Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Study guides from the teacher. Often they are posted on Edline.

I find it so surprising that people are hung up on text books. Our kids have these mega binders that are compiled throughout the school year. There are internet resources. There are the study guides that are posted. The teachers send home study packets.

Most of us have adjusted in our work lives to the fact that we type everything instead of writing longhand and having a secretary type it. We've gone from typewriters to computers. We've gone from mail to fax to scanning documents. We used to write checks and now we go onto our bank websites and type in a dollar amount to send to our creditor. But we can't adjust to the move away from textbooks?!

NP here. I still have have some of my full color, beautifully edited and photographed, appealing textbooks. I could read ahead, review past lessons and be fully immersed in the subject.

There is NOTHING COMPARABLE between my textbooks and the poorly photocopied, sparsely researched, black-and-white notes that my middle schooler receives. The internet resources are sometimes hastily thrown together by non-professionals.

So I buy books for him. He has a history of math, various history books, latin introductions, literature, books for physics, biology and chemistry. I can't follow the curriculum, of course, but I select books for their agreeable presentation and their informational quality. He loves them all. He doesn't love the school material.

I'm a teacher and I 100% agree with this. I think the move away from textbooks to worksheets glued into binders is just horrible.

+1 As a teacher I am in complete agreement. It is appalling. I am an incredibly well-educated teacher with multiple degrees and endorsements, and I think it would be incredibly presumptuous of me to think that I knew more than the consortium of individuals who write the texts. I actually follow a text secretly because it would be looked down upon by our school district if I followed a text book. Interestingly, these administrators are the same ones who question what I am doing so well that my students outperform their peers. Well, it isn't just because I am a good teacher. It also is because I am constantly scouring the texts to ensure that I am teaching the full scope of material and that I am not presenting material within my own bias or with my own shortcomings. The pendulum has swung too far into la la land. We need to go back to textbooks as our primary source material.

Yassss, OP. Slay.

I meant PP

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Study guides from the teacher. Often they are posted on Edline.

I find it so surprising that people are hung up on text books. Our kids have these mega binders that are compiled throughout the school year. There are internet resources. There are the study guides that are posted. The teachers send home study packets.

Most of us have adjusted in our work lives to the fact that we type everything instead of writing longhand and having a secretary type it. We've gone from typewriters to computers. We've gone from mail to fax to scanning documents. We used to write checks and now we go onto our bank websites and type in a dollar amount to send to our creditor. But we can't adjust to the move away from textbooks?!

NP here. I still have have some of my full color, beautifully edited and photographed, appealing textbooks. I could read ahead, review past lessons and be fully immersed in the subject.

There is NOTHING COMPARABLE between my textbooks and the poorly photocopied, sparsely researched, black-and-white notes that my middle schooler receives. The internet resources are sometimes hastily thrown together by non-professionals.

So I buy books for him. He has a history of math, various history books, latin introductions, literature, books for physics, biology and chemistry. I can't follow the curriculum, of course, but I select books for their agreeable presentation and their informational quality. He loves them all. He doesn't love the school material.

I'm a teacher and I 100% agree with this. I think the move away from textbooks to worksheets glued into binders is just horrible.

+1 As a teacher I am in complete agreement. It is appalling. I am an incredibly well-educated teacher with multiple degrees and endorsements, and I think it would be incredibly presumptuous of me to think that I knew more than the consortium of individuals who write the texts. I actually follow a text secretly because it would be looked down upon by our school district if I followed a text book. Interestingly, these administrators are the same ones who question what I am doing so well that my students outperform their peers. Well, it isn't just because I am a good teacher. It also is because I am constantly scouring the texts to ensure that I am teaching the full scope of material and that I am not presenting material within my own bias or with my own shortcomings. The pendulum has swung too far into la la land. We need to go back to textbooks as our primary source material.

Yassss, OP. Slay.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Study guides from the teacher. Often they are posted on Edline.

I find it so surprising that people are hung up on text books. Our kids have these mega binders that are compiled throughout the school year. There are internet resources. There are the study guides that are posted. The teachers send home study packets.

Most of us have adjusted in our work lives to the fact that we type everything instead of writing longhand and having a secretary type it. We've gone from typewriters to computers. We've gone from mail to fax to scanning documents. We used to write checks and now we go onto our bank websites and type in a dollar amount to send to our creditor. But we can't adjust to the move away from textbooks?!

