Reply to Anyone move their DC to algebra in 6th

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]What needs to be mentioned is the challenge for the school district.   I get it, we all want our child to be challenged at their highest level and supported.  However, a school district and one with 160K students, has to offer its programming and support at scale.  This is the exact problem with Special Education. People get IEP plans, which while valid and likely would help, have nothing to do with the personnel or operations to implement them.

What do I mean by this? Imagine your kid is math advanced and will take MV by junior year. You want them to keep moving forward and so do they.  Next stop Linear Algebra. But only a very small number of kids need to take this course. Meanwhile a much larger number of kids need to take Alg2. So a LA course with 12 people is offered meanwhile all the Alg2 classes have 30 kids. Next stop folks complaining about class sizes.  The district agrees that smaller class sizes would be helpful all around; for kids, teachers, for outcomes. But, the constraints are the constraints. There’s the real budget, there’s a set salary scale for all teachers, there’s a non ideal teaching situation limiting the hiring pool. And to top it off, parents can’t be reasoned with that LA doesn’t need to be a highschool course offering and students should take it at the university.

How do you solve that problem?  Either you just stop offering LA and/or you stop offering or severely limit Alg1 in 6th which stops the pipeline of students needing the course.  This is the reality. You all are arguing and fighting the wrong problem with the wrong people. Go talk to politicians to get them to support real true education and family life reform and innovation, both in concept and dollars.[/quote]

MCPS makes a standard level of acceleration available at each ES/MS.  Currently, that standard leads to the completion of PreAlgebra in 6th grade, and logically would continue with an honors veraion of PreCalc in 9th to bridge between Integrated Algebra 2 and college-level courses.  It is incumbent upon MCPS to ensure classes that would follow in this core subject are equitably available.

There would need to be three of those to afford one per year in high school, beginning with AP Calculus.  While an AB/BC progression over two years, followed by AP Stats, would provide an off-ramp for academically advanced but not STEM-focused students, taking BC (which covers AB material) directly would be correct for the more mathematically inclined.  That would have to continue immediately with MVC due to its progression-essential concept continuity.  After that, AP Stats, itself valuable to the STEM-focused, would fill the void, avoiding the extreme difficulty in equitable non-magnet provision across all schools of Linear Algebra & Differential Equations, themselves part of a college Mathematics progression but less essential to take in the immediate aftermath of the Calculus progression.

What is the differential cost?  Assuming provision of AB, BC & Stats are baked in at all schools, assuming that each of the schools containing a regional STEM (SMCS and/or Engineering) magnet program would have MVC anyway and assuming that 4-5 other schools currently offering it would continue to do so, there might need to be the addition of 15 sections of MVC across the system.  Even if not addressed with current internal staff by the shift of .2 FTE to the new local section (3 FTE total [i]if[/i] student redistribution does not result in an equivalent number of Math classes overall), this could be managed with 5 FTEs -- roving specialists, each teaching one section at three schools, with a 2-period allocation for travel time.  Those would be more expensive than a typical HS FTE, of course, but perhaps between $1M and $1.5M, and that is if the less costly internal staff solution proves universally unmanageable at all schools that wouldn't otherwise offer MVC.

What about those accelerating beyond the standard MCPS offering (e.g., Algebra in 6th)?  Like with many accommodations, students and families would need to be aware that such placement, while available, would not be supported in the same manner as standard offerings.  If not accessing the regional Math-focused magnet, [i]this[/i] is where an expectation of access (e.g., for Linear Algebra & Differential Equations) via Dual Enrollment or, perhaps, virtual, for every school but the magnet, rightly would come into play.[/quote]

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