End of Dept Ed

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Public education has been ruined for years. Let it crash and burn and we’ll start over.

This. I began working in the schools when my own kids were in MS/HS after years SAH. It has been so eye opening. If I knew when they were younger what I know now, we would have done private K-12 and I plan to pay for my grandchildren to do just that.

Without major reform, public schools will become just for poor and special education students. Even middle class families will find a way out.

And I work at a “highly rated” school in a wealthy area with an active parents community. It’s still atrocious and the parents don’t seem to know. I didn’t back then.

Interesting. Would like to know more. From your perspective, can you name three phenomenon or issues (system-wide ones, not 'Principal Smith is lazy' or whatever) that a) led you to believe this and b) that you believe exist across school (not just the ones you mentioned.)

Not challenging what you said, but would like to understand the problems.

PP here. Just off the top of my head:

-Canned curriculums that are forced on teachers and most materials are predetermined and dictated. Kids, even kindergartners are leaning from slides not even made by their teacher. Even if a teacher wanted to expand on this or teach it in a different way, she really doesn’t have time without falling off the pacing guide. Maybe this raises up terrible teachers a little, but it really blunts the effectiveness of good teachers.

-HUGE variances in ability levels and knowledge among students. It’s literally impossible for a teacher, even a great one, to meet the needs of most or all students. You are either way ahead of your low students or boring your high students to tears. We have kindergartners who don’t know any letter names or sounds and kindergartners who can read complete long sentences. This only compounds with each new year. We brings me to…

- kids are not required to master any skills or knowledge to move on to the next grade. You don’t have to know X, Y or Z to move from second to third grade. You just go up no matter what. It has to be SO egregious for a kid to repeat a grade.

- too many special education students for the amount of resources schools have. Too many students are pushed into a general education classroom, which most often sucks a ton of the teacher’s time leaving even less for the rest of the class. Kids are also routinely exposed to poor behavior, and because this is tolerated due to the IEP, I’m convinced that this, plus permissive parenting, have made ALL the kids behave worse because they can get away with it. Parents would be shocked to know how many times their child has to be told to get our their math notebook or put away their Chromebook or step talking to their neighbor or stop roaming around the room during the lesson. Not IEP kids.

Overall, just the standards and expectations for both academics and behavior are so low. Average and above average students are not remotely challenged. They are given way too much time to do classwork (I guess in the hopes that the lower kids will be able to finish?) that even a slightly above average kid with the ability to stay on task is going to finish every assignment very early and have tons of time to kill waiting for the end of that block. Ie: Reading is a 50 minute block. The whole group lesson takes 15 minutes. The assignment given takes a typical student 15 minutes, so they have 20 minutes to kill every single day. Repeat this for each subject. Then you have students who couldn’t or wouldn’t finish the assignment if you gave them all day u less you sat right next to them and spoon fed them every answer and prodded them to keep going.

If you could just take the top half students of every class, and give good teachers more autonomy, the experience would be unrecognizable.

Thank you for the details and info. It's going back a long way, but when I was in elementary school (public), there were very clearly "streams" -- e.g., high(er) achieving students, middle, lower -- sort of the smartest kids, the middle ground, the slower ones and you could be in the "smart" class for English but the "dumb" class for math... am using the terms kids used then. Is it still like that (separate streams?) or is everyone mixed together?

No, that's called 'tracking' and is now considered racist. Everyone must be mixed together.

When I was in middle and high school, those who needed more time had study periods built into their schedules. We never knew those kids. Now everyone has a mandatory study period where everyone is mixed together.

Yes to all of this. Our kids' public middle school put 80% of the kids into honors classes and it was a disaster. The distinction was meaningless as the classes were still basic level and way too easy for even remotely smart kids. There were kids in my children's "honors" English classes that could not read on grade level.

The first time my bright kids ever had a challenging class was when they started taking APs in 10th grade. I'm serious. And they aren't geniuses or anything just typical bright kids who did their work.

