Reply to What happened to MCPS?????

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote]My children have been exposed to the French and British school systems (private and public) before coming here to MCPS. While no system is perfect, they DO expect much higher standards of performance from their average students compared to MCPS.

For example, in DC1's private British school, they were teaching multiplication tables to FIRST graders (started at step counting and jam tarts, and ended by learning tables off by heart). In the French public school system, they learn this in second grade. In MCPS, they learn multiplication in third grade. [b]And everything is like this[/b].

[b]The French grade their primary students on a numbers scale that is either out of 20 or out of 10. One point off for every error on your homework or test. Everything is graded, the reports come home with all grades and written recommendations. The parents know exactly how their kid is performing and what the teacher thinks: no sweet talking here![/b]

The average French and British students end up with a greater and more rigorous body of knowledge than the average students here who waste more time with "manipulatives", "multiple strategies", etc. They have better written essay skills, while the US is stronger on oral presentations (which is great).

My problem with MCPS and I fear, many other US school systems, is that they [b]expect too little of their average students.[/b] They cater to their LD students much BETTER than French and British systems - I also have a LD child receiving services, so I know. I am grateful for that.

Students here have coasted for years on US economic power which has given them comfortable lifestyles for mediocre performance. Now the economy is in decline and other countries are taking the lead, the next generation of students should be taught to a higher level, otherwise they will not be able to compete in the global marketplace. [/quote]

+100 My observation based on seeing my older child pre 2.0 math/grading and younger child post 2.0 grading/math, is that MCPS used to be better than the traditional American public school system with lower expectations. Now MCPS is moving to the bottom of the pack. My older child received a far better math education in K-3 than my youngest child is receiving under 2.0.

There is nothing magical or even complex about multiplication. It is simply adding one number onto itself multiple times. Asian and montessori systems teach simple multiplication after addition and simple division after subtraction. Our Montessori school taught multiplication and division to K kids. While K math pre 2.0 wasn't as strong as those systems, it still covered far more than the new 2.0. Kids could also accelerate and many second graders were doing multiplication. These were not gifted students or math savants. They were simply average kids who had demonstrated that they understood the concepts and were ready to move on.

[b]In the new system not only is there no expectation that average students can achieve beyond a very low bar, there is no way for them to even have the opportunity to do it. [/b]

[/quote]

+1000 - I too see the difference between what the curriculum used to be and the opportunities afforded kids who were ready to move on vs. the stuck in the mud system my youngest is trapped in.  The same concepts are repeated year after year after year.  Place values again in 4th Grade?  Really?  Once a kid masters the concept in 1st grade, just because the numbers are larger doesn't mean the system is really teaching him anything new.  BTW - he is in the accelerated 4/5 class.[/quote]

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