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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]As a teacher and a parent of two in MCPS, I am generally happy with MCPS. I do think we provided a better product 20 years ago, but I'd say that's a national trend rather than a local. I do believe there is some correction going on that's going to take time to shake out. Someone mentioned how many parents are happy with their teachers, but would like to see more educational rigor and accountability for their children. I'd say that's accurate for the teachers too. But there are a lot of policies put in place over the last decade that have to be undone. Still, my experience is that there are good teachers teaching good students.
Of course, the biggest factor to your child's education success is you. Keeping them exposed to reading, music, physical activity, and limiting their use of screens (especially at an early age) is going to do so much more for their educational outcomes than any policy from central office. [/quote]

This. [b]The academic rigor just isn’t there compared with my rigorous private school education 30 years ago. They barely teach writing. My 6th grader has never been asked to write even a book report let alone a real essay or paper.[/b] But I’m not sure any other local public is better. We don’t have the money for private. As far as school experience goes it’s been fine. Just I wonder about the curriculum. My 3rd grader is doing a bit more writing so maybe it is improving. [/quote]
Reading books is overrated and doesn't necessarily make a school rigorous. 
Welcome to the 21st century. [/quote]

Teaching writing well is hard with such big class sizes that MCPS has, but my MCPS 4th grader does weekly reading reports that are similar to the book reports I did as a kid (although they're shorter). My 6th grader did essays (and they definitely increase in frequency in 7th and 8th grade).  [/quote]

That's fantastic, but that wasn't our experience at all in ES or MS.  We didn't have weekly book reports in 4th.  We had a chart where kids had to pick one activity (i.e. read for 15 minutes, or anwser one question in 2-3 sentences).  MCPS really varies by school and teachers.[/quote]

Yes, of course that's the case, and most people recognize that their experiences aren't universal in a large public school system, which is why I take statements like "my AP English kid read only 1 book" with a grain of salt.  My kid struggled in 7th grade English with a teacher who assigned a lot of writing and some texts that I honestly thought were more suitable to high school.  I was told he was the toughest English teacher in the school.  My kid's 8th grade teacher assigns a lot more multiple choice assignments and a lot less writing.  [/quote]

You were really lucky then.  We have had one book in AP English this year.  We have never had more than 2 books a year, maybe one year we had three but that wasn't the norm.  Never had lots of multiple choice.  Most writing assignments are a paragraph or two.[/quote]

I wouldn’t judge the rigor of an AP English class on the number of books they’ve read. Are they reading historic texts? Classic short stories that are considered exemplary literary works? Sometimes the teacher is showing a specific literary device or teaching a specific theme that is featured for the AP exam and can do that with a shorter piece of literature.  And you can do that whether or not something is a “book.”[/quote]

+1 My kid is reading a Shakespeare play in MCPS middle school. And some short stories by widely respected authors. And 2 books as of MP2.  But even if they were reading zero books and all plays and short stories, I wouldn’t complain that having no books made the class inherently bad.  That’s just narrow -minded thinking. [/quote]

Every school and teacher makes different choices so the narrow mided thinking is on you not to understand that your children's experiences are not the same as other posters whose experiences are very different than yours.[/quote]

The PP never wrote that their childrens’ MCPs. experiences were universal.  Adults with a functioning brain can understand that experience in a large public school system will differ wildly.

They wrote that someone who uses the argument that an AP English class that teaches “only one book” must be inherently bad is narrow minded.  You should work on your reading comprehension rather than critiquing the choices of a fictional English teacher that you complain is only assigning critical race theory for AP English. [/quote]

We weren't assigned a critical race theory book.  It was someone else as I would have been thrilled, as at least they were reading a book and we'd talk about it at home.  AP English should be reading at least 2 books a quarter, not two books a year.[/quote]

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