Totally agree. There is no shortage of people wanting to get into MCPS. That is a fact. The training programs (like Hopkins) reject candidates that are perfectly capable of teaching. Of course the consumers of education want what is best for their kids education---which is smaller class size at the expense of teacher pay since it is not difficult to recruit teachers.

I also cannot believe I moved here for the schools. NW DC schools have a ratio of 1:10 for the preS-preK and K in the minimum with many push-in teachers. My rising K will be entering a class of 29 with just 1 teachers (24 yrs old). We moved too soon.

BIG SIGH

Anonymous wrote:

But to suggest that every time their is a budget crisis the teachers bare the vast majority of the impact seems rather unreasonable.

It's a very common reaction in any government budget crisis to cut the compensation for public employees. It's also a very common idea, for service occupations with a high proportion of women (like teaching), that an employee's primary reward and motivation should come from the vocation, not the pay. (Somehow this idea does not apply to, for example, orthopedic surgeons.)

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:MCPS is as far away from the Montessori model as you can imagine. My kids went to Montessori through K. There were 27 kids in the class but there were 4 adults running the class. One primary Montessori teacher and 3 Montessori aides - all with degrees and Montessori training. The materials and work were all designed to be self-paced.

MCPS still has the teacher led model and has gone backwards in terms of differentiation. Its a one size fits all curriculum. There are no aides. Its really awful. You either have a very strict, boring and joyless environment that keeps all the kids in their seats or you have an absolute zoo. Its really pathetic.

Agree 100%

Can't believe we moved here for the schools!

I've consulted and have many friends and colleagues who have consulted for years. While MCPS isn't perfect, if you experienced how other school systems function, you'd be kissing MCPS' central office right now.

grass is always greener, eh?

This entire thing is essentially a debate about what the funding priorities are for MCPS and how to best handle a budget shortfall. For several years, the vast majority of money cut came from teachers salaries/benefits. Steps and COLA's were frozen and the % of health care the employees paid increased. This saved hundreds of millions of dollars from the budget. Class sizes were also raised, which also saved money, though not as much as the MCPS employees giving up their contractually negotiated raises.

Essentially the employees and MCPS agreed to break contracts to give back a good bit of money. This time around MCPS elected to honor the contracts at the expense of raising classes sizes.

It would seem unreasonable to every time their is a budget crisis ask MCPS employees to bare the brunt of the crisis, just as it would to never ask them to.

Of course another option that isn't really discussed much here is to either change some of the staffing to move professional employees who don't interact with kids (staff development, content specialists, teachers that only evaluate other teachers, etc.) back to the classroom or the dreaded raise taxes to pay for the system you want to have.

But to suggest that every time their is a budget crisis the teachers bare the vast majority of the impact seems rather unreasonable.

Anonymous wrote:MCPS is as far away from the Montessori model as you can imagine. My kids went to Montessori through K. There were 27 kids in the class but there were 4 adults running the class. One primary Montessori teacher and 3 Montessori aides - all with degrees and Montessori training. The materials and work were all designed to be self-paced.

MCPS still has the teacher led model and has gone backwards in terms of differentiation. Its a one size fits all curriculum. There are no aides. Its really awful. You either have a very strict, boring and joyless environment that keeps all the kids in their seats or you have an absolute zoo. Its really pathetic.

Agree 100%

Can't believe we moved here for the schools!

Anonymous wrote:

MCPS still has the teacher led model and has gone backwards in terms of differentiation. Its a one size fits all curriculum. There are no aides. Its really awful. You either have a very strict, boring and joyless environment that keeps all the kids in their seats or you have an absolute zoo. Its really pathetic.

This does not describe my children's experience with MCPS.

MCPS is as far away from the Montessori model as you can imagine. My kids went to Montessori through K. There were 27 kids in the class but there were 4 adults running the class. One primary Montessori teacher and 3 Montessori aides - all with degrees and Montessori training. The materials and work were all designed to be self-paced.

