"locals serving locals for 23 years."
"locals serving locals for 23 years."
Posts by Paul Costello1
“In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger. I do not shrink from this responsibility—I welcome it. I do not believe that any of us would exchange places with any other people or any other generation. The energy, the faith, the devotion which we bring to this endeavor will light our country and all who serve it—and the glow from that fire can truly light the world. “
“Hope, in this deep and powerful sense, is not the same as joy that things are going well, or willingness to invest in enterprises that are obviously headed for early success, but, rather, an ability to work for something because it is good, not just because it stands a chance to succeed…It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out.”
The Data:
Overall, fewer Americans now rate their mental health positively, but the largest decline is seen among young women. Just 15% of women aged 18 to 29 polled from 2020 to 2024 said they have “excellent” mental health, down 33 percentage points from the 48% of women this age saying the same from 2010 to 2014.
Gender Differences: While both younger age groups have seen their ratings decrease, young women’s 33-point drop significantly exceeds the 20-point decline for men aged 18 to 29, whose “excellent” mental health rating fell from 53% in 2010-2014 to 33% in 2020-2024.
Mental and Physical Health Ratings
By The MoCo Student / January 2, 2025
With an ever present mental health crisis, schools have an undeniable responsibility to provide resources to students.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), adolescent mental health is deteriorating. In 2023, 40% of students had repeated feelings of sadness or hopelessness and 20% considered suicide. These statistics convey the dire need for more resources.
Students at some schools, such as Sherwood High School (SHS), have tackled this pressing issue head on. The Warrior Wellness Committee aims to meet the growing demand and ameliorate the welfare of all students overall.
Health teacher and Warrior Wellness Committee Sponsor Heather Giovenco commented on the club’s goals and accomplishments.
“The committee typically organizes programs, workshops, and activities that focus on mental well-being, stress management, and healthy coping strategies. By fostering open dialogue about mental health and providing resources, the wellness committee helps reduce stigma and encourages students to seek support when needed,” Giovenco said. “Its efforts contribute to a more positive school culture, improve academic performance, and enhance students’ overall well-being, ensuring they have the tools to thrive both in and out of the classroom.”
The club brings in guest speakers and hosts events such as Wellness Carnivals. The team also remains active on social media with “Thankful Thursdays” and “Positive Affirmations” where members of the committee interview teachers and peers to spread positivity and foster a welcoming atmosphere.
“Whether you’re a student, staff, or administrator. If they aren’t well mentally then daily things in life can become difficult. That’s why we try to plan fun activities in school to motivate people and to spread awareness [about mental health],” Warrior Wellness Committee president Maryam Habib said.
As a member of the committee, I have seen firsthand the vast difference it makes to the community. Each member of the club works to support each other and augments the atmosphere at SHS.
While resources vary from school to school, MCPS provides mental health and crisis support through the form of hotlines and informational resources. MCPS also hosted an in-person Mental Health Fair in late Oct. and posted the livestream on their YouTube account.
Even though a plethora of resources are evidently provided to MCPS students and staff, more needs to be done. Additional schools should create wellness committees and offer more resources.
“A wellness committee in high schools plays a crucial role in promoting student mental health by creating a supportive and inclusive environment,” Giovenco said.
Written by Nisha Khatri
Last year more than 4,900 Americans of all ages and backgrounds united to meet local needs, strengthen communities, and expand opportunity through national service in Maryland. AmeriCorps invested more than $21.2 million in federal funding to support cost-effective community solutions, working hand in hand with local partners to empower individuals to help communities tackle their toughest challenges.
AmeriCorps members and AmeriCorps Seniors volunteers are preparing today’s students for tomorrow’s jobs, connecting veterans to services, fighting the opioid epidemic, helping older adults age with dignity, rebuilding communities after disasters, and improving the physical and mental well-being of Americans nationwide.
AmeriCorps members and AmeriCorps Seniors volunteers served at more than 500 locations across Maryland, including schools, food banks, homeless shelters, health clinics, youth centers, veterans facilities, and other nonprofit and faith-based organizations. Through a unique public-private partnership, AmeriCorps and its partners generated more than $10.1 million in outside resources from businesses, foundations, public agencies, and other sources in Maryland last year. This local support strengthened community impact and increased the return on taxpayer dollars.
