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11 Instructional Hours for MSA Prep

Posted in Gifted, School, tagged , , , , , , on January 28, 2010 | 21 Comments »

Why, after two and a half years of blogging, it’s practically a tradition!  Yes, it’s time for my annual post (or two or three…) about the kick-off to the Maryland School Assessment (MSA) prep season.  And this year brings a stunner.  You can read for yourself:

Eastern Families,

I am very excited to share that beginning Tuesday, January 26, 2010 Eastern will implement a minor schedule modification. This modification is the addition of a daily 27 minute MSA practice session. This session will occur between 2nd and 3rd period each day. In order to dedicate this time each of the seven periods will be shortened from 49 to 45 minutes. We will return the original schedule at the conclusion of the MSA (March 22, 2010) .

The MSA practice time we be used as follows:
1 day each week of testing strategies.
2 days each week focused on the reading standards.
2 days each week focused on the math standards.

The MSA practice groupings were formed based on the students predicted MSA performance. Each group has been assigned a minimum of two staff coaches. Almost every adult in the building including teachers, counselors, administrators, secretaries, and building services staff have committed to working with students during this MSA practice time.

Eastern Middle School has administered two MSA practice tests (October and December). The data from the practices was analyzed to determine areas in need of additional support for each English class and each Math class. The MSA practice time will be used to provide structured practice on those cotent indicators that our students showed as areas in need of improvement.

Some of you may ask… my child is in advanced classes and does not need MSA prep — why do they have to do this? First, this is a whole-school initiative. Offering this preparation opportunity for some students and not for all conflicts with our philosophy that we are one school that provides equitable opportunities for all students. Second, the MSA focuses on grade level content. Our advanced students are working beyond their grade level and may have not practiced the tested skills for quite a while. All students will benefit from the structured content review — particularly in math.

Thank you in advance for your support of this MSA preparation plan.
Please feel free to contact me directly via email or 301-650-6650 if you have any questions or concerns.

(name removed)
Proud Principal

Predictably–and justifiably, in my opinion–there have been howls of protest on the school’s listservs.  As one parent commented “lumping all magnet students (for the purposes of a “whole-school” approach) into what is essentially remedial instruction for six weeks is completely inappropriate – and yet another symptom of what is going wrong with this program and this school.”  Others chimed in that this much test prep is inappropriate for any child who is solidly “proficient” or “advanced.”  Yet another posited that her child would get more benefit from an additional 27 minutes of sleep a day.

Bottom line:  You can wrap it in all the “excited” and “opportunity” and “proud principal” you like, but it’s still a perfect illustration of the misguided, “one size fits all” approach on which MCPS is hell bent. Yikes.  And sorry to go all “red zone” on you again, but I would guess that kids in Potomac aren’t losing 11 hours of instructional time in the coming weeks to prep for the MSAs (or are they??).

The principal responded…and just seemed to dig herself in deeper.

I do not disagree with any of the points that were made in these emails. The amount of energy and time that is dedicated to one single assessment – the MSA – can be extremely frustrating. It is the current state of public education in the US as mandated by NCLB that each state implement this type of test. The performance targets for these tests increase each year.

As you know, Eastern MS did not meet the targets for the 2009 MSA. It is my charge as principal to ensure that our instructional programs and MSA preparation and planning were reveiwed [sic] and modified in a effort to meet the 2010 targets. While some may feel that our the test preparations initiatives are not necessary for thier [sic] child I beleive [sic] that a whole school approach is appropriate for Eastern Middle School.  The groupings and instructional strategies have been differentiated based on predicted MSA score and every effort will be made to make the time meaningful for every student.

I recognize that using any time for anything other than instruction may not be a desired state, however, there are activities, events, and opportunities that arise that require use of class time. These include guest speakers, field trips, required testing, and in this case MSA preparation.

There are students, humanities nad [sic] comprehensive, that have demonstrated advanced level academic ability. This being said I repeat that I beleive [sic] that a schoolwide MSA prep initiative is appropriate for EMS.  Again, we are committed to making this MSA prep time beneficial for all. I ask this of you and your students…. give us two weeks to implement this plan. We will monitor the effectiveness carefully. If there is evidence after this two weeks that a test prep group has demonstrated advanced level abilities on the prep items then we will consider alternative use of this time for these students. Evidence will include performance data and student feedback.

A PTSA meeting is scheduled for Feb. 2.

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File Under “What Have We Come To?”