NP here. I still have have some of my full color, beautifully edited and photographed, appealing textbooks. I could read ahead, review past lessons and be fully immersed in the subject.

There is NOTHING COMPARABLE between my textbooks and the poorly photocopied, sparsely researched, black-and-white notes that my middle schooler receives. The internet resources are sometimes hastily thrown together by non-professionals.

So I buy books for him. He has a history of math, various history books, latin introductions, literature, books for physics, biology and chemistry. I can't follow the curriculum, of course, but I select books for their agreeable presentation and their informational quality. He loves them all. He doesn't love the school material.

I'm a teacher and I 100% agree with this. I think the move away from textbooks to worksheets glued into binders is just horrible.

+1 As a teacher I am in complete agreement. It is appalling. I am an incredibly well-educated teacher with multiple degrees and endorsements, and I think it would be incredibly presumptuous of me to think that I knew more than the consortium of individuals who write the texts. I actually follow a text secretly because it would be looked down upon by our school district if I followed a text book. Interestingly, these administrators are the same ones who question what I am doing so well that my students outperform their peers. Well, it isn't just because I am a good teacher. It also is because I am constantly scouring the texts to ensure that I am teaching the full scope of material and that I am not presenting material within my own bias or with my own shortcomings. The pendulum has swung too far into la la land. We need to go back to textbooks as our primary source material.

I'm surprised the teachers can understand anything my kid writes on that cheap grey see-through paper using nr 2 pencil.
I miss seeing his textbooks too. I have no idea what he is learning in grade 4 in DCPS. I'd like to take his textbook and read it. Instead i get e-mails from his teacher telling me what they are working on. Can't really remember after I read since I'm a visual person and I find it waste of her time. Give me the book and I'll know in a minute what they are working on in grade 4.

I had to buy the textbook my DSs teacher used in math because the photocopied sheets were such bad quality. Ridiculous. If the notes he takes are subpar and all he's given is the problems to complete, how can he really learn!?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Who came up with this glued worksheet into notebook trend?

For all the lip-service schools pay to "recycling" and "saving the planet" as the reason for going away from textbooks, the glued worksheet in a notebook thing is so anti-green it's not even funny.

I don't get the glue into a notebook. Waste of paper and glue.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Parochial school - all textbooks. The newer ones have online access from home or the kids can bring the textbook home. Love it.

Yup. Same here. And the local library has a section of all the local schools' textbooks and workbooks for kids to use if they forget to bring books home.
I was very surprised to hear no text books in schools. Why is that? $?

I think it's part money/part prestige. MCPS does get money from its partnership with Pearson:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/maryland-schools-insider/post/pearson-previews-education-materials-developed-with-montgomery-county-schools/2013/01/31/dd8a30b4-6bb3-11e2-ada0-5ca5fa7ebe79_blog.html?utm_term=.8dc0f4b68737

Before they partnered with Pearson they had tried to market their curriculum themselves. My understanding is that it wasn't very successful.

I think MCPS likes to view themselves as expert educators and innovators. I wish they would stick to teaching and leave curriculum development to the actual experts. Montgomery county funnels a lot of tax money to education (as it should). I think MCPS pursuing profit opportunities in this way is a conflict of interest which does not serve our students well.

MCPS's curriculum 2.0 is designed by Pearson?

No, my understanding is that MCPS develops the curriculum and sells it to Pearson.

Teachers used to write textbooks instead of companies. What particularly are you worried about?

I imagine at some point teachers have written textbooks, but from my experience growing up in the 70's and 80's, textbooks were not written by schoolteachers. They were written by subject matter experts, often professors (is this what you mean by teachers) with a review board of other experts, or sometimes by a comittee of subject matter experts.

In any case, the authors were identified. Their institutions were identified. Someone could make an evaluation on the qualifications of the authors. Someone could look at the actual material in the textbook and evaluate it for accuracy, clarity, and instructional effectiveness. Moreover, one could look at the educational outcomes of other school systems where it had been used.