AmeriCorps State and National awards grants to organizations to engage individuals in sustained service to address local, regional, and national challenges. Thousands of opportunities exist in locations across the country to serve with nonprofits, schools, public agencies, tribes, and community and faith-based groups. Most AmeriCorps grant funding goes to Governor’s Office on Service and Volunteerism, the Governor-appointed State Service Commission, which in turn awards grants to organizations to respond to local needs.
AmeriCorps VISTA places individuals with nonprofit organizations, public agencies, and tribal governments to expand reach and deepen impact in making sustainable change that alleviates the impact of poverty. Through fundraising, volunteer recruitment, program development, and more, AmeriCorps members gain experience and leadership skills that put them on track for a life of service in the public, private, or nonprofit sector.
AmeriCorps NCCC is a full-time service program that covers all costs of program participation, to include lodging and travel expenses, allowing young adults to serve on a team and make an impact in communities across the country while gaining valuable leadership skills. AmeriCorps NCCC FEMA Corps serves communities, in coordination with FEMA, through disaster preparedness, response, and recovery.
AmeriCorps Seniors Foster Grandparent Program provides grants to organizations to engage low-income Americans aged 55 and older in providing one-on-one mentoring and academic support to children with special or exceptional needs. In 2023, Foster Grandparents in Maryland served more than 2,480 young people with special needs.
AmeriCorps Seniors Senior Companion Program provides grants to organizations to engage low-income Americans aged 55 and older in providing supportive, individualized services to help homebound seniors and other adults maintain their dignity and independence. In 2023, Seniors Companions in Maryland provided independent living support to more than 50 individuals.
AmeriCorps Seniors RSVP provides grants to organizations to engage Americans aged 55 and older in tutoring and mentoring youth, responding to natural disasters, supporting veterans and their families, and meeting other critical needs.
Volunteer Generation Fund supports voluntary organizations and state service commissions in boosting the impact of volunteers in addressing critical community needs.
MLK Day of Service observed each year on the third Monday in January, Martin Luther King Jr. Day is a federal holiday designated as a National Day of Service to encourage all Americans to volunteer to honor the life and legacy of Dr. King and improve their communities.
9/11 Day of Service calls Americans across the country to volunteer in their local communities in tribute to the individuals lost and injured in the attacks, first responders, and the many who have risen in service to defend freedom since Sept. 11, 2001.
To see other reports about national service in Maryland, email MD@AmeriCorps.gov.
WASHINGTON – U.S. Senators Bill Cassidy, M.D. (R-LA), Chris Coons (D-DE), and colleagues introduced a resolution in celebration of AmeriCorps Week, which runs March 9-15, 2025. Founded 30 years ago to increase national service opportunities while providing a pathway to education, AmeriCorps members come from all backgrounds and walks of life to engage in meaningful service for others.
“AmeriCorps members dedicate their lives to others. They empower students, support veterans, and build stronger communities,” said Dr. Cassidy. “This can’t go unnoticed.”
“More than one million AmeriCorps members have committed themselves to making a positive impact on our nation for over three decades,” said Senator Coons. “This week, we celebrate their efforts to mentor students, address food insecurity, improve public health, respond to disasters, protect our planet, and support local communities across the country. As Co-Chair of the National Service Caucus, I will continue to work with my colleagues to strengthen national service, and I encourage all those contemplating service to consider AmeriCorps as a way to make impactful change.”
“AmeriCorps works for America every day of the year,” said Jennifer Bastress Tahmasebi, Interim Agency Head, AmeriCorps. “Every single day, Americans of all ages dedicate their time to strengthening their communities and our nation as a whole. Whether they are building homes, feeding their neighbors, responding to disasters, or tutoring and mentoring students, AmeriCorps members and AmeriCorps Seniors volunteers work alongside people from all walks of life to get the job done. We are thankful for those who serve and go on to be tomorrow’s leaders and public servants get their start.”
Cassidy and Coons were joined by U.S. Senators Susan Collins (R-ME), Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Dick Durbin (D-IL), Martin Heinrich (D-NM), Mazie Hirono (D-HI), Angus King (I-ME), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Ben Ray Lujan (D-NM), Jack Reed (D-RI), and Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH).
