Interesting article over on our local freebie paper, The Gazette today. Do read it.
County’s middle school curriculum too accelerated, some parents say: School system wants 80 percent of pupils ready for college
As the Montgomery County school system continues to discuss how to get more students ready for college and the workforce, some county parents say that administrators are pushing too many middle school children into advanced classes before they are ready….
Ever on message for the “Seven to Keys to College Readiness,” Superintendent Jerry Weast is quoted:
“Our goal is to get … 80 percent of our students to be college-ready by 2014,” schools Superintendent Jerry D. Weast said at the time. “It’s an ambitious, but very reachable, goal as long as our students know the pathway that it will take to get there.”….
And the pushback:
But the pace could be too fast, said Dina Yagodich, an adjunct math professor at Montgomery College’s Germantown campus with three children in county schools. While she is not against acceleration, some students can’t handle the advanced pace, she said.
Her pre-algebra classes at the college are “filled” with students who graduated from the school system, she noted….
Yagodich, referencing state data, pointed out that just 73 percent of the county’s eighth-graders scored proficient or advanced on last year’s Maryland School Assessments in mathematics, while 26.8 percent scored basic, the lowest level.
“I am concerned for the push to get 80 percent of students a full grade level ahead when 26.8 percent of them aren’t even at the eighth-grade level,” Yagodich said. “The push for acceleration has concerned me, and although it is good for many students, I worry that many students are pushed beyond their abilities and are never able to catch back up.”
Also weighing in, teachers’ union president Doug Prouty who says teachers don’t have time to “go back and re-teach struggling students.” Ted Willard (MCCPTA and AEI Advisory Committee representative) says students should have a “choice of working through classes at a slower pace…..We shouldn’t push for things before they’re ready.”
What they’re saying, in a nutshell, is that students’ abilities vary. That one size does not fit all. That just because someone at 450 Hungerford Drive says all students will meet certain advanced standards doesn’t make it so. To paraphrase the good Dr. Weast (with a nod to Fred S.), these folks are “willing to put ability on the table.”
Unspoken in the article is what this says about grouping. Because remember, MCPS has been eliminating GT classes at the middle school in favor of heterogenously grouped classes. MCPS officials argue that they can offer the same accelerated, rigorous classes to all students by providing “support” and “scaffolding” to struggling students. What people in this story are saying–and what parents have known for, like, forever–is that fishes are not wishes. As things are structured now, it’s not working. It doesn’t work for struggling students, and it’s doing no favors to the students who are ARE comfortable with the rigor and acceleration being offered–and could do even more if given the attention.
Is it a problem with the standards? Is it a problem with the currriculum that leads up to middle school? Is it a problem with how elementary students are being taught? Whatever it is, something is fundementally broken in MCPS–and all the glitzy PR in the world isn’t going to be able to reconcile the ambitious (for some) goals with the reality of varying student ability at given points in time.
A question about reporting: Shouldn’t the paper report someone’s day job if it’s as relevant (or more so) as their PTA position? I’d like to hear more about Ted Willard’s insights into science and math education.
First hit from google:
[AAAS= (American Association for the Advancement of Science]
http://www.project2061.org/about/staff/willard.htm
AAAS » Project 2061
Ted Willard, Project Director, …
Ted Willard is project director for AAAS Project 2061. He oversees the project’s National Science Foundation-funded initiative to create tools that support the development of goals-based curriculum materials in science and mathematics….
In his previous role as a senior research associate at Project 2061, Willard was responsible for the development of the growth-of-understanding maps published in Atlas of Science Literacy, Volume 2. The maps in Atlas portray the relationships between specific learning goals and show how students’ understanding of key science ideas and skills might develop from kindergarten through 12th grade….
Thanks for the background on Mr. Willard. I had no idea. Sounds like he would be knowledgeable. And I agree, the reporting in this article could be stronger. I would have liked to hear from more than just one MCPS parent (not counting Mr. Willard), albeit the reporter chose a juicy one…an adjunct math professor at Montgomery College (our local community, for those of you outside the area readers)
I couldn’t agree with you more.
I really don’t understand the business about “college-ready” implying “acceleration.” Seems to me that someone who does well in all their regular college-track courses (not AP, not accelerated, just algebra 1 in 9th grade and so forth) should in fact be ready for college. They may or may not be ready for a HIGHLY SELECTIVE college, but they should have a good education and be ready for the typical state school or whatever.