Reply to MCPS boasts about 54.9% 3rd ELA proficiency rate in latest MCAP results

Forum Index » Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS)

Reply to "MCPS boasts about 54.9% 3rd ELA proficiency rate in latest MCAP results"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Another look at MCAP results from another source: https://wtop.com/maryland/2024/08/maryland-test-results-show-small-gains-nagging-achievement-gaps-among-demographic-groups/

MCPS claims we're beating state averages, which I guess might be true, but when you roll up all the grade levels and the results, here's how things shake out by Math:

[img]https://marylandmatters.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/MSDE-Math-map-of-school-districts-8-27-2024.jpg[/img]

Carroll, Worcester and Howard County Public Schools outperformed MCPS in math.

[img]https://marylandmatters.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/MSDE-ELA-map-of-school-districts-8-27-2023.jpg[/img]

For ELA, it's worse. Harford, Queen Anne's, Frederick, Calvert, Howard, Carroll, Worcester all outperformed MCPS in ELA.[/quote]
Well that test is seriously flawed if no jurisdiction can score over 50% on the math portion. 
Even on the ELA, the scores are not great for anyone. 
Something is not right with that test. [/quote]

[b]Or maybe our system is not doing its job?[/b] The MCAP is not the only proof point that says our kids are not reading and doing math at proficiency levels that previous generations were capable of doing.[/quote]
When you said "our system ", what are referring to? Because no jurisdiction is "doing is job", no one is getting  50% on the math and some are barely making the grade on the ELA. 
It tells me that it's not the jurisdictions, but the test to be evaluated. [/quote]

When I said the system, I was talking about MCPS in particular. MCPS has specific failures and shortcomings that this test is highlighting.

The bigger system, which is the MSDE and all of our school systems in aggregate (which also includes MCPS), is also failing. Which is why the the MD State Superintendent Carey Wright said she wants to re-examine MSDE's school report cards because the state's schools can't be as good as they're claiming with these levels of proficiencies.

The state of public education has been failing for a long time now. We're just now catching on to that fact.[/quote]

To your last sentence: some of us have suspected it for awhile. I remember when the Hopkins audit on MCPS came out in 2018. Some of us on here were ringing alarm bells. Most of you dismissed it. [/quote]

You know what, you're right. I forgot[b] about the 2018 audit.[/b] MCPS just gets away with this aura of quality because of its historical reputation, but the truth is the decline has been in the making for at least a decade. And of course the pandemic only worsened the situation.[/quote]

Can you link that report or elaborate on the BLUF? My kid was too young for me to have dug into that data (although after testing Mcps for one year we quickly moved onto a private...so don't disagree that the ship is sinking. Just curious what the pre covid data looked like).[/quote]

Here it is!

https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/siteassets/district/curriculum/integrated/executivesummarymcps.pdf

It was a big reason we also opted for private.

And before people start jumping on us for being on this thread: the state of MCPS is relevant to everyone. [/quote]

Thank you for linking to the original, PP.

To me, this is the most damning statement:

[QUOTE]The instrument of analysis was an MCPS-appropriate version of the Student Work Analysis Tool that is part of Student Achievement Partners’ Instructional Practice Toolkit (IPT). In total, [b]the team reviewed 36 different assignments and 530 student work samples in math[/b], and [b]34 assignments and 455 student work samples in ELA[/b]. Overall, the [b]student work samples indicate a misalignment between the learning standards and most student assignments[/b].

[b]Math:[/b]
- Student work samples [b]did not consistently show mastery of the learning standard[/b]. Student work samples show that fewer than a third of students master their assignments in either ELA or math, although mastery in mathematics is higher than in ELA.
- In K through 2nd-grade math, student work samples did not consistently show full or close to full mastery of the targeted standard.

[b]ELA:[/b]
- ELA lessons did not consistently show alignment to the targeted standard. In the analysis of student work samples, [b]fewer than a quarter of students show complete mastery of the assignments’ targeted standards[/b].
- In the majority of student work samples analyzed, students did not consistently show mastery in the comprehension of their texts. 
[/QUOTE]

So for posters who want to claim that the MCAP is flawed, how can that be the case when the MCAP is revealing what the Hopkins audit revealed in 2018, which is that the system is not producing students who can meet district, state or federal standards? Cut the crap. MCPS has failed in its mission.[/quote]

Both things can be true. The Johns Hopkins study revealed that curriculum 2.0 (developed in house) did not align with the common core standards. So, if MCAP were true to the standards, MCPS kids were already at a disadvantage.  Then they switched to new ELA and Math curricula, which people have hated for various reasons. The reading curriculum still did not align with science of reading, so a significant chunk of kids were poor readers. The math curriculum was so structured that teachers could not answer student questions in the available time, it did not have an accelerated math pathway, it was not interesting to children. There are layers upon layers of problems built in to the low proficiency rates.  [/quote]

So let's talk about those layers and the systemic failings and how we will hold MCPS leadership accountable for problem solving instead of dismissing the MCAP data and claiming everything is ok with MCPS and the test is just flawed.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics