Harford County Public School graduates who enrolled in a college preparatory curriculum in high school needed remedial college classes in math, English and reading at rates higher than the state averages in 2008. But after one year in college, HCPS grads outperformed their peers in all three subjects according to a 2011 report by the Maryland Higher Education Commission. The turnaround may indicate that HCPS graduates are capable of above average performance in college, but as a group they are not as prepared upon entering college as are their Maryland peers.
Based on data from the Class of 2008, the latest Student Outcome and Achievement Report (SOAR), shows that among the Harford County Public School graduates who took a college prep curriculum in high school and enrolled in a Maryland college, 38% were required to take remedial math courses; 18% needed remedial English and 17% needed remedial reading.
The remediation rates for HCPS graduates were higher than the state averages in all three subjects and remediation rates were higher, and also above the state averages, for HCPS high school graduates who had not taken a college prep curriculum, as indicated in the table below. (Please note: students who took a college prep curriculum in high school are classified as “core”; students who did not take a college prep curriculum are classified as “non-core”)
Among other limitations, the SOAR report does not track Maryland high school graduates who attend an out-of-state college and only includes students who took either an SAT or ACT exam.
Remediation Rates Highest at Maryland Community Colleges; Remediation Rates at Harford Community College Exceed State Averages for Community Colleges
Looking at the data another way, the SOAR report broke down remediation rates by college institution. Given their open enrollment policies, the report shows the average remediation rate was significantly higher for the subset of 2008 Maryland public high school graduates who first enrolled in a Maryland community college as opposed to a four-year institution. For example, among the Maryland Class of 2008 who took a college prep curriculum in high school and went to a Maryland community college, 61% needed math remediation compared with 15% of their peers who attended a Maryland public, four-year institution and 8% of the group who attended a private, four-year college in Maryland.
At Harford Community College, remediation rates in math, English and reading were above the state averages for community colleges in 2008. While the SOAR report does not provide specifics, the vast majority of Maryland public high school graduates in any one year who attend HCC immediately following high school are from Harford County Public Schools.
According to SOAR, among the members of the Maryland public high school Class of 2008 who took a college prep curriculum and enrolled in Harford Community College, 68% required remedial math; 34% needed remediation in English and 30% needed assistance in reading. Remediation rates were higher for HCC students who did not take a college prep curriculum in high school. The SOAR comparison of remediation rates by Maryland institution appears in the table below:
Students pay tuition to take remedial courses in college and because remedial classes are non-credit, such students also lose time on the way to earning a college degree. To address the problem, Harford County Public Schools offers remedial college classes to high school students, but only in three out of the ten comprehensive county high schools. Programs in place at Bel Air, Edgewood and C. Milton Wright high schools offer Harford Community College’s remedial math course, allowing students to become ready for college math while avoiding the cost of college tuition for a remedial course.
Harford County Public School Graduates Outperform State Averages Following First Year in College
Despite needing remediation at rates that were higher than the state averages, the SOAR report found that by the end of their first year in a Maryland college, students from the HCPS high school Class of 2008 outperformed the rest of the state in all three subject areas and earned higher grade point averages.
Diploma to Nowhere: High Remediation Rates Are a State and National Problem
Remediation rates have been on the rise in Maryland colleges, especially in math, where the remediation rate for students who took a college prep curriculum in high school jumped from 23% in 1998 to 35% in 2008, the most recent year for SOAR data. The increase prompted the following warning from the Maryland Higher Education Commission in June 2011:
“Given the need for Maryland to produce more college graduates in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields, and the SOAR finding that students are more likely to require remediation in mathematics than in any other subject, the recommendations included in the final report of Governor O’Malley’s STEM Task Force (2009) must also inform statewide conversations about decreasing remediation rate.”
The 2011 SOAR also recommends that plans be implemented to collect data about students from Kindergarten through their college years and to adopt the new Common Core curriculum. Along with a sharing of best practices for college success, the report also urges that “more robust data regarding the pathways and outcomes of students who require remedial courses must be collected and carefully analyzed.”
The problem of high remediation rates is not limited to Maryland. Researchers from Strong American Schools, a nonpartisan campaign supported by The Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, found high remediation rates to be a nationwide epidemic in a 2008 report entitled “Diploma to Nowhere”.
Estimating in 2008 that the national cost of remediation in taxpayer-subsidized public colleges exceeded $2 billion dollars, the report included a call for higher standards in public high schools. Among the report’s more pointed and chilling conclusions:
“College remediation isn’t just a problem of urban high schools, aging cities, and lower tax rates. This is an issue that affects middleclass students from middle America with middling academic skills. In many ways, our education system has been perpetrating a terrible fraud, because the high school graduates who require college remediation are often the ones who did everything that was expected of them. They went to good schools, they posted high GPAs, they took difficult classes. Teachers and parents told them that they would do well in college. But when these students enrolled at their local flagship university or near-by community college, they failed the math placement test. They were shunted into remedial reading.”
