Our kid who failed the math SOLs in elementary is now an excellent math student as an incoming HS senior. Seriously, it is kid's best subject. Our other kid who didn't do well on the reading SOLs is now getting As on term papers at a very competitive university. and reads 15 books a semester. Maybe you should wish for your kids to do badly on the SOL. Some kids are on slow burn early and take off later.

Anonymous wrote: FCPS keeps removing things from their suggested curriculum. Benchmark doesn’t teach to the SOL. So yeah, unless you have a teacher who knows all of this and can counter it, then students scores would be lower. This should not be a surprise to anyone who follows the decision making practices of the school board, superintendent, and central office.

Oh look it's the anti-Benchmark lady again. Multiple teachers and parents have posted on the many different threads about this that either the tests were harder or the cut off for pass advanced was higher, but this is not tied to Benchmark. There's no way that your AAP child's score could decrease by 30% just because of the reading curriculum in the school. If that's really the case, then your child isn't advanced and doesn't belong in AAP. This is like the baseline standards of learning.

Weirdly, both of my kids had huge increases. AAP students.

They did say their teachers really didn't teach this sort of content. Language arts was really brushed aside -- I hate this about AAP. It's crazy superficial.

I have a third kid in Gen Ed who scored really well. Pass advance. They felt that Benchmark was actually super helpful. And their writing has improved dramatically this year -- she's written more than I have ever seen.

Anonymous wrote:6th grader gen Ed. Reading score dropped. Never been this low. Benchmark is a joke.

My kids score went up. Highest it has ever been.

The Reading SOL is a new SOL this year, I thought the aim was to make it more difficult. DS scored dropped 40 points from a 550 to a 511 as a 7th grader. This has happened before, I am not worried about it.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m an administrator. Our reading scores look fabulous. Up 8 percentage points with the overall pass rate. Kids that have never passed did great.

Which grade(s)?

Look, on teacher Facebpok pages, at what teachers across the state are saying about grades 7 and 8 reading tests. They are saying scores are down and there are almost no 600s. In the entire state.

Grades 7 and 8 are the two forgotten grades. They are the only grades that did not get the Benchmark curriculum like K-6. They are the losers from the Lucy Calkin era with no basal..,

Interesting. My 7th grader score dropped by 80 points. I wonder if the material is getting more difficult and that's why middle schoolers are scoring lower? My older DCs love to read and were reading a lot at this age, but this DC doesn't read for fun so maybe she's not gaining skills the way her siblings did.

7th. Grade Honors English was a joke.

5th grader. Non-AAP. increase in 120 points. Pass Advance from a mid-low pass.

5th grader DD AAP, just dropped 70 pts.

6th grader gen Ed. Reading score dropped. Never been this low. Benchmark is a joke.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Benchmark assumes that you had the previous years to build on. It's possible that older students this year did fall a bit behind where they would have been because they needed to adjust to a totally new curriculum style. AAP also used to use its own curriculum for reading and now they're using the same one as everyone else with extentions to make it more rigorous.

Yeah. Keep telling yourself that. Keep drinking the KoolAid.

I'm the one you're responding to. My kid isn't in AAP and scored advanced pass in the mid 500s. I'm just sharing what my child's teacher said at the beginning of the year re expected scores and benchmark being a big change from previous years.

Anonymous wrote:My son for the first time ever didn’t pass advance on the reading SOL. He said a lot of kids in his AAP class and other AAP students scored 100 or more points lower than last years SOL. One boy he knows is failing English for the year and got a passed advance on the SOL. Must be a weird year.

Same, 8th grader in AAP. He was always pass advanced and this year barely passed.

How soon after the test are scores available?

It's weird how everyone is ignoring the substantive comment from the teacher and just gossiping....

FCPS keeps removing things from their suggested curriculum. Benchmark doesn’t teach to the SOL. So yeah, unless you have a teacher who knows all of this and can counter it, then students scores would be lower. This should not be a surprise to anyone who follows the decision making practices of the school board, superintendent, and central office.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m an administrator. Our reading scores look fabulous. Up 8 percentage points with the overall pass rate. Kids that have never passed did great.

Which grade(s)?

Look, on teacher Facebpok pages, at what teachers across the state are saying about grades 7 and 8 reading tests. They are saying scores are down and there are almost no 600s. In the entire state.

Grades 7 and 8 are the two forgotten grades. They are the only grades that did not get the Benchmark curriculum like K-6. They are the losers from the Lucy Calkin era with no basal..,

Interesting. My 7th grader score dropped by 80 points. I wonder if the material is getting more difficult and that's why middle schoolers are scoring lower? My older DCs love to read and were reading a lot at this age, but this DC doesn't read for fun so maybe she's not gaining skills the way her siblings did.