Update on Curriculum Selection Process

[Anonymous]

Just received this - what say you, DCUM?

Dear MCPS Community,

Thank you for your participation and engagement in the selection of new curricular and instructional materials for English Language Arts (ELA) and Mathematics over the past several months. We are now in the final stages of the selection process. As a result, I am writing to provide you with an update in advance of the Board of Education meeting on January 8, 2019.

Over the past several weeks, extensive evaluation ratings, feedback and data has been collected, reviewed and analyzed. Some of these data sources included: technical reviews; external evaluations; references from other districts; the content core team reviews; vendor presentations; interviews; online demonstrations for the public; and discussions with senior leadership. We have initiated contract negotiations with recommended finalists.

These recommended finalists include:

• PreK-5 Mathematics: ??Eureka Math (Great Minds)
• Grades 6-8 Mathematics: ?LearnZillion Illustrative Mathematics (LearnZillion)
• Grades 6-8 ELA: ??StudySync (McGraw Hill Education)

It is anticipated that these recommendations will be presented to the Board of Education for action at the Board meeting on January 8, 2019. Please note that these final recommendations are contingent on Board of Education approval and successful contract negotiations with each of the vendors. We invite you to watch the January 8 Board meeting, when more detail about the process and the strong merits of the materials selected will be shared.

Please also note that evaluation processes and references checks are still underway for PreK-5 ELA. It is anticipated that the elementary ELA product will be recommended to the Board of Education on February 12, 2019. In addition, evaluation and selection processes are still ongoing for high school Algebra I.

Please continue to visit the MCPS Curriculum Review webpage for information about the curriculum selection process and public announcements. Thank you again for your engagement in this process and Happy New Year!

Best regards,

Maria V. Navarro, Ed.D.
Chief Academic Officer
Montgomery County Public Schools

[Anonymous]

They couldn't have selected these a year ago?

Just go buy these curriculums.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They couldn't have selected these a year ago?

Just go buy these curriculums.

Agree

[Anonymous]

No discovery. Good

[Anonymous]

So what's the Pre-K - 5 plan for ELA?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So what's the Pre-K - 5 plan for ELA?

According to the letter, we should find out in February.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So what's the Pre-K - 5 plan for ELA?

According to the letter, we should find out in February.

Interesting that there’s a delay on that one. I remember one of the posters on an earlier thread who was an educator said that they weren’t impressed with the finalists chosen for this and that one of them wasn’t recommended for accreditation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No discovery. Good

Yes that has been known for over a month when they announced the short list of vendors.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So what's the Pre-K - 5 plan for ELA?

According to the letter, we should find out in February.

Interesting that there’s a delay on that one. I remember one of the posters on an earlier thread who was an educator said that they weren’t impressed with the finalists chosen for this and that one of them wasn’t recommended for accreditation.

I think two were not recommended. Hoping they are re-bidding but doubt it!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So what's the Pre-K - 5 plan for ELA?

According to the letter, we should find out in February.

Interesting that there’s a delay on that one. I remember one of the posters on an earlier thread who was an educator said that they weren’t impressed with the finalists chosen for this and that one of them wasn’t recommended for accreditation.

I think two were not recommended. Hoping they are re-bidding but doubt it!

Which K-5 ELA curriculum weren't recommended? If they had so many bids, it boggles the mind that they would choose two curriculum that were not recommended as semi-finalists.

[Anonymous]

This is very promising. All of those curricula are highly rated by Ed Reports. I'm also glad they're delaying selection of the Pk-5 ELA curricula, as the choices they had were subpar.

Of course, the real test is how well they train teachers on implementing these curricula, but at least they'll be working with well-regarded materials.

Now to get rid of those horrible Chromebooks!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is very promising. All of those curricula are highly rated by Ed Reports. I'm also glad they're delaying selection of the Pk-5 ELA curricula, as the choices they had were subpar.

Of course, the real test is how well they train teachers on implementing these curricula, but at least they'll be working with well-regarded materials.

Now to get rid of those horrible Chromebooks!

+1 Glad to hear that all the math curriculum are highly rated. One of my relatives who has taught elementary school in NY for 20+ years was horrified at the materials my 1st grade son has been bringing home and said there are far better off-the-shelf worksheets than what MoCo is offering. Fingers crossed they find something good for ELA even if they need to re-bid it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So what's the Pre-K - 5 plan for ELA?

According to the letter, we should find out in February.

Interesting that there’s a delay on that one. I remember one of the posters on an earlier thread who was an educator said that they weren’t impressed with the finalists chosen for this and that one of them wasn’t recommended for accreditation.

I think two were not recommended. Hoping they are re-bidding but doubt it!

Which K-5 ELA curriculum weren't recommended? If they had so many bids, it boggles the mind that they would choose two curriculum that were not recommended as semi-finalists.

Copied from the other thread:


Here is an email posted to a parent list serve. The parent is a public school curriculum professional. Based on her feedback, 4 of 5 programs are terrible for literacy but all are good for math.

Here is my recommendation on what to do about the curriculum selection.

I have about 100 opinions and have done a ton of research on these (and already know a bunch of them from my day job). Not sure how interested/involved you want to be but figured I'd share my two cents. For middle school it isn't quite as horrible. But 2/3 of the elementary choices are bad and one is mediocre, so if you are inclined to say/do anything, I'd suggest you click on the links for feedback put negative responses on the rating scale (literally three clicks).

Also, for the record, the math choices are all strong, so we have that going for us!

So, if you have five minutes, here's what I would do (before Dec. 9!). Click to provide feedback on "Wonders" and put in negative ratings (the open ended responses are optional, but you could add, if you want, "Ed Reports does not rate Wonders all green." I'd also likely put in mediocre (middle rating) feedback on Benchmark, and higher feedback on ReadyGen (that's our best bet and it is only slightly above mediocre, honestly). Here is the page for feedback links for each program:
MCPS Curriculum Review – Vendor Presentations webpage.

To put this in perspective, I think the program called "Wonders" they have listed here is on par with what I see in some of the lowest performing, weakest districts in the country; in fact, we'd be better in terms of curriculum sending our kids to Baltimore City Schools. Seriously their materials for reading and literacy are better and more rigorous. Some of these are actually programs I actively superintendents against using. Wonders is so low level and boring that I would seriously consider private school.

One of my main sources was an independent review consortium called Ed Reports (actually called out in the RFP from MoCo for curriculum). Both Wonders and Benchmark are not rated "all green" on their ratings. Just in case you wanted one of my back up sources! You can click here if you are so inclined.

[Anonymous]

Baltimore City teacher here (on my lunch break). We just adopted Wit and Wisdom for our new ELA curriculum for K-8. It is waaaaaay over the heads of most of our students but it would probably be more appropriate for students who have a firm grasp of the English language and a lot of background knowledge. I don't like it for our student population but it would probably work better with our gifted students. We also use Eureka math and it is so-so. Some lessons seem out of order and they differ in length. They also expect that we have more resources than we actually do (math manipulatives, etc).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is very promising. All of those curricula are highly rated by Ed Reports. I'm also glad they're delaying selection of the Pk-5 ELA curricula, as the choices they had were subpar.

Of course, the real test is how well they train teachers on implementing these curricula, but at least they'll be working with well-regarded materials.

Now to get rid of those horrible Chromebooks!

Did you look up studysync? It's all about being "connected."

#studentrobots