Anonymous wrote:Society needs smart people

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Anonymous wrote:As the parent of two advanced students it’s terrifying to me that people actually think like OP. OP, are you by any chance a Fairfax County school board member?

Every member of the current and incoming FCPS school board believes in closing the achievement gap from the top down.

+1. It’s the prevailing thought around the education world. No one quite comes out and says it like this, but it’s the gist of things. Rather than say it like this, schools do things like putting everyone in honors and not even having Gen Ed classes (which is what our current MS did.) Also the endless retakes and “PBL.” (project based learning which is code for how to give kids an A on a big graded assignment who could never get an A or B on an actual test of the material.) The last class day or two at the end of every quarter is spent allowing kids who didn’t turn in a bunch of their work to do it really quickly and turn it in. The kids who already did all of the their work just sit there for several days at the end of each quarter. I’ve honestly started calling my kids in sick these days. The amount of reminder emails we get from the principal about checking our kids grades, looking for missing assignments and checking in with teachers before it’s “too late.” It’s ridiculous. The only care about the bottom. The middle and top kids are just noise.

So sad to see a world-class school system like FCPS consciously plummeting in quality by following extremist, leftist-inspired ideas.

Have we learned nothing from watching what these radicals did to the Montgomery County public schools, and the county in general?

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Anonymous wrote:You realize being good at math is largely genetic, right? So the smart kids would still be the smartest, even if you denied them an education in high school.

No math is not mostly genetic! There are tons of kids that are not remotely intuitive about math who excel because they have access to programs outside the school. There are also kids who are very intuitive about math but will struggle with calculation errors and formula errors because they lack rigor.

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Anonymous wrote:Our society is already so lopsided as far as the top 1% owning practically everything.

And I’m sorry but no kid needs advanced calculus in high school.

Why not narrow the achievement gap by finding ways to lower the test results for the top performers?

There has now been created a world in which the success of others is a grievance, rather than an example.

Because that success leads to a limited number of opportunities. More for your kid = less for mine. It’s sad.

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Anonymous wrote:Our society is already so lopsided as far as the top 1% owning practically everything.

And I’m sorry but no kid needs advanced calculus in high school.

Why not narrow the achievement gap by finding ways to lower the test results for the top performers?

There has now been created a world in which the success of others is a grievance, rather than an example.

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Anonymous wrote:FCPS’ equity program, SBG program and now restorative justice program are doing exactly what the OP has suggested. Sadly they are doing it to great effect. So now everyone in FCPS suffers. Congratulations Superintendent Reid, mission accomplished!

When did that start?

It is hard to stay on top of all the screwed up things Reid is doing - https://www.fcps.edu/resources/student-safety-wellness/restorative-justice

Vote republicans on to the FCPS school board and maybe they can stop Michelle Reid’s extremist “social justice” initiatives harming our school system.

If you vote for democrats again, things will only get worse. Much worse.

How can we be certain republicans wont continue the same extremist nonsense being pursued by current democratic board?

Republicans certainly have their share of bad ideas but I think the point is to have a bit of viewpoint diversity so light can be shed on bad leftist ideas. No one I'm on the board is doing that right now because they're either leftists or left enough to not want to say anything.

Illinois schoolchildren did a little better this past school year, but they are still behind where they were before the pandemic hit and put them out of their classrooms for large blocks of time.

It’s interesting timing as Illinois state lawmakers are showing too little interest in keeping the one thing that worked during the pandemic: school choice.

Scores for public schools were just released and showed only 35% of students in grades 3 through 8 could read at grade level in 2023, according to the Illinois Report Card. Only 27% met proficiency in math.

That is 3 percentage points lower in reading and 5 points lower in math than before the pandemic.

High school juniors taking the SAT posted similar proficiency: 32% could read and 27% do math at grade level.

Illinois Superintendent of Education Tony Sanders said the state has a “significant distance to travel” toward recovery after pandemic-era school closures caused record-low proficiency rates statewide.

Really? You mean Illinois shouldn’t be satisfied when roughly 2 of every 3 students are behind?

The state’s education leaders were spinning the scores as “strong progress” because both elementary reading and math increased from the prior year. They also celebrated the high school graduation rate, which sits at 87.6% for the class of 2023 – the highest it has been in 13 years.

But look back a year at when the graduating class of 2023 were tested as juniors. Just 30% met grade-level standards in reading and 29% in math when they took the state-required SAT in spring 2022.

So, our record graduation rates are basically sending 7 of every 10 young adults out into the world ill-prepared for the demands they will face.

How long will it take for college admissions officers and hiring managers to start saying: “Oh. That’s an Illinois high school diploma. Maybe we should take the Massachusetts grad.”

More: https://www.illinoispolicy.org/policy-shop/the-policy-shop-illinois-last-stand-for-school-choice/

School choice helps URM and lower SES students succeed. But the teachers unions hate the idea, and they will funnel the $$$ they collect from members to sleazy lobbyists solely to fight choice.

“School choice” is code for vouchers. You aren’t getting vouchers.

Anonymous wrote: I see a schools endless retake policy as identical in practice to middle class families sending their kid to outside tutoring or a Doctor teaching their kid biology beyond their grade level.

Only the first practice gets criticism because it benefits low income kids.

Anonymous wrote: I see a schools endless retake policy as identical in practice to middle class families sending their kid to outside tutoring or a Doctor teaching their kid biology beyond their grade level.

Only the first practice gets criticism because it benefits low income kids.

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As the parent of two advanced students it’s terrifying to me that people actually think like OP. OP, are you by any chance a Fairfax County school board member?

Every member of the current and incoming FCPS school board believes in closing the achievement gap from the top down.

+1. It’s the prevailing thought around the education world. No one quite comes out and says it like this, but it’s the gist of things. Rather than say it like this, schools do things like putting everyone in honors and not even having Gen Ed classes (which is what our current MS did.) Also the endless retakes and “PBL.” (project based learning which is code for how to give kids an A on a big graded assignment who could never get an A or B on an actual test of the material.) The last class day or two at the end of every quarter is spent allowing kids who didn’t turn in a bunch of their work to do it really quickly and turn it in. The kids who already did all of the their work just sit there for several days at the end of each quarter. I’ve honestly started calling my kids in sick these days. The amount of reminder emails we get from the principal about checking our kids grades, looking for missing assignments and checking in with teachers before it’s “too late.” It’s ridiculous. The only care about the bottom. The middle and top kids are just noise.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You realize being good at math is largely genetic, right? So the smart kids would still be the smartest, even if you denied them an education in high school.

No math is not mostly genetic! There are tons of kids that are not remotely intuitive about math who excel because they have access to programs outside the school. There are also kids who are very intuitive about math but will struggle with calculation errors and formula errors because they lack rigor.

Anonymous wrote:You realize being good at math is largely genetic, right? So the smart kids would still be the smartest, even if you denied them an education in high school.

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Anonymous wrote:Achieving the goal of closing the gap by bringing the top down by implementing SGB.

Nope. If kids need “buffer” assignments to boost their grades then they were never really top students to begin with. Eliminating grade inflation doesn’t bring the top down, it thins the herd to the kids who’ve actually mastered the material.