MISA Out?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Interestingly, there are several ways in which the MISA could bring down your grade, but not really any way it would improve your grade. The only way that an excellent score on MISA would imrpove your grade is if you have D's in both quarters (or an E and a D) but get an A on MISA, it would bring your grade up to a C -- or if you failed both semesters and got an A or B on the exam, you would end with a D.

So this test is really just a losing proposition for the kids. I do wish there was some way that the kids could get some benefit from doing well -- like if you had a teacher that did not grade fairly, but you still learned all the material and did well on the MISA. Is the score reported on the transcript anywhere?

That’s because MCPS grading is as generous as possible. A + B is already A, so a MISA A wouldn't make a difference, but a B would.

I can’t open the grade conversion document, but it seems like the only way for MISA to be able to raise the grade would be if it lifted A + C + MISA A to A instead of B (or equivalent).

No, according to the document, that would still be a B. The MISA A doesnt change it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:while i don't see grades yet - one of my 9th graders said her teacher told her today that most of the class got As with a few Bs on the LS-MISA. This is an advanced freshman bio class

All bio classes are designated as "honors," so there's no such thing as an advanced bio class (same with English - everyone's "advanced").

I think maybe there is Apex bio at one of the Ws and Global bio at Poolesville? There may be more

That Apex bio class is crushingly difficult this year so I would hope those kids got As!

yes it was insanely difficult this year - especially the first semester - one of my kids APEX bio classes every student got an A on the MISA - so the teacher just told them out loud that they all got an A. The other class there were a few Bs so he had the kids come up one by one if they wanted to know their grade.

Any idea if apex bio will be same next year? I have a kid scheduled for it and he is nervous. Any tips to prepare?

rumor has it that they might be dropping apex bio as it was 'too difficult' - i think they need to keep it but teachers need to change how they teach it

[Anonymous]

Bump

Anyone getting MISA score reports yet? I though today was supposed to be the day, but I don't see anything on ParentVue.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:while i don't see grades yet - one of my 9th graders said her teacher told her today that most of the class got As with a few Bs on the LS-MISA. This is an advanced freshman bio class

All bio classes are designated as "honors," so there's no such thing as an advanced bio class (same with English - everyone's "advanced").

I think maybe there is Apex bio at one of the Ws and Global bio at Poolesville? There may be more

That Apex bio class is crushingly difficult this year so I would hope those kids got As!

yes it was insanely difficult this year - especially the first semester - one of my kids APEX bio classes every student got an A on the MISA - so the teacher just told them out loud that they all got an A. The other class there were a few Bs so he had the kids come up one by one if they wanted to know their grade.

Any idea if apex bio will be same next year? I have a kid scheduled for it and he is nervous. Any tips to prepare?

rumor has it that they might be dropping apex bio as it was 'too difficult' - i think they need to keep it but teachers need to change how they teach it

I think it was maybe a little the content but also a lot the teacher’s way of presenting the content and lack of support for kids transitioning from much easier MS science classes. It’s sort of a disaster and I get the sense no one is on the same page.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:while i don't see grades yet - one of my 9th graders said her teacher told her today that most of the class got As with a few Bs on the LS-MISA. This is an advanced freshman bio class

All bio classes are designated as "honors," so there's no such thing as an advanced bio class (same with English - everyone's "advanced").

I think maybe there is Apex bio at one of the Ws and Global bio at Poolesville? There may be more

That Apex bio class is crushingly difficult this year so I would hope those kids got As!

yes it was insanely difficult this year - especially the first semester - one of my kids APEX bio classes every student got an A on the MISA - so the teacher just told them out loud that they all got an A. The other class there were a few Bs so he had the kids come up one by one if they wanted to know their grade.

Any idea if apex bio will be same next year? I have a kid scheduled for it and he is nervous. Any tips to prepare?

rumor has it that they might be dropping apex bio as it was 'too difficult' - i think they need to keep it but teachers need to change how they teach it

It would be a shame to get rid of a class when they could make teaching tweaks and provide the appropriately support for the students.

Further it should be a good evidence of when the middle school curriculum needs to be improved in terms of increasing rigor for students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Bump

Anyone getting MISA score reports yet? I though today was supposed to be the day, but I don't see anything on ParentVue.

I don’t see anything official but my son’s teacher lists a MISA score among all other grades for the semester. My kid’s says 100%, and my kid says it could be a round up of anything in an A range?

[Anonymous]

For those looking for your student's MISA score (9th grade bio), you can see it on their final report card in ParentVue.

On the far right of the report card there is a column heading called "Final", with 3 columns beneath it -- "EOC", "Grade" and "Credit".

The "EOC" column denotes end-of-course exam. There should only be one grade underneath it, in the row where the biology grade can be found.

FWIW, my kid somehow managed an "A" on the test even though she felt afterward that she didn't do all that well. So I suspect they graded on a curve. She otherwise had a strong "A" in the course, so it would have been a bad look, indeed, if she performed well all year long on in-class assessments and then did poorly on the state test.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For those looking for your student's MISA score (9th grade bio), you can see it on their final report card in ParentVue.

On the far right of the report card there is a column heading called "Final", with 3 columns beneath it -- "EOC", "Grade" and "Credit".

The "EOC" column denotes end-of-course exam. There should only be one grade underneath it, in the row where the biology grade can be found.

FWIW, my kid somehow managed an "A" on the test even though she felt afterward that she didn't do all that well. So I suspect they graded on a curve. She otherwise had a strong "A" in the course, so it would have been a bad look, indeed, if she performed well all year long on in-class assessments and then did poorly on the state test.

