Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So the lesson is: don't push your average or slightly above average kid too hard in ms because some of those grades will follow them to HS and affect their gpa.

My kid is entering ms next year. He will NOT take a foreign language in 6th grade. Instead, he will take Spanish 1 in 7th and 8th grades (the slower, easier version spread out over two years). Then he can take Spanish 2 in freshman year (because you don't want your kid in Spanish 1 in HS with the lowest performing kids...trust me).

Just responding to the last part of your post in parentheses, you do realize, pp, that the lower performing kids in MS will be taking the path your DS plans to take. The higher performing kids are going into HS with 2 or 3 years of completed foreign language credits.

You're in a sad place when you refer to students in grade-level classes to be "lower performing".

Leave the emotion out of it. It's true. America lags behind most developed countries in education levels. "Grade level" should not be good enough for you, simply because due to globalization, all our children are increasingly competing for higher education and jobs against rigorously-educated and highly cultured people from other countries. (NP)

Are there high school level/advanced courses other than math and foreign language available in middle school? Upper elementary kids don't receive grades in 3-5th under the new 2.0 system. Middle school will be the first time they have ever seen a grade other than P for whatever they turned in. The range of P is so broad in ES that C level work is a P and A level is a P.

I worry less about math because there is an inherent motivation to get the right answer but the lack of grading in upper elementary really affects the quality of writing and other subjects. The kids just don't have any knowledge whether they are above or below expectations and no motivation anyway if they did.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes my DC got a C is 7th grade Spanish. That 2.0 really hurts the GPA

Why not retake the 7th grade Spanish? The new (hopefully higher) grade goes on the transcript. Anyway, kids who get Cs in foreign language and progress are probably going to have a tougher and tougher time each year having built on a shaky early foundation.

You can't take 1A as an 8th grader. That would leave you needeing 1B the first semester of HS/2A the second and they don't offer it. Luckily he has never gotten a C again!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wrong. Here's how it works:

1. The super smart kids start a foreign language in 6th.

2. The average to bright kids start in 7th.

3. The kids who are barely getting by and those with behavior issues don't start until HS. And Spanish 1 in HS is a zoo. Those are the low performing kids. That's the class where the teacher has to call security every day to deal with the hoodlums (at our otherwise good school).

This depends on the school At Eastern, the really bright kids don't have enough electives to take language in grade 6.

If by "really bright kids" you mean the magnet students, it's true that many of them opt to start foreign language in 7th grade, so that they can take the Magnet Reading class with Ms. Ray. Everyone hears she is a great teacher, but if a magnet student wants to opt out of Magnet Reading to start foreign language in 6th grade, they CAN do so. Not many do so because they want to stay with friends and because of the buzz about the class.

Also, many of the magnet kids took the reading class and then ALSO took afterschool foreign language for which they received credit and then they went into 2nd year foreign language in 7th grade.

Anonymous wrote:Yes my DC got a C is 7th grade Spanish. That 2.0 really hurts the GPA

Why not retake the 7th grade Spanish? The new (hopefully higher) grade goes on the transcript. Anyway, kids who get Cs in foreign language and progress are probably going to have a tougher and tougher time each year having built on a shaky early foundation.

Anonymous wrote:Wrong. Here's how it works:

1. The super smart kids start a foreign language in 6th.

2. The average to bright kids start in 7th.

3. The kids who are barely getting by and those with behavior issues don't start until HS. And Spanish 1 in HS is a zoo. Those are the low performing kids. That's the class where the teacher has to call security every day to deal with the hoodlums (at our otherwise good school).

Not at my MS..the super smart take 1A/1B in 6th (this is not even officially offered..I think LT 5 kids a year do it). Majority take 1A in 6th. The bottom of the class starts in 7th. A very small number start in 8th.

Remember too, colleges want to see 2-3 years of foreign language in HS, so if you start in 6th grade you have to go to level 6 or 7. It's not total number if years, it's that they think the MS ones not as good...

Anonymous wrote:Wrong. Here's how it works:

1. The super smart kids start a foreign language in 6th.

2. The average to bright kids start in 7th.

3. The kids who are barely getting by and those with behavior issues don't start until HS. And Spanish 1 in HS is a zoo. Those are the low performing kids. That's the class where the teacher has to call security every day to deal with the hoodlums (at our otherwise good school).

This depends on the school At Eastern, the really bright kids don't have enough electives to take language in grade 6.

I don't like this practice either. My kid is taking a world language in 6th and will take algebra in 7th. By the end of MS, she will have taken 3-4 HS-level classes. I think this adds unnecessary stress. I took algebra I and II in MS too, but it never showed up on my HS transcript. Why don't they at least weight it? AP classes are weighted when taken in HS, so why not weight HS classes when taken in MS?

I still don't get it. Tons of schools across the country offer languages starting in K (so way more advanced than any languages offered in MoCo which don't start until 6th at the earliest), and so the students enter high school in upper level languages, and the grades still don't count toward high school gpa until the kids get to high school. Ditto for math - schools in any major/minor metro area offer math to middle schoolers that enable them to start in algebra II or whatever in high school, but again the grades don't count until high school. There is an inherent maturity and lack of ability to see long term effects of current actions that make it challenging for middle schoolers to have grades count to high school gpa. Also, at our kids' middle school (Pyle), many take a language in 6th grade, not just the uber smart, because many parents believe that the earlier one starts language instruction, the better. MoCo is already hopelessly behind in that languages are not offered until 6th grade.

Wrong. Here's how it works:

1. The super smart kids start a foreign language in 6th.

2. The average to bright kids start in 7th.

3. The kids who are barely getting by and those with behavior issues don't start until HS. And Spanish 1 in HS is a zoo. Those are the low performing kids. That's the class where the teacher has to call security every day to deal with the hoodlums (at our otherwise good school).

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So the lesson is: don't push your average or slightly above average kid too hard in ms because some of those grades will follow them to HS and affect their gpa.

My kid is entering ms next year. He will NOT take a foreign language in 6th grade. Instead, he will take Spanish 1 in 7th and 8th grades (the slower, easier version spread out over two years). Then he can take Spanish 2 in freshman year (because you don't want your kid in Spanish 1 in HS with the lowest performing kids...trust me).

Just responding to the last part of your post in parentheses, you do realize, pp, that the lower performing kids in MS will be taking the path your DS plans to take. The higher performing kids are going into HS with 2 or 3 years of completed foreign language credits.

You're in a sad place when you refer to students in grade-level classes to be "lower performing".

Not the PP, but why would you say that poster is in a 'sad place'? What the PP is saying rings true to me.

Yes my DC got a C is 7th grade Spanish. That 2.0 really hurts the GPA

Any high school level course that is taken in middle school does indeed go on the transcript and is figured into the GPA. Getting a B in 6th or 7th grade for a high level course may seem great at the time, especially if they are acing everything else, but it does affect the overall GPA in the long run. My child, who will be graduating next year, would have had an unweighted a point or two higher if high school level courses in middle school were not factored in. We have done exceptionally well in high school but at the end have been fighting the lower grades in middle school. Makes a big difference in the end. Definitely would have re-thought this if I could do over. There are some school systems that allow you to petition taking high school grades from middle school off the official transcript. Interesting...

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So the lesson is: don't push your average or slightly above average kid too hard in ms because some of those grades will follow them to HS and affect their gpa.

My kid is entering ms next year. He will NOT take a foreign language in 6th grade. Instead, he will take Spanish 1 in 7th and 8th grades (the slower, easier version spread out over two years). Then he can take Spanish 2 in freshman year (because you don't want your kid in Spanish 1 in HS with the lowest performing kids...trust me).

Just responding to the last part of your post in parentheses, you do realize, pp, that the lower performing kids in MS will be taking the path your DS plans to take. The higher performing kids are going into HS with 2 or 3 years of completed foreign language credits.

You're in a sad place when you refer to students in grade-level classes to be "lower performing".

Not that poster, but it is a literal fact with no real judgement, in my mind. If there are levels of classes, then anyone not in the highest level is by definition lower performing than someone... and that's fine. It is relevant though, when making course selections, to consider which track the student will end up on. The post you quoted didn't seem to be saying anything bad about the kids in grad-level classes other than that they aren't the highest performing students. Which is true.