AmeriCorps by the numbers, nationally:
AmeriCorps by the numbers in Louisiana:
Do you remember the time, or a time when someone saw you? I mean someone gave you real visibility, called you by name, made sure you were included? Someone who said in the scramble to get on the bus, don’t forget Michaela or Mary. Like the time Patrick, my best friend at school, who was so used to calling me “Cossie,” their usual nickname for any of us Costellos, turned to me at Manly railway station one Thursday afternoon and said,” See you tomorrow. Paul.” I never forgot the way he said “Paul,” as if a different person was being called into being.
Do you remember the time, or a time when someone really heard you? I mean, relayed back to you the fact that they had taken your words seriously, or when someone even quoted your words back to you in awe. “I was thinking a lot about what you said yesterday, Paul.” Hearing that, you know someone valued your voice. Like the time a kid I was teaching in Grade 9 called Roberto, when asked about what life was teaching him, said, “You just don’t grow up. You grow yourself up.” I had to stop and repeat it to him, to make sure I heard it right, and then affirm its foundational truth,”You can say that again.” I wanted to relay to him that I had never heard such wisdom before… or since for that matter. Here I am 50 years later, still telling Roberto’s story, and still growing myself up.
As children growing up in a traditional Irish Catholic family, the adage was “Children should be seen and not heard.” Any sunny afternoon after school, we were not even to be seen. Mum told us boys to scram- get out of here, Go play cricket. Don’t come back till dinner time. The world of kids was not the world of adults, and there was something to be said for that.
But growing up involves important stages of recognition that we cannot do for ourselves. It has to be someone else’s gift. As the baby sees her face for the first time in the radiant eyes of her mother, so too children and teenagers requires someone to mirror them back to themselves, to realize what they are becoming, and- Oh how they shine!
Project CHANGE trains its members to practice the art of making sure kids know they matter-making sure that they are seen, called by their name, listened to with respect, and grace and curiosity.
In the course of a busy school day, or in an after-school program, there is usually a subject to be taught, or an activity to be completed. In a class of 30 kids, the job of the teacher or program facilitator is to complete the task. The teacher teaches. The student is taught. The visibility or the voice of each kid is fashioned around their being on task. The teacher will call me out if I am not paying attention. The director will urge me to finish the poster on time. That is all necessary, but somewhere, floating around the room is going to be an AmeriCorps member who is there, not as the task master, but the one to catch people being themselves, see them, acknowledge them, inquire, laugh, appreciate, encourage. Wow- look at you!
While education aims to teach students about the world, Project CHANGE wants to be sure that they do not miss out on the joy of learning about themselves. That means in the brief interactions around a room, or in the corridor, or as students leave for home, the AmeriCorps member knows she is there to see them, to hear them, to recognize them, to celebrate them. “Don’t forget your hat, Jake.” “Well done in soccer today, Jameka.” ” Happy birthday for Sunday, Miguel.”
When we call it SEL-Social Emotional Learning, or Wellness, or a host of other impressive names, it sounds very new. But it has always been how humans grow each other up. You can write it into a logic model and call it ED27C, with dosage and outputs and intensities, but that only belies just how simple it is, and sadly, how rare.
It is very simple, but how profound! You can say that again, Roberto.
Happy AmeriCorps Week.
So much is happening on the political front. So many taken for granted issues are now featuring in our conversations about the future. Let us add another key topic to the conversation, service, and its role in prospering the nation.
History might mislead if one traces the official account that says that the idea of national service arose in the years of FDR battling the depression and “putting the nation back to work” with the Civilian Conservation Corps and the Workers Progress Association. That is true but that is not where it began. Not by a long shot.
One only has to think about a young, ambitious and restless nation, moving ever westwards, into indigenous territories and terrains, trying to survive. Their only resources were themselves and their ingenuity. There are rightfully many controversies over their sometimes violent means, but service was the only way they survived.
Unless citizens learned to band together to support each other in churches and clubs, unions and fraternities, they knew they could not eat or meet, farm or harvest, educate their kids, or populate a future. The more spectacular projects of railways, factories and telephones, or the mythical wild wild west tend to soak up the dramatic energy that Hollywood so loves.
