Reply to Superintendent Taylor admits there is grade inflation in MCPS during BoE meeting

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Teacher here. Math education in MCPS is a hot mess. There are kids who do well despite MCPS. But they are generally from higher income families and have the luxury of math tutors, or parents helping them at home or they are just very bright and pick up math easily. But in general, students are not picking up basic math skills. And worse, they do not understand how to manipulate numbers at the most basic level possible. High school kids have no idea how to multiply or divide without a calculator. They can’t catch any mistakes because they blindly follow problem solving steps with no understanding of what they are doing. Central Office administrators responsible for math should be given a year to come up with a strong plan to completely overhaul math instruction and if they can’t get their act together, they should be fired [/quote]

The Great Courses
Khan Academy
Textbooks.

Anyone can teach their kids Maths at home if they are literate.  [/quote]

I think a big part of the problem is we keep looking to the “experts” in Central Office to fix the problems they made, and their idea of fixing it is to double down.  Let’s find a commercial curriculum with good results elsewhere, and go with it.  I’d rather have a curriculum (any curriculum) produced by subject matter experts, that has a proven track record, than anything our Central Office staff can throw together.  A commercial curriculum would provide students a reference to use at home.  Moreover, it would allow parents to evaluate the curriculum for themselves.  If it turns out to be a flawed curriculum, the weaknesses would be more readily exposed, rather than being hidden with parents only seeing inflated grades and receiving assurances that “MCPS is one of the best school systems in the country.”

I also agree 100% with the PP teacher about calculator dependence.  Calculators usage should be saved for advanced math, well after students have mastered basic arithmetic.  I was appalled when my children’s elementary started pushing calculator usage in 3rd grade, and instituted the rule that while they should use calculators as directed in the classroom, they were not allowed to use them for homework without asking for specific permission. I think I allowed them to start using their own discretion somewhere around Algebra 2 or Trig.[/quote]

Eureka Math is used K-Geometry. [/quote]

PP you responded to

I am delighted to hear that they have implemented a standard curriculum.

- Do you know when it was implemented?  I think that until the curriculum audit of 2018, MCPS was using their proprietary Curriculum 2.0. After the curriculum, my understanding was that they were going to select a curriculum and gradually roll it out, but that the rollout was disrupted by COVID.  Even if they had the new curriculum in place in Fall of 2018, those Ks still wouldn’t have progressed to high school math yet.

- For those with experience with Eureka Math, what is your opinion?  It seems to be fairly rigorous, from what I can glean, emphasizing both conceptual understanding and memorization of basic facts.  Do those who’ve seen it feel it provides a solid mathematical foundation?  Does it discourage calculator usage in early grades?

From what I can see online there seems to be concern that the math curriculum requires too much reading in the early grades, has that been the experience here?

It seems that Eureka emphasizes methods designed to promote understanding, but is there too much emphasis on learning these strategies, themselves, over learning the actual math?

I am concerned that it appears to be a spiral curriculum, which in my experience means that those who initially master a concept get bored seeing it over and over again each year, while those who don’t master it, forget most of what they did learn, only to be face more challenging levels of that concept with a muddled understanding, making it even harder to wrestle with it.

A PP indicated that MCPS has a problem with teachers who don’t understand math.  Would we do better with a scripted curriculum (which Eureka does not appear to be)?

It sounds like this may be a large step in the right direction, but even so, it will take several years for it to improve the level of our graduates. [/quote]

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