College remediation is one of the most serious education issues facing our country, and policymakers and educators must address it immediately. Our economy, our security, and our government, all depend on a steady supply of college-educated graduates.”
Well this certainly sucks…..
Could this be a sign that a sizeable percentage of the kids going to school today are not college material and are pushed into persuing a degree? Is there any correlatable data to drop out rates in college or time to complete a degree?
I think it may also have to do with the fact that students are being pushed into higher math classes earlier and earlier. Why do so many people feel that ALL students should complete an Algebra course before entering high school? Some children are not developmentally ready to think in an abstract algebraic manner by the age of 12. We place children in classes whether they are ready for them or not, and then push them onto the next level regardless of mastery in the previous course. No wonder colleges are having to remediate.
However, if you hang around with parents, it isn’t long before you figure out that it is often the PARENTS who are driving the push for the higher level classes. We all want our little angels to be in the best class with the brightest kids because of course that describes our offspring. Just take a look at the enrichment programs dressed up as gifted education. My guess is that a tiny fraction of the kids in enrichment would test into a true gifted program. The parents insist that their kids get the services and it waters it down for everyone.
Absolutely true. Parents refuse to see the limitations in their own children and expect them all to be brilliant and gifted.
Not that I am burrying my head in the sand. This is a problem statewide. HCPS students while above the average are within one standard deviation of the mean it appears based on my quick gorrilla math.
Any reason Salisbury and St. Mary’s are not included in the remediation group for Maryland colleges? I know a considerable number of students from HCPS attend those schools.
Students coming out of high school should be prepared to enter college if they have taken the proper courses. Here in PA we are seeing some of the higher achievers in high school requiring remedial courses in college. This tells me that we are not getting a bang for our buck in our public schools, if these kids are not prepared. Granted, not all kids are college material, but those planning to attend should be prepared. We need a complete overhaul of our education system NOW.
If teachers were allowed to have a real say into which students were able to take the honors and advanced classes much of this nonsense would stop. Open enrollment for honors and AP classes allows students without the academic ability or internal motivation to clog these classes with students that do not belong there at the expense of students that do. But of course mom and dad would not be too happy because Shaun and Megan did not get in and schools would not be able to brag about how many students are taking advanced classes without actually caring how many actually can to the work or pass the AP exams. Also if teachers were not pressured by administration and parents to give not just high grades but passing grades when they were not deserved would help to solve this problem.
At the two private schools I have experience with, teachers do choose who gets to take the AP and honors classes.
In HCPS any student can sign up for an AP course. Teachers, counselors, administrators can make all the suggestions they want to discourage a student that is obviously not qualified or ready from considering an AP course but they cannot stop them if they choose to do so against reasonable advice.
My son was required to take two years of Algebra 1B for reasons that have not been satisfactorily explained to me. He will now take Algebra for his third year (not including the repeat of 1B) because I was told this is what he needs to be prepared for college. I have it on the best authority of the math coordinator at Bel Air High School. When I asked the question why he’s taking effectively three years of Algebra when I only took one year in New York State I was told that standards are different down here. I attended college and received a Bachelor’s degree in engineering. I was never told I was required to take remedial anything to be more competent for college. My math in high school was NY State Reagents standardized testing which was considered the best the state could offer and designed o prepare students for college. You read studies like this, examine your personal experiences from a different state, a generation ago, and then look at your child’s requirements in school and ask the question: What exactly is the problem here?
Has your kid passed the MSA? If he is failing it repeatedly then he will probably not be moved on in math until he passes this graduation requirement.
I mean HSA
He passed them. he has no problem with state standard assessments. I have received no explanation for his repeat of his Algebra class. In fact, when he was in sixth grade, the math he took from Ms Vajda (sp?) was intense. I used to complain about the length of the homework assignments. And for whatever reason they chose to teach the exact same topics in his first year of Algebra in seventh grade. I thought this was an incredible waste. In the eight grade he was plagued by a rather out of touch Algebra teacher that was replaced midterm. In the second half his grades improved tremendously. While part of this may be my son’s attention to classwork, the rest I am certain was an improved teacher. But again, no explanation is given.
By the way, I should mention that while I complained about Ms Vajda initially I came to realize that her teaching was exceptional. I apologized to her and thanked her for her efforts.
While somewhat detached from the article being discussed, I want to compliment you on your public apology to this teacher. Too often we have instances where complaints are made very publicly but deserved retractions, if they occur at all, are made privately. Kudos to you Mr. Porter for your admission and to Mrs. Vajda for her perseverance.
And David Porter meant Regents program.
I went to high school in Maryland and had no problems taking Calculus for Science and Engineering majors as a freshman in college, albeit that was almost 20 years ago. I think it’s time to go back to the “old” math.
Given that “Despite needing remediation at rates that were higher than the state averages, the SOAR report found that by the end of their first year in a Maryland college, students from the HCPS high school Class of 2008 outperformed the rest of the state in all three subject areas and earned higher grade point averages….” leads me to think that perhaps our students are required to take remedial courses unnecessarily. HCPS students must perform at a level that is above average before they take these courses if they have such high scores afterwards.
