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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Did anyone with a rising 5th grader currently in compacted math get a letter noting their student will return to grade level math next year? [/quote]

I got a letter saying my rising 5th grader will be in Math 5/6, but there was also an option to check for returning to Math 5. Maybe this happens every year when they evaluate which math class students should take next year after current year performance?[/quote]

They don't want to push your child into 5/6 if [i]you[/i] think they have struggled.  Otherwise, they are placing all the 4/5 kids in 5/6 for this coming year only so that they close out the sequence, transitioning to the in-class cluster model for future years (and beginning with this year's rising 4th graders).  Unless they have some clear documentation of struggle, themselves, in which case they should be reaching out to you to discuss that possibly unexpected placement decision.[/quote]

I’ve heard some schools are pushing more kids down to the slower track. It seems so inconsistent across the district [/quote]

I mean, if they actually can get enrichment right (which is a *huge* if), they absolutely *should* be shrinking the number of accelerated kids.  Some schools have way, way too many kids in compacted.  I heard someone say that there's a school with like half of the kids in compacted math, which is nuts.   If some schools have been selecting a narrow group and some schools have been selecting a really broad group, then yeah, there's going to be differences throughout the district on how many get bumped down.
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As a parent of older kids now in high school, I do think the criteria they were using for compacted math ended up including a lot of kids who probably shouldn’t have been on that track. But I don’t love dropping kids down based on a single data point, and I don’t love making permanent decisions based on testing performed on 9 year olds. I also don’t love the huge inconsistencies across the district and I don’t believe in using local norming to negatively recalculate scores. It’s really designed to boost kids with barriers not create ways to gatekeep. I also think calculus in 10th grade is insanity. What a mess this all is. [/quote]

A lot to agree with, here.  With the PP's caveat about the big if of MCPS getting it right and schools implementing if faithfully, the new elementary model should help a bit.

The 5-cluster paradigm is going all the way from 3rd grade to 5th in 27-28 (only 4th this coming year as a transition away from compacted so that they don't start with the old one and then shift to the new one for 5th).  Cluster placement is supposed to be revisited quarterly.  The more tracked (disfavored word, nowadays) effect is not happening until placement in 6th grade (outside of presumably rare grade advancement outside of the in-grade clustering paradigm).

How they use the multiple metrics to determine ES cluster and MS class placement is going to be key.  Sliding heuristic, as they seem to have indicated?  Holds promise.  Multiple strict gates?  Not so much.

Local norming, and the whole magnet model, would have been better if they ever got to use the plan from 7 years ago, where only the real outliers from a school would get pulled into a magnet, with schools with large cohorts of high performers delivering magnet instruction within the school and students without a peer cohort not being left behind, getting magnet instruction with those from other schools at the regional centers.  Of course, the pandemic had them scrap that, and the relatively low locally-normed bar that resulted, paired with the lottery,  was a completely different proposition.  They should have gone back to that earlier plan, but were so busy with recovery that they let it stay in place.

Calc proper in 10th is really a stretch for anyone not at the level of a SMCS magnet (not that they have to be in SMCS, itself).  Even half of [i]those[/i] kids now do three semesters of Algebra 2/PreCalc combo that gets them to their Calc-equivalent class in [i]middle[/i] of 10th.  MCPS really should be heavily favoring a 2-year PreCalc-ish standard, with an option for a one-year course with appropriate guidance/warning, but with consideration of the student's preference, for those coming from Integrated Algebra 1 & 2 because of the standards that will be missing, there, from the current Algebra/Geometry/Algebra 2 classes.  That's for the kids going for the Calc path post-IA.  The other paths would seem better aligned, but they are still being formulated, and I'm sure many will be choosing the Calc path because of the presumed college-bound bent.[/quote]

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