Reply to Why are some schools putting EVERYONE into AIM and HIGH?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I agree that mid terms and cumulative finals need to come back in. Its fine if everyone or almost everyone is an advanced class BUT the class should not have the bar lowered just to accommodate kids who can not do the work.

Gate keeping IMO is wrong because it overlooks kids who don't test on standardized tests well but can thrive in an advanced class and kids who are willing to work harder than their peers to succeed in an advanced class. My private high school was a mix of 99.999% kids and legacy kids that had a much broader range. Some of the legacy kids were simply C/D students that just hung on but others worked twice as hard as their more intellectually gifted peers and in many classes ended up doing better because they never expected it to be easy. I saw the same thing in college.

The key is not to lower the standards and workloads and do rigorous in class testing and grading. [/quote]

I think MCPS middle school is already plenty rigorous.  My child consistently has 2 hours of homework every day, and throughout this year (7th) there are quizzes pretty consistently 2 x per week.  On quiz days, there have always been at least 2.  Today, for example, there are 3.  There are County written cumulative quarterly assessments in math, and semester assessments in English.   The algebra teacher has a quiz on every topic in the unit, and this helps prepare for the formative for the unit, which is usually 3 or 4 topics.  The quizzes serve to point out weaknesses for the formative.

If you're clamoring for midterms and finals that are cumulative, you must have a child with a great memory, who is a strong test taker.  Not all kids are.  Test taking is not a life skill. Hard work and study skills - yes - actual test performance, not so much.  There are only 45 minutes in a class period,  and some kids are slower.  In our day, we were penalized for being slow.  That doesn't work if you are actually wanting kids to be deep thinkers and problem solvers.  In my opinion, based on my experience in our school, Middle School in MCPS is already too heavy on the testing.  I would love to see more project based work, more collaboration in groups.  Not all this old school sit and listen to the teacher, practice the skill, do a test business.[/quote]

My kid may have an hour tops of homework a day. Mostly 30min or so.   I find that middle school is way too easy and doesn't prepare them for high school.  And MCPS high school absolutely does not prepare them for college.

That said, any high school level class should have midterms and finals.  So Algebra 1 and higher for sure. [/quote]

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