9:52 AM EST
Mr. Matthews is shamefully misguided in his praise. Congratulations should be reserved for districts who do the right thing to assure students with disabilities can benefit from their educational program and learn at school, not those who employ a strategy which relies on tactics to harass and intimidate families. The issue is not the money spent on lawyers or placements, the issue is providing educational services for all students; some who are the most impacted children in the county. While Mr. Mathews article leaves the impression that the school system’s tactics are justified because of expensive placements, private placements are provided in a limited number of cases for those students who have the highest level of need and those aggressive tactics are utilized for the county in all types of cases, including those where the student wants to remain in their neighborhood schools. Families and school administrators may disagree about the appropriate services for a student, there should be, however, no disagreement that parents should be treated with respect and dignity when seeking school system services made available to all students. Mr. Matthews receives a failing grade in this case for his inability to understand the needs of our children.
For jz---I have met many fine parents who think the solution is to demonize the school system. They have done that. It hasn't produced better results. Isn't it time to try something else? As for proofing my piece with the school system, I appreciate the chance to restate my fact-checking procedures, which are not popular with many journalists but work well for me. I show everything I write for publication to all sources to check for errors. This is against Post policy but the Post has granted me a waiver under that policy. I have been doing this for 27 years. I think it has made my stories more accurate. I find even people I am criticizing appreciate the chance to make sure I have my facts right. In this case I did show the story in advance both to the school system officials and to Seth's family. The family spokesman, Steve Zepnick, told me they were happy with the result.
The National Center for Education Statistics plans to check data on about 5,000 high schools after faulty information from the federal agency led to erroneous rankings for three high schools on U.S. News & World Report’s yearly “Best High Schools” report......However, Jeff Horn, the principal at Green Valley High School in Henderson, Nev., noted that his school’s number 13 ranking was based on federal statistics that mistakenly said his school had 477 students, 111 teachers, and a 100 percent passing rate on Advanced Placement tests that school year. In actuality, the school has about 2,850 students, a student-teacher ratio that is closer to 24 to 1, and an AP pass rate of about 64 percent. Student-teacher ratios and AP pass rates are a part of the magazine’s ranking system...
At Richard Montgomery High School, students in the Middle Years Programme are learning U.S. History in the same class as Advanced Placement students, and one teacher at the school thinks student learning is being sacrificed.
Brian Donlan, a social studies teacher at the Rockville school, issued a formal complaint to the school administration Thursday that accuses the school of labeling the class both AP and MYP to satisfy MYP requirements and offer AP courses. The number of AP students at a school boosts its placement on the Washington Post/Newsweek Challenge Index, which ranks performance of schools nationwide...
...“I believe the actions by the Richard Montgomery leadership are misleading to colleges and universities about the rigor of courses taken by students,” Donlon wrote in the complaint...
READ FULL ARTICLE AT THIS LINK.
I am writing to express my support for some of the parents of students at Towson HS. I have taught mathematics at Towson University since 1971, was a founder of the Maryland Coalition for Mathematics and Science, and just stepped down from a 14-year term as the Secretary of the Mathematical Association of America (MAA). What my colleagues and I are seeing at the collegiate level is an
erosion of rigorous and strong preparation for college-level subject matter, especially in mathematics...
...The proliferation of AP classes and the disappearance of high school honors and gifted and talented courses have hindered most of the students we see coming into the university...
...Students need to have courses available that are suited to them. Something between "standard" and AP must be offered, and the success of the AP program in any school must be measured by the official AP exam grades of the students selected for the program, not by the number of students enrolled...Read Professsor Martha J. Siegel, Ph.D's letter to parents here.
Follow the advocacy of Baltimore County Public School parents on this issue at their website.
"...Far from being “challenged” to meet the higher standards, these students get frustrated, tune out, act up and just do not bother. This, of course, affects the rest of the class.