But firefighters were voluntary. The abolitionist movement was voluntary and nursing was voluntary. Anyone who cared about a local issue and wanted change didn’t have a lobby group or a professional association. They just posted a notice on a post calling for a public meeting- the original post office. Service was not a commitment of your leisure time so much as dedicating part of your own work time to the communal work that benefitted everyone. Service was not volunteering. It was the local conscription demanded by the common good.
When the French writer De Tocqueville travelled across the young republic in 1831, this tendency of Americans to join associations stood out for him. He wrote:
“Americans of all ages constantly unite. Not only do they have commercial and industrial associations, in which all take part, but they also have a thousand other kinds: religious, moral, grave, futile, very general and very particular, immense and very small.”
In our turbulent times, it would be sad if “Service” was called into question, or came to be just another political controversy. When President Clinton passed the National and Community Trust Act in 1993, he knew he was not inventing something new. He saw an opportunity to build a win-win, public-private partnership that could expand service, so that more people could serve more people. In a time of war, the nation calls its fittest and finest to fight. In peace, it calls its fittest and finest to serve the community.
Perhaps the military overtones start to sound a little off or antiquated, but the idea remains as relevant as ever. The community that learns to help itself is the community that empowers itself. It develops its own leaders. It knows that it does not have to wait for some outside government expert to tell them what to do. It is Emerson’s gospel of “self-reliance” at the local level.
Local needs are usually best met at local levels, or what is known as the Principle of Subsidiarity. Project CHANGE exemplifies that principle, being a program started by Montgomery County MD, staffed and funded by local partners, recruiting local members educated in the county to serve the neediest students of the county. It is a win-win for everyone, with many graduating members being hired by the schools and non profits in which they served. It ensures that the local talent is retained and every member of Montgomery County has a path to service.
In AmeriCorps week, we celebrate Project CHANGE and its 18 members. We celebrate the 500 or more alumni who have served Montgomery County MD since 2001 with almost half a million hours. We salute the members, past, present and emerging, who will remind us again and again, that no nation can thrive without calling forth the talents of all. That is not controversial.
We know we can measure the health of the economy with S&P figures and Dow Jones, but the service economy is about people, not dollars. It creates resources and delivers results that are beyond measure.
Service created this great nation. It is high time that service created it again.
By Nora Fleming March 26, 2021 Edutopia March 26 2021
In mid-February, three snowstorms knocked out the electricity for thousands of residents in Boyd County, Kentucky. As they waited for up to two weeks for the lights to come on, many residents were left snowbound in their homes in freezing temperatures. Two people died from hypothermia before power was restored.
The outages added insult to injury for a rural community struggling to keep students connected and engaged in remote learning for the past year, shared Christy Ford, a high school English teacher. With limited cell phone battery, Ford texted her students during the “dark days” to let them know she was thinking about them—and ask them what they’d do first when the power came on.Start of newsletter promotion.
“During the time virtual school was ‘off the grid,’ I noticed that looking forward seemed to be the best use of my mental energy,” said Ford, who now plans to create a new assignment: “What’s the first thing you’ll do when things return to ‘normal’?”
While pandemic schooling has always been hard, it’s seemed to get harder as time has gone on, say Ford and other educators, who are desperately looking for ways to help students stay motivated. Teachers have reported that students increasingly see school as irrelevant and feel a sense of hopelessness about the future. Even with vaccinations and school openings increasing, there are reported upticks in youth depression, anxiety, and suicide attempts. Many teachers, too, share a deepening sense of disillusionment after a year of significant upheaval—and what is expected to be a challenging, slow transition back.
So what can educators do to instill hope in students, especially when many feel hopeless themselves? According to many research studies, people who are hopeful aren’t simply optimists or Pollyannas but are able to think proactively about the future and plan ahead to get there. Research shows that hope is a learnable, measurable skill, and one that has a sizable impact on students’ success and persistence in school. Children who are hopeful are also found to have higher self-esteem and social skills, are more likely to set and achieve goals, and can more easily bounce back from adversity.
“People always think of hope as ‘squishy,’ but it’s not,” said Crystal Bryce, the associate director of research at the Center for the Advanced Study and Practice of Hope at Arizona State University. “Hope is cognition and a leading motivation that pushes people to act towards their goals. It’s a skill we have to work on and one that we can grow.”
