Anonymous
Post 05/27/2021 21:30     Subject: Compacted Math- FYI
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Many states have education bureaucracy looking to eliminate advanced math in the name of equity.
All kids would be in the same class learning grade level subjects. No honors classes, and no accelerating forward by a year or more. Virginia was set to do this statewide, but they backed down for the moment with an election coming.
Looks like Maryland is doing it more behind the scenes.


Can you show any evidence to support these claims? Without evidence, this seems like fearmongering.


Look up VMPI for Virginia. AAP Forum here has been running a thread for 3 months on Virginia to eliminate advanced math.

You can find some detail on California by searching for 'Bill Evers WSJ math'. There is an LA Times article and some WSJ editorials within the past few weeks.

VMPI says there is a 22 state consortium pursuing this. Their website has links to papers arguing the need to eliminate tracking.

When someone sent them an e-mail asking them to confirm they would eliminate tracking, the response was

The Virginia Mathematics Pathways Initiative proposals support the vision that all students are capable of making sense of and persevering in solving challenging mathematics problems and should be expected to do so. Many more students, regardless of gender, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status, need to be given the support, confidence, and opportunities to reach much higher levels of mathematical success and interest. VMPI proposals do promote equity and that the practice of isolating low-achieving students in low-level or slower-paced mathematics groups should be eliminated.

Sincerely,
Tina Mazzacane
K-12 Mathematics Coordinator
Virginia Department of Education


You are posting in the wrong group. This is about MCPS and they have stated they are keeping accelerated math. Our principal in MS said they are keeping the different levels. We are not VA or CA so posting what they are doing isn't helpful. Everyone is speculating. They aren't going to get rid of compacted math.


Today. Or Right now. Or because they got cAught trying.

And I understand the problem of low expectations that groups like the one in Virginia are trying to solve. But you make those kids the high flyers too. You give them extra instruction, support and encouragement. You act in loco parent is. It is not a solution to hold the high performers down so that they create behavior problems for the teachers who are trying to do that. And you buy yourself different inequity as people hire math tutors, or sign up for Russian School of Math or Dr Ali. Thanks again Ugh - MCPS - make decisions for our community. Don’t blindly follow the educational community flavor of the month.


What are you rambling about? There hasn't been any changes made to math. And, many of us just supplement with a few workbooks in ES. You don't need to pay for tutors or any of that stuff. You talking about VA for MCPS makes zero sense.
Anonymous
Post 05/27/2021 21:22     Subject: Compacted Math- FYI
There’s just a complete absence of actual leadership. MCPS is adrift. The BOE doesn’t effectively represent the community. They are too busy handling the overworked staff with kids gloves. There was a pandemic. Jack was retirement age and missed his family and checked out. I hope Monifa brings real leadership and change.
Anonymous
Post 05/27/2021 21:08     Subject: Compacted Math- FYI
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Many states have education bureaucracy looking to eliminate advanced math in the name of equity.
All kids would be in the same class learning grade level subjects. No honors classes, and no accelerating forward by a year or more. Virginia was set to do this statewide, but they backed down for the moment with an election coming.
Looks like Maryland is doing it more behind the scenes.


Can you show any evidence to support these claims? Without evidence, this seems like fearmongering.


Look up VMPI for Virginia. AAP Forum here has been running a thread for 3 months on Virginia to eliminate advanced math.

You can find some detail on California by searching for 'Bill Evers WSJ math'. There is an LA Times article and some WSJ editorials within the past few weeks.

VMPI says there is a 22 state consortium pursuing this. Their website has links to papers arguing the need to eliminate tracking.

When someone sent them an e-mail asking them to confirm they would eliminate tracking, the response was

The Virginia Mathematics Pathways Initiative proposals support the vision that all students are capable of making sense of and persevering in solving challenging mathematics problems and should be expected to do so. Many more students, regardless of gender, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status, need to be given the support, confidence, and opportunities to reach much higher levels of mathematical success and interest. VMPI proposals do promote equity and that the practice of isolating low-achieving students in low-level or slower-paced mathematics groups should be eliminated.

Sincerely,
Tina Mazzacane
K-12 Mathematics Coordinator
Virginia Department of Education


You are posting in the wrong group. This is about MCPS and they have stated they are keeping accelerated math. Our principal in MS said they are keeping the different levels. We are not VA or CA so posting what they are doing isn't helpful. Everyone is speculating. They aren't going to get rid of compacted math.


Today. Or Right now. Or because they got cAught trying.

And I understand the problem of low expectations that groups like the one in Virginia are trying to solve. But you make those kids the high flyers too. You give them extra instruction, support and encouragement. You act in loco parent is. It is not a solution to hold the high performers down so that they create behavior problems for the teachers who are trying to do that. And you buy yourself different inequity as people hire math tutors, or sign up for Russian School of Math or Dr Ali. Thanks again Ugh - MCPS - make decisions for our community. Don’t blindly follow the educational community flavor of the month.
Anonymous
Post 05/27/2021 20:55     Subject: Compacted Math- FYI
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Many states have education bureaucracy looking to eliminate advanced math in the name of equity.
All kids would be in the same class learning grade level subjects. No honors classes, and no accelerating forward by a year or more. Virginia was set to do this statewide, but they backed down for the moment with an election coming.
Looks like Maryland is doing it more behind the scenes.


