And most spend less for similar results!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No explicit reading instruction. That’s the main difference and why halF MCPS third graders read below grade level - and this was pre-pandemic. Agreed something went awry with teacher training - and the quality of teachers has declined. Granted, anecdotal: my (female) friend who was an Alexandria math teacher for 5 years left to make half a million in government computer sales. This would not have happened 30 years ago. We are largely attracting the lower third of every graduating class in the first place and they stay - smart leaves fast. (And the REALLY slow go into school leadership/administration)

Only 38 percent of the state and 32 percent nationally read at grade level. So what's your point?

Correct but they don’t spend 15,645 per student like MCPS. You aren’t getting what your high property taxes are paying for.

Yes they do and some spend more

Spelling, grammar, vocabulary, math facts and traditional math (addition, subtraction, multiplication and division) as they use strategies, handwriting, typing, study skills, and a few other things I'm blanking on we had to supplement.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No explicit reading instruction. That’s the main difference and why halF MCPS third graders read below grade level - and this was pre-pandemic. Agreed something went awry with teacher training - and the quality of teachers has declined. Granted, anecdotal: my (female) friend who was an Alexandria math teacher for 5 years left to make half a million in government computer sales. This would not have happened 30 years ago. We are largely attracting the lower third of every graduating class in the first place and they stay - smart leaves fast. (And the REALLY slow go into school leadership/administration)

Only 38 percent of the state and 32 percent nationally read at grade level. So what's your point?

Is that statistic supposed to appease MCPS parents?

Why don't kids read at grade level? Here are a few reasons.


1) Many school districts don't teach students HOW to read and write. My district uses Fundations for reading but there is no actual curriculum for writing. Soooooooo, kids don't know HOW to write. Our ELA curriculum wants kindergarten students to be able to write a paragraph but there is no actual instruction on HOW to write. Oooops! Major oversight there.

2) Once students are accurate and fluent readers, they have to have enough background knowledge and vocabulary to be able to understand what they are reading. Most districts don't have any background-building curriculum and therefore, these students suffer on tests where there are random passages that basically measure background knowledge. Years ago, at a PD, the teachers read a 3rd-grade passage released by the state of MD that was a reading passage on the PARCC assessment. I had my students read the passage and underline anything they didn't understand (vocab, etc). It was a passage about sea turtles. We read it together and talked about their highlighted words/passages, etc. Nearly 100% of my 4th graders did not know what the word "sea" meant. Most of them also didn't pick up its meaning from other vocab like "seaweed" and "driftwood." I asked my son to read it and he understood it. Why? Probably because he had been to the beach, had maps in our kitchen, loved looking at his children's atlas of the world, etc. He knew what the word "sea" meant and could figure out a lot of the underknown words.

3) Students don't read as much as they used to. I bet if you measured the number of words students read now compared to when I was in school or when my mother was in school, you would be shocked at the difference. Students use laptops/ipads during school and a lot of time, they are playing various games. My students rarely read at home because they say it is "boring." I bet it is compared to video games. If nobody at home reads either.... They also have no reading stamina because they aren't used to reading for long periods of time. So much of what they read in school is brief passages that are similar to what you find on assessments.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No explicit reading instruction. That’s the main difference and why halF MCPS third graders read below grade level - and this was pre-pandemic. Agreed something went awry with teacher training - and the quality of teachers has declined. Granted, anecdotal: my (female) friend who was an Alexandria math teacher for 5 years left to make half a million in government computer sales. This would not have happened 30 years ago. We are largely attracting the lower third of every graduating class in the first place and they stay - smart leaves fast. (And the REALLY slow go into school leadership/administration)

Only 38 percent of the state and 32 percent nationally read at grade level. So what's your point?

Correct but they don’t spend 15,645 per student like MCPS. You aren’t getting what your high property taxes are paying for.

Script
Memorization
Multiplication
Songs from the 1800s

Anonymous wrote:No explicit reading instruction. That’s the main difference and why halF MCPS third graders read below grade level - and this was pre-pandemic. Agreed something went awry with teacher training - and the quality of teachers has declined. Granted, anecdotal: my (female) friend who was an Alexandria math teacher for 5 years left to make half a million in government computer sales. This would not have happened 30 years ago. We are largely attracting the lower third of every graduating class in the first place and they stay - smart leaves fast. (And the REALLY slow go into school leadership/administration)

Only 38 percent of the state and 32 percent nationally read at grade level. So what's your point?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s always amusing when people post nostalgia for they way they were taught, as if those archaic methods were superior.

Do you work in curriculum and instruction? I would be interested to hear the researchers and studies you find to be most important on this topic.

The archaic methods yielded superior test scores across the board.

And to the PP who cited "critical thinking skills," your child cannot think critically about any topic where they lack content knowledge. Having kids analyze two primary documents and then arguing whether the U.S. should have dropped the atomic bomb is NOT critical thinking. It contributes to a culture where people have strong opinions about issues where they entirely lack context.

Most college professors will agree that writing skills have massively decreased, along with the ability to argue, so "critical thinking skills" as currently taught have gotten your kids no where.

+1,000,000

No explicit reading instruction. That’s the main difference and why halF MCPS third graders read below grade level - and this was pre-pandemic. Agreed something went awry with teacher training - and the quality of teachers has declined. Granted, anecdotal: my (female) friend who was an Alexandria math teacher for 5 years left to make half a million in government computer sales. This would not have happened 30 years ago. We are largely attracting the lower third of every graduating class in the first place and they stay - smart leaves fast. (And the REALLY slow go into school leadership/administration)

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s always amusing when people post nostalgia for they way they were taught, as if those archaic methods were superior.

Do you work in curriculum and instruction? I would be interested to hear the researchers and studies you find to be most important on this topic.

The archaic methods yielded superior test scores across the board.

And to the PP who cited "critical thinking skills," your child cannot think critically about any topic where they lack content knowledge. Having kids analyze two primary documents and then arguing whether the U.S. should have dropped the atomic bomb is NOT critical thinking. It contributes to a culture where people have strong opinions about issues where they entirely lack context.

Most college professors will agree that writing skills have massively decreased, along with the ability to argue, so "critical thinking skills" as currently taught have gotten your kids no where.

Anonymous wrote:In MCPS, no cursive, no hand writing, no grammar, and any boring basic sklls are taught currently and for the past 12 years. No times tables in math. Just draw dots and a loyts of dits.

Students in MCPS are also getting CRT. Don't forget that.

I teach middle school and teach grammar daily. I teach my students to diagram. Most actually give me positive feedback about it. I find my boys and students with IEPs do the best with it. Diagramming
helps to visualize the structure and purpose of words.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't understand the DCUM obsession with sentence diagraming.

My daughter is learning grammar in elementary school and she has weekly spelling lists. She does a lot of word work in school.

lol
I’ll believe you when you name the school. No one ever does.

still waiting...lol

Anonymous wrote:OP the answer is multi-layered but this article touches on one of the issues.

Why So Many Kids Struggle to Learn: Teachers continue to be trained in ways that ignore the findings of cognitive science
https://theamericanscholar.org/why-so-many-kids-struggle-to-learn/


"In recent decades, teacher-educators have drawn a dichotomy between the “cognitive” model, or framework, and the “sociocultural” one, rejecting the former and embracing the latter. In ed school usage, “cognitive” refers not to the principles advanced by DfI, which are premised on relatively recent research, but to any theory of learning that emphasizes cognition. The sociocultural model focuses on the learner’s interaction with teachers and others and the influence of culture—specifically cultures that have been historically marginalized.

In theory, the models could be combined; no cognitive scientist would deny that interaction and culture play a role in learning, and presumably most educators acknowledge that cognition has some importance. Beyond that, both models see prior knowledge as central to learning. But the sociocultural model prioritizes the knowledge students acquire from their own communities, whereas the cognitive framework emphasizes knowledge relating to whatever students are expected to learn next. Disagreements over what content to include in the curriculum have complicated and politicized the issue."

This article is must-see reading. Sadly, few will take it heart.