Anonymous wrote:we moved to bethesda for the schools (in advance of kids). Then we had a kid and realized the decline and chose the private/independent route.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Good discussion going on the local sub reddit:

https://www.reddit.com/r/MontgomeryCountyMD/comments/102jg8a/parents_of_mcps_students_do_you_guys_have_a/

MCPS sound like an absolute disaster. Zero accountability. Zero standards. Rapid decline of quality. How long until people with money stop moving to this county to flee all of the progressivism ruining the schools and county? The only reason property values maintained value in MoCo was always because of the schools. The discussion going on now with messages from insiders is truly shocking. MoCo looks like it is in rapid decline and once the schools go, what reason will there be to stay?

It isn't. It's the same or better at least in terms of opportunity. What's changed is the county's demographics. This has an impact on test averages but doesn't mean your kid will do any worse than they'd do if demographics had remained the as 1990.

Definitely can affect you kid’s school experience. Also affects how the school system spends money. More money on ESOL staff means less money for other things (not a judgement call, just the way things work).

In ES, it has most definitely affected my kid’s experience. I have had kids at our neighborhood ES for over a decade and have watched it change. With mixed ability classrooms, the teacher HAS to spend the most time getting the kids who need extra help up to speed. The higher performing reading and Math groups simple meet less.

So kids that need help are getting more help?

How horrifying. We should definitely put an end to that.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:MCPS is way, way too big. It should be broken down to the level where each high school is its own school district.

This is Maryland. It doesn't work that way. You can try working on amending the state constitution.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The rich move to MOCO for the privates and country clubs. Publics are finished nationwide among the wealthy. Covid exposed the rot. The middle class with common sense will need PODs and homeschooling. Anybody in public school that’s not in a magnet is either negligent, overwhelmed or oblivious to their surroundings.

Yeah but the privates in this area are still eating MCPS dust. But if it makes you feel better about paying for an inferior product, go ahead.

Anonymous wrote:The rich move to MOCO for the privates and country clubs. Publics are finished nationwide among the wealthy. Covid exposed the rot. The middle class with common sense will need PODs and homeschooling. Anybody in public school that’s not in a magnet is either negligent, overwhelmed or oblivious to their surroundings.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Whenever are people talking about how tracking would solve all of the school's problems I have to roll my eyes. I think people only like the idea of tracking as long as their kid is at the highest track if your kid got into a lower track they'd start complaining and suing

Those debates would happen at the margin. Overall, however, if you group kids, you decrease the range of skills in any one class, making it easier for teachers to target instruction where it's needed. Students in all of the groups benefit from targeted instruction.

+1

And if mcps would simply ditch benchmark and offer all students the enhanced reading instruction, I suspect everyone would do better.

In private school they teach reading through literature, and they also teach vocabulary and grammar. End result: well-equipped students.

Mcps demographics shifted dramatically and they pivoted to focus on test scores by dumbing down the curriculum. Big mistake.

Anonymous wrote:*Sorry good old Jack Smith
*Signed in 2011.

When I am mad I type too fast. MCPS could still have been top had it not been for clear leadership failures - Weast, Starr, Smith and now McKnight

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Whenever are people talking about how tracking would solve all of the school's problems I have to roll my eyes. I think people only like the idea of tracking as long as their kid is at the highest track if your kid got into a lower track they'd start complaining and suing

Those debates would happen at the margin. Overall, however, if you group kids, you decrease the range of skills in any one class, making it easier for teachers to target instruction where it's needed. Students in all of the groups benefit from targeted instruction.

+1

And if mcps would simply ditch benchmark and offer all students the enhanced reading instruction, I suspect everyone would do better.

In private school they teach reading through literature, and they also teach vocabulary and grammar. End result: well-equipped students.

Mcps demographics shifted dramatically and they pivoted to focus on test scores by dumbing down the curriculum. Big mistake.

My friend: you clearly are new here. MCPS’ decline happened long before majority minority. The in crowd would like you to blame black and brown but the poor management is more a cause of the crappiness than little Juan from Nicaragua. Read about the Curriculum 2.0 give-away to Pearson; then about the mysterious hack of all student information: then the final 500,000 report from Hopkins that hood old fat Jack ordered to get rid of it. (Really to cover the fact that the horrible contract, signed in 2021, probably was for 10 years). What a lesson in utter incompetence/malfeasance.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Whenever are people talking about how tracking would solve all of the school's problems I have to roll my eyes. I think people only like the idea of tracking as long as their kid is at the highest track if your kid got into a lower track they'd start complaining and suing

Those debates would happen at the margin. Overall, however, if you group kids, you decrease the range of skills in any one class, making it easier for teachers to target instruction where it's needed. Students in all of the groups benefit from targeted instruction.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Grow some goddman thick skin. YES, changing demographics absolutely have affected school quality for the worse. I'm sorry you cannot handle the truth. When you import thousands of students from 3rs world countries who cannot speak a lick of English, you will absolutely being down school quality when millions of dollars and inordinate amounts of time have to be spent on remdial classes and basic English work students should have mastered a decade later. It is a brutal fact of reality. All of STEM uses English as a standard. All rigorous course material in science and mathematics must use English. It doesn't matter if you're in Japan, China, France, or the US. If you want a rigorous education in science and math, it has to be in English. The fact that we have to still teach basic English in high school and middle school is a MASSIVE drag. Even the Chinese publish top research articles in English. We shouldn't be spending millions of dollars and inordinate amounts of time teaching English in a country that uses English as the primary language for everything.

Depends on how you define "school quality" doesn't it? I define "school quality" as "quality of education for the actual students who attend the school".

There's also the issue that students who were born here weren't "imported" from anywhere, they were born here.

There have been many years when we did, in fact "import" an entire high school's worth of students, many who were unaccompanied.

Yes. MCPS is a popular destination for ‘unaccompanied minors’.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Good discussion going on the local sub reddit:

https://www.reddit.com/r/MontgomeryCountyMD/comments/102jg8a/parents_of_mcps_students_do_you_guys_have_a/

MCPS sound like an absolute disaster. Zero accountability. Zero standards. Rapid decline of quality. How long until people with money stop moving to this county to flee all of the progressivism ruining the schools and county? The only reason property values maintained value in MoCo was always because of the schools. The discussion going on now with messages from insiders is truly shocking. MoCo looks like it is in rapid decline and once the schools go, what reason will there be to stay?

It isn't. It's the same or better at least in terms of opportunity. What's changed is the county's demographics. This has an impact on test averages but doesn't mean your kid will do any worse than they'd do if demographics had remained the as 1990.

Anonymous wrote:The rich move to MOCO for the privates and country clubs. Publics are finished nationwide among the wealthy. Covid exposed the rot. The middle class with common sense will need PODs and homeschooling. Anybody in public school that’s not in a magnet is either negligent, overwhelmed or oblivious to their surroundings.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Whenever are people talking about how tracking would solve all of the school's problems I have to roll my eyes. I think people only like the idea of tracking as long as their kid is at the highest track if your kid got into a lower track they'd start complaining and suing

Those debates would happen at the margin. Overall, however, if you group kids, you decrease the range of skills in any one class, making it easier for teachers to target instruction where it's needed. Students in all of the groups benefit from targeted instruction.

+1

And if mcps would simply ditch benchmark and offer all students the enhanced reading instruction, I suspect everyone would do better.

In private school they teach reading through literature, and they also teach vocabulary and grammar. End result: well-equipped students.

Mcps demographics shifted dramatically and they pivoted to focus on test scores by dumbing down the curriculum. Big mistake.