Can you show any evidence to support these claims? Without evidence, this seems like fearmongering.


Look up VMPI for Virginia. AAP Forum here has been running a thread for 3 months on Virginia to eliminate advanced math.

You can find some detail on California by searching for 'Bill Evers WSJ math'. There is an LA Times article and some WSJ editorials within the past few weeks.

VMPI says there is a 22 state consortium pursuing this. Their website has links to papers arguing the need to eliminate tracking.

When someone sent them an e-mail asking them to confirm they would eliminate tracking, the response was

The Virginia Mathematics Pathways Initiative proposals support the vision that all students are capable of making sense of and persevering in solving challenging mathematics problems and should be expected to do so. Many more students, regardless of gender, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status, need to be given the support, confidence, and opportunities to reach much higher levels of mathematical success and interest. VMPI proposals do promote equity and that the practice of isolating low-achieving students in low-level or slower-paced mathematics groups should be eliminated.

Sincerely,
Tina Mazzacane
K-12 Mathematics Coordinator
Virginia Department of Education


You are posting in the wrong group. This is about MCPS and they have stated they are keeping accelerated math. Our principal in MS said they are keeping the different levels. We are not VA or CA so posting what they are doing isn't helpful. Everyone is speculating. They aren't going to get rid of compacted math.
Anonymous
Post 05/27/2021 20:05     Subject: Compacted Math- FYI
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Many states have education bureaucracy looking to eliminate advanced math in the name of equity.
All kids would be in the same class learning grade level subjects. No honors classes, and no accelerating forward by a year or more. Virginia was set to do this statewide, but they backed down for the moment with an election coming.
Looks like Maryland is doing it more behind the scenes.


Can you show any evidence to support these claims? Without evidence, this seems like fearmongering.


Look up VMPI for Virginia. AAP Forum here has been running a thread for 3 months on Virginia to eliminate advanced math.

You can find some detail on California by searching for 'Bill Evers WSJ math'. There is an LA Times article and some WSJ editorials within the past few weeks.

VMPI says there is a 22 state consortium pursuing this. Their website has links to papers arguing the need to eliminate tracking.

When someone sent them an e-mail asking them to confirm they would eliminate tracking, the response was

The Virginia Mathematics Pathways Initiative proposals support the vision that all students are capable of making sense of and persevering in solving challenging mathematics problems and should be expected to do so. Many more students, regardless of gender, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status, need to be given the support, confidence, and opportunities to reach much higher levels of mathematical success and interest. VMPI proposals do promote equity and that the practice of isolating low-achieving students in low-level or slower-paced mathematics groups should be eliminated.

Sincerely,
Tina Mazzacane
K-12 Mathematics Coordinator
Virginia Department of Education
Anonymous
Post 05/27/2021 18:55     Subject: Compacted Math- FYI
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:MCPS is headed by a woman now, but there's a paternalistic vibe that parents cannot possibly understand the complexity of their job leading a school district. To some extent that's true - managing such a large school district with such diverse needs is a big complicated job. For the most part, though, we can manage our own kids, and MCPS should not fall back on their paternalistic attitude for all, but rather should save the paternalism for the parents who need extra help.

Nah. They just get exhausted dealing with parents trying to micromanage the day to day operation of a large enterprise.

And yet, they continually just seemingly make things up as they go along without public communication until after the fact and then just barely.

How exactly are students determined eligible for the CES lottery and how is it run? Why is it that no one outside of MCPS knows the answer to this exactly precisely and why hasn't MCPS felt the need to communicate this with parents?

How do they plan to teach math next year if they did not cover a full year of curriculum this year? Why won't MCPS communicate this to parents?

It's really exhausting being an MCPS parent when they lack transparency about basic things.
Anonymous
Post 05/27/2021 18:03     Subject: Compacted Math- FYI
Anonymous wrote:MCPS is headed by a woman now, but there's a paternalistic vibe that parents cannot possibly understand the complexity of their job leading a school district. To some extent that's true - managing such a large school district with such diverse needs is a big complicated job. For the most part, though, we can manage our own kids, and MCPS should not fall back on their paternalistic attitude for all, but rather should save the paternalism for the parents who need extra help.

Nah. They just get exhausted dealing with parents trying to micromanage the day to day operation of a large enterprise.
Anonymous
Post 05/27/2021 17:04     Subject: Compacted Math- FYI
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Many states have education bureaucracy looking to eliminate advanced math in the name of equity.
All kids would be in the same class learning grade level subjects. No honors classes, and no accelerating forward by a year or more. Virginia was set to do this statewide, but they backed down for the moment with an election coming.
Looks like Maryland is doing it more behind the scenes.


