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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Any Private is better than Public. Catholic or not.  [/quote]

That’s really a stupid uninformed statement.   The top public schools send more students to the top universities than most private schools.  These public schools are only admit the top students and they actually have the best and brightest.  Stuyvesant High NY , Bronx High Science NY, Hunter School Science NY, Boston Latin plus all the other exam schools across the US.

Also some of the wealthiest towns have top public schools that send their students to top colleges well prepared.  And then you have the for profit private schools that are terrible.

It’s no longer private school is always better than public school.  The exam high schools, especially sciences ones around the country are where the brightest kids end up. The well known NYC and New England old private schools are still on top. And the public schools still have problems with equity.  [/quote]

Listen to what teachers are saying about public schools.  This is a recent post in the MCPS forum about a recent reddit post by an MCPS teacher.  Very eye opening and all other teachers agree with this teacher.  Others from other school systems say it is country wide.  Private schools do not have these problems.

https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/15/1166010.page

The Reddit post: https://www.reddit.com/r/MontgomeryCountyMD/comments/17ma4r1/how_mcps_is_ruining_education_for_students/

[quote]It’s hard to believe how much leadership has changed our schools. It’s still a great system for high achieving students, with incredible opportunities and rigorous programs. But this is available if you’re a student with a family and peer group that knows the benefit of education or someone that holds the student accountable. It’s been a slow creep, but now it has come to a point where our most needy kids are no longer being educated. Our leadership cares about the metrics by which they themselves are evaluated, they do not care about education.

When MCPS needed to meet the metric of increasing enrollment in honors classes, schools moved up all classes to honors classes. This hurt learning as many students wishing a faster paced honors course had to slow down and those needing a slower pace had trouble keeping up. It did, however, drastically improve the metric of increasing enrollment in honors courses.

Graduation rate then became the metric. So, MCPS did away with attendance requirements. I’m not kidding: a student does not have to attend class. They can skip classes and hang out in the hall without consequence. Since students no longer could lose credit for absences, the halls of many schools are full. Sometimes the laughing and yelling in the halls is so loud it becomes difficult for students inside the classroom to concentrate and for teachers to present the lesson. Graduation rates have improved drastically, while education has not.

When I started teaching a couple decades ago, students ran to class to get there on time. Now the lesson is that timeliness and attendance isn’t important. And there isn’t anything a teacher can do. If I tried to get a student in the hall to return to class, they could tell me to go to hell and then keep walking. Maybe I figure out who they are by going to security and looking at the cameras. Then we can do a restorative justice circle to find out what is motivating the child to tell me off, but if there are dozens of kids in every hallway? I could spend every moment getting kids to go to the class and it would make no difference.

The state then got on MCPS for these attendance issues. To increase attendance rates, teachers now have to mark a student tardy instead of absent if they walk into the classroom at any point. One minute before the conclusion of class is only a tardy, and therefore doesn’t count against MCPS attendance rates. This has improved the metric of attendance rates.

Since students didn’t have to attend, those that skip don’t learn the material. That presented another “obstacle” that could lead to decreased graduation rates. This led MCPS to the “50% rule”. Even if a student doesn’t turn in work, that’s the floor. But wait, in the MCPS policy it says teachers can give zeros. True, but how it works is that teachers may give zeros, however they must have “documented two way communication with parents” on multiple instances where a teacher informs them of the zero. This is for every assignment. That’s impossible in terms of time.

But even more insidious, if a parent doesn’t answer the phone or respond to the email, the student can’t be given a zero because “two way communication” hasn’t been established. Obvious consequence: parents stop communicating. We can’t get emails or phone calls answered. This valuable tool to enlist parents to help students is eliminated in the name increase passing and graduation rates. And since they get 50% even with nothing turned in, a single big assignment can allow them to pass a course. One assignment. No attendance. Passing.

Honestly the problems they will face after graduation won’t just be because we are facilitating these kids remaining uneducated. These students will have also learned the behaviors allowed in our schools are fine in the working world. They’re learning it’s ok to skip work or come in late. They’re learning it’s ok do just a tiny bit of what is required. It’s ok to tell your boss to go to hell. Spoiler alert: it isn’t ok.

MCPS has recently celebrated the drastic increases in graduation rates.[/quote][/quote]

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