Putting 80% of the kids into honors is the “I” part of DEI or DEIA.

It also follows the simplistic (and false) idea that “every child is gifted.”

These ideas, such as DEIA, are nice and all, in a purely theoretical way.

But they are merely ideas and they do not mesh with reality. These ideas are leading our society toward failure, while other countries promote realistic academic competition and reward the brightest students who truly have the capacity to lead and innovate.

[Anonymous]

What happened to FCPS is two fold. One women got options, so they don’t have to just be teachers or nurses vs 30 years ago it was much more expected.

Second, the dmv got REALLY expensive, so the only people staying have a breadwinner spouse and those teachers are more hobby job focused. Two teachers household, or a teacher with a SAHM, not anything anymore. I certainly grew up with friends like that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Public education has been ruined for years. Let it crash and burn and we’ll start over.

This. I began working in the schools when my own kids were in MS/HS after years SAH. It has been so eye opening. If I knew when they were younger what I know now, we would have done private K-12 and I plan to pay for my grandchildren to do just that.

Without major reform, public schools will become just for poor and special education students. Even middle class families will find a way out.

And I work at a “highly rated” school in a wealthy area with an active parents community. It’s still atrocious and the parents don’t seem to know. I didn’t back then.

Interesting. Would like to know more. From your perspective, can you name three phenomenon or issues (system-wide ones, not 'Principal Smith is lazy' or whatever) that a) led you to believe this and b) that you believe exist across school (not just the ones you mentioned.)

Not challenging what you said, but would like to understand the problems.

PP here. Just off the top of my head:

-Canned curriculums that are forced on teachers and most materials are predetermined and dictated. Kids, even kindergartners are leaning from slides not even made by their teacher. Even if a teacher wanted to expand on this or teach it in a different way, she really doesn’t have time without falling off the pacing guide. Maybe this raises up terrible teachers a little, but it really blunts the effectiveness of good teachers.

-HUGE variances in ability levels and knowledge among students. It’s literally impossible for a teacher, even a great one, to meet the needs of most or all students. You are either way ahead of your low students or boring your high students to tears. We have kindergartners who don’t know any letter names or sounds and kindergartners who can read complete long sentences. This only compounds with each new year. We brings me to…

- kids are not required to master any skills or knowledge to move on to the next grade. You don’t have to know X, Y or Z to move from second to third grade. You just go up no matter what. It has to be SO egregious for a kid to repeat a grade.

- too many special education students for the amount of resources schools have. Too many students are pushed into a general education classroom, which most often sucks a ton of the teacher’s time leaving even less for the rest of the class. Kids are also routinely exposed to poor behavior, and because this is tolerated due to the IEP, I’m convinced that this, plus permissive parenting, have made ALL the kids behave worse because they can get away with it. Parents would be shocked to know how many times their child has to be told to get our their math notebook or put away their Chromebook or step talking to their neighbor or stop roaming around the room during the lesson. Not IEP kids.

Overall, just the standards and expectations for both academics and behavior are so low. Average and above average students are not remotely challenged. They are given way too much time to do classwork (I guess in the hopes that the lower kids will be able to finish?) that even a slightly above average kid with the ability to stay on task is going to finish every assignment very early and have tons of time to kill waiting for the end of that block. Ie: Reading is a 50 minute block. The whole group lesson takes 15 minutes. The assignment given takes a typical student 15 minutes, so they have 20 minutes to kill every single day. Repeat this for each subject. Then you have students who couldn’t or wouldn’t finish the assignment if you gave them all day u less you sat right next to them and spoon fed them every answer and prodded them to keep going.

If you could just take the top half students of every class, and give good teachers more autonomy, the experience would be unrecognizable.

+ a million
I'm a long-term sub and this is spot on. I also attended FCPS as a child/teen and what I witness going on in today's classrooms bear zero resemblance to the excellent education I received during the 80s. It's just so sad to behold.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Speaking as a teacher - just let us teach, not constantly assess.
And parent your children so we don't have to do it. If your child is a behavioral issue, it brings the entire class down.

