Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:After reading this I'm convinced the best way to close the achievement gap isn't through educational reform but by requiring parenting classes for parents of low performing students.

What would you "teach" those parents?

Lesson 1) Be born in the United States as a native English speaker

Lesson 2) Have more money

Lesson 3) Have more time

Lesson 4) ...........?

Just hand out free copies of Amy Chua's parenting guide. I've heard it's really effective.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:After reading this I'm convinced the best way to close the achievement gap isn't through educational reform but by requiring parenting classes for parents of low performing students.

What would you "teach" those parents?

Lesson 1) Be born in the United States as a native English speaker

Lesson 2) Have more money

Lesson 3) Have more time

Lesson 4) ...........?

Seriously. How you could possibly come to that conclusion from these posts is beyond me.

Maybe the poster was thinking of the model of the Harlem Children's Zone, which includes wrap-around services and parenting classes that start when parents are first expecting. I think they've had some success, but it's expensive, and they have private donors. And this model shouldn't be mandatory, but perhaps incentivized.

https://hcz.org/

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Yes, but that's the catch in MCPS algebra really is not a HS level class, it's cursory. Same for geometry and even algebra 2 to an extent. You have to play the hand your dealt and in MCPS that means get your kid to pre-calc so they begin to get practice with HS level math. Yes that puts them in Calc sooner than you might like, but calc does keep trig and algebraic manipulation skills up to snuff. There is no risk of running out of courses because students can take calc three times in MCPS. Colleges do expect students to have calc in HS now, so anything less does put them at a disadvantage. For a weak student taking calc with applications as a junior and AP calc A/B as a senior is the best way to have a good math foundation for college. And if they get the AP credit and aren't going into a technical field, they may never see math again.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:After reading this I'm convinced the best way to close the achievement gap isn't through educational reform but by requiring parenting classes for parents of low performing students.

What would you "teach" those parents?

Lesson 1) Be born in the United States as a native English speaker

Lesson 2) Have more money

Lesson 3) Have more time

Lesson 4) ...........?

Seriously. How you could possibly come to that conclusion from these posts is beyond me.

Anonymous wrote:After reading this I'm convinced the best way to close the achievement gap isn't through educational reform but by requiring parenting classes for parents of low performing students.

What would you "teach" those parents?

Lesson 1) Be born in the United States as a native English speaker

Lesson 2) Have more money

Lesson 3) Have more time

Lesson 4) ...........?

After reading this I'm convinced the best way to close the achievement gap isn't through educational reform but by requiring parenting classes for parents of low performing students.

Anonymous wrote:Sorry, I should give the poverty rates for both towns:

Lawrence -- 24%
Andover -- 4% (and only 2.6% of families)

Make that 34% for Lawrence. My bad.

Sorry, I should give the poverty rates for both towns:

Lawrence -- 24%
Andover -- 4% (and only 2.6% of families)

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.

Of course. No one is saying small is good enough. I was the one who countered the MA suggestion with Wellesley. Wellesley's advantage is that it is not only small, but it is rich. There are essentially no poor kids.

An example of a poor performing, town-based district in MA: Lawrence. 13,000 kids, but high poverty rates. In fact, Lawrence and the town next to it (Andover) have some of the biggest differences in educational outcomes of any two adjacent towns in the US, and they epitomize the problem with looking at town-based districts as a comparison point with MCPS. Lawrence is rated as C on Niche, while Andover is an A+. Of course, a county-based district would include both (they're both in Essex County) and many more towns, and the scores would look very different.

picking the wrong parents = parents don't care of their kids education, don't work hard and are not responsible

PP You did well on your own Q/A !

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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?

This is the Maryland Public Schools forum. We are talking about MCPS educating children/children being educated in MCPS. Not about people choosing whether or not to have or raise babies. If you want to talk about that, post on one of the parenting fora.

You can't really separate parenting and school regarding education. Parental responsibility plays a key role in their kids education. Parents don't have to be rich or even highly educated but they have to care about their kids education, they have to a good role model to work hard, and to be responsible.

Are you saying that if kids pick the wrong parents, there's nothing MCPS can do?

Or that the whole "bottom half" of the MCPS student body (as a previous poster referred to them) have parents who don't care about their kids' education, don't work hard, and aren't responsible?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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?

This is the Maryland Public Schools forum. We are talking about MCPS educating children/children being educated in MCPS. Not about people choosing whether or not to have or raise babies. If you want to talk about that, post on one of the parenting fora.

You can't really separate parenting and school regarding education. Parental responsibility plays a key role in their kids education. Parents don't have to be rich or even highly educated but they have to care about their kids education, they have to a good role model to work hard, and to be responsible.

Anonymous wrote:

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?

This is the Maryland Public Schools forum. We are talking about MCPS educating children/children being educated in MCPS. Not about people choosing whether or not to have or raise babies. If you want to talk about that, post on one of the parenting fora.

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

SAT scores for Fairfax county vs. MCPS in 2016:
2016 MCPS 1631 with 65% taking the SAT (down from 1651 in 2012 when 71% of students took the SAT) 153 National Merit Semifinalists
http://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/press/index.aspx?page=showrelease&id=6102
2016 Fairfax County 1672 with around 70% of students taking the SAT tests. (Fairfax County SAT scores were around 1650 in 2012) 223 National Merit Semifinalists
https://www.fcps.edu/index.php/news/two-hundred-twenty-three-fcps-students-named-2018-national-merit-semifinalists

Fairfax County student body is 39% white, 25.4 percent Hispanic, 19.5 Asian, 10.1 percent Black, 5.3 percent two or more races, 0.3 percent American Indian and 0.1 percent
30% FARMS, 29% ESOL, per student funding is $14,700
Bigger with nearly 190,000 students

MCPS is 28.3 % white, 32.3% Hispanic, 21.4% Black, 14.4% Asian and <5% Two or more races
35.5% FARMS, 17.5% ESOL
160,000 students

http://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/uploadedFiles/about/Refresh_2011_Content_Pieces/MCPS-At-a-Glance-%2002.02.18(1).pdf

What is interesting is that if you look at the SAT scores by school, there are more high schools in MCPS that have SAT scores higher than 1700.
MCPS has 8:
Whitman 1897, Poolesville 1862, Churchill 1851,Wootton 1818, Richard Montgomery 1779, Walter Johnson 1753, BCC 1741, Blair 1730
Fairfax County has 6
Thomas Jefferson Magnet 2198, Langley 1851, McLean 1821, Madison 1789, Woodson 1755, Oakton 1750

Anonymous wrote: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.

This... too many ES teachers don't have good math foundational skills themselves.