Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Irrelevant. Different topic.
We all know that MCPS is not educating the bottom kids well— just look at their scores, their work, their lack of improvement year over year the last 20 years.

The next question is is MCPS teaching the top half well.
Many seem to be arguing No, it is not. MCPS is not educating the top half of performers well. In k-8 it gives them some ill-equipped strawmen of a school program and then runs off.

Who is?

no one. anywhere. a public school system cannot raise a child, parents need to.

We're not talking about raising children. We're talking about educating children. Do you believe that schools can't educate children who picked the wrong parents to be born to?

Do you believe that a man and woman can choose to have a baby or not? And then turn around and choose to raise it or not?

A good start would be having ES and MS teachers who actually know math themselves. Maybe it was the terrible curriculum but for at least 2 of the last 5 years of Parent's Night, my wife and I sat there listening and it was clear the teacher either (i) did not know math, or (ii) did not understand the math materials.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In many cases, some kids would likely be more interested in vocational training than more academic subjects. I don't expect that everyone is going to enjoy taking Calculus or see it's value.

Interestingly, NPR had a report on my commute yesterday about how RAISING math requirements improves outcomes across student populations.

DP.. I think that's true to a point. It doesn't have to mean that they take Calc by 11th grade. It could mean that the math courses throughout school years have more rigorous (complex) content rather than just skimming the surface.

Anonymous wrote:In many cases, some kids would likely be more interested in vocational training than more academic subjects. I don't expect that everyone is going to enjoy taking Calculus or see it's value.

I would agree with this, which is why I'm ambivalent about having one of my kids in the compacted math track.

I heard that MCPS has a goal to offer vocational type certification programs in HS -- like the one in Macgruder HS and aviation. Their goal is to have 40% of graduates have some kind of certification. I think this is great.

Still not too happy about the change in magnet acceptance approach though.

Anonymous wrote:In many cases, some kids would likely be more interested in vocational training than more academic subjects. I don't expect that everyone is going to enjoy taking Calculus or see it's value.

Interestingly, NPR had a report on my commute yesterday about how RAISING math requirements improves outcomes across student populations.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NP. It is obvious that comparing MCPS to a tiny, homogeneous, city-based district is inane.

Which raises the question - is there a district similar to MCPS that is doing better?

For the sake of comparing apples to apples, let's define "similar to MCPS" to mean:

150K or more kids

30% or more FARMS

60 % or more non-white

People are surely now going to post that this is proof that MCPS is too big.

So another question should be: list some small town/city-based districts that do badly. This shouldn't be hard, since most districts in the US are small and town/city-based. And for every "top" exclusive small town/city-based district, there must be one or more districts for the kids who are excluded from the "top" districts..

I'm not going to name the school district because it is far too specific, but the district where I grew up is small, city-based, and TERRIBLE.

Stats:

930 students, K-12

50% FARMS

81% White

38% proficient in reading

77% HS graduation rate

Yep, small is not enough, it needs to be rich as well.

So is MCPS educating rich families' kids well?

I would say no. The kids from highly educated family do well despite the deficiencies of their education. Guess who are hurt most by a sub par education, it is the ones without the parental guidance and resources. If the school curriculum is stronger and more demanding, the rich kids won't feel the need to supplement academics nearly as much, and the poor kids will have everything available to them at school. The achievement gap may actually be smaller., at least for the subset of motivated smart poor kids. But MCPS seems to be under tremendous pressure to hide the achievement gap, that is why all the get rid of the finals, put everyone in advanced English, algebra takers in middle school doing better therefore let's teach algebra to everyone in middle school instead of high school happened.

Doesn’t matter, check out the Hs graduation rates.

In many cases, some kids would likely be more interested in vocational training than more academic subjects. I don't expect that everyone is going to enjoy taking Calculus or see it's value.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Irrelevant. Different topic.
We all know that MCPS is not educating the bottom kids well— just look at their scores, their work, their lack of improvement year over year the last 20 years.

The next question is is MCPS teaching the top half well.
Many seem to be arguing No, it is not. MCPS is not educating the top half of performers well. In k-8 it gives them some ill-equipped strawmen of a school program and then runs off.

Who is?

no one. anywhere. a public school system cannot raise a child, parents need to.

