2.0 1st grade curriculum: Carbon Dioxide? Yes! Telling time? No!

[Anonymous]

I find it amusing that there is 5 pages of discussion about the lack of time telling in the first grade curriculum when it is likely OPs child will get it in the next few weeks unless the teacher is not following the guidelines.

I know people are venting on math general too but sometimes having the facts does help.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

+1,000,000. It is so rushed and crazy but I was told if they tracked classes, the poor students and non-english students would all mainly be in one class and that isn't a positive thing for them? Huh? So instead we are politically correct and match class sizes by gender, race, culture and sprinkle ESOL all around. And then you have 10 minutes of reading a day and 10 minutes of math a day - IF your group gets picked. My daughter is in the highest reading group and gets called only 2-3 times a week. So she gets 30 minutes of direct teacher time A WEEK for reading.

Maybe think about why it would be a bad thing to put, in first grade, all of the students who are behind, and all of the students who don't speak English, in one class. And "political correctness" has nothing to do with it, unless you include under "political correctness" the idea that all children should get a decent education, even the ones who are behind and the ones who don't speak English.

Tell us then. That's how classes were grouped when I grew up.
Instead, my child who is at the top of the class in math has to sit around while others count on their fingers. He asked for harder math work, and then we followed up with the teacher and asked ourselves. Response is that some kids are so far behind that she can't make it harder or move quicker for those at the top.
How's that fair?

[Anonymous]

I guess we got lucky with our MCPS ES based on this thread. That is all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If there is no math tracking,,then what are the groups that are meeting each day? random?

Not the OP, but I have a kid in 2nd grade in MCPS.

Our school has NO math tracking. Not sure if this is school specific, or just MCPS policy because DD is our first kid going through.
No math groups that meet daily. My DD is a pretty good reporter, so I'm pretty confident that she's not just making it up. All kids get the same worksheets.

What ESs in MoCo have math tracking for 1st and 2nd graders? We have two younger kids, and are currently renting, so are open to moving into a different cluster!

We are in a Whitman cluster and we have math, spelling and reading groups all at different levels. I know it started in 2nd grade but I can't remember what they did in 1st.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

+1,000,000. It is so rushed and crazy but I was told if they tracked classes, the poor students and non-english students would all mainly be in one class and that isn't a positive thing for them? Huh? So instead we are politically correct and match class sizes by gender, race, culture and sprinkle ESOL all around. And then you have 10 minutes of reading a day and 10 minutes of math a day - IF your group gets picked. My daughter is in the highest reading group and gets called only 2-3 times a week. So she gets 30 minutes of direct teacher time A WEEK for reading.

Maybe think about why it would be a bad thing to put, in first grade, all of the students who are behind, and all of the students who don't speak English, in one class. And "political correctness" has nothing to do with it, unless you include under "political correctness" the idea that all children should get a decent education, even the ones who are behind and the ones who don't speak English.

Tell us then. That's how classes were grouped when I grew up.
Instead, my child who is at the top of the class in math has to sit around while others count on their fingers. He asked for harder math work, and then we followed up with the teacher and asked ourselves. Response is that some kids are so far behind that she can't make it harder or move quicker for those at the top.
How's that fair?

Yes, and the outcomes for the people in the "slow/dumb" class were bad. There is a lot of research about this. Google "tracking".

Saying that you know about pedagogy because you went to school is like saying that you know about the law because you were a party to a lawsuit. And saying "That's how we did it when I went to school, and I turned out fine" is just silly.

[Anonymous]

I don't think tracking and completely separating out kids by levels is the best solution either.

1. kids at this age can advance rapidly, or even stagnate. It's very fluid. My DH and I were both late bloomers. DH went to a school where they tracked at an early age. He got pigeon holed. His parents didn't like it, so they moved to a different area where they didn't completely separate out the kids by ability. He also matured a bit and started to really take off academically. He went on to get a degree in a stem field, now earns six figures.

2. I find that if a kid who is struggling is exposed to harder material and kids who are more advanced, they will start to pick things up. Example - at the dinner table, we talk to the older DC about academic subjects; we discuss math, science, whatever... younger DC (3 yrs younger) starts to pick up on some of the concepts. The younger DC will chime in, sometimes getting facts wrong, and the older DC will try to explain to younger DC how something works. This helps older DC as well, to be able to logically think things through and verbalize the logic. I think "explaining your thinking" can be quite a hard thing to do, for many of us, even adults, and so having a child practice this benefits the child.

