Reply to Update on Curriculum Selection Process

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]So what's the Pre-K - 5 plan for ELA?[/quote]

According to the letter, we should find out in February.[/quote]

Interesting that there’s a delay on that one. I remember one of the posters on an earlier thread who was an educator said that they weren’t impressed with the finalists chosen for this and that one of them wasn’t recommended for accreditation.[/quote]

I think two were not recommended. Hoping they are re-bidding but doubt it![/quote]

Which K-5 ELA curriculum weren't recommended?  If they had so many bids, it boggles the mind that they would choose two curriculum that were not recommended as semi-finalists.[/quote]

Copied from the other thread:

Here is an email posted to a parent list serve. The parent is a public school curriculum professional. Based on her feedback, 4 of 5 programs are terrible for literacy but all are good for math.

Here is my recommendation on what to do about the curriculum selection.

I have about 100 opinions and have done a ton of research on these (and already know a bunch of them from my day job). Not sure how interested/involved you want to be but figured I'd share my two cents. For middle school it isn't quite as horrible. But 2/3 of the elementary choices are bad and one is mediocre, so if you are inclined to say/do anything, I'd suggest you click on the links for feedback put negative responses on the rating scale (literally three clicks).

Also, for the record, the math choices are all strong, so we have that going for us!

So, if you have five minutes, here's what I would do (before Dec. 9!). Click to provide feedback on "Wonders" and put in negative ratings (the open ended responses are optional, but you could add, if you want, "Ed Reports does not rate Wonders all green." I'd also likely put in mediocre (middle rating) feedback on Benchmark, and higher feedback on ReadyGen (that's our best bet and it is only slightly above mediocre, honestly). Here is the page for feedback links for each program: 
MCPS Curriculum Review – Vendor Presentations webpage.

To put this in perspective, I think the program called "Wonders" they have listed here is on par with what I see in some of the lowest performing, weakest districts in the country; in fact, we'd be better in terms of curriculum sending our kids to Baltimore City Schools. Seriously their materials for reading and literacy are better and more rigorous. Some of these are actually programs I actively superintendents against using. Wonders is so low level and boring that I would seriously consider private school.

One of my main sources was an independent review consortium called Ed Reports (actually called out in the RFP from MoCo for curriculum). Both Wonders and Benchmark are not rated "all green" on their ratings. Just in case you wanted one of my back up sources! You can click here if you are so inclined. [/quote]

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