When MCPS writes textbooks, we don't know who is writing the textbooks or what their qualifications are. I think they may have comittees of teachers who give input, but I'm not sure how involved the teachers are, as opposed to the central office staff. Most teachers I know, as helpful as they may want to be, only have so much time to devote to committee meetings. I haven't heard of MCPS offering sabbaticals for this purpose.

Moreover, how much content expertise do the teachers have? I don't think an elementary teacher necessarily has to be an expert in math, science, history, etc. to teach effectively. I think they should be generalists in content knowledge and experts in instruction. I think, however, that the authors of textbooks do need to be subject matter experts who, while they may not directly address advanced topics, are knowledgeable about them and know the preparation which is necessary in the foundational levels of a subject to prepare students for later success. You can see by the reactions high school teachers have had that MCPS is deficient in this regard.

I think there is a huge issue of conflict of interest. The same organization decides what they want the product requirements to be, produces the product, reviews the product, implements the product, and evaluates the products effectiveness. There is no objectivity, let alone competition. There is never the chance to see if it has proven results because our kids are the first tier of test subjects every time. Finally, there is a financial incentive to continue this system. Can you imagine the outcry in a textbook based school system if a publisher offered kickbacks to pick their textbooks? It would be a major scandal. Not only are we restricted to a curriculum monopoly, but the school system is trying to profit from it.

In the example you gave at least when teachers wrote the textbooks, the outcome was something tangible - a textbook that could be used and evaluated. Even if the personnel that MCPS uses are the best possible curriculum authors in the world who come up with a fantastic curriculum, students still miss out by not having a textbook (electronic or traditional) to refer to.

Anonymous wrote:Who came up with this glued worksheet into notebook trend?

For all the lip-service schools pay to "recycling" and "saving the planet" as the reason for going away from textbooks, the glued worksheet in a notebook thing is so anti-green it's not even funny.

Who came up with this glued worksheet into notebook trend?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Study guides from the teacher. Often they are posted on Edline.

I find it so surprising that people are hung up on text books. Our kids have these mega binders that are compiled throughout the school year. There are internet resources. There are the study guides that are posted. The teachers send home study packets.

Most of us have adjusted in our work lives to the fact that we type everything instead of writing longhand and having a secretary type it. We've gone from typewriters to computers. We've gone from mail to fax to scanning documents. We used to write checks and now we go onto our bank websites and type in a dollar amount to send to our creditor. But we can't adjust to the move away from textbooks?!

NP here. I still have have some of my full color, beautifully edited and photographed, appealing textbooks. I could read ahead, review past lessons and be fully immersed in the subject.

There is NOTHING COMPARABLE between my textbooks and the poorly photocopied, sparsely researched, black-and-white notes that my middle schooler receives. The internet resources are sometimes hastily thrown together by non-professionals.

So I buy books for him. He has a history of math, various history books, latin introductions, literature, books for physics, biology and chemistry. I can't follow the curriculum, of course, but I select books for their agreeable presentation and their informational quality. He loves them all. He doesn't love the school material.

I'm a teacher and I 100% agree with this. I think the move away from textbooks to worksheets glued into binders is just horrible.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Parochial school - all textbooks. The newer ones have online access from home or the kids can bring the textbook home. Love it.

Yup. Same here. And the local library has a section of all the local schools' textbooks and workbooks for kids to use if they forget to bring books home.
I was very surprised to hear no text books in schools. Why is that? $?

I think it's part money/part prestige. MCPS does get money from its partnership with Pearson:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/maryland-schools-insider/post/pearson-previews-education-materials-developed-with-montgomery-county-schools/2013/01/31/dd8a30b4-6bb3-11e2-ada0-5ca5fa7ebe79_blog.html?utm_term=.8dc0f4b68737

Before they partnered with Pearson they had tried to market their curriculum themselves. My understanding is that it wasn't very successful.

I think MCPS likes to view themselves as expert educators and innovators. I wish they would stick to teaching and leave curriculum development to the actual experts. Montgomery county funnels a lot of tax money to education (as it should). I think MCPS pursuing profit opportunities in this way is a conflict of interest which does not serve our students well.

MCPS's curriculum 2.0 is designed by Pearson?

No, my understanding is that MCPS develops the curriculum and sells it to Pearson.

Teachers used to write textbooks instead of companies. What particularly are you worried about?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Parochial school - all textbooks. The newer ones have online access from home or the kids can bring the textbook home. Love it.

