Anonymous wrote:Why keeps schools from creating rules about this stuff? Is it a legal issue?

When I was in school our behavior off-campus and after school was considered within the jurisdiction of school rules for certain things. Why not this?

This particular case is in Chicago and I don't know what the Illinois laws are, but in Maryland, legally, public and private schools are responsible for addressing incidents of cyberbullying, which is off-campus behavior. Grace's Law was written for a reason--cyberbullying kills. You can't say, "Oh in my day we didn't get all worked up..." No, cyberbullying didn't exist then. There's something about the degree to which electronic communication is intertwined into kids' lives and psyches that makes online harassment very dangerous.

I find it disturbing how many people on here are blaming the victim, citing his supposed lack of social skills. I think this must be a defense mechanism to make people feel like this couldn't happen to their kids. It could. Kids with great social skills get targeted as well. And they also kill themselves.

You'd think, in this day and age, professional educators would be aware of the seriousness of this, given that it's been written into the law and it is their responsibility in many states, but shockingly that is more often not the case. Even high priced private schools are gaslighting and downplaying the issue--even after a student has KILLED himself! You see the school's response, right? The school STILL doesn't get it and is trying to distance themselves from any responsibility. Losing their students isn't enough. Without lawsuits like this, how will schools ever learn to start to take this seriously?

So my PSA is for all parents to take even a single act of cyberbullying very, very seriously. If your child is being harassed online, make as much noise about it as possible. Show the school the contents of the cyber bullying laws in your state. You will be met with resistance, possibly even ridicule, but it could prevent a tragedy. Even if your child 100% could never be in danger, raising the alarm, making a big deal about it, could raise awareness and maybe save someone else's child down the line.

Anonymous wrote:Some students are getting to Alg I too quickly and don't have the necessary background and number sense to be successful. There is a reason many of us didn't take Algebra I until 8th or 9th grade.

When MCPS tried to slow things down, parents complain.
When kids aren't placed in the highest courses, parents complain.
When the content gets difficult parents complain.

Actually, we're new to public school so this is my first complaint. Also, actually this isn't an MCPS issue and maybe I should not have posted here. The MCAP is a state wide test.
I showed some of these problems to my mom, who attended private school, then a seven-sisters college, and then started a PhD (but didn't finish) in educational psychology. She said that some of what is included in the Algebra I curriculum were things she wasn't doing until graduate school.

It was actually George W. Bush who started us down this path of high stakes testing, which is pretty funny since I highly doubt he could have passed the Algebra I MCAP then, now, or ever.

Anonymous wrote:Wait a sec! You child was allowed to use a graphing calculator on the test to solve this problem? That’s what is ridiculous. The problems should be written so no calculator is needed.

I believe they were allowed to use a graphing calculator for tests 2-4, because that was the case in the practice tests, but according to my daughter, the actual test was pretty different from the practice test, so who knows? It's definitely not required to use a graphing calculator, but in the problem above, it made it much easier to visualize the problem (the ball being hit into the air and then fall back onto the ground).

^ Hear hear!

^ This is exactly it. My daughter's math teacher is excellent, but my daughter never had a question like this on her homework that I recall. This question is from the MCAP practice test and made her completely panic. With a little bit of help, she was able to visualize the problem and realize that the ball was hit from the ground and would land again, and so she was looking for the x-intercepts. Then she remembered she could use a graphing calculator, which saved a lot of time.
We'll see how kids end up doing on this round of the MCAP. Personally, I don't feel not being able to answer this question on the spot, under timed circumstances, is an indictment of the student or the teacher. I also don't think it should be a requirement for high school graduation, which it will be for the class of 2024 (?)
The DC area has a disproportionate number of extremely bright people, and they produce extremely bright kids, so although this question may seem obvious to a lot of people on this board, remember that you're probably at least in the top 10% of intelligence. I went to Whitman for a short time and used to laugh at how much the school patted itself on the back for the great job they were doing, when in reality, they just got really bright kids and pushed the low achievers (like me!) out the door (again, this was the early 80s). When you look at the state as a whole, most kids are not going to grow up to work for a think tank or a senator and will never, not with any amount of instruction, find this question easy or obvious.
I get that the US is really far behind in math, and I can see an argument for yearly standardized testing, but it seems like the government's approach is to make the curriculum and test as hard as possible and then blame the teachers and the students for failing. When you set impossible (yes, impossible for many) standards, won't a lot of kids just give up? And just not graduate from high school? If you're going to have kids answer really tough questions like the one above, why not make sure it's relevant to their lives? Like compound interest problems. (Yes, there were some on the test.) But again, back in my day, ha ha, this wasn't part of Algebra I.