The article also stated that “…Students pay tuition to take remedial courses in college and because remedial classes are non-credit, such students also lose time on the way to earning a college degree.” This could open up the charge that HCC requires these courses purely as a money making strategy.
My other thought is that one of the root causes of this problem, state and nation wide, is that teaching is not an attractive profession to many of the most talented college graduates. Teachers are unfairly blamed for the lack of seriousness and work ethic that today’s students fail to exhibit. Their profession is constantly attacked by laymen and their compensation is miserly in comparison to other profession that requires comparable education. Both my wife and I have been educators for almost eighty years between us and we did not encourage our daughter to go into our profession. The reason is that there are too many demands with too little support and too few resources to sustain a thirty year career.
Gary shhhh. The people on a math crusade in this county have repeatedly refused to accept that this may be a possibility. Remember all of these studies do not account for the many fine kids who attend out of state colleges. I am willing to bet that most of them are not the ones requiring remediation.
CDEV and Gary, with all due respect, I suggest that you are part of the problem. I see that you both post often, and your engagement and concern is commendable. And I must admit that I usually disagree with your responses to stories and postings…. Mostly because, I rarely see a logical connection between your responses and what you are responding to. Your points are usually very insular, pre-conceived, and lack context or connection to the subject; or they are very defensive, at the expense of reason. But you’re educators, which is a very important, challenging, and often thankless profession. Thank you for that. And I am extremely grateful for the many talented and dedicated HCPS teachers and school administrators who have been able to rise above the obstacles and lack of leadership from the executive offices and provide an enriching educational experience for our students over the past decade.
But here is why I see you as part of the problem: When the story above presented you with some potentially powerful data that requires some serious discussion among all stakeholders, and possibly action, what are your responses: “the remediation itself is probably unnecessary, so the problem is the standards for requiring remediation; not the standards of the preparation/education/achievement in HCPS” or “the Harford rates are within a standard deviation”. Are you kidding???? Instead of immediately circling the wagons and taking issue with the message, why isn’t your reaction more along the lines of: “This data might be indicating that some serious and practical analysis is required regarding the planning and execution of HCPS’ prep mission ; or, “why on earth are we hearing this on The Dagger instead of hearing it from Dr.Lawrence or Dr. Tomback?” “Why weren’t they WAY ahead of this?” Are they concerned about getting to the bottom of this and determining if we have a preparation and achievement weakness in HCPS, or are they just concerned with powerpoints, selectively parsed metrics, and meaningless rankings in magazine surveys?”
Thank goodness that we now have a board with many constructive and strong members (both elected and appointed; both rookie and veteran) who will make sure that this is discussed intelligently…. instead of previous boards who consistently swallowed whole the usual smoke and mirrors from HCPS leadership; and who dared not ever acknowledge that sometimes the emperor had no clothes. True oversight requires strength, courage, intelligence, confidence, and a willingness to place one’s duties ahead of one’s ego. Thank God that the Mark Wolkow era is over. Here’s to us all continuing to work together constructively to fix what’s broken and to preserve and strengthen what’s working. Thanks.
PTB, As I said in the first line of my first post.
“NOT TO BURRY MY HEAD IN THE SAND”
(I would bold it but can’t so forgive the caps)
My point is I admit there is a statewide problem. Not simply an HCPS problem. Mathmatically as you may notice in this data most all systems are in the same small confined range. That would indicate to me that possibly there is a similar problem across the state. Since different counties use different materials and books to teach the same goals and objectives it would tell me that most likely the curriculum is the issue.
To not question the validity of the data, with several obvious faults, flies in the face of proper data analysis. These are called limitations in most studies. This data is limited to all communtiy college students, some MD public and private college students and only those who took the ACT or SAT. That leaves out multiple significant population of students.
Also to not admit that the school has a financial incentive to put students in these classes is not acknowledging another flaw. Even though I am sure many of those kids need remediation there are those that may not.
So in short there is a problem but looking at this very small slice of MD students It seems to be a universal problem and not a HCPS only problem. The most likely causes are not soley HCPS issues.
I’m a mathematician with a child at Forest Lakes Elementary and am very satisfied with the EDM program and how it better teaches a reinforcing progression of problem solving strategies in a real-world context rather than an endless trudging through abstract rules for which some loudmouth kid keeps asking “when am I ever going to have to use this in life” like I remember in school.
I struggled in school Math classes because my strengths in problem solving is best characterized as “visual mathematics”. This is the kind of thinking that Einstein, DaVinci and really any engineer that has successfully designed a transmission or gear box has figured out how to think. Old school math training kills this way of thinking and I found that I got horrible grades in Algebra and Calculus drill-work even though I was quite confident and eventually have been able to prove that I’m very good at math. When we talk today about the average worker in America being unable to take on a high-tech manufacturing job because they lack the math skills to, say, program a CNC milling machine, they’re talking about a lack of this kind of visual mathematics skills that allow you to self-check your answers and verify that they’re right or wrong before you ruin a block of steel or break a tooling bit or take 10x longer to get the job done than was really needed because you’re needlessly cautious.