According to researchers and psychologists like Bryce, small shifts in curriculum, assignments, and tasks can actually have an effect on how students see themselves and their world. By making some adjustments and bringing new activities, teachers can mitigate some of the hopelessness students feel—and, in turn, make themselves feel more hopeful too.
To feel more hopeful, address the elephant in the room. Both children and adults should acknowledge and address the tumult they’ve experienced this past year, said David Schonfeld, a pediatrician and director of the National Center for School Crisis and Bereavement at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, which works with schools after crises like school shootings.
Not long after 9/11, Schonfeld said, one of his daughters came home from school, frustrated. “They haven’t talked at all about what happened on 9/11,” Schonfeld recalled her saying. “Right now, we’re learning about the War of 1812. Can you think of any way school could be less relevant to my life right now?’”
While learning about the War of 1812 is important, neglecting to discuss current realities can make students feel that school is out of touch and push them to disengage, said Schonfeld. That’s not to say educators should turn every class into a counseling session, but they should try to carve out time for students to share how they feel. Be careful not to minimize their feelings by making “them feel guilty for being upset about something that pales in comparison to someone else’s tragedy,” he cautioned.
Instead, coach students to focus on one or two things that are troubling them—a roadblock, for example—and address those specifically, said Phyllis Fagell, a school counselor in Washington, D.C. Fagell’s go-to is using a “worry monster” (a stuffed monster with a zippered mouth pouch) for younger students or a “worry box” for older students, where students can write down a worry and “set it aside.” She also recommends creating anonymous Google docs so that students can freely vent frustrations and brainstorm coping strategies to help.
“Kids can’t solve problems if they feel stuck and overwhelmed,” said Fagell. “A small setback can leave a kid feeling hopeless, but it often doesn’t take much to pull them back from the brink.”
Share success stories: Once children get some of their concerns off their chests, educators can focus their thinking forward—with hope. In lessons, integrate stories of people who have overcome tremendous hardships or failed repeatedly and then succeeded, experts recommend, making sure that all students in class can see their backgrounds reflected in the examples.
Making history: Teachers might also consider helping students frame current experiences as a “moment in time”—and one that will pass, eventually. Bring in examples of other past global crises or epidemics, said Michele Borba, a former teacher and nationally recognized education psychologist who is the author of Thrivers: The Surprising Reasons Why Some Kids Struggle and Others Shine. As a supplement, students can create time capsules or write letters to their future selves about their experiences, what progress was made, and what they see ahead.
When students have the right frame of reference, educators can prime their brains to be more hopeful, according to research.
C.R. “Rick” Snyder, a well-known researcher of hope, found that students who scored higher on measures of hope had more agency to develop goals and set pathways to accomplish them—including finding alternative strategies if they had setbacks along the way.
Ask the right questions: A good starting place for teachers is regularly integrating specific question prompts into classroom activities that many already conduct—like morning meetings or entry or exit tickets—said Denise Larsen, a research professor and the director of Hope Studies Central, a research center at the University of Alberta.
Larsen, a former teacher who has studied hope for the last two decades, recommends having students answer the prompt “Today, I hope…” as a verbal or written response daily, if possible. Students can also journal about things they are hopeful and thankful for, or complete a broader exercise in which they reflect on their past successes or times they overcame obstacles.
Set goals with accountability: These prompts can develop into more comprehensive activities where students and teachers work together to tie a student’s hopes to specific goals. To make the goals manageable, teachers should help students prioritize and break them into smaller, targeted goals, or stepping stones, along with a Plan B if things don’t work out, said Bryce. Most important, the goals should be personalized to the child—not someone else’s goals for them.
High school English teacher Allison Berryhill recently conducted a “Dream It, Do It” activity in her class, for example. Students first watched Tim Urban’s TED Talk “Inside the Mind of a Master Procrastinator” and discussed how one might not achieve goals if they lack structure. Then, each student brainstormed 12 hopes for their future and selected one to focus on. Using a backward planning process, students developed plans to reach their goals—including conducting research and setting deadlines—and presented them to classmates for accountability.
While hopes and goals are closely related, a framing of hope sets a different tone—and one that may help students, especially those who are discouraged, to think futuristically, said Larsen. “There is a simple but powerful shift in the language when we move from goals to hope,” she said. “It’s possible to fail at a goal, but you can’t fail at a hope. Start with hope first.”
