add two numbers or read, can pass the standards? There is no extra support for these children.

Do you also feel a doctor is the problem when they can’t save a patient who walks in with stage 4 cancer?

Teachers should work on progressing kids, but they can’t get all kids to the standard.

Where did I ever say that a 5th grader who can’t do basic addition or read and has no extra supports can pass the 5th grade standards??? I said, most students can meet standards AND that they would not all get there at the same time.

The problem isn’t that students can’t meet standards. The problem is that we incorrectly assume that all students will meet all standards on the same pacing with the same supports(or lack thereof). And that if we just move them on to the next level without having met the standards of the prior level that there won’t be major problems. Oddly, we seem to understand that all kids will not learn to read at the same time and make allowances for this.

So once again. Yes I believe that the greater majority of students can meet standards. If we start with that premise the problem becomes What is necessary to ensure that all kids meet standards?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a teacher, when you try to differentiate in the classroom, the children always see and understand which group is the advanced group, and which group is the on level group. Try as a teacher might, the children perceive the difference and are embarrassed.

Thats because they are not idiots. Teachers and Staff job is to refocus the kids on their learning and understanding that everyone can meet the standards that just might do it at different times.

You believe that everyone can meet the standards? You are part of the problem, not the solution.

Yes, short of a severe special need, I do believe all kids can meet the standards. Will they all meet said standards at the same time and on the same pacing, No. You believing the greater majority of kids can’t meet the standards is part of the problem.

How do you propose that 5th graders who are unable to add two numbers or read, can pass the standards? There is no extra support for these children.

Do you also feel a doctor is the problem when they can’t save a patient who walks in with stage 4 cancer?

Teachers should work on progressing kids, but they can’t get all kids to the standard.

Where did I ever say that a 5th grader who can’t do basic addition or read and has no extra supports can pass the 5th grade standards??? I said, most students can meet standards AND that they would not all get there at the same time.

The problem isn’t that students can’t meet standards. The problem is that we incorrectly assume that all students will meet all standards on the same pacing with the same supports(or lack thereof). And that if we just move them on to the next level without having met the standards of the prior level that there won’t be major problems. Oddly, we seem to understand that all kids will not learn to read at the same time and make allowances for this.

So once again. Yes I believe that the greater majority of students can meet standards. If we start with that premise the problem becomes What is necessary to ensure that all kids meet standards?

We know the answer to that question. It is focusing on fundamentals for those kids who have missed them. What folks in this conversation are trying to say is that MCPS is not doing that. They are offering a slightly-below-grade-level ELA curriculum to all kids in grades K-10, and then being shocked when it serves the needs of neither the below-grade-level kids or the above-grade-level ones.

The answer is clear - meet kids where they are, give them the opportunity to progress. It's just politically unpalatable.