Tuesday, May 21, 2013
Data from 2009 reveals that students have long struggled with final exams in MCPS math courses.
Few Montgomery County Public Schools students enrolled in high school math courses made high marks on final exams last semester, data released by the school district last week showed. In one class, Bridge to Algebra 2, less than 1 percent made an "A" on the final exam. (See data, above, that details the distribution of final exam grades "A" through "E" for eight math courses last semester.) School officials were prompted to release student math grades after members of the county school board grilled Superintendent Joshua Starr about last semester's final exam grades. Media outlets reported earlier this month that the majority of students in high school math—Algebra, Algebra 2, Geometry and Precalculus—failed their final exams. Starr …
Sunday, May 19, 2013
Superintendent Joshua Starr cautioned the school board against jumping to conclusions about numbers that show most high school students flunked their math finals last semester.
The majority of high school math students failed their final exams last semester, several news outlets reported earlier this month, but at Tuesday's meeting of the Montgomery County Board of Education, Superintendent Joshua Starr cautioned against jumping to conclusions, The Washington Post reported. "Our kids do very, very well. So the idea that somehow it’s like this beautiful house that exists and you open the door and it’s termite-ridden ... the exams don’t tell us that," Starr said. "It doesn’t mean you don’t have to fix a couple of broken pipes, but I don’t want people to get the idea that all of a sudden we’ve got this massive, widespread issue that no one has acknowledged or recognized before." Math final exam passage rates were …
Wednesday, May 15, 2013
The systemwide proposal to provide more central office support to struggling schools begins with a 10-school pilot, according to county schools officials.
Ten schools were picked to help pilot a new program from Montgomery County Public Schools that will provide an extra layer of central office support to under-performing schools. Officials culled various data to determine the schools that needed help, including key measures at certain grade levels, like whether students are reading as they should by 3rd grade and whether 5th and 8th graders have the reading and math skills that prepare them for the next level. The full list of schools: "The 10 Innovation Schools have already shown a commitment to school improvement and have the staff and leadership in place to accelerate that progress," Superintendent Joshua Starr said in a statement. "These schools will serve as a model for how …
Wednesday, May 8, 2013
Once again, Winston Churchill High School was included in a national ranking of top high schools.
Montgomery County Public Schools have done it again—landing in top spots in a national ranking. This time, the ranking is the third annual list of America's Best High Schools, published by Newsweek and The Daily Beast. Potomac's own Winston Churchill High School came out as the second-best high school in the county. Seventeen of the county's public high schools made it on this list, which includes the nation's top 2,000 high schools—less than 10 percent of all the high schools in the country. And, the top six high schools in Maryland are all MCPS schools, according to a school system statement. The 17 county schools (with their rankings in parentheses) on the list are: "The Newsweek rankings, and other such lists, demonstrate that our high…
Wednesday, May 1, 2013
Eight of the county's public high schools—including Churchill High School—placed in U.S. News & World Report's 2013 Best High Schools list.
Montgomery County Public Schools are back in the news again. Eight of the system's public high schools placed in U.S. News & World Report's 2013 Best High Schools list, with seven of them—including Winston Churchill High School—receiving a gold medal for being among the top 500 schools in the nation, and one receiving a silver medal, Montgomery County Public Schools reported in a statement. Of the gold medal high schools in Montgomery County, Churchill High School received the best ranking: Wheaton High School, ranked 1,032nd, received a silver medal. "The schools on the U.S. News Best High Schools list should be proud of the work they have done to serve their students and prepare them for college and the workplace," Superintendent Joshua …
"Students are the largest stakeholders, but we are noticeably underrepresented in making critical decisions" in the school system, said Justin Kim, 18, of Gaithersburg.
Meet Justin Kim, junior at Poolesville High and an 18-year-old Gaithersburg native who will serve as student member of the Montgomery County Board of Education next year. Kim was elected to the position with 65 percent of the student vote, Montgomery County Public Schools announced April 26. All secondary students in the system were eligible to participate in the election. Patch spoke to Kim about what he hopes to achieve during his term and the challenges the school system faces. Patch: Why did you want to become a member of the Montgomery County Board of Education? Justin Kim: I’ve always had a passion for service and working with others towards a common goal. Throughout my life, I am always looking for new ways to help others and …
Tuesday, April 30, 2013
A new model for underperforming schools will work to close the county school system's achievement gap, school officials said.
Ten "Innovation Schools" within Montgomery County Public Schools will receive "shoulder-to-shoulder" support from the system's central office under a new program that will work to close the achievement gap. The new program, announced at the April 23 meeting of the Montgomery County Board of Education, will hire a new position—a chief school improvement officer—to work directly with the leadership staff at the selected schools. This dedicated central office position is new to the system's approach to working with struggling schools, said Deputy Superintendent Beth Schiavino-Narvaez. "We're limiting the number of schools so that (the improvement officer) can be on the ground working shoulder-to-shoulder with the leadership team on their …
Saturday, April 27, 2013
A rundown of what MCPS is serving to students this week.
What's for lunch? This week's menu for Montgomery County Public Schools' elementary school cafeterias is listed below. Visit the full menu for calorie information. The menu for Head Start and pre-kindergarten students varies slightly from the elementary school menu. Visit the MCPS website for middle school lunch, high school lunch and middle and high school breakfast offerings.
Monday, April 22, 2013
The incident is the fourth such occurrence since 2005.
(UPDATE April 22) The Maryland Chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) recently announced that for the fourth time in eight years, it has taken action against Montgomery County Public Schools regarding a student’s right to decline to participate in the Pledge of Allegiance. This most recent incident involved Enidris Siurano-Rodriguez, a 10th-grade student at Damascus High School, who was protesting U.S. government policies toward Puerto Rico, which is her family's native country. According to the ACLU’s press release, Siurano-Rodriguez initially was sent to the principal’s office, where the assistant principal “improperly demanded to know why she persisted in sitting during the Pledge.” The school then contacted the student’…
Pension issues and local funding will drive spending over the next four years.
While Montgomery County spends approximately half of its annual $4 billion budget on K-12 education, that figure is expected to grow by more than $100 million over the next four years, according to a recent article in The Washington Post. Two state mandates uncovered by Montgomery County Council staff will drive the increased spending—the shift of teacher pension costs from the state to the counties and the “maintenance of effort” rules that require schools to maintain a level of per-pupil funding at least equal to the previous year, The Post reported. Montgomery County Council Member Valerie Ervin (D-Dist 5) described the increases in education funding as “a runway train.” Montgomery County Council staff director Stephen Farber described …
Barbara
4:08 pm on Wednesday, May 22, 2013
Why they need Math? As long as they reside in Montgomery County they'll get everything for free. It is a free state, right? more ›