Posted in In the News, School, tagged , , , , , , on November 22, 2009 | 5 Comments »

It was on the list of most emailed articles for the New York Times this morning:  Tips for the Admissions Test … to Kindergarten.

Shudder.

Test preparation has long been a big business catering to students taking SATs and admissions exams for law, medical and other graduate schools. But the new clientele is quite a bit younger: 3- and 4-year-olds whose parents hope that a little assistance — costing upward of $1,000 for several sessions — will help them win coveted spots in the city’s gifted and talented public kindergarten classes.

Motivated by a recession putting private schools out of reach and concern about the state of regular public education, parents — some wealthy, some not — are signing up at companies like Bright Kids NYC. Bright Kids, which opened this spring in the financial district, has some 200 students receiving tutoring, most of them for the gifted exams, for up to $145 a session and 80 children on a waiting list for a weekend “boot camp” program.

Mark you, this is for public elementary GT programs. (The insanity line for private schools has already been  breached.)  As someone on a list I’m on posted, it’s only a matter of time before this trend hits DC.  But wait, as I reported ages ago, it already is here—for public middle school and high school magnets (Shame to the MCPS teachers participating!) and middle school Talent Search.  So to try to even the playing field, MCPS has produced this booklet on preparing for the tests to the middle school magnet programs.

Meanwhile some valiant souls are trying to stem the tide of helicopter-ism and parent paranoia.  Time magazine this week has a story on the backlash and the rise of the “slow parenting” movement.  It’s a good read with a big big shout out to Lenore Skenazy of the Free Range Kids blog.

And as a nice companion piece, do check out my friend Sue’s piece in the free local weekly, The Takoma Voice, about that most deadly of threats to MCPS students:  vegetables.   Yes, you’ve read that right. MCPS has issued school garden guidelines that regulate the growing of veggies.

Sean Gallagher, Assistant Director of Facilities Management at MCPS explains: “Fruits and vegetables are a natural food source for pests, including rodents, and we are restricted from using any type of pesticide to keep rodents away until we’ve removed all food sources, so there’s a problem with putting food sources on school grounds.” …   Gallagher also cited student allergies to the fruits and vegetables as a potential problem. In meetings, other MCPS staff members have also mentioned fear of insect stings, fear of toxins in the soil, fear that fruit creates a mess, and fear that school communities leave in June and abandon summer crops to rot.

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Why I Care About the Singam Case

Posted in Gifted, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on September 8, 2009 | 13 Comments »

Two weeks ago, when I learned about the unfolding drama surrounding Kumar Singam’s efforts to enroll his 9 year old daughter in an MCPS middle school (posts here and here), I wrote him an email:

… I wanted to let you know that I really, really empathize with you. Just last night my 15 year old who will be a sophomore at [deleted] was sobbing about how she didn’t want to go back to school because she feels like she is “spinning her wheels”….  MCPS refusal to accelerate students who need it–especially those who are verbally gifted–is a travesty….

The Singam case, and the resistance by MCPS officials to grade skipping, gave me a feeling of deja vu.  My daughter was never whole grade or radically subject accelerated.  Instead over the years we bought hook, line and sinker into every MCPS-touted GT program there was, with promises that “next year” it would “get better.” Nonetheless, by the time C. was in middle school, she was asking school officials for acceleration–or some kind of  intervention–ironically first in “GT” science class, but really in other classes as well. She self-advocated, as GT kids are often urged to do. And was brushed off–which is when things took a serious turn for the worse, to the point where we felt we had to withdraw, and were left no option but to homeschool. We were told by the magnet coordinator, “If she’s not happy in the magnet, she’s welcome to return to her home middle school.” Snort…As if. I had naively believed that the magnets were part of that “continuum of services” MCPS likes to talk about, where people would appreciate and “get” kids like mine and where we would work together to find a way to meet their needs. But clearly I was wrong. The magnet, I was told by the then-coordinator, was a “privilege.”

Fine. We withdrew C. The next month she took the SAT as part of the CTY Talent Search and got a freaking amazing score for a 12 year old.  (No, as it turns out, they probably didn’t “have many students who fit her profile.”)  What to do?  More to the point, what would MCPS do for this kid/with this kid if we wanted to re-enroll her for 8th grade?  Because she–we–could not return to the one program supposedly tailor-made for kids like her.  That relationship was shattered.  After countless phone calls and conversations with indifferent or clueless school system officials, I finally connected with someone in the Office of Accelerated and Enriched Instruction (since retired) who got it.  I mean, by that time I had met with so much resistance and hostility that I actually cried while on the phone with her.

