Your Thoughts on Montgomery County Schools

[Anonymous]

Math is the almost portion of 2.0 that affects the high school level. Dispite all the gripes about the lack of acceleration, most kids are expected to get to calculus in gr 11 (compatec math) or 12. I am fine with that goal.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I've spoken with parents who have older kids about why MCPS was considered good in the past. Based on our poor experience, I don't understand how it could have ever been good. Some parents had an interesting comment that the teaching wasn't better or worse before but the system embraced academic achievement and didn't get in a kid's way if they were motivated to learn. 2.0 is a complete reversal where academic achievement his avoided at all costs and kids are supposed to level off to let all the underperforming kids look equal to them.

This is a common belief on DCUM. That is, the belief that MCPS has a policy to keep high-achieving kids (aka my kids) down in order to make low-achieving kids (aka those other kids) look better. And yet nobody has ever provided the slightest shred of actual evidence that this is MCPS's policy. Either MCPS as an organization is amazing at keeping secrets, or it's not MCPS's policy.

I had an eye opening conversation with my neighbor who has a 5th grader and a 1st grader. The curriculum and standards for the 1st grader are so different and low than when her first child was in 1st grade that they are sending the younger one to private. The older child escaped the new curriculum and dumbing down aspects of this new system - no homework, cover less material, 15 mins of 'teaching and then group work/drills, goofy math 'methods', useless report cards, and general Focus on the Bottom.,

So your neighbor has a fifth grader, and heard bad things about Curriculum 2.0, and therefore sent her first-grader to private school? What is your neighbor's first-hand experience with Curriculum 2.0? What is your first-hand experience with Curriculum 2.0?

Here is my first-hand experience with Curriculum 2.0 with my younger child, compared to the previous curriculum for my older child: less homework (a good thing, in my opinion), more social studies, more science, more writing, better math, report cards that are no worse than the previous report cards, and a comment from my younger child's outstanding and experienced first-grade teacher that Curriculum 2.0 benefits the more advanced students but may not be so good for the less-advanced ones.

Youngest will go private starting with 2nd grade. Older child went to HGC for 4th and 5th grade.

I challenge more people to find families that can compare based on having a child go through previous system and another in current system.

We regret leaving DC for the schools here.

[Anonymous]

I take complaints about the effects on curriculum 2.0 on 1st and 2d graders with a big grain of salt. Who cares if a 1st grader has less homework?

[Anonymous]

The CCES HGC is not representative of all the HGCs. My child is having a very good experience in a different one.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I take complaints about the effects on curriculum 2.0 on 1st and 2d graders with a big grain of salt. Who cares if a 1st grader has less homework?

I agree.

[Anonymous]

Who cares if they botched the rollout for k, 1st, 2nd, and 3rd grade. I'm sure 4th and 5th graders (who have experienced it for a couple years now) rollout will be superb.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I take complaints about the effects on curriculum 2.0 on 1st and 2d graders with a big grain of salt. Who cares if a 1st grader has less homework?

If they don't do homework in first grade, their work ethic will be lacking when they get to fourth grade, and it's time to do lots of homework to prepare for middle school, where there will be lots of homework because they need to get prepared for high school, where there will be lots of homework because that's how you can tell that it's a demanding, rigorous high school, and so in short, if a child doesn't do homework in first grade, that child is condemned to inescapable lifelong failure at the age of 6.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I take complaints about the effects on curriculum 2.0 on 1st and 2d graders with a big grain of salt. Who cares if a 1st grader has less homework?

If they don't do homework in first grade, their work ethic will be lacking when they get to fourth grade, and it's time to do lots of homework to prepare for middle school, where there will be lots of homework because they need to get prepared for high school, where there will be lots of homework because that's how you can tell that it's a demanding, rigorous high school, and so in short, if a child doesn't do homework in first grade, that child is condemned to inescapable lifelong failure at the age of 6.

NP. Eff this noise. I'm telling my kid to learn a trade.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I take complaints about the effects on curriculum 2.0 on 1st and 2d graders with a big grain of salt. Who cares if a 1st grader has less homework?

If they don't do homework in first grade, their work ethic will be lacking when they get to fourth grade, and it's time to do lots of homework to prepare for middle school, where there will be lots of homework because they need to get prepared for high school, where there will be lots of homework because that's how you can tell that it's a demanding, rigorous high school, and so in short, if a child doesn't do homework in first grade, that child is condemned to inescapable lifelong failure at the age of 6.

Lol!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I take complaints about the effects on curriculum 2.0 on 1st and 2d graders with a big grain of salt. Who cares if a 1st grader has less homework?

If they don't do homework in first grade, their work ethic will be lacking when they get to fourth grade, and it's time to do lots of homework to prepare for middle school, where there will be lots of homework because they need to get prepared for high school, where there will be lots of homework because that's how you can tell that it's a demanding, rigorous high school, and so in short, if a child doesn't do homework in first grade, that child is condemned to inescapable lifelong failure at the age of 6.

Thanks. I was afraid that having them do homework in lower elementary school was just going to burn them out before they ever got to the point when it was developmentally appropriate to do it, but I feel better now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I take complaints about the effects on curriculum 2.0 on 1st and 2d graders with a big grain of salt. Who cares if a 1st grader has less homework?

I wish the main complaint about 2.0 was less homework. Lack of rigor, lack of teaching time, less scope, too much repetition, lack of feedback, poor test scores, etc. come up way before homework changes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I take complaints about the effects on curriculum 2.0 on 1st and 2d graders with a big grain of salt. Who cares if a 1st grader has less homework?

I wish the main complaint about 2.0 was less homework. Lack of rigor, lack of teaching time, less scope, too much repetition, lack of feedback, poor test scores, etc. come up way before homework changes.

1st and 2d graders don't take standardized tests. I'm not really sure how 2.0 results in less teaching time, and I am sceptical it is meaningfully less rigorous or has too much repetition at those grades. (The complaints I've heard about repetition were related to adjusting to 2.0, not what 1st/2d graders experience in 2.0).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I take complaints about the effects on curriculum 2.0 on 1st and 2d graders with a big grain of salt. Who cares if a 1st grader has less homework?

I wish the main complaint about 2.0 was less homework. Lack of rigor, lack of teaching time, less scope, too much repetition, lack of feedback, poor test scores, etc. come up way before homework changes.

Absolutely, too much repetition. Repetition is completely inappropriate in education. Plus, if you tell my kid something one time, my kid listens intently and then can do it perfectly, the very first time, no practice needed, on to the next new thing. I assume that everybody else's kids are like that too.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:It is supposed to rank quite high within the nation as a school system. If that is indeed true then I shudder at what kinds of schools are in the US.

I would really rank it very low. I was educated in a 3rd world country and the education I received in my home country was superior by far.

Which country?

I'm not doubting your assessment of your own education. But was your education the education that is available to every child in the country, or were there special circumstances? I find it difficult to believe that the education available to every child in a third-world country is better than MCPS, and that's the appropriate standard of comparison. However, there might be third-world countries where this is the case.

I don't know. I understand most 3rd world countries have textbooks these days, whereas MCPS has done away with them in favor of website print-outs and worksheets, supplemented by whatever notes your DC takes.

That's what it takes to be a good school system? Having textbooks?

It certainly helps. Don't you remember using your textbooks to review material?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

That's what it takes to be a good school system? Having textbooks?

It certainly helps. Don't you remember using your textbooks to review material?

Actually, no. Not until college.