My child thinks it is strange that there was a permission slip because he can't imagine why anyone would say no.

I know six kids who got in, and nobody turned it down.

Did anyone turn down this option?

Anonymous wrote:It is a response to the roll out of curriculum 2.0 for this year's 3rd graders (meaning, next year's 4th graders). This year, 3rd graders weren't allowed any acceleration and MCPS finally realized that this wasn't going to work. Next year, they will have 4/5 in order to address that problem (so kids won't be artificially slowed down next year).

I agree with the pp's question about why MCPS would suddenly require parental permission for acceleration of this kind. I wonder what that is really about. There just isn't a precedent for that type of parental approval. Yes, parents have always been able to speak with the school and change placements when appropriate, but never before to my knowledge has there been a front-end parental approval required. The skeptic in me wonders what this is about.

j

I don't know that asking for parental permission is a new thing. Our school was accelerating pre-C2.0 and always asked the parent's to sign off on it. Maybe there was no blanket policy on this, but certainly our principal did it. It was probably a cover-your-butt move, but who can blame the principal? If the kid does badly later and the parents signed off on it.....

Also, I do think parents need to be included in these decisions. A student who takes compacted 4/5/6 math will end up taking Algebra in 7th grade and Geometry in 8th grade. Those are both HS credit classes that go on the transcript. Also, the student will end up taking Calculus in 11th grade and a second AP or college math class in HS. The parent is the one who can think globally about whether the child is mature enough to handle this kind of pressure and whether it meshes with other student and family commitments.

For example, for my eldest DC -- a good, highly organized student, this accelerated pathway is fine. For DC#2, who has ADD and other challenges, this pathway might not be the best (even though DC#2 has been selected for it). It's hard to see DC#2 carrying both a foreign language and a HS math class in middle school when his ADD is likely to make juggling 7 different classes quite difficult. It really should be our personal family choice whether to accelerate or not after the school recommends whether it thinks the student can or can't be successful.

Will every school in mcps offer it? We are Churchill cluster and no letters were sent home.

Cover thine asshole.

It is a response to the roll out of curriculum 2.0 for this year's 3rd graders (meaning, next year's 4th graders). This year, 3rd graders weren't allowed any acceleration and MCPS finally realized that this wasn't going to work. Next year, they will have 4/5 in order to address that problem (so kids won't be artificially slowed down next year).

I agree with the pp's question about why MCPS would suddenly require parental permission for acceleration of this kind. I wonder what that is really about. There just isn't a precedent for that type of parental approval. Yes, parents have always been able to speak with the school and change placements when appropriate, but never before to my knowledge has there been a front-end parental approval required. The skeptic in me wonders what this is about.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wow. It's really hard to please some people.

I don't understand. There were parents who thought that their children would do better in the on-grade-level math class than the above-grade-level math class. For example, maybe the child would do well and build up confidence in the on-grade-level class, compared to hanging on by the fingernails and losing confidence in the above-grade-level class. How does this make the parents hard to please? Acceleration is not the right thing for every child -- by definition. If it were, it wouldn't be acceleration.

Isn't the school in a better position to figure this out than the parents?

At one school (Kensington-Parkwood) they decided to accelerate 100% of the first graders regardless of their abilities. Parents of the kids struggling were appropriately pissed off!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why do parents have to give permission for their child to be in compacted 4/5 math?

The letter that came home to parents indicates that it would be a more demanding curriculum than the regular 2.0 math curriculum. It also notes that 2.0 is already rigorous so parents would need to be aware of the faster pace and additional demands that would be placed on the kids taking the compacted course. There may be some parents who prefer that their children move at a slower pace for whatever reason.

It's a bit odd only because they do not consult about other enrichment (our school uses pull outs with a specialist in math and reading) or placement in reading groups, etc., that might be more demanding.

That's true. The letter spends a lot of space touting the rigors of 2.0 before discussing the compacted math portion, so it almost feels as if it was intended to persuade parents to have their children remain with the regular curriculum. Maybe more than just a "few" students qualified for the compacted curriculum (or at least more than MCPS expected), which would mean that the needs of more than a "few" children were not being met by 2.0. That would contradict the MCPS belief that 2.0 meets the needs of all students.

