Reply to 1/2 day Wed for 2025-25 school year?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I cannot believe this.  Reid claims that Early Release Days mean better scores:

"During my Superintendent Matters report at a recent School Board meeting, I announced our plan to continue limited early release days and move them to Wednesdays for the 2025-26 school year. This decision follows a recommendation from the Early Release Steering Committee—which includes parents, caregivers, school-based staff, and central office staff—working in partnership with the Fairfax Association of Elementary School Principals (FAESP). The recommendation was based on the positive outcomes of this year’s limited early release Mondays.

For example, in grades K-3, we saw an 11 percentage point increase in students meeting reading benchmarks from fall to winter. In grades 3-6, multi-year trend data shows improved reading performance, with more students meeting or approaching grade-level expectations than in previous years. This progress is significant—and a clear indicator that this approach is working. This work matters!"

Gee.  If Early Release Days yield such good results, why not just give the teachers a full day every week?

Why not just be honest?[/quote]

Really.  If less instruction time = better results, something stinks in FCPS.  Also, wasn't it 7 ER Mondays?  Now it quietly got bumped up to 8 Wednesdays?  This administration is so stealthy, with the rationale morphing as they go. [/quote]

I assume the argument is that teaching teachers how to properly teach kids language arts (which should have been done in college but wasn't due to Calkins and F&P) helped them educate better.

But the increase in scores could easily be explained by Benchmark just being better than Teachers Pay Teachers worksheets related to Units of Study...even [b]without[/b] the teacher training.[/quote]

This!

They're using data from this year compared to other years and pretending that the only change year over year was the early release trainings.

Benchmark is a boxed curriculum with explicit phoenics instructions that is going to be a significant improvement over the hodge podge of worksheets that a lot of schools used prior to this year. We were covid homeschoolers and used a similar scripted reading curriculum and my kid ended the grade reading 4 grade levels above their grade despite me having no formal educational experience. It's the boxed, scripted curriculum, not the early release Mondays. 
[/quote]

+1 On changing multiple variables and arbitrarily choosing the one you want to attribute the positive change to.  Common sense would dictate that more time in class leads to more learning.  If that is not the case, FCPS needs to get better teachers or better materials. Also ditto on my kids progressing more during the shutdown than their grade level.  Why?  I speculate it was fewer disruptions from other kids, no morning meetings, and focus on the core subjects.  Now that they are back in school, they are slowly losing their "lead."[/quote]

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