Much like Mr. Singam, we met with someone from the Community Superintendent’s office.  We too believed that based on testing, our daughter needed to be placed beyond the norm for her age, namely high school.  MCPS didn’t want to go there; it was not even open for discussion.  Our fall back was that at minimum she needed access to high school English and social studies courses:  just as they arrange for very advanced math or foreign language middle school students to take classes at high school (and for which there is ample precedent) they should do the same for our child. Again, we could get no commitment from MCPS.  The best we could get was an offer of possible placement into the middle school housing the math/science/computer science magnet. (Not the magnet itself mind you, but just to be in building with other really bright age peers.  And they made that sound like a huge concession.).  Once there, we were told, this MCPS individual, the principal and someone from AEI would meet with us and personally build our child’s schedule.  However there was no assurance that she would receive high school level instruction, and by this point we were just too gun shy to take a risk–yet again–on an MCPS promise.  So we homeschooled another year, returning C. to an MCPS high school program that is the unspoken “service” at that level.

All should be great, no?  Well, actually no.  I mean, it’s a really great program and she’s getting vastly more than is available to most kids her age.  But she still has felt underchallenged in her strength areas.  For example she essentially had to repeat government last year (after sucessfully completing an equivalent college course).  To the credit of the coordinator there however, this year C. has been able to get permission to take an AP history class typically reserved for seniors. It’s her favorite class, the one where she feels she “belongs” intellectually and socially.  Clearly, this is a student who could have been radically subjected accelerated years earlier in her area of strength, the humanities, if allowed.  And no, I’m not pushing her.  She’s the one who is yearning for more challenge, for true intellectual engagement and risk taking, for the chance to get to college sooner in the hopes it will be there.

Recently we met a young man from elsewhere in the country who has grade skipped, someone C.’s age who will graduate this academic year–and she is angry that she never had that opportunity. To her, it feels as if MCPS has held her back every step of the way, and she has asked me “Why with MCPS is everything always a fight?”  I wish I had the answer.  All I know is that children like mine–and potentially Mr. Singam’s until he fought back–are being harmed–yes, that’s right, harmed–by MCPS’s refusal to deal with the realities of giftedness at the individual student level, to fully and truly meet their academic needs.  What kind of a toll does it take to be given the message year after year that it’s not okay to be who you are, that you must stifle and dampen your curiosity and passion to learn?

It’s because of these experiences that I have been following, and will continue to follow, the Singam case so closely.  By very vocally and fearlessly pushing MPCS to do the right thing by his daughter, Mr. Singam has forced truths about the system into the light that go against the happy feel good message they put out.  (It should be noted that many GT advocates have more than one child in the system and that the fear of retaliation is often what mutes their advocacy efforts.)   The Singam case reveals the lengths to which MCPS will go to put the institutional status quo above the needs of a student.  It reveals MCPS attitudes towards the legitimacy of homeschooling.  And it shows that the Centers, and middle school magnets are essentially mechanisms to hold the the brightest kids in MCPS from advancing too quickly.  Meanwhile in “regular” school there is no GT there “there.”

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News: Child Enrolls in MCPS Middle School

Posted in Gifted, In the News, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on September 3, 2009 | 12 Comments »

While the statement “Child Enrolls in MCPS Middle School” shouldn’t be news, here in Montgomery County it is when the child in question is a qualified and gifted nine-year old.  As blogged about a few days ago, Kumar Singam’s daughter was enrolled and welcomed as an incoming 6th grader at Cabin John Middle School on July 22, only to have that enrollment rescinded on August 17, when higher up MCPS school officials insisted that the girl (who completed 5th grade as a homeschooler and has math ability several grades above that) be placed in elementary school with vague assurances that she would receive “advanced classes.”

On Monday, the first day of school, the Singams brought their daughter to Cabin John and were greeted by a phalanx of MCPS officials, who escorted them to a meeting which lasted 4 hours.  To his credit, Mr. Singam came well prepared with full documentation of his daughter’s ability.

Yesterday, Wednesday, I received the following good news from him:

After a week during which MCPS informed us that our daughter would fit into a Highly Gifted Center, and acknowledged that she was more than qualified for sixth-grade, last night at 10:31 p.m., Dr. Smith took matters into her own hands, and invited my child to her school.  In doing so, I believe, she went against Carver, and showed immense courage and fortitude.

My child was met by a principal who cried, and the chief of the guidance group who cried as well.  I can say with absolute conviction, now supported by events, that my child being kept out of school for two days was never about her academics.  Her academic achievement was measured by MCPS with its own yardstick….

