Reply to Has anyone had a good experience with MCPS?

Forum Index » Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS)

Reply to "Has anyone had a good experience with MCPS?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous]
I have criticized the MCPS curriculum many times on these boards, but I have also lauded my son's experience with the special needs team at his schools.

We come from a country where academics are much stronger in public school, but services and accommodations for special needs are non-existent apart from "time and a third" (a little extra time on tests).  There are pros and cons to every school system.

My main beef is that there is so much money spent on education in this country compared to the rest of the world, how on earth are they not doing better? Other countries have heterogeneous populations, need to integrate non-native speakers, have wide socio-economic disparities, etc, and yet some do very well with their public education, better than the US.

I have the sneaking suspicion that it's in part due to moving away from a serious, rote-based learning system in elementary. Kids are entering middle school without all their facts down cold, because primary education instead seeks to capture students' interest and make learning "creative" and "fun". Which is a laudable goal, but taken too far in my opinion. I call it the "Snowflake Effect". Some adults think that whatever happens at school needs to be at least as distracting and entertaining as what the kids do at home on their tablets.

Instead of spending money on Promethean boards and individual laptops in elementary schools, and all the gizmos of maker fairs and specials (I know, I know, they're nice to have) we should be making time for stronger reading and arithmetic skills. Writing standards are actually pretty good in elementary MCPS! It's at the middle and high school level that they go downhill compared to private schools, because teachers have too many students to give adequate feedback.

I'm a research scientist. I don't need students to spend a ton of time on STEM in their primary years, or even middle school years. I need to see freshmen coming into my college class who have adequate skills in reading comprehension, writing, and basic knowledge of the world. When we discuss vaccines around the world, I don't want to read on someone's exam paper that "Europe" is a 3rd world country! I can't even imagine what history professors have to read at the freshman level...

[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics