"BTW, there are plenty of foreign children whose parents work for the World Bank, international firms, embassies, the NIH, etc who do not speak English well but who are here legally, are very bright, and who are not at all a burden on the system. "

I believe the Bethesda non-English speakers would benefit from the same ESOL services as a Wheaton non-English speaker. How are they any less of a "burden"?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This was not supposed to get out. This is pathetic for a "super" school system. I am appalled. MoCo loves welcoming and paying for illegals. I am sure this has a lot to do with it. It is a shame our taxes aren't going to legal kid's education. Instead it is going to ESOL and FARMS for illegals who don't pay a dime in taxes for their "free" education and meals. Say I am a bigot (aren't all those against amnesty a bigot, right?) but someone has got to understand that it is stretching education dollars too thin for this county. Illegal immigration up in MoCo by 550% in 8 years and the failing grades increasing more and more. The fact that kids can fail the test but still pass the class is a joke. Just keep moving along all these kids just to get them the heck out of the school. There are kids in my child's 1st grade class that absolutely can not speak English. How did they make it out of Kindergarten??

The only thing I agree with this poster.

I'll second that.

Missed the crucial logic lesson that correlation does not equal causation.

BTW, there are plenty of foreign children whose parents work for the World Bank, international firms, embassies, the NIH, etc who do not speak English well but who are here legally, are very bright, and who are not at all a burden on the system. At least this is the situation at Bethesda Elementary School, where my own children are.

So there are no illegal aliens in Bethesda Elementary? Every non-english student excels without the need for ESOL? Your ESOL teacher needs haven't doubled in the last 5 years taking away other teacher/para educator positions? For most schools in Rockville and Gaithersburg, there are a lot and the teachers and students struggle. Reading specialists for English speaking children are taken away for ESOL teachers. Projected enrollment in the last 5 years has been higher than anticipated here. Hundreds more with overcrowded schools and higher ratios and now less specialists to assist the average student. Not saying the poster went a little far in the hatred but the stress is actually there. Maybe not in your school but there are plenty that struggle with immigration.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes the numbers are only for kids that took Algebra after middle school so they are kids that were never strong in math to start with..combined with the fact that numerically the test is irrelevant to kids that did well. I am not too concerned.

Right because numerically, who cares about anyone but the ones that are easy to teach because they're so advanced anyway...Let's continue to fail more and more kids, because they're irrelevant.

Exactly! I can not believe people are making excuses for Mont County. Those scores are horrific. The teachers are failing because the curriculumn is too rigid, test-focused and obviously does not connect with the average student.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This was not supposed to get out. This is pathetic for a "super" school system. I am appalled. MoCo loves welcoming and paying for illegals. I am sure this has a lot to do with it. It is a shame our taxes aren't going to legal kid's education. Instead it is going to ESOL and FARMS for illegals who don't pay a dime in taxes for their "free" education and meals. Say I am a bigot (aren't all those against amnesty a bigot, right?) but someone has got to understand that it is stretching education dollars too thin for this county. Illegal immigration up in MoCo by 550% in 8 years and the failing grades increasing more and more. The fact that kids can fail the test but still pass the class is a joke. Just keep moving along all these kids just to get them the heck out of the school. There are kids in my child's 1st grade class that absolutely can not speak English. How did they make it out of Kindergarten??

The only thing I agree with this poster.

I'll second that.

Third.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This was not supposed to get out. This is pathetic for a "super" school system. I am appalled. MoCo loves welcoming and paying for illegals. I am sure this has a lot to do with it. It is a shame our taxes aren't going to legal kid's education. Instead it is going to ESOL and FARMS for illegals who don't pay a dime in taxes for their "free" education and meals. Say I am a bigot (aren't all those against amnesty a bigot, right?) but someone has got to understand that it is stretching education dollars too thin for this county. Illegal immigration up in MoCo by 550% in 8 years and the failing grades increasing more and more. The fact that kids can fail the test but still pass the class is a joke. Just keep moving along all these kids just to get them the heck out of the school. There are kids in my child's 1st grade class that absolutely can not speak English. How did they make it out of Kindergarten??

The only thing I agree with this poster.

I'll second that.

Missed the crucial logic lesson that correlation does not equal causation.

BTW, there are plenty of foreign children whose parents work for the World Bank, international firms, embassies, the NIH, etc who do not speak English well but who are here legally, are very bright, and who are not at all a burden on the system. At least this is the situation at Bethesda Elementary School, where my own children are.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This was not supposed to get out. This is pathetic for a "super" school system. I am appalled. MoCo loves welcoming and paying for illegals. I am sure this has a lot to do with it. It is a shame our taxes aren't going to legal kid's education. Instead it is going to ESOL and FARMS for illegals who don't pay a dime in taxes for their "free" education and meals. Say I am a bigot (aren't all those against amnesty a bigot, right?) but someone has got to understand that it is stretching education dollars too thin for this county. Illegal immigration up in MoCo by 550% in 8 years and the failing grades increasing more and more. The fact that kids can fail the test but still pass the class is a joke. Just keep moving along all these kids just to get them the heck out of the school. There are kids in my child's 1st grade class that absolutely can not speak English. How did they make it out of Kindergarten??

