Anonymous
Post 02/03/2014 11:19     Subject: Yay! Straight P's!
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:

I did find out. I just told you what i was told. Are you saying the kid should only get an I if not explaining at K level? Then i agree. But that's not what's happening.


OK, so your kindergartener got an I in reading (in text reading and comprehension, I assume) because the kid reads at the third-grade level but can't explain at the third-grade level.

With the pre-2.0 report card, your kid would have gotten an O in "reading". So you would know that your kid was doing Outstanding in reading. Yay! But you wouldn't know what that meant.

The new report card tells you your kid's reading level AND tells you what the kid should be doing in text reading and comprehension that the kid is not yet doing. So the new report card actually tells you more than the previous report card.

So what's the problem? That your kid got an I? In kindergarten?

It's obviously not a major problem, mostly because she doesn't know it. If she did, it would be a major problem, because she's a kid who gets very upset if she feels like she didn't do a good job. Which is what an I communicates. An O would be appropriate. An I is stupid and unfair. And, not, the report card did not communicate all that info. I went and asked to get that info. The card just said I. Lazy.




Another idiot parent, looking for the report card to do all their work.
It is in you to teach your kid that an I is not bad, just an indication of an area that needs work.
Teach your freaking kid that they are not always perfect, but can still fe GOID about themselves.
Teach your kid that the goal is learning, and the report card is is just a report on where they are in reaching that goal.
Sick of folks thinking it is a crime to have to ask the teacher how their kid is doing.
You have always had to have this communication if you wanted a full
And personalized assessment. The report cards are not lazy, some of you parents are.


OK, you clearly have a rage problem, so I'll treat you gently. You want to call me an "idiot" because I pointed out a blatantly illogical facet of the grading system. ohhhhkay. Then you want to call me lazy, because supposedly I want the report card to do the work for me. But I just said I did go talk to the teacher. So, that makes no sense either. My kid knows quite well that she is not perfect. (And, I dare you to refer to my "freaking kid" to my face, and I'll show you how we deal with people who insult kids where I come from.) But she cares about doing a good job. Some kids are perfectionists. We shouldn't crap all over them because we want to teach them the lesson that they're imperfect.
If you are a teacher or MCPS administrator, you should get a new line of work, because you clearly have nothing but contempt for parents who care about their kids and, actually, kids themselves.
Anonymous
Post 02/02/2014 16:20     Subject: Yay! Straight P's!
Anonymous wrote:MAP-M doesn't correlate to the 2.0 math curriculum --- ask your teacher or your principal, and they'll tell you that. I know this because I have friends and family who are MCPS teachers. And my kid's teacher cautioned me about relying on the MAP-M data since it tests concepts that aren't being taught in the classroom under 2.0.

Does this worry anyone else, or just me?

Does not worry me, because my goals for my child's education does not hinge on standardized test it just doesn't.
They are developing tests that correlate to the curriculum. BottomLine what I care most about is I can see what my job is doing I can understand what my child is doing and where and how my child needs help.
Anonymous
Post 02/02/2014 13:42     Subject: Yay! Straight P's!
MAP-M doesn't correlate to the 2.0 math curriculum --- ask your teacher or your principal, and they'll tell you that. I know this because I have friends and family who are MCPS teachers. And my kid's teacher cautioned me about relying on the MAP-M data since it tests concepts that aren't being taught in the classroom under 2.0.

Does this worry anyone else, or just me?
Anonymous
Post 02/02/2014 13:38     Subject: Re:Yay! Straight P's!
I have to admit there's a little braggy mama inside of me who is disappointed that the kids can't come home with straight As or anything.. Bu this is elementary school (ours report cards were similar when I was little.. just a check, check plus or check minus).

The more I think about it, the more I find it a relief. The kids aren't competing with each other (my two, I mean), and they don't have to sweat the small stuff, as it were. It's enough for them to know they're doing fine.

Both got straight Ps, except one got one I. That "I" tells us a lot actually (though I did have to ask the teacher what it meant... it had to do with explaining what was read. Which is something that child does struggle with.) So as a parent, I also don't have to worry. I know one weakness one child has, and that otherwise, all is well. That child will work on said weakness (if he feels like it) and I am discouraged from helicopter-parenting. Makes for more relaxed parenting, which you might think is lazy, but I think it allows the children to take more ownership of their school experience.
Anonymous
Post 02/02/2014 13:09     Subject: Yay! Straight P's!
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Bingo! 2.0 is far easier. The benchmarks were lowered. Test scores for low income minorities were declining, and 2.0 was developed as the silver bullet to address that. Guess what? They succeed when everyone gets Ps. The map tests do not correlate to 2.0, so those scores are meaningless. They piloted a new test this year to replace map, and my guess is they will magically demonstrate progress.