I am also a teacher and agree completely. When a child overturns their desk or throws a chair across the classroom, I have to follow current school policy which is to lead the rest of the students out of the classroom to a “safe area.” There we wait, until one disruptive student, alone in the classroom, calms down.

Our policy is just one absurd result of the extreme lengths to which the county school system has taken DEIA (there are many other absurdities which sabotage the ability to teach).

If your child has behavioral problems, please deal with them yourself and stop using my classroom as a dumping ground for violent children.

+100

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Public education has been ruined for years. Let it crash and burn and we’ll start over.

This. I began working in the schools when my own kids were in MS/HS after years SAH. It has been so eye opening. If I knew when they were younger what I know now, we would have done private K-12 and I plan to pay for my grandchildren to do just that.

Without major reform, public schools will become just for poor and special education students. Even middle class families will find a way out.

And I work at a “highly rated” school in a wealthy area with an active parents community. It’s still atrocious and the parents don’t seem to know. I didn’t back then.

Interesting. Would like to know more. From your perspective, can you name three phenomenon or issues (system-wide ones, not 'Principal Smith is lazy' or whatever) that a) led you to believe this and b) that you believe exist across school (not just the ones you mentioned.)

Not challenging what you said, but would like to understand the problems.

PP here. Just off the top of my head:

-Canned curriculums that are forced on teachers and most materials are predetermined and dictated. Kids, even kindergartners are leaning from slides not even made by their teacher. Even if a teacher wanted to expand on this or teach it in a different way, she really doesn’t have time without falling off the pacing guide. Maybe this raises up terrible teachers a little, but it really blunts the effectiveness of good teachers.

-HUGE variances in ability levels and knowledge among students. It’s literally impossible for a teacher, even a great one, to meet the needs of most or all students. You are either way ahead of your low students or boring your high students to tears. We have kindergartners who don’t know any letter names or sounds and kindergartners who can read complete long sentences. This only compounds with each new year. We brings me to…

- kids are not required to master any skills or knowledge to move on to the next grade. You don’t have to know X, Y or Z to move from second to third grade. You just go up no matter what. It has to be SO egregious for a kid to repeat a grade.

- too many special education students for the amount of resources schools have. Too many students are pushed into a general education classroom, which most often sucks a ton of the teacher’s time leaving even less for the rest of the class. Kids are also routinely exposed to poor behavior, and because this is tolerated due to the IEP, I’m convinced that this, plus permissive parenting, have made ALL the kids behave worse because they can get away with it. Parents would be shocked to know how many times their child has to be told to get our their math notebook or put away their Chromebook or step talking to their neighbor or stop roaming around the room during the lesson. Not IEP kids.

Overall, just the standards and expectations for both academics and behavior are so low. Average and above average students are not remotely challenged. They are given way too much time to do classwork (I guess in the hopes that the lower kids will be able to finish?) that even a slightly above average kid with the ability to stay on task is going to finish every assignment very early and have tons of time to kill waiting for the end of that block. Ie: Reading is a 50 minute block. The whole group lesson takes 15 minutes. The assignment given takes a typical student 15 minutes, so they have 20 minutes to kill every single day. Repeat this for each subject. Then you have students who couldn’t or wouldn’t finish the assignment if you gave them all day u less you sat right next to them and spoon fed them every answer and prodded them to keep going.

If you could just take the top half students of every class, and give good teachers more autonomy, the experience would be unrecognizable.

Thank you for the details and info. It's going back a long way, but when I was in elementary school (public), there were very clearly "streams" -- e.g., high(er) achieving students, middle, lower -- sort of the smartest kids, the middle ground, the slower ones and you could be in the "smart" class for English but the "dumb" class for math... am using the terms kids used then. Is it still like that (separate streams?) or is everyone mixed together?

