Reply to interesting discussion regarding abysmal decline of MoCo schools

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I have worked for MCPS for a long time.  I don't think MCPS has changed, but our county demographics certainly have changed.  We have more newcomers with limited to no English language.  We have much higher rates of poverty and trauma.  Parents who are struggling to keep roofs over their heads, substance abuse, domestic violence, etc.  All of these societal problems are spilling into our school buildings and quite frankly, staff are overwhelmed.  It's very, very challenging to try and teach or run a building when you have a few kids in each grade-level who are consistently occupying 95% of your bandwidth.  These kids didn't ask to be born into crappy conditions but they're in our schools and are having a really tough time despite the best efforts by staff to support their SEL needs.  
We have to be honest with ourselves - until the parents (society) gets in a better place, we're going to continue to see the effects in our buildings.  The curriculum standards have become harder with CCSS but we've lowered our expectations.  Students know that there aren't any real consequences.  We don't suspend students because of the school to prison pipeline.  Trust me when I tell you, there are kids I would have advocated for suspension years ago but now knowing what they'd do at home, I'd rather them be safe and fed in our building.  Admin are basically spending any free moment covering duties, dealing with behavior issues, etc.  This gets in the way of them being able to get into classrooms to observe actual teaching and instruction.  
Personally, I'm tired of schools and MCPS being blamed for all of the problems that we've created as a society.  We aren't private schools - we take whoever comes to enroll and we do the best that we can with limited staff and training in trauma-informed practices. [/quote]

DP. This 100%. I'm a parent with kids at a MS and HS with high FARMS rates. The staff at these schools are dealing with problems that aren't even related to academics and it doesn't help that MCPS has taken an approach to discipline that provides little to no consequences.  The kids who stay out of trouble, come from stable families who prioritize education, and hang out with similar students are barely affected by this. They get good grades, join clubs and do extracurricular activities, take AP and IB classes, take full advantage of the MCPS college and career programs available to them, and will get into good colleges. Unfortunately, the ones with issues that stem from outside the school (poverty, domestic violence, etc.) are going to have a tough time regardless of the MCPS disciplinary approach. All of this is not some breaking news though. No school system can fix society's problems and while no one wants to hear this, at the end of the day- [b]the most important factor in a child's success is their PARENTS.[/b] [/quote]
The sentence I bolded is so true. If the parents aren't properly raising their kids and providing a poor home-life, there is only so much the schools can do. If your kid comes from a stable home and the parents prioritize education, your kid will do fine in MCPS. [/quote]

I disagree that my kid will do fine. she attends a high FARMS high school. she is taking advanced classes because they are "easy". There are several kids in her classes that shouldn't be there and as a result, the teachers are slowing down the teaching and skipping important concepts. How do I know this? My kid is getting easy As in her AP classes yet doing poorly on the AP exams claiming a lot of the material on the exam was not covered. Not to mention that she always has the less advanced kids in her group projects and has to carry the weight. she just had to draft a research paper and put together a presentation with no help from her group. I saw their contributions and it was bad. very bad. I wish I could post some examples. My kid had to redo everything because in MCPS, it is a collective group grade and if she went with what her peers submitted she would have received a lot grade. Why they allow.some kids to take advanced classes is beyond me. my kids intentionally signed up for tough classes to avoid the riffraff but they are still there.[/quote]
I'm curious what school this is. What school allows the barely literate to take AP classes? [/quote]

Exactly. I'm confused about this. OUr school is looked down upon here in the DCUM land and my daughter is always saying how smart everyone in her AP classes  to the point that she sometimes feels inferior to them.[/quote]

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