My sister's kids were the same. I was the same with my older sibling.

Yes, of course, all parents wish that the teacher could spend more time with our children, individually, or at the least in a small group setting. Unfortunately, the reality in many school districts is that the schools are overcrowded. We used to live in a wealthy district with very little farms/esol population. The classes in that district was still fairly large, and the kids hardly got any individual attention. I agree with a PP, the issue is that mcps has gotten too big. This is not a curriculum or teacher issue. There is no large school district that does not have overcrowding issues in the classes. It's not physically possible for a teacher to spend more time with each child or small group with the class sizes that we have. This is a budget issue. We need more classrooms and/or more teachers or para-teachers. This is really the only really effective way to allow a teacher to spend more time with each child or small group.

[Anonymous]

^^^ +1. Our school implements small groups for both reading and math starting from Kindergarten. But we have terrible class sizes... 25-30 in all grade levels. With my eldest DC who is in 3rd grade, the bigger class size is somewhat manageable, as there are less discipline issues .. but for lower classes, especially K and 1st, bigger class rooms with kids of different abilities and with kids still not good at following teachers directions, its chaotic. Heard we have already registered 120 incoming kindergartners for next year and we are likely to add another 20-30 over summer!!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Yes, of course, all parents wish that the teacher could spend more time with our children, individually, or at the least in a small group setting. Unfortunately, the reality in many school districts is that the schools are overcrowded. We used to live in a wealthy district with very little farms/esol population. The classes in that district was still fairly large, and the kids hardly got any individual attention. I agree with a PP, the issue is that mcps has gotten too big. This is not a curriculum or teacher issue. There is no large school district that does not have overcrowding issues in the classes. It's not physically possible for a teacher to spend more time with each child or small group with the class sizes that we have. This is a budget issue. We need more classrooms and/or more teachers or para-teachers. This is really the only really effective way to allow a teacher to spend more time with each child or small group.

You are conflating

1. size of school district
2. capacity of school building
3. class size

They are three separate issues.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

+1,000,000. It is so rushed and crazy but I was told if they tracked classes, the poor students and non-english students would all mainly be in one class and that isn't a positive thing for them? Huh? So instead we are politically correct and match class sizes by gender, race, culture and sprinkle ESOL all around. And then you have 10 minutes of reading a day and 10 minutes of math a day - IF your group gets picked. My daughter is in the highest reading group and gets called only 2-3 times a week. So she gets 30 minutes of direct teacher time A WEEK for reading.

Maybe think about why it would be a bad thing to put, in first grade, all of the students who are behind, and all of the students who don't speak English, in one class. And "political correctness" has nothing to do with it, unless you include under "political correctness" the idea that all children should get a decent education, even the ones who are behind and the ones who don't speak English.

Tell us then. That's how classes were grouped when I grew up.
Instead, my child who is at the top of the class in math has to sit around while others count on their fingers. He asked for harder math work, and then we followed up with the teacher and asked ourselves. Response is that some kids are so far behind that she can't make it harder or move quicker for those at the top.
How's that fair?

Yes, and the outcomes for the people in the "slow/dumb" class were bad. There is a lot of research about this. Google "tracking".

Saying that you know about pedagogy because you went to school is like saying that you know about the law because you were a party to a lawsuit. And saying "That's how we did it when I went to school, and I turned out fine" is just silly.

The achievement gap has not reduced due to class integration, so placing all levels in a class is not working either. All you have done is dumbed down the class for ALL the students with no advantage for the slower students. Maybe you should Google "achievement gap" before insulting another poster.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

The achievement gap has not reduced due to class integration, so placing all levels in a class is not working either. All you have done is dumbed down the class for ALL the students with no advantage for the slower students. Maybe you should Google "achievement gap" before insulting another poster.

There is research on the topic of tracking/ability grouping. Let's look it up, instead of universalizing from our own personal experiences.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Yes, of course, all parents wish that the teacher could spend more time with our children, individually, or at the least in a small group setting. Unfortunately, the reality in many school districts is that the schools are overcrowded. We used to live in a wealthy district with very little farms/esol population. The classes in that district was still fairly large, and the kids hardly got any individual attention. I agree with a PP, the issue is that mcps has gotten too big. This is not a curriculum or teacher issue. There is no large school district that does not have overcrowding issues in the classes. It's not physically possible for a teacher to spend more time with each child or small group with the class sizes that we have. This is a budget issue. We need more classrooms and/or more teachers or para-teachers. This is really the only really effective way to allow a teacher to spend more time with each child or small group.

