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

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote]Anonymous wrote:
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.

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]

No I have 3 kids and one has ADHD/slow processing. You WANT your ADHD/slow processing kid to get experience taking cumulative exams in middle school. If you move most high schools systems snd almost all colleges give cumulative exams. Middle school is the time to learn how to organize yourself, reflect back on the material, parse what is important and what isn't, and pull it all together for a cumulative exam. It is tough for kids who struggle with executive functioning and they need as much practice before the grades really count as they can get. Also bombing cumulative exams in middle school can help you figure out what supports are necessary and work for your child BEFORE they get to high school.

For kids without LD, cumulative exams are just as important. MCPS is not set up for deeper thinking. The curriculum incentivizes kids to regurgitate what they memorized from the teacher within the previous few days or weeks. They memorize enough to do well on the quiz and many promptly forget. Cumulative exams, especially ones with good essay questions measure mastery of the material and the preparation for them in itself helps kids master the material. Its a huge mistake to not give them.

MCPS likes not doing exams because its less to grade and it keeps parents quiet because there are tons of kids getting As and Bs who don't really leave the class knowing the material. Parents just like seeing the good grades. [/quote]

I value your perspective, however, is there more value to a LD/ADHD student in long-form memorization vs. short?  Isn't the penchant for memorization and regurgitation THE problem whether the test is long and cumulative or short?  [/quote]

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