Prove it....


I am not aware that the system is replacing MAP. If so, that would be a major loss for parents. Currently, the MAP test is the ONLY test that students take regularly from elementary school through high school that provides standardized, nationally normed data. It is the ONLY test that can show improvement in a year-over-year, apples-to-apples way. You can see if your child is making progress (or not) year after year. You can also see if your child is performing at the 50th percentile or 80th percentile, whatever. This is very important information for parents to have in terms of accountability. The school system currently uses MAP as a predictor of performance on the MSA, in order to target which kids are in danger of not making the proficient benchmark or are near another cut point like between proficient and advanced. So, MCPS might try to use MAP the same way. MAP can be administered by the school system multiple times a year to monitor progress, while PARCC can not be used like that.

But, I think you are referring to the MSA, which MCPS will not give after this year and replace with the PARCC instead. Some kind of standardized test to evaluate whether students have acquired on grade level knowledge is required each year under federal NCLB legislation. MCPS has used the MSA for this, but now, with the switch to C2.0, MCPS says that the MSA no longer tests what is being taught under C2.0. So, MCPS will switch to the PARCC (Partnership for Readiness in College and Careers) assessment system. This is a consortium of 18 states building a K-12 annual assessment system keyed off of the Common Core Standards.

It is difficult to know how PARCC will turn out. It certainly won't be a replacement for MAP. There are some good aspects (cheaper to build assessment systems in consortium, theoretically and potentially better to be able to compare state-state results). But, it will be hard to compare performance on the MSA to performance on the PARCC. A critical thing for parents to keep an eye on is the benchmarks that are set for "passing" or "proficient" on the PARCC and what the benchmark really means. This is very difficult to understand without being able to see the tests, see what questions a child got wrong and what the benchmarks for proficient and advanced are. It is really important that parents insist on transparency in the PARCC. Individual parents have FERPA rights to information about testing, but parents/citizens should also insist on regular, periodic releases of PARCC versions so that they can understand what the test is testing and what "proficiency" means.
Anonymous
Post 02/02/2014 12:54     Subject: Yay! Straight P's!
Anonymous wrote:We aren't confused by the report cards. We are disappointed that 2.0 has lowered the bar when it comes to assessments so much so that both a bright kid and a kid who struggles (and whose needs aren't being met) both earn Ps.

Again: one of my kids struggles. Pre 2.0, there were conferences, meetings, and lots of concern by the teacher since he wasn't meeting benchmarks. Now thanks to 2.0 he's great! Super! Hitting benchmarks! Passing the (easy) assessments! I understand how many of you probably can't relate, but many of us see how they've lowered the bar to demonstrate success...and it's a disservice to all children.


As a mom to an LD child, I can totally relate. This was our major concern about C2.0. LD kids who need IEPs and 504 plans often depend heavily on classroom assessments to show the "adverse impact" of a disability on the student's ability to access the general education environment. The new reporting/grading system under C2.0 makes it very difficult for parents to challenge the school system. Does an N mean "not making progress" or just that the concept hasn't been presented yet. (It can mean either under 2.0). If I means "in progress" how much of the material has the child mastered? Now, under C2.0, a parent can't tell. In the old system, there would be a range of options from A-E to understand how much of the material was mastered. As well, proficient is now just a black/white judgment. Now a child who has mastered say, 60% of the material might be judged "proficient" as well as a child who has mastered 90% of the material.

I hope someone is keeping an eye on the special education statistics. I predict that the number of kids in special ed will begin to decline -- not because MCPS has somehow become better at teaching sped, but because kids will find it even harder to qualify.

And C2.0 has definitely lowered the bar -- when our school transitioned to 2.0, all the kids who had been working 1 or more years ahead in the math curriculum were held back to on grade level, and thus spent a whole year merely reviewing what they had already learned. I saw the impact in my child's MAP-M score where he actually lost ground because he was not receiving any new instruction anymore. We saw very little in the way of C2.0 assessments coming home. And when they did, they were typically only one or two problems, not a comprehensive assessment as in previous years. Also, there was no data breakdown of skills mastered or not, as there had been in previous years. Oftentimes the teacher didn't even do a formalized "assessment' but would just walk around and check on kids in group work, meaning that an individual child wasn't really assessed, but rather the group as a whole. My child was able to hide a lot of his problems this way. I only learned this by insisting on my right to observe the class as part of the IEP placement decisions. So, C2.0 has not only lowered the bar, but also made school performance a LOT less transparent to parents.
Anonymous
Post 02/02/2014 12:04     Subject: Yay! Straight P's!
Anonymous wrote:Bingo! 2.0 is far easier. The benchmarks were lowered. Test scores for low income minorities were declining, and 2.0 was developed as the silver bullet to address that. Guess what? They succeed when everyone gets Ps. The map tests do not correlate to 2.0, so those scores are meaningless. They piloted a new test this year to replace map, and my guess is they will magically demonstrate progress.

Prove it....
Anonymous
Post 02/02/2014 10:35     Subject: Yay! Straight P's!
Bingo! 2.0 is far easier. The benchmarks were lowered. Test scores for low income minorities were declining, and 2.0 was developed as the silver bullet to address that. Guess what? They succeed when everyone gets Ps. The map tests do not correlate to 2.0, so those scores are meaningless. They piloted a new test this year to replace map, and my guess is they will magically demonstrate progress.
Anonymous
Post 02/02/2014 10:25     Subject: Yay! Straight P's!
Anonymous wrote:We aren't confused by the report cards. We are disappointed that 2.0 has lowered the bar when it comes to assessments so much so that both a bright kid and a kid who struggles (and whose needs aren't being met) both earn Ps.

Again: one of my kids struggles. Pre 2.0, there were conferences, meetings, and lots of concern by the teacher since he wasn't meeting benchmarks. Now thanks to 2.0 he's great! Super! Hitting benchmarks! Passing the (easy) assessments! I understand how many of you probably can't relate, but many of us see how they've lowered the bar to demonstrate success...and it's a disservice to all children.


PP, I'm sorry that one of your kids struggles. But I truly don't understand how that is the fault of Curriculum 2.0. Are you saying that Curriculum 2.0 lowered the benchmarks? Could you provide specific examples?
Anonymous
Post 02/02/2014 10:21     Subject: Yay! Straight P's!
We aren't confused by the report cards. We are disappointed that 2.0 has lowered the bar when it comes to assessments so much so that both a bright kid and a kid who struggles (and whose needs aren't being met) both earn Ps.

Again: one of my kids struggles. Pre 2.0, there were conferences, meetings, and lots of concern by the teacher since he wasn't meeting benchmarks. Now thanks to 2.0 he's great! Super! Hitting benchmarks! Passing the (easy) assessments! I understand how many of you probably can't relate, but many of us see how they've lowered the bar to demonstrate success...and it's a disservice to all children.
Anonymous
Post 02/02/2014 10:18     Subject: Yay! Straight P's!
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Awesome! A brag in the guise of a dismissal. Well played, OP!


Not the OP, but I'm pretty sure that wasn't a brag at all.

Getting all 'P's isn't really something to brag about. I think OP was complaining about how inane the system is.


Why not? My kids haven't ever gotten all Ps.


That is pretty bad? Or pretty good? Or pretty confusing?

Wonder if the other countries in the world pussyfoot around giving grades to students!




Precisely, it's all a bunch cr@p. Does this remind anyone else of Kurt Vonnegut's short story
"Harrison Bergeron" from the book "Welcome to the Monkey House"?

"It is the year 2081. Because of Amendments to the Constitution, every American is fully equal, meaning that no one is smarter, better-looking, stronger, or faster than anyone else. The Handicapper General and a team of agents ensure that the laws of equality are enforced. The government forces citizens to wear "handicaps" (a mask if they are too handsome or beautiful, earphones with deafening radio signals to make intelligent people unable to concentrate and form thoughts, and heavy weights to slow down those who are too strong or fast)."

I remember reading this as satire in high school twenty years ago. Will the works of Vonnegut, Orwell and Huxley be moved from fiction to non-fiction in another twenty? Let's hope not.


Yep that us what it is all about seeing if ur kid is better than, smarter than the next kid.
You are a sick person.
My goal is to have my kid learn, I don't give a flying flip how he compares to ur freaking kid.
Anonymous
Post 02/02/2014 10:14     Subject: Yay! Straight P's!
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:

I did find out. I just told you what i was told. Are you saying the kid should only get an I if not explaining at K level? Then i agree. But that's not what's happening.


OK, so your kindergartener got an I in reading (in text reading and comprehension, I assume) because the kid reads at the third-grade level but can't explain at the third-grade level.

With the pre-2.0 report card, your kid would have gotten an O in "reading". So you would know that your kid was doing Outstanding in reading. Yay! But you wouldn't know what that meant.

The new report card tells you your kid's reading level AND tells you what the kid should be doing in text reading and comprehension that the kid is not yet doing. So the new report card actually tells you more than the previous report card.

So what's the problem? That your kid got an I? In kindergarten?

It's obviously not a major problem, mostly because she doesn't know it. If she did, it would be a major problem, because she's a kid who gets very upset if she feels like she didn't do a good job. Which is what an I communicates. An O would be appropriate. An I is stupid and unfair. And, not, the report card did not communicate all that info. I went and asked to get that info. The card just said I. Lazy.




Another idiot parent, looking for the report card to do all their work.
It is in you to teach your kid that an I is not bad, just an indication of an area that needs work.
Teach your freaking kid that they are not always perfect, but can still fe GOID about themselves.
Teach your kid that the goal is learning, and the report card is is just a report on where they are in reaching that goal.
Sick of folks thinking it is a crime to have to ask the teacher how their kid is doing.
You have always had to have this communication if you wanted a full
And personalized assessment. The report cards are not lazy, some of you parents are.
Anonymous
Post 02/02/2014 10:07     Subject: Yay! Straight P's!
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Awesome! A brag in the guise of a dismissal. Well played, OP!


Not the OP, but I'm pretty sure that wasn't a brag at all.

Getting all 'P's isn't really something to brag about. I think OP was complaining about how inane the system is.


Why not? My kids haven't ever gotten all Ps.


That is pretty bad? Or pretty good? Or pretty confusing?

Wonder if the other countries in the world pussyfoot around giving grades to students!


Oh my goodness , I am soooo over these idiot parents who only care about the grade.
The FUCKING GRADE is just a symbolic assessment of how ur kid is learning.
If you know your kid is reading above grade level, then a P is good, they are proficient in that area.
Yea for you that you already know what your kid is doing, how well they are learning.
Are you just mad because you want a better prize?
P is not good enough for you? You feel better with an A, which is just a different symbol of the same dang thing!
The goal is for your kid to learn, not for you to get the grade prize you want.
You need more commentary, ask the freaking teacher!!
It does not come in the report card, get over it. ASK THE TEACHER!
I do it , plus our teacher writes notes on all work, responds to email ,and gives weekly assements(brief ones).
Your teacher not doing ANY of these things, then bug the crap out of him /her!
If you have gone the entire quarter waiting for a report card to tell u how ur kid is doing, than MCPS is not failing ur kid, YOU ARE!!!
Anonymous
Post 02/02/2014 08:47     Subject: Yay! Straight P's!
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:

I did find out. I just told you what i was told. Are you saying the kid should only get an I if not explaining at K level? Then i agree. But that's not what's happening.


OK, so your kindergartener got an I in reading (in text reading and comprehension, I assume) because the kid reads at the third-grade level but can't explain at the third-grade level.

With the pre-2.0 report card, your kid would have gotten an O in "reading". So you would know that your kid was doing Outstanding in reading. Yay! But you wouldn't know what that meant.

The new report card tells you your kid's reading level AND tells you what the kid should be doing in text reading and comprehension that the kid is not yet doing. So the new report card actually tells you more than the previous report card.

So what's the problem? That your kid got an I? In kindergarten?

It's obviously not a major problem, mostly because she doesn't know it. If she did, it would be a major problem, because she's a kid who gets very upset if she feels like she didn't do a good job. Which is what an I communicates. An O would be appropriate. An I is stupid and unfair. And, not, the report card did not communicate all that info. I went and asked to get that info. The card just said I. Lazy.



Anonymous
Post 02/02/2014 08:38     Subject: Yay! Straight P's!
Anonymous wrote:

I did find out. I just told you what i was told. Are you saying the kid should only get an I if not explaining at K level? Then i agree. But that's not what's happening.


OK, so your kindergartener got an I in reading (in text reading and comprehension, I assume) because the kid reads at the third-grade level but can't explain at the third-grade level.

With the pre-2.0 report card, your kid would have gotten an O in "reading". So you would know that your kid was doing Outstanding in reading. Yay! But you wouldn't know what that meant.

The new report card tells you your kid's reading level AND tells you what the kid should be doing in text reading and comprehension that the kid is not yet doing. So the new report card actually tells you more than the previous report card.

So what's the problem? That your kid got an I? In kindergarten?