My child was accepted after a social worker from MCPS stood up and said she could, and the principal, Dr. Smith, insisted she could.  Her academic instruction was never a bona fide issue.

If there were heroes in this story, I confess they were all women.  Women who showed the courage to stand up for what is right. I know Dr. Smith will suffer retribution and I hope that everyone passionate about GT will give this wonderful lady her due.  Write to her, write to MCPS (copy to her), and tell Carver we want more Dr. Smiths.  It is only by supporting women like her (and men, too) that GT education can find its feet within MCPS. I also hope that parents in GT will be front and center in ensuring that MCPS will never again keep a child out of school.

If this is a victory, then my daughter’s words describe its purpose well, “I hope Dad that everyone won’t be afraid to ask MCPS to do the right thing for their child.”  Personally, if my daughter’s wish comes through, I would feel it was all worthwhile.  Today belongs to the courageous women of this world, especially those who are an integral part of our community. As for men, well, we’ve hogged that stage too darn long!!

I thank everyone for their support and prayers.

Kumar

Excellent, excellent news.

While whole grade acceleration aka “grade skipping” isn’t for every child, it should be–as the good Dr. Weast likes to say–”on the table” as an accepted and acknowledged option for some children in this county.  I say this as a mom who is convinced that her daughter has suffered harm by not being allowed to accelerate beyond the MCPS norm in her areas of academic strength.

That Mr. Singam had to go to the lengths that he did to make his case (to the point of producing MCPS testing results which it claimed it didn’t have) is really unfortunate.

What Dr. Paulette Smith ultimately did took courage and makes an important statement for gifted education options not only here in Montgomery County but beyond.  You can show your support for her decision by writing to her  with copies to Superintendent Weast.  Commend her for making her decision based on what was best for the individual child, not the bureaucracy, and most of all, let her and Dr. Weast know the impact such a decision can have on our children.

The email addresses are:

  • Paulette_Smith@mcpsmd.org
  • Jerry_D_Weast@mcpsmd.org (and just in case, his assistant’s address is Suzanne_Peang-Meth@mcpsmd.org)

UPDATE 9/3: Mr. Singman has posted an account of these events. You can read

Why was my child barred from a Highly Gifted Center?

and

After two days, my child is allowed to attend public school

…Plus a comment from Mr. Singam below.

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And the Living is Easy

Posted in Gifted, Home Life, Homeschooling, School, tagged , , , , , , , on July 28, 2009 | 19 Comments »

Looks nothing like me

You’ve probably noticed that the feverish pace of blog postings has slacked off here.  Yes, it’s summertime.  On Friday I waved goodbye to the family as they drove off to Canada for a week to see my brother-in-law and his new wife. And what did I do for the rest of the weekend?

First off, I cleaned the house.  Reeeaaallly cleaned.  Something that doesn’t happen often anymore.  And then I savored the blissful, delicious notion that it will stay in this calm, pristine condition for days.  Since I don’t have our one car, I decided to play tourist and ride the bus to Bethesda, something I’d never done before (the bus, that is).  I strolled into Blue Mercury and bought makeup, taking as long as I damn well please, thank you very much.  I watched Gilda and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind in one sitting.  I asked myself, “What do you want to do?” (One answer:  Not write a post about the barf-inducing Wash Post profile of Jerry Weast.)

Equally important, what didn’t I do:  worry about three other people’s schedule in addition to mine and make Trader Joe runs because there is “absolutely nothing” to eat in the house.  For an entire week I will endeavor to eat the food that is already in our cupboards.  Imagine.

All of which is why I read the New York Times Motherlode blog posting, Why Summer Matters with heightened appreciation.  Brooklyn-based children’s book editor Ruth Katcher shared her thoughts about why summer was so essential to her rising 5th grade son, “Snoopy.”  It’s heartbreaking.  Snoopy is clearly a gifted child, full of imagination and happy to amuse himself for hours.  Meanwhile,

In 7 weeks he’ll go back to school, to a 5th grade class we can only hope will be more suited to his nature than the previous grade…. Last year’s teacher assigned hours of mindless homework. At some point, she decided our son was bright (her term) and thus eligible for enrichment — but she was in no way capable of providing it, in a class of 29 children with extremely mixed abilities. Our son isn’t the only child in the class who survived 4th grade with a perfect report card and his self-concept deeply shaken.

