MCPS is cuttting compacted math and cohorted literacy enrichment

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Oh geeze. They scheduled this meeting when Julie Yang was supposed to be gone at her kid's graduation but she opted to stay so she can advocate for this. Yikes.

advocate for what?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Oh geeze. They scheduled this meeting when Julie Yang was supposed to be gone at her kid's graduation but she opted to stay so she can advocate for this. Yikes.

advocate for what?

Maintaining acceleration and any support on gifted kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If state requires that kids in grades 2-5 be regrouped by level for math class, have or are they also suggesting group them by reading level as well? Isn't it comsidered a discrimination if there are 4 classes in a grade, all poor performing math or/reading kids are all grouped one class if they decide to go down that route?

No, it's just a math thing. And the idea is that the groupings are flexible and reassessed regularly, so the kids are not "tracked" or stuck in a "high track" or a "low track" but can go up and down over time as needed.

That’s a nice theory. In practice, each level of students gets a smaller amount of time from the teacher and the advanced students will be on their own. MCPS thinks we are stupid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Oh geeze. They scheduled this meeting when Julie Yang was supposed to be gone at her kid's graduation but she opted to stay so she can advocate for this. Yikes.

advocate for what?

She was the only BOE member raised the question about math acceleration/enrichment under the new math curriculum in the last meeting, and MCPS promised to provide an update today. That's the half hour session that we are discussing on this thread.

Yang originally planned to fly out today so she couldn't follow-up at all. Instead, she recheduled her flight so to stay and follow-up, as she (and us here) knows that other BOE members could care less about this topic.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If state requires that kids in grades 2-5 be regrouped by level for math class, have or are they also suggesting group them by reading level as well? Isn't it comsidered a discrimination if there are 4 classes in a grade, all poor performing math or/reading kids are all grouped one class if they decide to go down that route?

No, it's just a math thing. And the idea is that the groupings are flexible and reassessed regularly, so the kids are not "tracked" or stuck in a "high track" or a "low track" but can go up and down over time as needed.

That’s a nice theory. In practice, each level of students gets a smaller amount of time from the teacher and the advanced students will be on their own. MCPS thinks we are stupid.

I think the state wants them to split up into different classrooms by level for math in grades 2-5.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If state requires that kids in grades 2-5 be regrouped by level for math class, have or are they also suggesting group them by reading level as well? Isn't it comsidered a discrimination if there are 4 classes in a grade, all poor performing math or/reading kids are all grouped one class if they decide to go down that route?

No, it's just a math thing. And the idea is that the groupings are flexible and reassessed regularly, so the kids are not "tracked" or stuck in a "high track" or a "low track" but can go up and down over time as needed.

That’s a nice theory. In practice, each level of students gets a smaller amount of time from the teacher and the advanced students will be on their own. MCPS thinks we are stupid.

I think the state wants them to split up into different classrooms by level for math in grades 2-5.

That's 100% what the state policy suggests, but MCPS is looking for any loophole to not do it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If state requires that kids in grades 2-5 be regrouped by level for math class, have or are they also suggesting group them by reading level as well? Isn't it comsidered a discrimination if there are 4 classes in a grade, all poor performing math or/reading kids are all grouped one class if they decide to go down that route?

No, it's just a math thing. And the idea is that the groupings are flexible and reassessed regularly, so the kids are not "tracked" or stuck in a "high track" or a "low track" but can go up and down over time as needed.

That’s a nice theory. In practice, each level of students gets a smaller amount of time from the teacher and the advanced students will be on their own. MCPS thinks we are stupid.

I think the state wants them to split up into different classrooms by level for math in grades 2-5.

That's 100% what the state policy suggests, but MCPS is looking for any loophole to not do it.

The sample IAP:

https://marylandpublicschools.org/about/documents/dcaa/math/sample-individualized-acceleration-plan-a.pdf

ACCELERATION STRATEGY
Acceleration Type: Targeted Acceleration - Curriculum Telescoping
Placement: Math 5/6 in Grade 5


... Math 5/6 is what MCPS is cancelling.

[Anonymous]

I’ve had three kids go through compacted math. I think my oldest was one of the first groups.
There are kids who are SO BORED in school by fourth grade. Compacted math was essential to keeping those kids engaged.
I think there are different questions about whether there are enough opportunities for kids to slow down later in the track. There’s a big difference between the math in ES, which is largely arithmetic and extremely basic algebra, and the upper level math — it’s almost like a different subject with a different skill set. So I think a lot of kids who did compacted math might benefit from a slower pace at Algebra 2/precalc — but that doesn’t mean you should drive away the 10-year olds who are good at arithmetic and don’t need to spend another year on multiplication tables.

My oldest did take AB and then BC because she didn’t get much from her math during the pandemic and wanted to make sure she had time to really dig in. It worked well and she is in a stem degree now.

The English curriculum is a disaster top to bottom IME.

Are they also talking about getting rid of the advanced social studies in middle school?

[Anonymous]

Taylor is up now!

Proposing the cancelling of enrichment.

[Anonymous]

The discussion is starting...

[Anonymous]

Niki Porter up

[Anonymous]

Who are the "experts" they're citing. There are no experts that recommend heterogeneous learning environments for gifted students academic achievement...

[Anonymous]

Do they think if they say "acceleration must and will continue" enough times, everyone will believe them that they're going to keep doing it even though they're taking it away?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Who are the "experts" they're citing. There are no experts that recommend heterogeneous learning environments for gifted students academic achievement...

They're trying to claim that the expert recommendations against rigid, fixed tracking (i.e. homogenous acceleration without on-ramps or off-ramps) mean that those experts instead recommend cluster-grouping in homogenous classrooms.

[Anonymous]

Goal 1: "all students will generate high levels of academic achievement and growth"


History:

"Remember, Algebra is a 9th grade course"

Maryland proposed: "Algebra by grade 8" for College readiness.


Compacted Math (4/5/6 in years 4/5) is 17 years old, to support Algebra in 7th grade.

Then some lies about "skipping content" and "touching on topics quickly" (THAT'S ACCELERATION, NIKI!) and "inequitable identification".

"Accelerates too quickly to have on-ramps"