No, that's called 'tracking' and is now considered racist. Everyone must be mixed together.

When I was in middle and high school, those who needed more time had study periods built into their schedules. We never knew those kids. Now everyone has a mandatory study period where everyone is mixed together.

Yes to all of this. Our kids' public middle school put 80% of the kids into honors classes and it was a disaster. The distinction was meaningless as the classes were still basic level and way too easy for even remotely smart kids. There were kids in my children's "honors" English classes that could not read on grade level.

The first time my bright kids ever had a challenging class was when they started taking APs in 10th grade. I'm serious. And they aren't geniuses or anything just typical bright kids who did their work.

Yes, we don't develop kids to their potential since that would curating the 'privileged snowflakes' who already have everything.

In addition, we removed homework (or any kind of responsibility), reading full length novels (they're too long anyway, we want the kids reading SOMETHING, anything really, even if well below grade level), meaningful writing and any kind of competition like spelling bee, geography bee and science fairs, in favor of constant do-overs and a 50% floor.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Public education has been ruined for years. Let it crash and burn and we’ll start over.

This. I began working in the schools when my own kids were in MS/HS after years SAH. It has been so eye opening. If I knew when they were younger what I know now, we would have done private K-12 and I plan to pay for my grandchildren to do just that.

Without major reform, public schools will become just for poor and special education students. Even middle class families will find a way out.

And I work at a “highly rated” school in a wealthy area with an active parents community. It’s still atrocious and the parents don’t seem to know. I didn’t back then.

What I’ve noticed as my kids go through FCPS is that your kid needs to be in AAP/honors/AP/IB. Because regular Ed classes are now for remedial students.
And I agree that public schools will only be for the poor. Forget special ed students. They are cooked.

Except other than AAP, they will let just about anyone into those other classes. Qualifed or not. Properly behaved or not.

sure, but all kids in those classes have families or teachers who want them in there (or they want themselves to be in there). It's a filter that is 99 or more % effective. Kids who don't want to work opt for gen ed

DP. This is utter BS. My bright kids who didn't qualify for AAP were stuck in Gen Ed throughout elementary school, along with SPED kids who were "mainstreamed". IT DOESN'T WORK. The bright kids deserve to be in a separate learning environment, just as the AAP kids are. My kids absolutely wanted to work and learn, but were constantly prevented from doing so by the kids who had issues - learning or behavioral. This is a disgusting way to run a school - keeping one group insulated from all of that but throwing everyone else in together.

If we are going to continue having AAP within FCPS, then it needs to be done using flexible groupings so that *everyone* can cycle into and out of the appropriate groups for them, without being locked into one massive group or the other. If I had known this was how FCPS operates, we would absolutely have gone private. Thank goodness high school finally rolled around and my kids could take all the AP classes they wanted - and excel in them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Public education has been ruined for years. Let it crash and burn and we’ll start over.

This. I began working in the schools when my own kids were in MS/HS after years SAH. It has been so eye opening. If I knew when they were younger what I know now, we would have done private K-12 and I plan to pay for my grandchildren to do just that.

Without major reform, public schools will become just for poor and special education students. Even middle class families will find a way out.

And I work at a “highly rated” school in a wealthy area with an active parents community. It’s still atrocious and the parents don’t seem to know. I didn’t back then.

Interesting. Would like to know more. From your perspective, can you name three phenomenon or issues (system-wide ones, not 'Principal Smith is lazy' or whatever) that a) led you to believe this and b) that you believe exist across school (not just the ones you mentioned.)

Not challenging what you said, but would like to understand the problems.

PP here. Just off the top of my head:

-Canned curriculums that are forced on teachers and most materials are predetermined and dictated. Kids, even kindergartners are leaning from slides not even made by their teacher. Even if a teacher wanted to expand on this or teach it in a different way, she really doesn’t have time without falling off the pacing guide. Maybe this raises up terrible teachers a little, but it really blunts the effectiveness of good teachers.