I ended up having to self-discover what for me was the right way to reliably approach and efficiently resolve these problems. I also observed many peers getting discouraged and giving up on math pursuits because they weren’t able to make the kind of transition that I was lucky enough to do. I’m excited for my children to see that the concepts that I struggled to put together at a later point in life are the concepts that EDM is teaching and building upon from the very beginning. This way of teaching math IS going to result in the right life skills for people to be successful in life rather than a bunch of math drones who search out any career path that avoids math.
With the amount of algebra preparation activities already built into the curriculum at this level, I do expect that we’re going to find that kids brains are going to be better wired to do algebraic problem solving (as well as much higher levels of math) by the time they are in high school and college, reducing the need for remedial algebra.
My point is that I’m sorry if your kid got screwed up by a messy transition to the EDM program from HCPS had before but please don’t now pull the carpet from under the kids who are now well versed in this way of thinking. The shift to EDM is done and we will see in a few more years how much better served the kids are with this program despite the fact that some alarmist parents can’t get their head around what is going on.
Measuring the success of an educational system by remedial post-high school needs for the average Maryland student, which in this study is well represented by focusing on public school students going to Maryland state schools or community colleges is an excellent idea. This study is not flawed. I disagree that having 10 more minutes a day to make students drill on another 5 math-drone problem is somehow the right solution for a 37% remedial rate and an overall math skill crisis in this country.
CDEV: you make some excellent points (actually it doesn’t even sound like you). But don’t you think that Dr.s Tomback and Lawrence should be all over this, regardless? Surely they’ve had access to this info for a long time, surely one of Lawrence’s primary mandates is maximizing preparedness for post-secondary endeavors. So this issue deserves local attention and analysis and possibly action, whether or not it is a local or universal weakness. Agreed?
PTB I would agree if there was no common curriculum coming. Perhaps as a state the superintendents as a group got together and realized it is a state problem and have thus planned a course of action. If we then put extra plans in place we would not know what worked and what didn’t as well as the fact that we would be doubling down resources on a problem that may already be adressed and funded. WOuld I like them to tell me if something like that is going on….sure but I am open to the possibility that a state funded solution might be where toi start. Additionally changing in a hurry could be bad to. If you just snap and change and do not take the time to explore alternatives you could end up worse then before.
“This could open up the charge that HCC requires these courses purely as a money making strategy.”
I can assure you that this is not true.
However, I would argue that a good number of students float through high school with no intention of going to college and doing the very minimum needed to get by. They know that they will be passed along by achieving a 60 percent or better. THEN when they do decide that working at a minimum wage job isn’t as appealing as they had thought, they look at their options. HCC is open admission, but there are plenty of colleges that will take your money regardless of your high school GPA.
Students who float through high school and perform poorly always blame someone else: it’s the teachers’ fault, it’s the school’s fault, blah, blah, blah… Then when they enroll in college, they have to take responsibility for their performance. It’s a real change.
Not everyone should go to college, but there are pleanty of kids who have the ability, but have never been made to take responsibility for their education. Once they make the connection that what they get out of their education is directly related to what they put in, the outcome changes.
I agree with you. Several current and former students have asked my opinion about pursuing teaching careers and I have advised them against it for a variety of reasons – lack of support from school administration and parents, the entitlement attitude of the newest generation of students, and financial concerns. I also no longer take on student teachers for these same reasons.
That was another thought that I had heard also and not only HCC but the entire system about taking remedial courses unnecessarily. This boosts income to the school for a possible unnecessary course and possible delayed graduation. It is also likely to increase GPA by taking taking a 3 credit course that goes toward GPA but not the degree and should be a easy “A” or “B” rather than the original basic course which may have been a “C”. All this could establish GPA inflation while “allowing the student to suceed”.
Remedial courses do not count in the GPA folks.
Additionally, I am baffled that people somehow think that makng students take extra courses is a money maker at any county or state-supported institution. Tuition covers only a fraction of the cost of attendance at these schools. People should be up in arms not because of all the money colleges are supposedly raking in for remediation but the tax money being spent in K-12 education and then the re-teaching at the college level and all the federal financial aid going to pay for them. You all are barking up the wrong tree.
Unless a course (remedial or other) is grade pass/fail,it will count in the GPA at almost all schools. If it is remedial, it likely does not count towards the credits needed for the degree. Check with your school but most of the courses we are labeling remedial are low level math or english courses which are graded.
A remedial course is a “0” level course. For example Intermediate Algebra is Math 017 at HCC. That grade does not get calculated in the GPA. It does not count as a credit class. It does count as a 3 credit course for financial aid and/or full time status since the student is putting in the same amount of time and class work. It also counts towards athletic elgibility if a student was playing a sport in college. The “0” level course also is used if a student needs to demonstrate full time status to continue to stay on a parent’s health insurance. Finally that 3 credit “0” level course cost the same amount of money as a course a student actually does earn credit for.
