Reply to Dr Starr puts his spin on falling test scores

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[quote=Anonymous][quote]"Over the last eight years, a large majority of students have been accelerated through the math curriculum, as teachers and principals have been pressured to meet unrealistic targets. As a result, students have accumulated gaps in their understanding. Dr. Starr has been working to slow acceleration, but the effects linger on and could take many years to overcome. In fact, there is still a target for 71% of students to pass Algebra 1 in 8th grade in 2013 in spite of recommendations by math resource teachers and the 2009 K-12 math workgroup that all targets be removed. All stakeholders need to understand that acceleration cannot substitute for depth of instruction. Even for a relatively small number of highly able students, magnet teachers have recommended the specialized curriculum available in magnet programs rather than acceleration through the standard curriculum."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/06/11/teachers-why-so-many-kids-are-flunking-final-exams-in-montgomery-county/

I'm looking forward to your explanation of how that really means "We don't like it when Asian-American students do well in math, and we're going to stop it." [/quote]

Since K through 3 have not been accelerated during his tenure (the "go-slow but deep") we have an appropriate control or comparator group to test your hypothesis.  Tell me how these kids are doing on outside metrics (e.g., MSA) last year, this year and the next?  It will be interesting to follow this cohort out.  So far, from what I have gathered from the recent summer MSA release results for the elementary school kids they are not holding ground but moving in reverse.  I do not believe any of these kids were accelerated or enriched under Starr; rather beneficiaries of a much deeper curriculum with emphasis on critical thinking and problem solving.[/quote]

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