The comments, both on the post and on listservs are interesting.  Some slam the mom–test prep in 4th grade?!–with little sympathy or understanding of the cutthroat calculus of New York City middle school admissions.  Others take her son’s story as a compelling argument against year round school calendars.  As for me, and a few others, I was practically screaming at the screen “get your mind out of the box!”  What is wrong with this picture, with you parents?  The case against year round schooling shouldn’t be built on the notion that school is a horrendous, mind-numbing, soul-crushing experience from which children need the summer to “recover.”  How has our culture come to accept this as normal, even something to celebrate?

In this particular case, the answer is right there, even if Katcher doesn’t want to see it.  She herself says:  “Sometimes this past year, I started to feel that our child is homeschooling himself, that his real education was taking place mostly on weekends.”  Why not be done with it and make it official?  (My guess, fego.  Her slice of Brooklyn is probably a lot like Montgomery County, with fewer trees.)  As for those who can’t homeschool, what is the answer?  Radical school reform, emphasis on the radical.  That could mean a year round calendar (which would still include ample vacation, and would address lower income “summer slide”) — but not with just more of the same.

I happen to agree that the standard American summer vacation is too long, and that at least a month of it could be parceled throughout the school year without appreciable loss of the summer “experience.”  Few families have the luxury of a “summering” somewhere, or 6 weeks of sleep away camp, or of a full-time at home mom/dad who can act as memory-making cruise director.  For most families, it’s a huge juggle to make sure that 9 weeks are “covered.”  It’s one of the reasons why even at my kids’ ages my husband and I are tag-teaming our vacations.  I say, let’s spread summer goodness year-round.  And at the same time tell our education leaders that the rest of the year shouldn’t be akin to a prison sentence.

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Rubber, Meet Road: MSA Results Announced

Posted in In the News, School, tagged , , , , , , , , , on July 22, 2009 | Leave a Comment »

Yes, it’s that time of the year, the time when the MSA results are announced.  Not surprisingly, it was front page news in the Washington Post this morning.

Md. Scores In Reading, Math Show Big Strides the headline blares.

But let’s take a closer look.

Montgomery County continued to fare strongly in most categories, although 12 of the county’s 38 middle schools failed to make “adequate yearly progress,” a yardstick under the federal No Child Left Behind law that is used to measure schools in a variety of ways….

At several other Montgomery middle schools, the scores of Hispanic students or others with limited English proficiency failed to show adequate yearly progress.

“12 of the county’s 38 middle schools failed to make “adequate yearly progress.”  That’s give or take one third of MCPS middle schools!  Here’s the MCPS press release spin on things.  Instead of their pokey .pdf link, use this handy dandy link to the 2009 Maryland Report Card, where you can break things down every which way.

To keep in mind: a quote from last year’s obligatory MSA story

“Fact number one is that Maryland sets the bar defining proficiency very close to the ground,” said Bruce Fuller, a professor of education and public policy at the University of California at Berkeley. “State officials are under enormous political pressure to show progress.” Fuller added, however, that the upward trajectory on both the national and state tests suggests “that kids in Maryland are learning more over the course of the year now than they were in the 1990s.”

A better measure of how Maryland is doing?  The NAEP or National Assessment of Educational Progress (wikipedia).  For comparison sake, take a look at 2007 8th grade reading, just to choose an example.

  • On the 2007 NAEP, Maryland had 3% advanced, 30% proficient, 42% basic, 24% below basic.
  • On the 2007 MSA, 23.9% advanced, 44.3 % proficient, 31.7% basic.

Hmm.  Something appears to be out of whack.  Meanwhile, over at the Baltimore Sun, Lisa Bowle asks “Is advanced the new proficient?” Answer:  yes.  Look no further than the  MCPS Seven Keys to College Readiness hoopla.  Check it out. According to MCPS, a student should be “advanced” on the MSA reading in grades 3-8 in order to be “college and work ready” (the latest edu-buzz phrase); in other words, not need remediation in college.  So are the MSAs a meaningless exercise?  As they stand now, yes.

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Maryland Students Not “College Ready” in Math

Posted in In the News, School, tagged , , , , , , , , on July 12, 2009 | 3 Comments »

Maryland high school students are not college ready in math.  More specifically, in 2006-2007, 30% of “college prep” students and 42% of Montogomery County graduates needed remediation in math.  That’s kind of breathtaking.  The only consolation is that the rest of Maryland did even worse.

But that’s what the Baltimore Sun reported this morning in their story, A failing grade for Md. math:  What is taught in high schools seen as insufficient for college.  The story takes a look at a report (executive summary) put out on April 30 by the Abell Foundation (Question for the Sun:  Why did this take so long??)