I should have included HCC in that post: remedial courses at HCC do not count in the GPA. However, students do get a letter grade for the course.
I think, but may be wrong for all cases, that only community colleges have “0” level courses. That is because community colleges have no academic acceptance criteria. If you have a diploma or GED, you can go to HCC.
I know first hand of a 2009 graduate that had to take remedial classes at HCC. Wasn’t this the first year students had to pass HSA to graduate? I do believe HCC is making some students pay for these classes to make money. Also, I was one of those parents to push my child to take the harder classes. One reason was to keep my child away from kids that did not care about academics. If these kids can’t handle math and reading in college, what can the kids do that don’t go to college? To me that is the real question.
The HSA is a minimum competency test. That is why the top students are taking a passing at least one part in 7th grade. It is not a college placement test or anything to indicate college readiness. The four tests demonstrate minimum competency in algebra, biology, government, and English.
As far as what kids who don’t go to college can do, there are many options. Of course, they can just GET A JOB and take their chances moving up whatever ladder they start out on. Trades are great options because they pay well and offer rewards for hard work. One and two-year certificate programs do exist in all kinds of fields that are geared toward students who either don’t have the ability and/or the desire to succeed in a traditional college setting. Perhaps that was a rhetorical question, but there are many options for students who don’t go to college.
The short answer in not much. Large numbers will never become fully productive members of society. Instead they will be a drain on the resources of government at the expense of the productive.
This is what you get when you abandon “general” level courses, leaving only AP and “college prep.” College Prep is now full of students who do not have the academic skills to go to college sitting right beside the student who is academically motivated. The result? One teacher in a class of 30 kids of differing levels. One body covering one class. So what do you do? You teach to the middle. I do not blame the teacher nor do I blame the student. I blame the system that fails to see that general courses are needed for the non-interested, non-college bound student. If you could remove those that don’t care from those who do, the teacher could then actually challenge the students with more advanced, college-prep work. As is, if a teacher were to take that approach, 30-50% of the class would fail and THEY would be blamed for the high number of failures. So, a teacher teaches to the middle and hopes for the best. It is the system, not the teacher nor the student!
AP courses should be reserved for those who KNOW they will take the test and are willing to sign a contract up front!
Agreed!
My son graduated from Bel Air High in 2008 and took up to Calc 2. After his sophmore year the whole school system switched from a 7 period day to a block schedule. Many hours of math and science disappeared from the 180 day instruction mandated by the state. What did the kids get in return? Not only did they lose all of these instructional hours, they lost continuity to math courses because they no longer were meeting everyday and there were some weeks (due to holidays, inclement weather etc.) that no math for many consecutive days. His math teacher tried to supplement the loss of time by meeting with the kids after school but she said between the textbooks and the loss of instruction time, it was very difficult to meet the standards of the course.
I am willing to bet that these numbers are going to steadily decline based on a number of factors. We can’t keep giving money to both the public school system and the community colleges to pay for the same things like basic math, algebra and/or basic writing. We are all paying at least twice!
I would have to agree that this block schedule gives the illusion of covering maybe more classes in the same period of time but in many cases it is continuity that allows the kids to fully grasp the topic more quickly and more surely. The other problem I have with this goofy schedule is that when my son misses a single day of class he must wait two days before he can recoup whatever assignments he has lost. I would not call this change for the better.
The block schedule is not for educational purposes. Instead, it is for monetary purposes. A teacher of old taught five classes. Now, over a two day (A and B) span, a teacher now teaches six classes. The county gets more out of a teacher at the expense of cohesive academics.
Amen David! When our former head of secondary education hoodwinked the board into CSSRP, everyone knew that it was going to be a disaster for core instruction.
David, your kid can ask for their assignments on the intermediate day on their time.
CDEV, I enjoy your posts. You presume my 16 year old son has the same drive and enthusiasm for doing the right thing, thoroughly, like I do, or perhaps you do. It’s a work in progress.
Frustrated the whole school system did not switch from a 7 period day. The problem was that while school a had a 7 period day school b had an 8 period day and school c had an A semester/B semester 4 period day. While they all switched to a block schedule there was going to be a need to switch from something to a common something.
You are right that the school system did decide to go to a schedule that was uniform (allegedly). Some schools were using 7 period and some block. You would have thought they would have looked at the schools that were doing better academically which were all on a 7 period schedule. Instead as part of CSSRP all schools went to the block. My kids went to different high schools and STILL had different schedules. It never did accomplish its mission but what was never mentioned as part of the goals was IMPROVED STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT. Pretty hard to believe.
The idea of going to a common schedule did accomplish that part of it’s mission. Before if a student transfered from on school on a different schedule to another they would have to drop classes and in some cases jump in classes that where months ahead or behind of where they were before as a result of schedule differences. In some cases a struggling student who may have barely been on track to graduate and been forced to transfer due to circumstances beyond the students control would transfer and find out they no longer could graduate that year. It is a nightmare. We needed a common schedule for that reason. Could they have selected a different one? yes but they chose this. So the goal behind a common schedule was accomplished the reason for chosing this one may not have been.
