Reply to Why do people say schools in NOVA are competitive and cutthroat when people also say the education system here is bad?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Look at all the educational enrichment centers. The curriculum has been watered down from when we were kids and places like AOPS, RSM, Kumon, etc fill in the gaps.

Because the basic curriculum is watered down so much, anyone who cares about education has their average kids take honors/AP/IB classes. [u][b]Everything is open enrollment now so there is a huge range of abilities.[/b][/u] Even the College Board has admitted to norming the AP test scores to reflect the fact that kids know less than 10 years ago but they still want to get paid. Schools love to brag about how many kids are taking higher level courses but the teachers know that tons of the kids taking them shouldn’t be there. Admin gets on us if not enough kids pass so we have to make the classes easier. It’s like a housing bubble. Lots of hype, little substance.[/quote]

Can you explain this part?[/quote]

Sure, I’m PP. In FCPS, middle school honors courses (possibly with the exception of the math classes- I don’t teach math so am not sure) have no grade requirements nor do they require any teacher recommendations. Teachers are not allowed at my school to tell kids they aren’t ready for honors. We are encouraged to ask them about their strengths and weaknesses and their interests and they decide themselves.

As a result, teachers cannot expect any baseline level of preparedness. I have kids in my Honors classes every year who can’t read on grade level and don’t do any homework. I have kids who struggle to come to school regularly. It’s not a lot of kids this year luckily, but some years I have had such big numbers of unprepared kids that I have had to use my general level materials for a majority of kids so they would pass.

As other poster have said, this comes back to making everything about equity but failing in execution.[/quote]

NP.

Thanks for sharing your lived-experience.  I feel like FCPS has been less than transparent about what they are doing in our children’s schools.[/quote]

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