-HUGE variances in ability levels and knowledge among students. It’s literally impossible for a teacher, even a great one, to meet the needs of most or all students. You are either way ahead of your low students or boring your high students to tears. We have kindergartners who don’t know any letter names or sounds and kindergartners who can read complete long sentences. This only compounds with each new year. We brings me to…

- kids are not required to master any skills or knowledge to move on to the next grade. You don’t have to know X, Y or Z to move from second to third grade. You just go up no matter what. It has to be SO egregious for a kid to repeat a grade.

- too many special education students for the amount of resources schools have. Too many students are pushed into a general education classroom, which most often sucks a ton of the teacher’s time leaving even less for the rest of the class. Kids are also routinely exposed to poor behavior, and because this is tolerated due to the IEP, I’m convinced that this, plus permissive parenting, have made ALL the kids behave worse because they can get away with it. Parents would be shocked to know how many times their child has to be told to get our their math notebook or put away their Chromebook or step talking to their neighbor or stop roaming around the room during the lesson. Not IEP kids.

Overall, just the standards and expectations for both academics and behavior are so low. Average and above average students are not remotely challenged. They are given way too much time to do classwork (I guess in the hopes that the lower kids will be able to finish?) that even a slightly above average kid with the ability to stay on task is going to finish every assignment very early and have tons of time to kill waiting for the end of that block. Ie: Reading is a 50 minute block. The whole group lesson takes 15 minutes. The assignment given takes a typical student 15 minutes, so they have 20 minutes to kill every single day. Repeat this for each subject. Then you have students who couldn’t or wouldn’t finish the assignment if you gave them all day u less you sat right next to them and spoon fed them every answer and prodded them to keep going.

If you could just take the top half students of every class, and give good teachers more autonomy, the experience would be unrecognizable.

Thank you for the details and info. It's going back a long way, but when I was in elementary school (public), there were very clearly "streams" -- e.g., high(er) achieving students, middle, lower -- sort of the smartest kids, the middle ground, the slower ones and you could be in the "smart" class for English but the "dumb" class for math... am using the terms kids used then. Is it still like that (separate streams?) or is everyone mixed together?

No, that's called 'tracking' and is now considered racist. Everyone must be mixed together.

When I was in middle and high school, those who needed more time had study periods built into their schedules. We never knew those kids. Now everyone has a mandatory study period where everyone is mixed together.

Yes to all of this. Our kids' public middle school put 80% of the kids into honors classes and it was a disaster. The distinction was meaningless as the classes were still basic level and way too easy for even remotely smart kids. There were kids in my children's "honors" English classes that could not read on grade level.

The first time my bright kids ever had a challenging class was when they started taking APs in 10th grade. I'm serious. And they aren't geniuses or anything just typical bright kids who did their work.

Yes, we don't develop kids to their potential since that would curating the 'privileged snowflakes' who already have everything.

In addition, <b>we removed homework (or any kind of responsibility), reading full length novels (they're too long anyway, we want the kids reading SOMETHING, anything really, even if well below grade level), meaningful writing and any kind of competition like spelling bee, geography bee and science fairs, </b>in favor of constant do-overs and a 50% floor.

I noticed this started happening after a boundary change made our school title 1 almost immediately. The soft bigotry of low expectations ensued.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Public education has been ruined for years. Let it crash and burn and we’ll start over.

This. I began working in the schools when my own kids were in MS/HS after years SAH. It has been so eye opening. If I knew when they were younger what I know now, we would have done private K-12 and I plan to pay for my grandchildren to do just that.

Without major reform, public schools will become just for poor and special education students. Even middle class families will find a way out.

And I work at a “highly rated” school in a wealthy area with an active parents community. It’s still atrocious and the parents don’t seem to know. I didn’t back then.