Before the block schedule, Bel Air High School had a five-period day, but seven courses. The schedule rotated each day (Day 1: 1,2,3,4,5; Day 2: 6,7,1,2,3; etc). It sounds crazy, but it really worked. Interestingly, both of my kids’ private schools used similar schedules, only not rotating: every day was different, but each day of the week was the same from week to week.
I liked that schedule when I was a student at BAHS. I don’t think I could have managed sitting in a class for 90 minutes. Even now as a teacher I don’t know how students can stay focused for the whole class period. In one math class, I don’t see how students are expected to have a lecture, practice, and master the concepts of two to three lessons, and then be ready to do it all again the next day.
When I was in high school there were only a few students who really cared and tried to prepare for college. Most kids are just trying to fit in and have fun with friends. When college comes it’s a big shock to most. I think a good way to help prepare kids for college is to send them to a boarding school. This way they can be around positive influences and focus more on education and their future. I found a good site here: http://www.teenboardingschools.info/
Great suggestion. I am sure all Harford County parents will jump at the idea of spending $35k and up for boarding school. I was with you up until the boarding school comment.
When will HCPS abandon the University of Chicago math curriculum? This is a huge condemnation of that program. If you think the remediation numbers are bad now, wait 3 more years when the “Everyday Math” students hit college.
The comments of JUSTAMOM are on target. Students that are average intellectually are struggling with the strategies and demands of Everyday Math. Children that enter HCPS in third, fourth and fifth grades have great difficulty catching up. The math supervisor will not even listen to the concerns of parents, let alone teachers and administrators. She has tunnel vision about the EDM curriculum.
I Agree. I am a teacher in this county who finally just 2 weeks ago pulled my daughter out of HCPS and put her in private school all because of Everyday Math. I am now financing my daughters primary education which is a shame. There is nothing “Everyday” about it at all. It has ruined my daughter as far as math goes, but I put a stop to that.I will continue to teach the program to my students and watch them fall behind but WILL NOT allow the math supervisor to ruin my own child anymore. That also goes for the lack of grammar instruction in the writing curriculum this county has as well.
When the poor results of EDM are demonstrated in upcoming years will HCPS transfer, demote, or fire those responsible for bringing the program to Harford County? I seriously doubt it. But that is certainly is the reality in private business. If your idea fails, especially one that has cost the company a great deal of money and resources, you wind up on the chopping block.
JC: Unless, of course, you are the CEO of a failed business then you get a $500,000,000 bonus and a billion dollar golden parachute. This whole myth that you are rewarded for performance in business is not a reality. It is perpetuated so you will not be aware of how badly corporations screw the American public.
Proud to be liberal: I think you better lie down, and then either double the dose of whatever you’re on, or cut it in half.
PTB: I think you should stop acting like a waterboy and slave to billionaires. You obviously do not have a clue to what is happening in this country or you are an idiot.
Based on your comment below, I would like to modify the advice I gave you above: My new advice is: You should triple the dose, or stop taking it. Have a nice day.
PTB: I will if you stop being a lapdog.
best darn schools in the whole darn country according to MOM, retired nancy, and the rest. mo money mo money with mo remidation mo mo mo.
back to the basics without the gloss
What you all have to realize is that the priorities of HCPS bosses is career advancement. THEIR careers; not your kids future careers. That means that they have to show that they can “lead” by implementing new ideas into the entire system, even if those ideas are met with great resistance…ESPECICALLY if those ideas are met with great resistance! Block scheduling, FOT, LCW, PLC’s, career paths, etc. These were all the brainchildren of various individuals at the board who needed to “implement change” in order to get their next advanced degree to climb to the next step. And the money dumped into making all these things happen…what benefit did your children receive? The HCPS motto “Serving Youth” is just a motto, not a policy. If they wanted a motto to reflect actual HCPS board practices it would be “Serve Yourself”.
K-12 academics are focused too much on college, everyone considers success to be when a student graduates and goes to an institute of higher learning while ignoring those that enter a job training program or directly entering the workforce. Not everyone needs to go, nor is everyone going to succeed if they go. The world needs mechanics, plumbers, carpenters, etc.
Teach kids how to survive in every day life as a baseline and those that show aptitude for more serious subjects can voluntarily take higher level classes such as calculus and physics.
Kharn – Yes! Somehow, our society has bastardized those essential blue collar careers. We now feel that all kids should go to college or become an absolute failure. This is silly.
Some kids are more apt to thrive at careers where they can use their hands rather than their minds. THIS IS OK!
Unfortunately, we glut supposedly honors and AP courses with those who don’t have the drive or capabilities to do well and water the content down immensely so that they can earn a “C.”