The only thing I agree with this poster.

I'll second that.

Anonymous wrote:Yes the numbers are only for kids that took Algebra after middle school so they are kids that were never strong in math to start with..combined with the fact that numerically the test is irrelevant to kids that did well. I am not too concerned.

Right because numerically, who cares about anyone but the ones that are easy to teach because they're so advanced anyway...Let's continue to fail more and more kids, because they're irrelevant.

Anonymous wrote:This was not supposed to get out. This is pathetic for a "super" school system. I am appalled. MoCo loves welcoming and paying for illegals. I am sure this has a lot to do with it. It is a shame our taxes aren't going to legal kid's education. Instead it is going to ESOL and FARMS for illegals who don't pay a dime in taxes for their "free" education and meals. Say I am a bigot (aren't all those against amnesty a bigot, right?) but someone has got to understand that it is stretching education dollars too thin for this county. Illegal immigration up in MoCo by 550% in 8 years and the failing grades increasing more and more. The fact that kids can fail the test but still pass the class is a joke. Just keep moving along all these kids just to get them the heck out of the school. There are kids in my child's 1st grade class that absolutely can not speak English. How did they make it out of Kindergarten??

The only thing I agree with this poster.

This was not supposed to get out. This is pathetic for a "super" school system. I am appalled. MoCo loves welcoming and paying for illegals. I am sure this has a lot to do with it. It is a shame our taxes aren't going to legal kid's education. Instead it is going to ESOL and FARMS for illegals who don't pay a dime in taxes for their "free" education and meals. Say I am a bigot (aren't all those against amnesty a bigot, right?) but someone has got to understand that it is stretching education dollars too thin for this county. Illegal immigration up in MoCo by 550% in 8 years and the failing grades increasing more and more. The fact that kids can fail the test but still pass the class is a joke. Just keep moving along all these kids just to get them the heck out of the school. There are kids in my child's 1st grade class that absolutely can not speak English. How did they make it out of Kindergarten??

It's odd that the old dated system is failing here yet the new international standards designed to correct the problem gets attacked.

Anonymous wrote:

Yes the numbers are only for kids that took Algebra after middle school so they are kids that were never strong in math to start with..combined with the fact that numerically the test is irrelevant to kids that did well.

This is how 2.0 is supposed to close the gap.

The students who are good at math will no longer be able to accelerate in large numbers. Their scores will be co-mingled with students who do not do well in math. This will raise the overall scores and let MCPS claim success which is just plain wrong. The students doing poorly in math will receive no additional help, they will simply be hidden by the others.

Except if you read the report it shows poor pass rates on all of the end of year exams all the way up to pre-calc.

Anonymous wrote:Also, 2.0 is a way of cutting the budget in education IMO.

Citation needed.

Anonymous wrote:I graduated from MCPS 20 years ago and they had instituted a countywide test math test my junior year. I was a strong student (honors) and I remember doing poorly on the state test. I had a poor teacher and no guidance as far as the level of expectation for the test. We should have been given a practice test so we would have had some idea of the difficulty of the test. I wouldn't be surprised if many of these kids who are performing badly on the standard test today face the same struggles I faced 20 years ago.

My question would be are teachers given guidance as far as the level of expectation for the tests. 60% of my child's honor geometry class failed the mid term exam last semester. I was told by my child that she was given study packets, etc. and that the teacher spent time with them preparing.

I graduated from MCPS 20 years ago and they had instituted a countywide test math test my junior year. I was a strong student (honors) and I remember doing poorly on the state test. I had a poor teacher and no guidance as far as the level of expectation for the test. We should have been given a practice test so we would have had some idea of the difficulty of the test. I wouldn't be surprised if many of these kids who are performing badly on the standard test today face the same struggles I faced 20 years ago.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes the numbers are only for kids that took Algebra after middle school so they are kids that were never strong in math to start with..combined with the fact that numerically the test is irrelevant to kids that did well. I am not too concerned.

This is the key point. At our school even the kids who take Alg 1 in 8th grade are not the strongest students. Those taking Alg 1 in 9th grade are remedial so not surprising that the fail rates would be high. Not sure the finals are totally irrelevant though - you have to get a C or better if you got As in the two quarters in order to keep an A in the class. But kids in Alg 1 in 9th grade are probably not A students.

I thought the exact same thing when I read this article. Also, 2.0 is a way of cutting the budget in education IMO.