Reply to Curriculum 2.0

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[quote=Anonymous]How teachers come up with grades for elementary school students is a major problem in MCPS across all subject areas.  Kids are in elementary school for probably the most important 6 years of their lives because those years build the blocks of learning that will carry them through all other higher levels of education.

Then, as a parent, stop and ask why doesn't MCPS use a system like Edline for elementary school much like they do in middle and high school?  Edline allows parents to go online and check students grades however often they wish and you have a pretty good idea when a child may not be mastering a concept or a subject well before the report card comes home.  There is an opportunity for the parent to intervene and provide extra support before the whole marking period has passed.  The technology is already there and multiple school systems all over the country use similar technology to communicate a child's progress with parents for all grades, not just middle school and high school.

With vague measurement terms such as Curriculum 2.0 provides along with the lack of assignment grades that are reported to parents, I have questioned the validity of the grades on my child's report card.  The report card doesn't always reflect problems that my child has.  I have felt that some teachers (not all and definitely not the good ones) take advantage of the lack of information they have to give to parents and just pick a passing grade out of thin air so they do not have to address a child's areas of weakness.  After all, how many parents are going to question a passing grade or spend money on outside testing and help if the teacher indicates she doesn't see a problem?

From an administrative perspective (school administration as well as Carver Center), they also turn a blind eye to identifying children's problems because if a child is identified, they then have the legal responsibility to address it.  So isn't it cheaper to put your head in the sand like an ostrich, and ignore the problem and after all isn't a certain percentage of children expendable?

And what happens when there are gaps that are not immediately address in elementary school and that child finally reaches middle school?  From our family's own personal experience, these children run into a brick wall or fall off a cliff in middle school.  I have a daughter who supposedly could pull down straight A's in 5th grade then struggled to get C's in multiple subjects in 6th grade because she had major issues that were not flagged sooner.  I had meetings at the elementary school when I suspected problems but was dismissed because she received passing grades.  It turns out, my initial concerns were valid and the elementary school was very effective in pushing the problems to the middle school at the great expense of my child.

I am wholeheartedly fed up with the current BOE and the administrators who run MCPS.  I do vote and I will be looking closely at supporting new candidates during the next election.  The people who run MCPS have lost connection with what actually is happening in the classroom.  If there needs to be budget cuts, start with eliminating 2.0 and laying off administrative positions at the Carver Center.  By eliminating waste and redundancy, there would be funds to put money where it does the most good - hiring more teachers, aides, and special educators and providing them with a livable salary.  It seems the teacher union should support such a move if they had the best interest of the teachers and our children at heart. [/quote]

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