What you are seeing with this is that our best and brightest are not being challenged because they are in courses with averages kids that need to be accounted for by the teacher. AP should mean AP and Honors should mean honors. You should be academically accelerated in order to be in these courses. College Prep should be a step below, but still challenging for those who should go to college.
Am I saying you shouldn’t “waste” education on students who are not academically motivated? NO! But general level courses should be brought back and money needs to be placed into meaningful vocational opportunities.
China has 1,339,724,852 people and India has 1,210,193,422 people or 2,549,918,274 combined or about 36.5% of the total world population. (The total world population is 6,981,100,000.)
Given that a bell curve represents the distribution of populations equally and that the top two standard deviations equal 2.2%, therefore there are approximately 153,582,000 geniuses in those two countries. There are 312,771,000 people in the United States. That means, the number of brilliant, if not genius, people in our two biggest economic rivals equals half of our total population.
Why are we even talking about 2.0 averages? Do you think we are producing the number of very educated people to meet this challenge from China and India? Do you have any idea of how hard the children of these countries study? Here is a description of a Chinese child’s week: “At the age of 12, Zhuzhu seems to have everything a child could dream for — plenty of toys, beautiful clothes and even a piano. Zhuzhu however, has little time to play, with a mountain of homework to do. Like most other Chinese children her age, Zhuzhu has to go to school from Monday to Friday, nine hours a day — an hour more than her parents spend at work. Come the weekend, her mum and dad indulge themselves in a lengthy lie-in — Zhuzhu however, isn’t so lucky. Unlike her parents, she has to get up early for piano lessons on Saturday and Sunday morning, followed by private extracurricular Math and English classes the afternoon. As a reward for her hard work, Zhuzhu’s parents let her play with her toys for one hour on Saturday and Sunday evening.”
Let’s understand where our priorities should lie.
I wonder if these rates would be lower if HCPS would not be so quick to push advanced math courses on students who aren’t in high school. I was horrible in math but back when I was in school, I had the option to take lower-level algebra which I did pretty good on. Then when I went to college, the college algebra course was a lot easier for me and I ended up with an A for the semester.
I don’t think it would hurt HCPS to bend a little and realize not every child is going to want to attend college, and be more open about their math program. Schools need to serve and help their students, not take a “my way or the highway” approach and ignore concerns that they and their families are addressing.
Instead of going to China, Tomback & Co. should have gone to Queen Anne’s, St. Mary’s, and Calvert Counties to see how they teach math. They have to lowest rates in the state.
But what were their college entrance rates? I fondly remember my Calvert HS guidance counselor telling my parents and I “not everyone goes to college” as why I should stop fighting for them to offer AP Physics and settle for autoshop.
Kharn: I think you meant that as a putdown to auto mechanics and technicians in general. However, one needs almost an engineer’s knowledge to do these jobs today. You really need higher level skills to be a technician today and AP math would not be a superfluous course.
It was the attitude that I wasn’t good enough for college that was offensive, not the subject. I smile and chuckle every time I look at my engineering degree and wonder if she’s still as clueless today as she was 12 years ago.
Amen to Just a Mom: Bill Lawrence especially should be all over this issue. But if you watched his presentation at last night’s board meeting, it was pretty embarrassing. No substance at all to it. Absolutely no thought or work went into it (at least I hope, for his sake, that no thought or work went into it). He just had some underling slap a few slides together that told us NOTHING about what was being done to accomplish the goal. In other words there was nothing in his presentation that was operative, nor even mentioned anything operative. He has no clue, clearly is not making much of an effort, nor does he seem to care.
Who hired him?
Superintendent Tomback convinced the Wolkow run BOE to bring him to Harford County. Many have and continue to question that and other people recommended for hire/promotion by the superintendent.
This is no surprise to me. As a teacher in the Harford County Public Schools, I have watched the curriculum and academic expectations deteriorate over the years. I am grateful that I was educated in an earlier era! What we as teachers profess to teach in the classroom is not really occurring unless teachers do what we call “underground teaching” (math facts drills, grammar, phonics, proofreading etc.) If you have ever attended an Honors Assembly whether it be elementary, middle or high school, you will quickly witness that about 75% of our students are “top tier” due to administrative and parental pressure. Many of these students stride across the stage to receive an honor roll certificate when they can’t write a complete sentence without error. I know! I graded their written work! Unfortunately, the hands of teachers are tied. Until we stop teaching junk writing and junk math, we cannot serve our students well.
