I grew up in Eastern Europe and received my K-12 education there. There was no math acceleration outside of a few highly-competitive "gifted centers", but the curriculum overall was more challenging, with an emphasis on intuition, useful shortcuts, and "tricky" problems that required creativity and in-depth understanding instead of repetitive worksheets.

I did not take a calculus class until my freshman year at an American college, but went on to get an advanced degree in math and work in the field now. So you could say I agree with the spirit of the new curriculum: depth over acceleration, building on the basics, etc. But would I want my daughter in 2.0? Hell no! Even though I don't think she has the same natural aptitude for math that I did at her age, nor do I see her choosing it as a profession, I would want her accelerated as much as she can handle. And if that means that I have to spend a few minutes a day at home re-explaining the advanced concepts or making sure that she does not advance to algebra without having mastered fractions, that's ok.

Competitive colleges in this country expect their applicants to have taken advanced math and science classes in high school, whatever their chosen major. One county with a new experimental curriculum is not going to change that. And even if this curriculum became more widespread, it would not alter the colleges' expectations nor significantly decrease the number of kids taking calculus in high school (who may or may not have really mastered algebra.) This is not because some students will somehow magically learn more advanced material while sitting in the same classroom as the kids struggling to add 2 plus 2. It is because some students have parents like me, willing to spend 15 minutes a day so their kid can at least hope to compete for college admissions with the kids of the really crazy parents, the kind of parents who spend an hour a day and hire expensive tutors.

As usual, the students who will really suffer from this will be those bright young people whose parents cannot afford the time and the tutors, i.e. the very population MCPS is supposedly trying to help.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Those families and children sufficiently challenged with curriulum 2.0 obviously may show little concern for other kids twiddling their thumbs; even if some of these same kids are asked to mentor their own children in the classroom by the teacher.

Actually, I think the parents of the students who are "twiddling their thumbs" show no concern about the other children in the class. These parents are too busy "advocating" for the needs of their own children.

What is your point? You want the bored, gifted students to teach your kids and do the group work singlehandedly? Everyone in class should "hang out" or do easy menial exercises while waiting? Day after day...

The point is that the person who thinks parents of "non-gifted" children advocating for the need for their own children are morally bankrupt, while parents who advocate for the needs of their "gifted" children are morally superior. The first post makes the assumption that a parent of a child who is sufficiently challenged doesn't care about any other children, while demonstrating that she/he only cares about the "gifted" children. Just as you are going to advocate for your child, I will advocate for mine.

Personally, I would be more than happy to have not only differentiated classes, but to permit the parents to decide in which class their children belong. However, I think we would need more teachers.

Are people here really "advocating" for a one-size-fits-all curriculum when there are various levels of IQ, talent and potential in the class is the way to go?!

As for addl teachers, 30 new ones where recently hired to be ESL teachers. So resources are focusing on the immigrant population, as does 2.0.