Reply to Why do parents from high FARMS school

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I would love to hear what deranged level of course offerings should be offered at every school.[/quote]

How about offering the same exact classes at all schools.  You are ok with this because your kids have access.  You bash other parents whose kids don’t have access why?   You are the problem.  [/quote]

I think your child’s needs should be met, but I don’t think you are being realistic or reasonable in thinking you can buy a home in an under resourced school pyramid and expect that your outlier child, who is not a family on FARMS or an EML student, should get bespoke treatment/allocation of school resources when the majority of your school needs different classes and remediation. I think mcps should provide you transportation to mc or to a nearby high school so you can access those classes they can’t provide at yours. I don’t think your under resourced over crowded school should have to cater to a very small subset. [/quote]

I think that's a mis-reading of the student population at these high FARMS schools. It's not like 90% are below grade level. There's a substantial cohort of able learners, and they should be able to have their needs met at their home school.

Honestly, this is perhaps a topic for another thread, but the simplest way to do that IMO is less about super-advanced AP or post-AP classes, but to go back to cohorted Grade 9-10 English and Social Studies classes so that teachers aren't scrambling trying to teach to such a wide range of abilities in one classroom, an approach that I don't think helps students at any level. [/quote]

Yes - DCC parent here who wants MCPS to eliminate all these special programs and focus on: same course offerings in each school; cohorted by ability. There is a decent sized chunk of high performing kids in my zoned high school but special programs incentivize them to leave whereas cohorts would incentivize them to stay with their similarly academically-abled friends they’ve grown up with. Why can’t we do this? I don’t care if there’s only one AP Calculus class in my school and four of them in Whitman as long as any kids in my school who qualify to take AP Calculus can do so without having to take a 45 minute bus ride each way.[/quote]

I agree with this. I think the problem starts with CES and continues all the way up. [/quote]

DP and another DCC parent: I could not agree more.  Enough already.[/quote]

Just getting rid of the special programs is not going to convince MCPS to cohort classes locally, though... there is a lot of internal opposition to that-- it's not just about lack of resources or adequately-sized cohorts. Instead, there needs to be advocacy specifically focused on offering advanced classes in all subjects, starting in middle school.

The problem is that having multiple levels generally makes racial and SES disparities more visible, and addressing those disparities the right way is hard.  Just putting everyone in the same level classes is much easier, so MCPS prefers to do it that way. [/quote]

I can see the discomfort from cohorting if it's done in a top-down way where all the highest-performers in 8th grade are assigned to Advanced English 9, and the medium or below performers are assigned to regular English 9. But why not offer a class at every high school, available to all students who have ELA proficiency, where students will be assigned more books, and more challenging texts, and expected to write more, than in the standard class?

I think most 14 year-olds are able to self-select in the class that's best for them, in the same way later in high school students choose which or how many AP classes they take.[/quote]

PP responding to my own comment... I think there'd be a lot less angst about whether Whitman or Northwood gets the "humanities magnet" if these basic options were available at all high schools. [/quote]

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