You are conflating

1. size of school district
2. capacity of school building
3. class size

They are three separate issues.

And they are all inter-related due to the size of the population. You have x number of kids, y number of classrooms, and z number of buildings. You cannot reduce the class sizes without increasing the number of classrooms, and you cannot increase the number of classrooms without adding more rooms to a building. The x number of kids is getting larger and larger in mcps. Look at the enrollment numbers over the past several years in mcps. It has been getting bigger and bigger, but the capacity of the buildings haven't been able to keep up.

http://gis.mcpsmd.org/demographicpdfs/Demo_BOEDemographicPresentation101315.pdf

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
And they are all inter-related due to the size of the population. You have x number of kids, y number of classrooms, and z number of buildings. You cannot reduce the class sizes without increasing the number of classrooms, and you cannot increase the number of classrooms without adding more rooms to a building. The x number of kids is getting larger and larger in mcps. Look at the enrollment numbers over the past several years in mcps. It has been getting bigger and bigger, but the capacity of the buildings haven't been able to keep up.

http://gis.mcpsmd.org/demographicpdfs/Demo_BOEDemographicPresentation101315.pdf

You certainly can reduce class size without increasing the number of within-building classrooms, and MCPS actually does this, by putting classes into portables. The class size caps for schools that are over capacity are exactly the same as the class size caps for schools that are at or under capacity.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

The achievement gap has not reduced due to class integration, so placing all levels in a class is not working either. All you have done is dumbed down the class for ALL the students with no advantage for the slower students. Maybe you should Google "achievement gap" before insulting another poster.

There is research on the topic of tracking/ability grouping. Let's look it up, instead of universalizing from our own personal experiences.

There are bogus researches. The grouping research happens to be one of them since the research only focus on one side of a coin.

In the age of precision medicine, you are suggesting to put all patients in the same place and give them the same medicine. Hopefully, they can come out alive through their group efforts.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
And they are all inter-related due to the size of the population. You have x number of kids, y number of classrooms, and z number of buildings. You cannot reduce the class sizes without increasing the number of classrooms, and you cannot increase the number of classrooms without adding more rooms to a building. The x number of kids is getting larger and larger in mcps. Look at the enrollment numbers over the past several years in mcps. It has been getting bigger and bigger, but the capacity of the buildings haven't been able to keep up.

http://gis.mcpsmd.org/demographicpdfs/Demo_BOEDemographicPresentation101315.pdf

You certainly can reduce class size without increasing the number of within-building classrooms, and MCPS actually does this, by putting classes into portables. The class size caps for schools that are over capacity are exactly the same as the class size caps for schools that are at or under capacity.

Thank you. People make so many assumptions without knowledge. People will complain about class sizes being too big, and then simultaneously complain about having so many portables. Parents should try harder to give the professionals the benefit of the doubt that they have reasons for what they do. yhe county is experiencing explosive growth and they can't build a new school every month.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
And they are all inter-related due to the size of the population. You have x number of kids, y number of classrooms, and z number of buildings. You cannot reduce the class sizes without increasing the number of classrooms, and you cannot increase the number of classrooms without adding more rooms to a building. The x number of kids is getting larger and larger in mcps. Look at the enrollment numbers over the past several years in mcps. It has been getting bigger and bigger, but the capacity of the buildings haven't been able to keep up.

http://gis.mcpsmd.org/demographicpdfs/Demo_BOEDemographicPresentation101315.pdf

You certainly can reduce class size without increasing the number of within-building classrooms, and MCPS actually does this, by putting classes into portables. The class size caps for schools that are over capacity are exactly the same as the class size caps for schools that are at or under capacity.

Thank you. People make so many assumptions without knowledge. People will complain about class sizes being too big, and then simultaneously complain about having so many portables. Parents should try harder to give the professionals the benefit of the doubt that they have reasons for what they do. yhe county is experiencing explosive growth and they can't build a new school every month.

Both my kids ESs (one goes to HGC) have portables, and the class sizes are still too big. People also complain about lack of recess space (my one DC's school has hardly any black top space, and when it's blacktop recess only, they have to play in the parking lot in the front of the school). So, even with portables, class sizes are too large. The only way to fix it is to add more classes, build more schools, and rezone overcapacity schools with undercapacity ones, though there are too few undercapacity schools.