Also, possibly I'm older than most of the parents here and my experience was different. I'm thinking back to early 80s private school education. It was a simpler time, things went slower, we had a lot less stress--what an old lady thing to say!

Well, I guess it is just me. I'll say this though, I did get As in math. I just don't recall this in Algebra I. Maybe Physics or Algebra II. It seems like the new standards are trying to cram a lot more into one year.

For example, I know I didn't have anything like this in Algebra I:

A ball is hit from the ground. When the ball has traveled a horizontal distance
of d meters, its height, h, in meters, can be modeled by the function

h(d) = - 1/125 x d^2 + d

What is the horizontal distance from the point where the ball is hit to the point
where the ball lands on the ground?
Enter your answer in the space provided.

It's not that any one section of the curriculum is so hard, but it's the amount of material they're expected to cover seems excessive and doesn't allow kids to go into depth in any one area.
I don't think it's the teachers' fault for not going deeper and having the kids practice more--how could they when there's so much material to cover?

OP here: just to follow up, I got the ISEE scores today (haven't gotten an email notification, but I looked them up on the erb site). My daughter actually thought she did ok on the verbal but for her it was the worst she's done. In the past she got 6s and 7s, this time two 5s. I'm totally ok with 5s, just it would have been nice to balance out the 3 and 4 she got on the math sections.
5 5 4 3
So, she's applying with lower average ISEE scores and great grades in an honors magnet program. It's a toss up.
Some of the commenters here have pointed out that there are private schools for every level of achievement/ability, but I'm not sure that's not the case where I live. The options are very limited, especially if you're looking for co-ed. There are two great schools for kids with LD but you have to have an LD and my daughter doesn't.
Ironically, this year the public school system where I live is not factoring standardized testing into magnet program admission and so I think my daughter has a chance to get into the top school, which is as hard or harder to get into than any of the privates. SMH. But then is that fair to the kids who do really well on standardized testing but don't have the greatest grades? I don't know the answer.
Somehow Finland has this all figured out. Private school there isn't even legal!

Anonymous wrote:For anyone who's kid is not a great test taker, especially due to anxiety, then I found that having the child practice the test at home (just get a good practice test from any of the reputable study guides) and try to simulate the test at home. Take the test out of the book and also use the "bubble" answer form that is provided (rather than having them circle the answers on the test). Have them sit the test at home under the same timed conditions with the same breaks etc. If you do this a couple of times then the mystery and stress of the actual test is taken away. They will still have "day-of" nerves, but the stress of the actual test is diminished. I found this worked very well with my kids.

This is a great idea. Thank you.

Anonymous wrote:My daughter has mild ADHD as well, does very well in math class as it's repetitive and isn't timed. Does not do well with math tests, she makes a lot of careless mistakes or skips over sections to returns to and forgets. I don't think this is unusual and absolutely does not mean your daughter is dumb. I can't speak for your kid, but with mine it comes down to poor executive functioning skills and a coach is probably needed in her future.

Very glad to hear that my daughter isn't the only one. And I never meant to suggest seriously that she or any kid like her was "dumb." I just wrote that for the one crank out there who always posts some vicious comment. TBH I don't think there's anything wrong with a young person having issues with attention and executive functioning--kids develop in different ways and at different rates--they're KIDS, not mini-adults--but the world we live in today puts kids under a microscope in a way that I never was. I came across one of my middle school report cards and showed it to my daughter: all Cs and Ds except for art and music. And I never would have gotten a decent score on the ISEE. Amazingly, after getting asked to take my business elsewhere by the Montgomery County public school system, a private school decided to overlook my bad grades and bad attitude and admitted me. I went on to take AP classes, go to a good (top 15) liberal arts college. But I don't think even that same private school would do that now.
So I think the current educational paradigm puts way too much stress on kids and yet here I am, getting carried right along with it.
Anyhow, thank you for your feedback!