Reply to What changes did the teacher's union make?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]There cannot be a real conversation about these issues as long as the loudest parents claim there was no teaching. It obliterates the hard work of teachers who went above and beyond every day.

I wrote about this before. DCUM posts were so negative that  I started to feel paranoid that my parents were lying when they thanked me. Maybe they really thought I did nothing? Did that mean that they thanked me because they also thought if they didn’t I would retaliate in some way? It was really upsetting.  [/quote]

I'm not one of those loud parents, but I do have questions. I did not ask questions last spring, because I knew that everyone was scrambling to deal with the crisis. As we move forward, however, I still maintain that the deficiencies in the spring should be explained as a way to assure parents that the fall will be better. If my child didn't have any of those teachers who went "above and beyond" in the spring and no one has explained why a 1 hour check in per class per week in high school was deemed to be acceptable, whether by the teacher or administration, then I have to speculate about the reasons why. A possible reason why instruction was not offered was that teachers' unions pushed for this.  And honestly, the fact that some teachers went above and beyond confuses parents even more, because then those who did what was agreed upon look like slackers.

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The teacher's union has very little power and everything that was put in place this spring had to be agreed to by both MCEA and MCPS.  MCPS was more behind this than MCEA.  The reason high school and middle school instruction was limited and these limitations were encouraged by MCPS was Jack Smith did not want the gaps between the haves and have nots to increase.  He and Monifa McKnight would rather have no students learn than some learn because it makes equity data look more favorable.  Central office realized it takes a lot of parent involvement to push students to log onto Zoom and engage in lessons and homework.  This would happen in some households but not in many others.  If high school and middle school teachers were told to push out more work and Zooms they would have done so.  I know of many teachers that were chastised by their principals for giving too much work and doing too many Zoom calls.  Also once the BOE decided basically everyone passes, what's the point of trying to promote rigor and lessons when less than 5% of students were logging onto Zoom or doing assignments.  If blame is to be assigned, look no further than Gude Drive.  BLAME CENTRAL OFFICE.  Blame Jack Smith.  Blame Monifa McKnight.  Blame the BOE.  Don't blame teachers.  Email  Jack_Smith@mcpsmd.org and Monifa_B_Mcknight@mcpsmd.org and demand their by more rigor and higher expectations of teachers and students for distance learning. [/quote]

I am not surprised that this is their approach, but unfortunately, this only makes things worse; just as in other things in life, it is not black and white, and it is not haves and have nots. It is a continuum - at one extreme there will be students who supplement and who will be less affected relatively speaking in the long run; at the other extreme, there will be kids who should really be in school learning in in-person classes; in the middle there is definitely a section that can make good use of more rigoruous distance learning. Right now MCPS is letting the gap between one extreme and the rest widen.

I wonder if there is a case to be made for MCPS to provide transportation only to, say, FARMS eligible and Special Ed students for in-person classes and provide rigorous DL for others (with exceptions, of course) instead of letting parents choose? May be they can be spread among all schools, so physical distancing becomes less of an issue? They can also let families that qualify for in person to opt out...[/quote]

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