From the report:

The overriding question addressed is: Does successful completion of mathematics courses and the Algebra HSA, as prescribed by the VSC, lead to mastery of the skills required for the Accuplacer tests? With the exception of the recently updated Algebra II state curriculum, the answer is no.

From the Sun:

For Gabrielle Martino, holder of a doctorate in math from the Johns Hopkins University and a co-author of the Abell Foundation report, the bottom line is that students are being harmed because they have to pay for the remedial classes. When they get to college, “they are uniformly shocked that they were put into remedial math,” she said.

The report recommends that the Maryland State Department of Education revamp its math standards and curriculum. The standards and curriculum determine what is tested on the Maryland School Assessments and, therefore, the material teachers are told to cover in their classes. And each year, the number of students passing the math MSAs has gone up, even as graduates are increasingly in need of remedial classes.

State education officials do not believe that major changes to the standards are needed.

“State education officials do not believe major changes are needed.”  Wow.

The report is particularly critical of the Algebra I High School Assessment, one of the tests every high school student now needs to pass to graduate high school.

“It is not what any mathematician would consider an algebra course,” said Stephen Wilson, a math professor at Hopkins and a co-author of the Abell report. “It is Maryland’s image of what math is without consulting a mathematician.”

One of the big differences?  The HSA allows the use of calculators.  The Accuplacer test, used by colleges for placement, does not.

Dixie Stack, director of curriculum at the state education department says the HSA was meant to establish a floor, not constitute what an Algebra I course should be.  Furthermore, “she does not believe the state should make changes until after the release of the national standards being developed by a grass-roots coalition of 46 states. To do so would be a waste of time and taxpayer dollars, she said, because Maryland probably will adopt those standards.”

State school board member Kate Walsh disagrees, saying change could take years.

“Maryland is taking a go-slow approach,” the state school board member said. “I am afraid the push for national standards, while a good sign, will delay the equally important examination we need to take. … I would prefer to move aggressively.”

So much for Dr. Weast’s claimed that the MCPS curriculum is backmapped to the AP.

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Irony Alert: Report on Reporting Rigor Not Rigorous

Posted in Gifted, School, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on June 29, 2009 | 2 Comments »

So education blog doyenne Joanne Jacobs and company have co-authored a report for the Hechinger Institute on Education and the Media at Columbia University on “Understanding and Reporting on Academic Rigor.” (.pdf format, published June 2009):

Remember the three Rs? Now there’s a fourth: rigor. It’s the buzzword in education. But translating the rhetoric about rigor into classroom reality is not easy, and it means that journalists need to know more about the new push for rigor. The tension between academic excellence and universal access is as old as American public schools. But today, rigorous schools are touted as a potent force against American industrial decline. Creating these schools is up to school district leaders and their faculty, but journalists should be equally rigorous in their own reporting on this issue.

Wonderful!  Great idea!

Flip through the report.  Whoa!  There on page 2, it’s Jerry Weast’s smiling mug with a pull-quote.  And what does he have to say?

Academic rigor quite simply means giving students a curriculum that will prepare them to succeed in college or the world of work. For us, that means setting a high standard for success and then lining up each grade’s lessons to meet that high standard. We set our sights on the College Board’s Advanced Placement curriculum and then backmapped each grade’s curriculum right down to prekindergarten. So when our 4-year-olds come to us, we can put them on a path to rigor so that when they get to 12th grade, they are ready for calculus or Advanced Placement English, physics, you name it.

Jerry D. Weast, Ed.D., is superintendent of the
Montgomery County Public Schools in Maryland.

Oh dear.  The irony.  A report calling for rigorous reporting…that doesn’t rigorously check Dr. Weast’s claims.  In point of fact, MCPS curriculum ISN’T backmapped to pre-K from the AP curriculum.  It’s aligned precisely to Maryland’s abysmal state standards.  The math curriculum is a hash. Writing?  Social studies?  Nowheresville.  Moreover, he makes it sound like this rigorous state of affairs has been the case for, like, forever.  The recently rolled out Seven Keys to College Readiness proves otherwise.  And remember…students allegedly need to be above grade level on these keys in order to be “college and work ready” (another trendy buzz phrase).  If your kid has been cruising along at grade level, getting A’s…um…you’re in for a rude awakening.

That said, there’s a lot of great stuff in the report and the page titled “Some Questions to Ask When Reporting on Rigor”  (page 7) is an excellent guide not just for reporters, but for parents.  Read it and start asking those questions!

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