Montgomery County schools pay the fees for many of these students to take the AP tests. As someone who has served as a proctor at these tests, I can say that some students don’t show up on the test day or, worse, put their heads down on their desks after 20 minutes because they cannot do the work. But the school gets its desired result — the right to say that a high percentage of its students take the AP test and a ranking on the Challenge Index. ..."
On Sunday, The Washington Post released its most recent Advanced Placement rankings for local high schools. For those of you who follow the rankings, Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School is the highest ranked Montgomery County public school (coming in at No. 2 out of 195 ranked local high schools), and Clarksburg High School is the lowest ranked Montgomery County public school (coming in at No. 103). If you missed the print version, click here to view the area rankings.Patch article continues here.
I really have little to say about the rankings. I’m not opposed to them. And if Jay Mathews—the father of the Index—had not started it someone else probably would have. Americans love rankings and ratings.
I do have one thing to point out here. On page 4 of Sunday’s Post Index insert the following was noted: “Research has found that even low-performing students who got only a 2 on an AP test did significantly better in college than similar students who did not take AP.”
In general, this statement is true; however, I think without any real numbers it misleads us down a path that might be a little too rosy for low-performing students.
Here are two specific reports that provide readers with some numbers:
- This report
was issued by the College Board in 2008.Here is what the College Board uncovered when it looked at college graduation rates against AP scores. The college graduation rate for students with AP scores of 4s and 5s is roughly 50 percent. For those with 3s it is 44 percent; with 2s, 32 percent; and with 1s, 21 percent. The graduation rate is 12 percent for those with no AP course work and 24 percent for students enrolled in dual high school/college programs. (These are programs where students actually enrolled in real college courses.) When race is factored in, kids of color have the lowest graduation rates regardless of AP exam performance.
- This report
was released by Montgomery County Public Schools in April.
Here is what MCPS uncovered with it looked at college graduation rates against scores: Overall, 83 percent of graduates from the Class of 2003 with a score of 3 or higher on an AP exam graduated from college within six years (see page 56). In contrast, 41 percent of those with exam scores below a 3 graduated from college within six years.
...Among the most important reasons for that, Stephens says, are the countywide final examinations in core subjects such English, social studies, science and math. They are important two-hour tests, written not by Stephens or other individual classroom teachers but by county experts. They are “kept locked and sealed until the day we give them,” Stephens said, “and we must sign documents, under penalty of dismissal, promising not to assist students in any way.”
And yet a student who flunks one of those exams is usually promoted to the next grade, and the next level course, as if that hard work writing and protecting the exams meant nothing.
“The majority of my precalculus students have never passed one of these exams in either Algebra 1, Geometry or Algebra 2, all Precalculus prerequisites,” Stephens said. “Nevertheless, they proceeded to the next level. ... Students are well aware that failure, even pathetic failure, will not prevent them from going on to the next level. Most of my students have failed multiple final exams in other subjects as well, but they still earned credit for those classes.”
In Montgomery County, any good faith effort on regular assignments or tests earns at least 50 percent, no matter how much is wrong with the work. The lowest passing grade is 60 percent, a D. If you turn it in, usually you pass, Stephens said, even if you don't understand it very well...
...Brenda Willett, whose sons went through the Chinese immersion program at Montgomery's Potomac Elementary School, said part of the trend can be attributed to inadequate preparation at the elementary and middle school level. By the time her now-college-age son reached his junior year in high school, when students would consider the AP course, only a handful of nonnative speakers had been able to keep up. Asian students -- many of whom had been studying the language at home and outside of school since childhood -- filled in the vacant seats, Willett said.
"The kids who were ethnically Chinese were favored," Willett said. "The teacher felt that the immersion program had failed the other students."
For students, a passing score on the test can be used for college credit at most universities. But students are hardly the only beneficiaries. Major high school ranking systems created in the past decade rely almost exclusively on AP participation rates. Achievement aside, the more students who take the tests, the higher the school and school district rank.
And in the Washington region, a whopping 77 percent of schools ranked in the top 6 percent of schools nationwide, as measured by a recent ranking based on AP and similar test participation...