We saw that too but wanted to know the actual score. My kid said the test was easy and lits of kids did well on it.

[Anonymous]

From what my dd says, basically everyone in her class got an A.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:while i don't see grades yet - one of my 9th graders said her teacher told her today that most of the class got As with a few Bs on the LS-MISA. This is an advanced freshman bio class

All bio classes are designated as "honors," so there's no such thing as an advanced bio class (same with English - everyone's "advanced").

I think maybe there is Apex bio at one of the Ws and Global bio at Poolesville? There may be more

That Apex bio class is crushingly difficult this year so I would hope those kids got As!

yes it was insanely difficult this year - especially the first semester - one of my kids APEX bio classes every student got an A on the MISA - so the teacher just told them out loud that they all got an A. The other class there were a few Bs so he had the kids come up one by one if they wanted to know their grade.

Any idea if apex bio will be same next year? I have a kid scheduled for it and he is nervous. Any tips to prepare?

rumor has it that they might be dropping apex bio as it was 'too difficult' - i think they need to keep it but teachers need to change how they teach it

I think it was maybe a little the content but also a lot the teacher’s way of presenting the content and lack of support for kids transitioning from much easier MS science classes. It’s sort of a disaster and I get the sense no one is on the same page.

The best bio teacher who did more APEX sections retired a couple years ago - this is the true source of the problem. I don't mind cohorted honors bio, rather than special APEX bio, but they already lose a fair share of science kids, who don't want the harder English and History. Without the harder bio they may conclude 0 benefit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:while i don't see grades yet - one of my 9th graders said her teacher told her today that most of the class got As with a few Bs on the LS-MISA. This is an advanced freshman bio class

All bio classes are designated as "honors," so there's no such thing as an advanced bio class (same with English - everyone's "advanced").

I think maybe there is Apex bio at one of the Ws and Global bio at Poolesville? There may be more

That Apex bio class is crushingly difficult this year so I would hope those kids got As!

yes it was insanely difficult this year - especially the first semester - one of my kids APEX bio classes every student got an A on the MISA - so the teacher just told them out loud that they all got an A. The other class there were a few Bs so he had the kids come up one by one if they wanted to know their grade.

Any idea if apex bio will be same next year? I have a kid scheduled for it and he is nervous. Any tips to prepare?

rumor has it that they might be dropping apex bio as it was 'too difficult' - i think they need to keep it but teachers need to change how they teach it

I think it was maybe a little the content but also a lot the teacher’s way of presenting the content and lack of support for kids transitioning from much easier MS science classes. It’s sort of a disaster and I get the sense no one is on the same page.

The best bio teacher who did more APEX sections retired a couple years ago - this is the true source of the problem. I don't mind cohorted honors bio, rather than special APEX bio, but they already lose a fair share of science kids, who don't want the harder English and History. Without the harder bio they may conclude 0 benefit.

I think the history is just the usual AP Gov/US Hist track, so not anything special to APEX. And the APEX English wasn't really that much harder. It was really only the Apex Bio that was so hard. I'm not quite sure why they had to implement a totally new curriculum for it this year -- if they offered APEX bio in previous years, why didn't they just continue that curriculum? One other criticism is that the report card does not reflect that this is a different class. So kids are doing twice the work, getting worse grades, and their report card just says Honors Bio. So the kids definitely don't see the benefit there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:while i don't see grades yet - one of my 9th graders said her teacher told her today that most of the class got As with a few Bs on the LS-MISA. This is an advanced freshman bio class

All bio classes are designated as "honors," so there's no such thing as an advanced bio class (same with English - everyone's "advanced").

I think maybe there is Apex bio at one of the Ws and Global bio at Poolesville? There may be more

That Apex bio class is crushingly difficult this year so I would hope those kids got As!

yes it was insanely difficult this year - especially the first semester - one of my kids APEX bio classes every student got an A on the MISA - so the teacher just told them out loud that they all got an A. The other class there were a few Bs so he had the kids come up one by one if they wanted to know their grade.

Any idea if apex bio will be same next year? I have a kid scheduled for it and he is nervous. Any tips to prepare?

rumor has it that they might be dropping apex bio as it was 'too difficult' - i think they need to keep it but teachers need to change how they teach it

I think it was maybe a little the content but also a lot the teacher’s way of presenting the content and lack of support for kids transitioning from much easier MS science classes. It’s sort of a disaster and I get the sense no one is on the same page.

The best bio teacher who did more APEX sections retired a couple years ago - this is the true source of the problem. I don't mind cohorted honors bio, rather than special APEX bio, but they already lose a fair share of science kids, who don't want the harder English and History. Without the harder bio they may conclude 0 benefit.

I think the history is just the usual AP Gov/US Hist track, so not anything special to APEX. And the APEX English wasn't really that much harder. It was really only the Apex Bio that was so hard. I'm not quite sure why they had to implement a totally new curriculum for it this year -- if they offered APEX bio in previous years, why didn't they just continue that curriculum? One other criticism is that the report card does not reflect that this is a different class. So kids are doing twice the work, getting worse grades, and their report card just says Honors Bio. So the kids definitely don't see the benefit there.

when the kids apply to college the counselor sends along a document outlining what apex is and i would guess it would also list the courses that are part of it

[Anonymous]

So all these past years, why the hell didn't they upload the results this quickly???

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So all these past years, why the hell didn't they upload the results this quickly???

The results weren't factored into S2 grades before this year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So all these past years, why the hell didn't they upload the results this quickly???

The results weren't factored into S2 grades before this year.

The results weren’t graded by AI before this year.