Yup. Same here. And the local library has a section of all the local schools' textbooks and workbooks for kids to use if they forget to bring books home.
I was very surprised to hear no text books in schools. Why is that? $?

I think it's part money/part prestige. MCPS does get money from its partnership with Pearson:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/maryland-schools-insider/post/pearson-previews-education-materials-developed-with-montgomery-county-schools/2013/01/31/dd8a30b4-6bb3-11e2-ada0-5ca5fa7ebe79_blog.html?utm_term=.8dc0f4b68737

Before they partnered with Pearson they had tried to market their curriculum themselves. My understanding is that it wasn't very successful.

I think MCPS likes to view themselves as expert educators and innovators. I wish they would stick to teaching and leave curriculum development to the actual experts. Montgomery county funnels a lot of tax money to education (as it should). I think MCPS pursuing profit opportunities in this way is a conflict of interest which does not serve our students well.

MCPS's curriculum 2.0 is designed by Pearson?

No, my understanding is that MCPS develops the curriculum and sells it to Pearson.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Study guides from the teacher. Often they are posted on Edline.

I find it so surprising that people are hung up on text books. Our kids have these mega binders that are compiled throughout the school year. There are internet resources. There are the study guides that are posted. The teachers send home study packets.

Most of us have adjusted in our work lives to the fact that we type everything instead of writing longhand and having a secretary type it. We've gone from typewriters to computers. We've gone from mail to fax to scanning documents. We used to write checks and now we go onto our bank websites and type in a dollar amount to send to our creditor. But we can't adjust to the move away from textbooks?!

NP here. I still have have some of my full color, beautifully edited and photographed, appealing textbooks. I could read ahead, review past lessons and be fully immersed in the subject.

There is NOTHING COMPARABLE between my textbooks and the poorly photocopied, sparsely researched, black-and-white notes that my middle schooler receives. The internet resources are sometimes hastily thrown together by non-professionals.

So I buy books for him. He has a history of math, various history books, latin introductions, literature, books for physics, biology and chemistry. I can't follow the curriculum, of course, but I select books for their agreeable presentation and their informational quality. He loves them all. He doesn't love the school material.

+1000
There is no substitute for well-written, engaging ACTUAL textbooks. Like you, PP, I used to pore over my school textbooks, especially in English and history, reading ahead and immersing myself in subjects that interested me most. Also like you, I've been buying my kids books similar to the ones you mentioned so that they can have full, hands-on access to them, whenever they like (even when the internet is down! ). It's such a shame the pendulum has swung so far that the kids are left with no textbooks.

Similar to PP above, my kids are at FCPS. I have one who graduated last year, one who is a senior, and one sophomore.
The lack of using textbooks is really awful. All 3 kids are very good students, but the many many resources used (some online, some slips of paper, paper paper everywhere...) cause everything to be very convoluted.

There's no natural "flow' of curriculum for classes due to this choppy, disorganized presentation of materials.

Much of what they are tested on is from power point lectures delivered by teachers. So god forbid you are absent, becasue what you are studying from is a few bullet points (which mean nothing) on some pages. With no textbooks, not even a way to make context out of it.

The whole "no textbooks" thing is a huge mistake, if you ask me. I get the need to move to online/less cost, but I dont understand why they dont just use online textbooks rather than paper.

My kid who graduated last year is in college now, and has textbooks again!

This has been an ongoing problem. DS graduated from high school several years ago and his FCPS school had scores of beautiful textbooks that were never used and then discarded, brand new, as a PP mentioned.

The refusal to use textbooks was often detrimental to students. He took an AP Econ class where the teacher steadfastly refused to use any textbooks at all, preferring to hand out their own paper study guides and "textbooks." The material was SO CONVOLUTED that I had no idea what she was talking about when it came to supply/demand (and I say this as an Economics Ph.D!). When DS asked to borrow one of the many Mankiw textbooks lying around the classroom, he was given a 20 minute lecture on how "Mankiw is an idiot."

DH and I supplemented his education in the past by buying him books, but it's of no use in the classroom. Teachers want work done THEIR way (even in STEM subjects) and anything that goes beyond what they taught or is slightly different than the way they teach is immediately marked down. It's like a dictatorship at times.