Reply to How is the new pilot offering equivalent to TPMS/Eastern

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I’m a teacher not a parent, and I believe there should be differentiation for gifted kids, but here are my predictions:

Admin and counselors at places like Cabin John and Pyle get DELUGED with calls/emails from parents who think their child should be in the pilot classes. “We wanted to be close to home so we didn’t apply to the magnet, but my child could have gotten in and therefore they should be in that section.” There probably are way more qualified kids at a huge school like Pyle than there are spots in those classes.

Teachers get ticked off that they have five minutes to learn yet another curriculum, knowing that many parents will be displeased with the rollout and they’ll be the ones to bear the brunt of that.

Mega scheduling problems—yet to be determined, sure to happen. Tons of annoyed counselors upset that they too have yet another thing to deal with. Hopefully that master scheduling training will be done well.

Totally irritated principals who have disdain for the “pushy” gifted community who think their children are “special snowflakes”—and who’ve been trying to head off this type of differentiation for years. They now will have to admit defeat on the matter, at least temporarily.

It won’t be enough. No matter what, it won’t be enough. And there will be a lot of unhappy parents whose kids don’t get to take these classes. And so...

Eventually everyone will get to take the magnet-ish classes, and we’ll all be back to where we started. ?
 [/quote]

I am a teacher and a parent who fully supports your perspective.

My oldest decided not to take the magnet test as she didn't think she'd make the cut, but more importantly, she said she knows her stress level too well!  Having said that, I personally am against magnets.  But what makes me laugh is the ironic measures the system takes in creating and supporting test in magnets,  "special magnets" (Argyle, Loiderman, and Parkland), and now school-based magnets.

Instead of spending money busing kids from one school to the next and instead of trying to accommodate every Snowflake at the non-magnet schools, go back to community-supported schools and RAMP UP the rigor in on level classes.  Oh - and let's not forget the "all honors" courses, where a course is labeled as advanced across the board.

If even half of you knew what went on in "regular" classes, you'd lose your minds. We are graduating kids who can barely read and write, and I blame multiple stakeholders for shortsighted visions, fear of lawsuits, and selfish motives.[/quote]

Another MCPS teacher here.  What this teacher is saying is absolutely true.  The "dumbing down" of courses in MCPS is mindblowing.  I cannot believe MCPS is not yet in the news for  graduating large numbers of students who are unqualified, just as DC and Prince Georges are charged with doing.[/quote]

do you think it’s something that’s particularly bad in MCPS, or is it symptomatic of a national trend?[/quote]

Though I'm no expert on this, it is my perception that it is particularly bad in MCPS.  Over the course of my 20+ year tenure in the county, things have steadily gotten worse in this regard, particularly in recent years as our county has become more diverse.  It seems that in an attempt to eliminate the achievement gap, we are instead lowering expectations for everyone.  We have eliminated our previous loss of credit policy (whereby students with too many unexcused absences had to retake the course), we have added the 50% minimum grade/due dates vs. deadlines, and ample retakes to our grading policy, we have eliminated final exams, and as a result of the elimination of final exams have changed the grading policy again so that grades are greatly rounded up (example. 79.5% first quarter and 89.5% second quarter round to an A for the semester).  These are only a few of the changes that have taken place in recent years that I believe have made the system less challenging for students, and this change in the middle school magnet process, in my mind, is just another such change to add to the list.  On level classes are virtually non-existent now and "honors" or "accelerated" classes are no such thing.  [/quote]

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