Can you show any evidence to support these claims? Without evidence, this seems like fearmongering.

DP. But it would do MCPS a world of good if they were more transparent and up-front in their communication about advanced instruction. They are not, have not for a long time and therefore I think it reasonable for people to presume bad faith until evidence is presented otherwise.


MCPS is headed by a woman now, but there's a paternalistic vibe that parents cannot possibly understand the complexity of their job leading a school district. To some extent that's true - managing such a large school district with such diverse needs is a big complicated job. For the most part, though, we can manage our own kids, and MCPS should not fall back on their paternalistic attitude for all, but rather should save the paternalism for the parents who need extra help.
Anonymous
Post 05/27/2021 15:45     Subject: Compacted Math- FYI
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Many states have education bureaucracy looking to eliminate advanced math in the name of equity.
All kids would be in the same class learning grade level subjects. No honors classes, and no accelerating forward by a year or more. Virginia was set to do this statewide, but they backed down for the moment with an election coming.
Looks like Maryland is doing it more behind the scenes.


Can you show any evidence to support these claims? Without evidence, this seems like fearmongering.

DP. But it would do MCPS a world of good if they were more transparent and up-front in their communication about advanced instruction. They are not, have not for a long time and therefore I think it reasonable for people to presume bad faith until evidence is presented otherwise.
Anonymous
Post 05/27/2021 13:44     Subject: Compacted Math- FYI
Anonymous wrote:Many states have education bureaucracy looking to eliminate advanced math in the name of equity.
All kids would be in the same class learning grade level subjects. No honors classes, and no accelerating forward by a year or more. Virginia was set to do this statewide, but they backed down for the moment with an election coming.
Looks like Maryland is doing it more behind the scenes.


Can you show any evidence to support these claims? Without evidence, this seems like fearmongering.
Anonymous
Post 05/27/2021 12:26     Subject: Compacted Math- FYI
Many states have education bureaucracy looking to eliminate advanced math in the name of equity.
All kids would be in the same class learning grade level subjects. No honors classes, and no accelerating forward by a year or more. Virginia was set to do this statewide, but they backed down for the moment with an election coming.
Looks like Maryland is doing it more behind the scenes.
Anonymous
Post 05/27/2021 11:52     Subject: Re:Compacted Math- FYI
Anonymous wrote:
LOL. You call it conjecture and yet verify the basic facts. A key person in the procurement process left MCPS in the middle of it and went to work for Discovery. That caused a delay in the procurement process. These are all facts, correct?

Here’s a question for you, would this MCPS official who had a key role in the procurement process, what value do you think they would have for discovery once the RfP was issued?

And here’s a question I honestly don’t know the answer to but perhaps you can help, seeing that you seem to have an “insider view” of MCPS, who was the winning bidder?



As far as I understand, yes. A key person retired from MCPS and took a job in the private sector, which is a pretty typical trajectory. This caused a delay either due to an abundance of caution or due to perceived malfeasance. Either way, the delay was the correct choice.

I want to be clear. I have no relationship with MCPS. I'm not an employee or a vendor. But I am a person who deals with procurements for a living, and I don't like seeing MCPS maligned for doing what I believe was the right thing. If there is even the perception of a conflict of interest, you should pull back and evaluate the bids anew.

As for who "won" the bid, anyone with ES-aged kids knows the answer. Rather than going with a single vendor for both math and ELA, MCPS "split" the tender and issued math to Eureka (with textboks, yay!) and ELA to Benchmark. That's not insider knowledge. It's been all over DCUM for months.


The key clown is Erick Lang. Check out his linkedin where he touts implementing 2.0. Here is the discovery education team. https://www.discoveryeducation.com/company/curriculum-team/ . He is also adjunct faculty at AU. It would be fun to come up with the name of his class.
Anonymous
Post 05/27/2021 11:22     Subject: Compacted Math- FYI
My 4th-grade child very much struggled with learning math online and while I know that she can do the work, her heart wasn't in it. I received an email from the teacher suggesting she drop down to regular 5th-grade math. Based on what's being said here, and the fact that this year was such a bummer, I agreed.

I hope there is some merit to what you all are saying!
Anonymous
Post 05/27/2021 11:10     Subject: Compacted Math- FYI
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Talked our principal last week. According to her, MCPS still has not decided whether it will offer compacted math next year for fourth graders.


Ours said it will, but MCPS hasn't made the MAP cutoffs clear for current 3rd graders/next year's 4th graders.


Too bad MCPS can't even get consistent info out to its principals. What chance do the rest of us have in figuring out what's going on. My fear is that they just have too much else going on, with all of the learning loss and issues in re-opening the schools, that providing for accelerated learners is going to be low priority.
Anonymous
Post 05/27/2021 11:03     Subject: Compacted Math- FYI
Ours said it will come from the county but it would be very limited and the county will make the determination. Our principal assumed that it would be through virtual academy.