I have also noticed the deterioration in educational standards, but I am somewhat baffled by the data presented by SOAR. for example, math seems to be the biggest concern for remediation, but students consistently score higher on the math HSA than the English HSA. In addition, the average scores for the SAT are higher on math than they are on critical reading and writing. A good place to start in order to develop insight into our educational problems might be to also develop transparency in reporting data to all of the stake holders, and yes, it would be nice to see it in the Aegis or on the homepage of the HCPS website. All 10th and 11th grade students across the county recently received their scores on the PSAT. Why aren’t the average scores for math, critical reading, and writing (per school) reported in the paper? It would be nice to detect problems in educational growth before the students go to college. In the same vein, I don’t remember seeing the HSA score reports for each school made public…or the number of students per school who actually pass the AP exams instead of the number of students who take AP courses (which is really not a true indicator of success)? Ideally, this information should be presented in such a way to indicate real performance levels. For example, how about comparing the number of students who pass the AP exam to the number of students who are enrolled in 11th or 12th grade (whatever grade level corresponds to the course)? Too often HCPS wants to pat itself on the back for minor and insignificant accomplishments, when the truth is that we are really not doing as well as we could be doing. As a witness to what really goes on inside the school, I can attest to the fact that motivation + student performance drops dramatically after the HSA years are over, and a lot of students want to have an “easy” senior year. An easy senior year usually means a rough freshman year in college. HCPS could do considerably more to maintain high educational standards to the very end….and, by the way, are we ever going to find out what happended on the China trip? Just curious.
Jennifer – I couldn’t agree more that good data is very hard to find.
The SOAR report has many limitations; SAT data is reported on each school’s web site but doesn’t allow for easy side by side comparisons and data is not reported over time for each school. AP data focuses on how many students took the test but not so much on the results in each subject or on the number of students who take the class but not the test.
On all of the above topics, we have published articles using available data or data we have requested from HCPS. If you search The Dagger with key words you will find those articles. But we’ve never studied PSAT scores. Thanks for the idea.
As for the China trip, there was a brief presentation at the last school board meeting. While the information was interesting to hear in that it was very different from our experience in the U.S., those differences are ones I’m sure you are already aware of such as tracking in early grades, large class sizes, longer school day and English being widely taught. The goal of the trip was to expand the World Language program in HCPS but there was no discussion at the meeting as to how the trip may have furthered that goal.
“The goal of the trip was to expand the World Language program in HCPS but there was no discussion at the meeting as to how the trip may have furthered that goal.”
I would suggest that the school system master its Spanish, German,and French foreign language curricula before it jumps into a really difficult language like Chinese. Just take a look at AP test scores to see how well (sarcasm alert)HCPS students are achieving in their language study.
Not From Here: What you don’t realize is that big corporations/GOP (the job creators) have shipped most of our jobs to China and we better learn how to communicate with our labor force.
@Proud to be Liberal
Those “Evil, Rich People” – are Democrats
“In fact, the Top 4 on the list: Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, Larry Ellison, Christy Walton are all Democrats. Together, they are worth $150 Billion Dollars.
An analysis of the Top 20 Richest People in America (from Forbes Top 100) reveals that a full 60% are actually Democrats. Furthermore, if you eliminate the duplication caused by people from the same family being included in that Top 20 list (Wal-Mart & Koch) that ratio widens even further to: 25% Republican / 75% Democrat.”
Source: New American Magazine
Of course, Proud to be liberal, I am an idiot and have no idea that jobs are being outsourced to China. I stand by my argument. Go to college and take Chinese. You won’t learn it in HCPS.
PORTER: Let us look at how these rich Democrats spend their money, shall we?
• Gates Bill and Melinda Gates were the second-most generous philanthropists in America, having given over $28 billion to charity. They plan to eventually give 95% of their wealth to charity.
• “Gates-Buffet Giving Pledge”, in which they promised to donate to charity at least half of their wealth over the course of time.
• Warren Buffet- $30.7 billion as of June 23, 2006
• Mark Zuckerberg donated $100 million to Newark Public Schools and signed the Giving Pledge.
• Chuck Feeney- As of the end of 2009, has made grants totaling more than $5 billion since 1982 and plans to spend its remaining $4 billion endowment by 2017
@Gary Ambridge
Republicans and conservatives both give more to charity than their counterparts Democrats and liberals.
Porter
As Gary points out regarding contributions by wealthy people, now we know why the rich don’t pay their fair share of tax. They get to deduct their contributions. Now Gary, since you have the inside track of knowledge on just how much those Dems contribute, how much do the Repubs give? Surely you have that info.
And people complain about our student’s accomplishments. They do everything they can to tie the teacher’s hands.
Gary: you are completely without clue
Remedial requirements are determined differently by different colleges. Therefore, it is not possible to compare the percentage of students in different school systems taking remedial courses. Sometimes, remedial requirements in a college are changed from year to year.
A community college that has higher entrance standards for credit courses will have more students taking remedial courses that a college that does not have similar standards.
I am not sure what your point is, G Probst; however, there is some nationwide standardization through placement tests such as Accuplacer and other testing such as SATs and ACTs. The placement numbers will vary some from college to college, but not so much that you could argue that some schools have students in remedial courses who should not be there.
As you head out West and the population spreads out, you have a lot of smaller high schools with fewer academic offerings. The students who attend those schools may be just as bright as the kids in the best schools in America (wherever they are), but they simply don’t have the preparation for top academic programs. Many many colleges and universities offer remediation because even kids with great grades may not be prepared for the level of working and thinking needed.