We're not talking about raising children. We're talking about educating children. Do you believe that schools can't educate children who picked the wrong parents to be born to?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NP. It is obvious that comparing MCPS to a tiny, homogeneous, city-based district is inane.

Which raises the question - is there a district similar to MCPS that is doing better?

For the sake of comparing apples to apples, let's define "similar to MCPS" to mean:

150K or more kids

30% or more FARMS

60 % or more non-white

People are surely now going to post that this is proof that MCPS is too big.

So another question should be: list some small town/city-based districts that do badly. This shouldn't be hard, since most districts in the US are small and town/city-based. And for every "top" exclusive small town/city-based district, there must be one or more districts for the kids who are excluded from the "top" districts..

I'm not going to name the school district because it is far too specific, but the district where I grew up is small, city-based, and TERRIBLE.

Stats:

930 students, K-12

50% FARMS

81% White

38% proficient in reading

77% HS graduation rate

Yep, small is not enough, it needs to be rich as well.

So is MCPS educating rich families' kids well?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Irrelevant. Different topic.
We all know that MCPS is not educating the bottom kids well— just look at their scores, their work, their lack of improvement year over year the last 20 years.

The next question is is MCPS teaching the top half well.
Many seem to be arguing No, it is not. MCPS is not educating the top half of performers well. In k-8 it gives them some ill-equipped strawmen of a school program and then runs off.

Who is?

no one. anywhere. a public school system cannot raise a child, parents need to.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NP. It is obvious that comparing MCPS to a tiny, homogeneous, city-based district is inane.

Which raises the question - is there a district similar to MCPS that is doing better?

For the sake of comparing apples to apples, let's define "similar to MCPS" to mean:

150K or more kids

30% or more FARMS

60 % or more non-white

People are surely now going to post that this is proof that MCPS is too big.

So another question should be: list some small town/city-based districts that do badly. This shouldn't be hard, since most districts in the US are small and town/city-based. And for every "top" exclusive small town/city-based district, there must be one or more districts for the kids who are excluded from the "top" districts..

I'm not going to name the school district because it is far too specific, but the district where I grew up is small, city-based, and TERRIBLE.

Stats:

930 students, K-12

50% FARMS

81% White

38% proficient in reading

77% HS graduation rate

Yep, small is not enough, it needs to be rich as well.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NP. It is obvious that comparing MCPS to a tiny, homogeneous, city-based district is inane.

Which raises the question - is there a district similar to MCPS that is doing better?

For the sake of comparing apples to apples, let's define "similar to MCPS" to mean:

150K or more kids

30% or more FARMS

60 % or more non-white

People are surely now going to post that this is proof that MCPS is too big.

So another question should be: list some small town/city-based districts that do badly. This shouldn't be hard, since most districts in the US are small and town/city-based. And for every "top" exclusive small town/city-based district, there must be one or more districts for the kids who are excluded from the "top" districts..

I'm not going to name the school district because it is far too specific, but the district where I grew up is small, city-based, and TERRIBLE.

Stats:

930 students, K-12

50% FARMS

81% White

38% proficient in reading

77% HS graduation rate

Anonymous wrote:

Irrelevant. Different topic.
We all know that MCPS is not educating the bottom kids well— just look at their scores, their work, their lack of improvement year over year the last 20 years.

The next question is is MCPS teaching the top half well.
Many seem to be arguing No, it is not. MCPS is not educating the top half of performers well. In k-8 it gives them some ill-equipped strawmen of a school program and then runs off.

Who is?

Anonymous wrote:NP. It is obvious that comparing MCPS to a tiny, homogeneous, city-based district is inane.

Which raises the question - is there a district similar to MCPS that is doing better?

For the sake of comparing apples to apples, let's define "similar to MCPS" to mean:

150K or more kids

30% or more FARMS

60 % or more non-white

Irrelevant. Different topic.
We all know that MCPS is not educating the bottom kids well— just look at their scores, their work, their lack of improvement year over year the last 20 years.

The next question is is MCPS teaching the top half well.
Many seem to be arguing No, it is not. MCPS is not educating the top half of performers well. In k-8 it gives them some ill-equipped strawmen of a school program and then runs off.