Reply to The only way to have equity is to drag down the top performers

Forum Index » Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS)

Reply to "The only way to have equity is to drag down the top performers "

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Throwing resources at low performers absolutely will lift them up. And if your kid is really a high performers, they will be a high performer with or without resources. [/quote]

Yep. Most high performing kids do well at any school. Their test scores say high wherever they go.

Why spend more money catering to kids who [b]will be fine[/b] either way instead of focusing on kids who need the extra help? [/quote]

Tell me you don't have a top performer without telling me... It's not about "doing fine". The kids are wasting their time, going excruciatingly slowly over stuff they already know. This happens even at the magnets.[/quote]

And there are low performers who are wasting their time in classes where they are behind and need more attention to catch up. Without the extra attention, they are too far behind to learn anything.

There aren't enough resources to go around. I'd rather have my tax dollars help the low performers because the high performers will be just fine. Boredom does not cause illness in an otherwise healthy child. Now is a good time to figure out if your child might have some underlying issues.

You can pick up a second job to afford paying private school for your high performer instead of being so entitled that you have to make stupid assumptions concerning people who disagree with you. Spend your energy wisely.

I was a high performer who went to community college, still scored  in the 99 percentile on the LSAT and ended up in an Ivy league law school. I have a friend from a similar background who is a cardiologist. We might have been bored throughout school, but we are just fine.

[/quote]

Part of the issue is that I don't really see MCPS doing anything to help the lower performers.

Take the proposed split regions and regional magnet programs.  It's helping ensure all students get access to the desired courses.  I'm personally not a fan of so many of the specialized or niche academy type of schools they're having  But if there's a demand out there, it's good they're providing it.

But it's only helping students who are already qualified to be eligible for the programs.

MCPS should be focusing tax dollars on improving the foundation/elementary school level.  Once those students have a solid mastery, as they advance grades they'll have the demand for the higher and more rigorous classes.  The more students at that level at the school, the more justification for the higher level classes at their school.

Math is supposed to be one of the most unbiased and fair subject areas (according to Furious Styles in Boyz in the Hood).  True it gets to a point where word problems are introduced.  But it seems like before that point, it should be a reasonable expectation that language barriers wouldn't get in the way of a student's understanding and success in math.  Maybe the instruction needs to be in another language.  And maybe they should consider administering the math test in multiple languages because it's not an English Language Arts test.  So doesn't necessarily have to be in English.

But to help the low performing students, MCPS should be focusing on the elementary school level first.  And I don't see them making any big splashes or headlines in efforts to do so. Maybe they are doing things for the elementary school level that I'm not aware of.

But as the OP is saying, they shouldn't be holding back the top performers in trying to help the low performers.  "Some students are advancing too quickly" and creating the gap and some students aren't grasping the concepts.  MCPS shouldn't be holding back and penalizing the students who are able to do well.  And if students are struggling in something, that means they didn't have a firm grasp of the subject area and MCPS advanced them before they should have. (inflated grades, just pushing them through, etc)

In another thread, a poster mentioned that new college grads are jobless now.  Well almost all of the high performing college grads I know are working desirable jobs like at Apple, Alphabet, etc.  To  be successful in the job market, applicants need to stand out among the big sea of applicants.  Meaning they need to be competitive against the other ones.

But it looks like MCPS is looking to get rid of giving students this competitive edge, which some people are saying they are okay with.  But there are families who do want their students to have that competitive edge, so they can have a shot at the exclusive schools, then the coveted jobs, etc.  It's like someone once told me, most schools in MCPS only focus on getting students be able to go to college.  But there are other schools that are preparing students to go to the ivies.  Personally I thought it was a douchey comment but guess it's kind of true.

And if people say, well MCPS has bigger problems and they need to focus on the whole instead of the few who have other means, then the families of the top performers need to consider if MCPS has what they need or are looking for.  Maybe current families are already stuck.  But future families will look at it and evaluate if MCPS has what they're looking for.  Leading to the brain drain of the county and not doing anything to attract anyone coming in to replace them.[/quote]

The problem is in an attempt to make these programs available to all, they actually make them accessible to none. Look at “honors for all”… some kids just can’t handle honors English. So honors has become remedial and no one gets actual depth anymore.

Serve kids’ needs. Not everyone will be able to cut it in the magnet programs or honors. Let the kids who can, do. [/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