Reply to Did you waste your money buying a house to get access to MCPS?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I think every parent should complain as loudly as we can. The way 2.0 was implemented was [b]nothing short of criminal negligence.[/b] Sure, some kids are going to be fine no matter what happens. Their native intelligence and advantaged circumstance protected them from an inadequate education at school. But for the majority of the students, 2.0 was a massive failure as the JHU studies pointed out in student performance changes relative to neighboring district.  MCPS needs to be rebuked and held accountable by every stakeholder. Your child may be fine but the school reputation and your property value may be affected as well.  Just tell others to shut up is not the answer when the external audit is so black and white. [/quote]

Agree. I am from a developing nation and if my relatives back home saw some of the worksheets, they would laugh. I had a baby sitter from Spain, who was a teacher there, and she begged me to complain. Typos like the diagram not matching up with the words in the question, stuff like that.

I remember years ago watching a movie about a man who gave his wife money to buy their daughter a dress. The mother got a brilliant idea and decided to buy fabric to make a dress instead, even though she was not a seamstress. The dress was a complete failure and the daughter was very upset. When the father found out, he yelled at his wife and asked why she didn't just buy a d-m dress.

I want to ask MCPS, why they didn't just buy a d-m curriculum. [/quote]

Exactly. I think many parents who assumed all was fine did not actually spend time helping their kids with homework, or perhaps did not have kids who complained about the curriculum. We pulled my son out of MCPS after third grade. I wanted to yank him mid-year and wish we had. He’s in s private school now and is still struggling to catch up in math. [/quote]

This is what terrifies me, as a parent with a young child.[/quote]

PP 20:21 here. Please don’t be terrified! Being a parent is hard enough! And believe me, taking a huge financial hit for private school is terrifying too. That said, there  are a few things you can do, here are some examples:
 
1. Keep reading to your child, and focus on conversations with questions and answers that describe situations. It really helped that my kid was an early reader and had the vocabulary to describe what was going on in school. I hate to admit I didn’t believe him at first, but when I stopped and questioned, talked to the teacher, volunteered at the school, etc, I learned my kid was not really exaggerating. I literally did not have the time to micro manage his education, but I was not willing to look the other way.

2. Some of my friends homeschooled. Those communities are big in Silvef Spring and Takona Park. There are fabulous resources here, and collaboratives so you don’t always have to do everything yourself. I do not have the temperament (or the career) for homeschooling, so we couldn’t go that route. However, there are homeschooled kids doing really well with college admissions and getting socialization through sports clubs, scouts, robotics clubs, church/temple, etc.

3. Put pressure on elected officials. Everything I’ve read and observed suggests that MCPS is just a terrible top/down bureaucracy. “They” (top administrators) will NOT take input from teachers or parents. I agree the school system needs radical change, but I am skeptical that will happen in short order. Pay attention to the County Council race. Mark Elrich was a teacher pre-2.0; he gets it and he supports “the little guy” — ie, local communities.

4. If you go private, consider parochial schools - tuition can be as little as @ $10 - $12k a year, even in Bethesda. Most religious schools will give financial aid
and if you have more than one kid, it’s easier to qualify for some help.

5. Finally, there are a lot of parents working more than one job and / or going through savings and retirement funds to send their kids to parochial and other schools. Before we entered MCPS, I truly did not understand it. But as one parent put it to me, “We used their college funds to pay for private school. We figured it was most important to get them the help they needed — now.” [/quote]

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