MCPS still has the teacher led model and has gone backwards in terms of differentiation. Its a one size fits all curriculum. There are no aides. Its really awful. You either have a very strict, boring and joyless environment that keeps all the kids in their seats or you have an absolute zoo. Its really pathetic.

Anonymous wrote:You absolutely are a MCPS employee. You just happen to lie at every possible opportunity. You've tried to deny that raises are being given. You've tried to deny that cramming a huge amount of young kids in one class with one teacher no aide has any impact.

By your lovely logic, we can just keeping adding a few more (which as many posters have pointed out is never the maximum that actually ends up in the class anyway) each year so dumb shits like you can keep milking the system to get more raises. Hey, why no go up to 50 kids in the classroom. You can get a really big raise then.

Its not the number of kids in the class which make the most difference, its the effectiveness of the teacher and how they "move around" amongst them. Old Swedish theory adopted in many montessori settings and a largely understood truth amongst teachers (whether they are actually effective or not).

Anonymous wrote:You absolutely are a MCPS employee. You just happen to lie at every possible opportunity. You've tried to deny that raises are being given. You've tried to deny that cramming a huge amount of young kids in one class with one teacher no aide has any impact.

By your lovely logic, we can just keeping adding a few more (which as many posters have pointed out is never the maximum that actually ends up in the class anyway) each year so dumb shits like you can keep milking the system to get more raises. Hey, why no go up to 50 kids in the classroom. You can get a really big raise then.

Good grief.

You absolutely are a MCPS employee. You just happen to lie at every possible opportunity. You've tried to deny that raises are being given. You've tried to deny that cramming a huge amount of young kids in one class with one teacher no aide has any impact.

By your lovely logic, we can just keeping adding a few more (which as many posters have pointed out is never the maximum that actually ends up in the class anyway) each year so dumb shits like you can keep milking the system to get more raises. Hey, why no go up to 50 kids in the classroom. You can get a really big raise then.

Anonymous wrote:So the new rationale from MCPS employees is hey no biggie. Class sizes should be huge, give me the money. Disgusting. Absolutely disgusting.

What is the real-life, practical effect of a class size of 27 vs. a class size of 28? Or a class size of 29 vs. a class size of 30?

(For what it's worth, when I was in elementary school in the 1970s, we routinely had class sizes of over 30.)

(I am not an MCPS employee.)

At many schools going up to 30+ students in 3rd, 4th and 5th grade is a problem too. Our school also experienced the situation with several students entering in after the spring/summer allocation being made and class sizes being way larger than the ratio. Raising them again puts them even farther into the unrealistic zone.

DS was in a compacted math class last year with 30 students. They all did fine because they were at the same level, advanced in math and none needed any individual attention from the teacher. They were happy to work in a math oriented group of kids independently and the teacher could give them interesting things to do because they all already knew the material. They were however packed like sardines into the classroom. You could walk between the rows.

There is no way that this many kids will work in regular classrooms where there is a wide range of skills. The rooms at many schools were never designed to pack this many kids into them. There aren't enough cubbies, desks are put in strange places where they can't see the board. There is no way that the art room can do the same projects with even more students.

I agree its worse for the youngest students but the upper elementary kids are being screwed too. MCPS sucks.

So the new rationale from MCPS employees is hey no biggie. Class sizes should be huge, give me the money. Disgusting. Absolutely disgusting.

Anonymous wrote:Mcps still has some of the best salaries in the country. We do not need to increase to compete. Our focus schools and title 1 schools have decent class sizes and ratios. It is all the other schools who have been on top that are now seeing a huge shift in class size & overcrowding that will long-term have a d'être real effect on our schools. It is also likely to drive teachers away because over-crowding, fewer resources, & testing pressure make it hard for teachers to do their job. At many schools, we will now see 28-30 kids with 1 teacher & no aides. It is too much. Which means more sitting & worksheet time for students. Smaller class sizes will lead to better learning. Even dropping that number into the 20-25 range again would make a world of difference, or funding an aide for large classes. This county cannot serve the wide range of needs in schools with huge class sizes.

A huge shift in class size and overcrowding? MCPS eliminated 150 teaching positions. Not 1,500. 150.