What I’ve noticed as my kids go through FCPS is that your kid needs to be in AAP/honors/AP/IB. Because regular Ed classes are now for remedial students.
And I agree that public schools will only be for the poor. Forget special ed students. They are cooked.

Except other than AAP, they will let just about anyone into those other classes. Qualifed or not. Properly behaved or not.

sure, but all kids in those classes have families or teachers who want them in there (or they want themselves to be in there). It's a filter that is 99 or more % effective. Kids who don't want to work opt for gen ed

DP. This is utter BS. My bright kids who didn't qualify for AAP were stuck in Gen Ed throughout elementary school, along with SPED kids who were "mainstreamed". IT DOESN'T WORK. The bright kids deserve to be in a separate learning environment, just as the AAP kids are. My kids absolutely wanted to work and learn, but were constantly prevented from doing so by the kids who had issues - learning or behavioral. This is a disgusting way to run a school - keeping one group insulated from all of that but throwing everyone else in together.

If we are going to continue having AAP within FCPS, then it needs to be done using flexible groupings so that *everyone* can cycle into and out of the appropriate groups for them, without being locked into one massive group or the other. If I had known this was how FCPS operates, we would absolutely have gone private. Thank goodness high school finally rolled around and my kids could take all the AP classes they wanted - and excel in them.

That's why I paid to have one of mine retested. AAP was just school the way I remembered school, expectations and all. I just wanted that for my youngest after seeing the difference between our title 1 school and AAP.

[Anonymous]

The Department of Education is the reason why special education is a mess and why there are so many disruptive students in classrooms.

The US Department of Education mandates that states are required to collect and examine data to determine if significant disproportionality based on race and ethnicity is occurring in the state and the
local educational agencies (LEAs) with respect to:
(A) the identification of children as children with disabilities;
(B) the placement in particular educational settings of such children;
(C)and the incidence, duration, and type of disciplinary actions, including suspensions and expulsions.

Overall, there are 14 sub-categories of analysis (7 for identification, 2 for placement, and 5 for discipline) and local districts and states can be identified as significantly disproportionate in any of these categories across any racial/ethnic subgroup.

Overall, there are 98 possible areas to be identified as having significant disproportionality.

So for example in CA one school district (ABC Unified) is getting flagged and is mandated to spend money because too many White students are eligible under Emotional Disturbance and too many Hispanic students are eligible under Specific Learning Disability. In Salinas School District to many white students are eligible under Autism. Fremont Unified is significantly disproportional in: Hispanic Other Health Impairment, African American Specific Learning Disability, Asian Separate Schools, Asian Under 40%, African American Overall.

Once a district is flagged they then have to spend money (15% of their special ed budget) on consultants, trainings, etc. to "fix" the problem. Districts and states are spending hundreds of millions of dollars on this mandate.

So it is easier to not suspend anyone, to allow students to be mainstreamed so one category of students aren't in a different classroom, to not qualify students for special education. This is really harmful to students who need a different setting or who should be suspended.

And if you have a kid who you want to get special education services but the district has been accused of having too many of your child's race in special education then districts are even more reluctant to admit your child should be assessed. So let's say you are an African-American family and you move to an expensive area of San Diego called Carlsbad (it is where Legoland is) because you hear the schools are good and your child has autism. Well the school district is never going to want to assess your child or qualify your child for special education because too many African American students are eligible under Autism.

The same analysis is run for suspensions. So the easiest solution is to no longer suspend any student.

Plenty of educators who are Democrats are hoping the Dept of Education goes away.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Public education has been ruined for years. Let it crash and burn and we’ll start over.

After our personal experience watching the once-great FCPS circle the drain and crumble around our teens, I agree that public education in the U.S. has indeed been ruined.

All the while: the U.S. Department of Education was fully funded. The departments existence only made the problems worse.

I am a democrat who supports education but I am glad to see the department dissolved.

Wrong. FCPS is the problem. I've worked in other states and FCPS is the issue not the department of education.