If MCPS believed that 2.0 met the need of all students then they wouldn't be doing a compacted curriculum.

Was the compacted curriculum part of the original 2.0 plan? As I understand it the 4/5 program was added in response to the realization that 2.0 did not meet the needs of all students they originally thought it would.

I'm not sure, but this is the first year that kids are taking the 4th grade under 2.0, so it's hard to see how it could be a response. I think they just hadn't determined what was needed for the higher grades when they rolled it out initially.

I feel the addition of the compacted math is just a slow trip on the path back to the same acceleration we had before.. This year there might be strict criteria but then there will be an appeals process and before you know it large chunks will be accelerated again..

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wow. It's really hard to please some people.

I don't understand. There were parents who thought that their children would do better in the on-grade-level math class than the above-grade-level math class. For example, maybe the child would do well and build up confidence in the on-grade-level class, compared to hanging on by the fingernails and losing confidence in the above-grade-level class. How does this make the parents hard to please? Acceleration is not the right thing for every child -- by definition. If it were, it wouldn't be acceleration.

Isn't the school in a better position to figure this out than the parents?

I'm guessing that in some cases, the school is in a better position to figure this out than the parents, and in other cases, the parents are in a better position to figure this out than the school.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why do parents have to give permission for their child to be in compacted 4/5 math?

The letter that came home to parents indicates that it would be a more demanding curriculum than the regular 2.0 math curriculum. It also notes that 2.0 is already rigorous so parents would need to be aware of the faster pace and additional demands that would be placed on the kids taking the compacted course. There may be some parents who prefer that their children move at a slower pace for whatever reason.

It's a bit odd only because they do not consult about other enrichment (our school uses pull outs with a specialist in math and reading) or placement in reading groups, etc., that might be more demanding.

That's true. The letter spends a lot of space touting the rigors of 2.0 before discussing the compacted math portion, so it almost feels as if it was intended to persuade parents to have their children remain with the regular curriculum. Maybe more than just a "few" students qualified for the compacted curriculum (or at least more than MCPS expected), which would mean that the needs of more than a "few" children were not being met by 2.0. That would contradict the MCPS belief that 2.0 meets the needs of all students.

If MCPS believed that 2.0 met the need of all students then they wouldn't be doing a compacted curriculum.

Was the compacted curriculum part of the original 2.0 plan? As I understand it the 4/5 program was added in response to the realization that 2.0 did not meet the needs of all students they originally thought it would.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wow. It's really hard to please some people.

I don't understand. There were parents who thought that their children would do better in the on-grade-level math class than the above-grade-level math class. For example, maybe the child would do well and build up confidence in the on-grade-level class, compared to hanging on by the fingernails and losing confidence in the above-grade-level class. How does this make the parents hard to please? Acceleration is not the right thing for every child -- by definition. If it were, it wouldn't be acceleration.

Isn't the school in a better position to figure this out than the parents?

Anonymous wrote:Wow. It's really hard to please some people.

I don't understand. There were parents who thought that their children would do better in the on-grade-level math class than the above-grade-level math class. For example, maybe the child would do well and build up confidence in the on-grade-level class, compared to hanging on by the fingernails and losing confidence in the above-grade-level class. How does this make the parents hard to please? Acceleration is not the right thing for every child -- by definition. If it were, it wouldn't be acceleration.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why do parents have to give permission for their child to be in compacted 4/5 math?

The letter that came home to parents indicates that it would be a more demanding curriculum than the regular 2.0 math curriculum. It also notes that 2.0 is already rigorous so parents would need to be aware of the faster pace and additional demands that would be placed on the kids taking the compacted course. There may be some parents who prefer that their children move at a slower pace for whatever reason.

It's a bit odd only because they do not consult about other enrichment (our school uses pull outs with a specialist in math and reading) or placement in reading groups, etc., that might be more demanding.

I know that there were people who were not happy about their child being in the above-grade-level math group under Math Pathways. Maybe requiring parents to give permission is a way to avoid that issue.

Wow. It's really hard to please some people.