Reply to Yay! Straight P's!

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]We aren't confused by the report cards. We are disappointed that 2.0 has lowered the bar when it comes to assessments so much so that both a bright kid and a kid who struggles (and whose needs aren't being met) both earn Ps.

Again: one of my kids struggles. Pre 2.0, there were conferences, meetings, and lots of concern by the teacher since he wasn't meeting benchmarks. Now thanks to 2.0 he's great! Super! Hitting benchmarks! Passing the (easy) assessments! I understand how many of you probably can't relate, but many of us see how they've lowered the bar to demonstrate success...and it's a disservice to all children. [/quote]

As a mom to an LD child, I can totally relate.  This was our major concern about C2.0.  LD kids who need IEPs and 504 plans often depend heavily on classroom assessments to show the "adverse impact" of a disability on the student's ability to access the general education environment.  The new reporting/grading system under C2.0 makes it very difficult for parents to challenge the school system.  Does an N mean "not making progress" or just that the concept hasn't been presented yet. (It can mean either under 2.0).  If I means "in progress" how much of the material has the child mastered?  Now, under C2.0, a parent can't tell.  In the old system, there would be a range of options from A-E to understand how much of the material was mastered.  As well, proficient is now just a black/white judgment.  Now a child who has mastered say, 60% of the material might be judged "proficient" as well as a child who has mastered 90% of the material.

I hope someone is keeping an eye on the special education statistics.  I predict that the number of kids in special ed will begin to decline -- not because MCPS has somehow become better at teaching sped, but because kids will find it even harder to qualify.

And C2.0 has definitely lowered the bar -- when our school transitioned to 2.0, all the kids who had been working 1 or more years ahead in the math curriculum were held back to on grade level, and thus spent a whole year merely reviewing what they had already learned.  I saw the impact in my child's MAP-M score where he actually lost ground because he was not receiving any new instruction anymore.   We saw very little in the way of C2.0 assessments coming home.  And when they did, they were typically only one or two problems, not a comprehensive assessment as in previous years.  Also, there was no data breakdown of skills mastered or not, as there had been in previous years.  Oftentimes the teacher didn't even do a formalized "assessment' but would just walk around and check on kids in group work, meaning that an individual child wasn't really assessed, but rather the group as a whole.  My child was able to hide a lot of his problems this way.  I only learned this by insisting on my right to observe the class as part of the IEP placement decisions.  So, C2.0 has not only lowered the bar, but also made school performance a LOT less transparent to parents.    [/quote]

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