You’re not wrong but not right either. As others have mentioned, school districts operate independently from dept of education and their issues such as with FCPS are due to poor leadership.

The dept of education is simply unnecessary and wastes millions of dollars adding no value in educating children.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Public education has been ruined for years. Let it crash and burn and we’ll start over.

After our personal experience watching the once-great FCPS circle the drain and crumble around our teens, I agree that public education in the U.S. has indeed been ruined.

All the while: the U.S. Department of Education was fully funded. The departments existence only made the problems worse.

I am a democrat who supports education but I am glad to see the department dissolved.

Wrong. FCPS is the problem. I've worked in other states and FCPS is the issue not the department of education.

You’re not wrong but not right either. As others have mentioned, school districts operate independently from dept of education and their issues such as with FCPS are due to poor leadership.

The dept of education is simply unnecessary and wastes millions of dollars adding no value in educating children.

The Department of ED directs school districts to do dumb things, and then the most political of them comply the most enthusiastically. Maybe killing ED isn't enough to save FCPS, but it could slow the contagion.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Public education has been ruined for years. Let it crash and burn and we’ll start over.

This. I began working in the schools when my own kids were in MS/HS after years SAH. It has been so eye opening. If I knew when they were younger what I know now, we would have done private K-12 and I plan to pay for my grandchildren to do just that.

Without major reform, public schools will become just for poor and special education students. Even middle class families will find a way out.

And I work at a “highly rated” school in a wealthy area with an active parents community. It’s still atrocious and the parents don’t seem to know. I didn’t back then.

What I’ve noticed as my kids go through FCPS is that your kid needs to be in AAP/honors/AP/IB. Because regular Ed classes are now for remedial students.
And I agree that public schools will only be for the poor. Forget special ed students. They are cooked.

Except other than AAP, they will let just about anyone into those other classes. Qualifed or not. Properly behaved or not.

sure, but all kids in those classes have families or teachers who want them in there (or they want themselves to be in there). It's a filter that is 99 or more % effective. Kids who don't want to work opt for gen ed

DP. This is utter BS. My bright kids who didn't qualify for AAP were stuck in Gen Ed throughout elementary school, along with SPED kids who were "mainstreamed". IT DOESN'T WORK. The bright kids deserve to be in a separate learning environment, just as the AAP kids are. My kids absolutely wanted to work and learn, but were constantly prevented from doing so by the kids who had issues - learning or behavioral. This is a disgusting way to run a school - keeping one group insulated from all of that but throwing everyone else in together.

If we are going to continue having AAP within FCPS, then it needs to be done using flexible groupings so that *everyone* can cycle into and out of the appropriate groups for them, without being locked into one massive group or the other. If I had known this was how FCPS operates, we would absolutely have gone private. Thank goodness high school finally rolled around and my kids could take all the AP classes they wanted - and excel in them.

Perhaps your kids are stuck in Gen Ed because of your use of SPED. Sick.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Public education has been ruined for years. Let it crash and burn and we’ll start over.

This. I began working in the schools when my own kids were in MS/HS after years SAH. It has been so eye opening. If I knew when they were younger what I know now, we would have done private K-12 and I plan to pay for my grandchildren to do just that.

Without major reform, public schools will become just for poor and special education students. Even middle class families will find a way out.

And I work at a “highly rated” school in a wealthy area with an active parents community. It’s still atrocious and the parents don’t seem to know. I didn’t back then.

What I’ve noticed as my kids go through FCPS is that your kid needs to be in AAP/honors/AP/IB. Because regular Ed classes are now for remedial students.
And I agree that public schools will only be for the poor. Forget special ed students. They are cooked.

