Well I think it's several teachers in our middle school that are using this terminology (BCR, ECR, PSR, exit card, etc.). Very glad to hear this nonsense is being phased out.

Anonymous wrote:BCRs and ECRs are among the reasons our kid is now in an independent school. We could see the writing on the wall that DC would never be expected to write and cite a research paper, something DC is now doing in 10th in independent school. I liked many things about MCPS, but the writing preparation wasn't one of them.

Your child would do this in 10th at mcps too- much of second semester is spent on research writing.


To the pp asking about paragraphs and essays... As soon as writing was dropped from the HSA ( the origin of bcr, ecr) mcps replaced these terms with paragraph and essay in the county curriculum and assessments, if your student is receiving assignments with the bcr ecr terminology, the teacher has not bothered to update her materials, ie she may be using an assignment she wrote 10 years ago and photocopying from the same original this year.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Students are often permitted to retake formative assessments (the idea being that they need to learn and relearn and master all of the components before combining it all into a "summative" assessments.) Students are not permitted to retake summative assessments. The 50% rule applies to formative assessments, but not to summatives.

depends on the formatives

Teacher-generated formatives can be retaken. Those in the guides are used to formally monitor benchmarks, as the data is collected and kept in a d-base.

I'm the PP. What do you mean teacher-generated formatives? All of our assessments at my school (I'm a HS teacher) are "teacher-generated." Summatives cannot be retaken as per MCPS policy. Formatives, yes, summatives, no. Doesn't matter who made them.

achievement series formatives
MCPS
cannot be retaken

What do you teach? Our formatives in English are part of the guides and for "monitoring" purposes end up in the Achievement Series. (HS, too)

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Students are often permitted to retake formative assessments (the idea being that they need to learn and relearn and master all of the components before combining it all into a "summative" assessments.) Students are not permitted to retake summative assessments. The 50% rule applies to formative assessments, but not to summatives.

depends on the formatives

Teacher-generated formatives can be retaken. Those in the guides are used to formally monitor benchmarks, as the data is collected and kept in a d-base.

I'm the PP. What do you mean teacher-generated formatives? All of our assessments at my school (I'm a HS teacher) are "teacher-generated." Summatives cannot be retaken as per MCPS policy. Formatives, yes, summatives, no. Doesn't matter who made them.

Anonymous wrote:Students are often permitted to retake formative assessments (the idea being that they need to learn and relearn and master all of the components before combining it all into a "summative" assessments.) Students are not permitted to retake summative assessments. The 50% rule applies to formative assessments, but not to summatives.

depends on the formatives

Teacher-generated formatives can be retaken. Those in the guides are used to formally monitor benchmarks, as the data is collected and kept in a d-base.

I went to back to school night for middle and no one mentioned a BCR, ECR, etc. I personally think it would more educational to tell kids, "write a paragraph about ..." or "write an essay..." and make sure they know the important elements of these structures of writing since they are the building blocks of all future writing. The use of made up forms and terms makes learning artificial and possibly less engaging. I saw on a recent test a prompt to write a "BCR." To me it seems ridiculous.

BCRs and ECRs are among the reasons our kid is now in an independent school. We could see the writing on the wall that DC would never be expected to write and cite a research paper, something DC is now doing in 10th in independent school. I liked many things about MCPS, but the writing preparation wasn't one of them.

Don't any of you go to Back to School night? These things have always been explained at the middle and high school that my children attend.