Except other than AAP, they will let just about anyone into those other classes. Qualifed or not. Properly behaved or not.

sure, but all kids in those classes have families or teachers who want them in there (or they want themselves to be in there). It's a filter that is 99 or more % effective. Kids who don't want to work opt for gen ed

DP. This is utter BS. My bright kids who didn't qualify for AAP were stuck in Gen Ed throughout elementary school, along with SPED kids who were "mainstreamed". IT DOESN'T WORK. The bright kids deserve to be in a separate learning environment, just as the AAP kids are. My kids absolutely wanted to work and learn, but were constantly prevented from doing so by the kids who had issues - learning or behavioral. This is a disgusting way to run a school - keeping one group insulated from all of that but throwing everyone else in together.

If we are going to continue having AAP within FCPS, then it needs to be done using flexible groupings so that *everyone* can cycle into and out of the appropriate groups for them, without being locked into one massive group or the other. If I had known this was how FCPS operates, we would absolutely have gone private. Thank goodness high school finally rolled around and my kids could take all the AP classes they wanted - and excel in them.

INCLUSION.

Your kids were victims of FCPS’ fanatical pursuit of DEIA, specifically the “I” for inclusion part of DEIA.

FCPS has repeatedly stated its number one goal is “equity” - meaning they are pursuing “equity of outcome.”

Ideally, FCPS’s elected board wants the SPED kids to have the exact same outcome as the class valedictorian.

And you voted for these democrats.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Public education has been ruined for years. Let it crash and burn and we’ll start over.

This. I began working in the schools when my own kids were in MS/HS after years SAH. It has been so eye opening. If I knew when they were younger what I know now, we would have done private K-12 and I plan to pay for my grandchildren to do just that.

Without major reform, public schools will become just for poor and special education students. Even middle class families will find a way out.

And I work at a “highly rated” school in a wealthy area with an active parents community. It’s still atrocious and the parents don’t seem to know. I didn’t back then.

What I’ve noticed as my kids go through FCPS is that your kid needs to be in AAP/honors/AP/IB. Because regular Ed classes are now for remedial students.
And I agree that public schools will only be for the poor. Forget special ed students. They are cooked.

Except other than AAP, they will let just about anyone into those other classes. Qualifed or not. Properly behaved or not.

sure, but all kids in those classes have families or teachers who want them in there (or they want themselves to be in there). It's a filter that is 99 or more % effective. Kids who don't want to work opt for gen ed

DP. This is utter BS. My bright kids who didn't qualify for AAP were stuck in Gen Ed throughout elementary school, along with SPED kids who were "mainstreamed". IT DOESN'T WORK. The bright kids deserve to be in a separate learning environment, just as the AAP kids are. My kids absolutely wanted to work and learn, but were constantly prevented from doing so by the kids who had issues - learning or behavioral. This is a disgusting way to run a school - keeping one group insulated from all of that but throwing everyone else in together.

If we are going to continue having AAP within FCPS, then it needs to be done using flexible groupings so that *everyone* can cycle into and out of the appropriate groups for them, without being locked into one massive group or the other. If I had known this was how FCPS operates, we would absolutely have gone private. Thank goodness high school finally rolled around and my kids could take all the AP classes they wanted - and excel in them.

INCLUSION.

Your kids were victims of FCPS’ fanatical pursuit of DEIA, specifically the “I” for inclusion part of DEIA.

FCPS has repeatedly stated its number one goal is “equity” - meaning they are pursuing “equity of outcome.”

Ideally, FCPS’s elected board wants the SPED kids to have the exact same outcome as the class valedictorian.

And you voted for these democrats.

+1

Look, I am no fan of trump, but he is right to get rid of the department of education (DOE).

The DOE have been the leading cheerleaders for DEIA in education for decades. They have taken a major role in ruining public education.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Public education didn’t just “go bad.” There has been a systematic attack on it for over 60 years after they were forced to integrate. Would it benefit from reforms? Yes! But destruction has been intentional.

Good luck America

The cause is the GOP undercutting public education reform and pulling public money out of public education and into parochial and "charter" schools.

This is terrifying. How long will it take us to recover. We are already the laughing stock of the world. Our kids can't do math and science and now this. America is not the best in the world and we need to let that sink in.