It can be a challenge, however, to think optimistically about the future amid so much instability and uncertainty, said Schonfeld and other experts.
In a classroom, teachers can help combat the feelings of powerlessness by giving students opportunities where they regain a sense of control. This, in turn, makes them feel more hopeful, according to a 2010 research study of adolescents ages 14 to 18. These can be small things, like the ability to choose activities to complete, an opportunity to share passions and interests, or having a second chance to improve.
Connect students to students: Educators should also consider larger impacts that students can have right now, say Borba and others. She recommends helping children see themselves as changemakers by sharing stories of children who have made a difference—even if the impact was small. Consider pairing older students and younger students together, or buddies within a class, Borba said, so that students can quickly see results from the small things they do that affect others.
Create community projects: Because hope is driven by the individual, children should be given a chance to brainstorm their own ideas for making an impact too. According to research, having hope for others can have a significant effect on how much hope people feel themselves—especially for children, said Larsen. In Amy Badger’s middle school class, students present ideas for how to bring hope to their community. The class then votes on the proposals and picks one to take on, including developing an action plan together for achieving it.
It’s normal for a person’s hope to ebb and flow, though, especially in tough times. Larsen suggested that as teachers try to stay steadfast at the helm, they find “tiny sparks” or “hits of hope,” like reminding themselves of all the times they impacted kids and didn’t realize it until later. One of the biggest ways to bring hope to children is through their relationships with supportive adults, she and others emphasize.
“My takeaway during dark times is I need to model strong and consistent behaviors for my students—even if I’m struggling with the same frustrations and sense of hopelessness myself,” Christy Ford said.
https://www.edutopia.org/article/schools-finding-hope-hopeless-time/
Michael J. Petrilli 08/02/2024 Thomas B Fordham Institute
As regular readers know, I’m a parent of two children enrolled in Maryland’s Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS). As a national ed-policy wonk, I try to stay in my lane, but from timeto time I can’t help but weigh in on local matters. Now is one of those times. We have a new superintendent, Thomas Taylor, and a system that’s facing major challenges, some specific (a recent scandal involving sexual harassment by a principal) and some more typical (pandemic-era learning lossand sky-high chronic absenteeism). I hope national readers will find my analysis of MCPS—the fifteenth largest school system in the nation—applicable to other big districts, too. This post focuses on issues of teaching and learning. My next one will zero in on policy and budget matters.
Despite its enormous size, Montgomery County Public Schools is, in many ways, a typical suburban district. By that I mean that, once upon a time, it served mostly middle-class White children, often from affluent families, who posted high SAT scores and matriculated in sizable numbers to the country’s most selective public and private colleges. All of that earned the county a reputation as a great place to live, and the district a reputation as one of the best in the country.
Those days are long gone, both for Montgomery County and for many other suburban districts. Indeed, MoCo has diversified tremendously and wonderfully. Hispanic students now comprise a plurality of the district’s enrollment, at 35 percent, with Black students making up 22 percent, White students 24 percent, and Asian 14 percent. Almost 30 percent of the children and teenagers served by the district are eligible for free lunches, meaning they hail from poor or working-class families.
These developments are all in line with national trends, given that the suburbs are now the number one places to find diversity in all its American glory, as well as the vast majority of the country’s low-income and working-class children.
Montgomery County still enjoys a reputation for excellence, one that in my opinion is not well earned. Yes, there are pockets of great teaching and learning, as well as fantastic athletics, art, and music programs. In a system of 160,000 kids, with hundreds of schools, it’s possible to find wonderful offerings. Yet, the system’s results are rather mediocre, just as in most school districts, with fewer than half of students meeting standards for proficiency in reading and math, and much lower marks for the county’s Black and Hispanic students.
So how might Montgomery County go from good to great—especially when it comes to serving its diverse population much better than it does now?
High-quality instructional materials
The best thing Montgomery County has going for it is that it’s got a lot of “instructional capacity,” meaning a large, knowledgeable central office, especially when it comes to curriculum, and an extensive network of school-level instructional coaches who provide effective support to teachers. (Though the curriculum people and instructional coaches are in different departments, which isn’t ideal.) In recent years, the district has also adopted (and mandated) some very good curricular materials, including Core Knowledge Language Arts (CKLA) in elementary school, Eureka Math for elementary schools, and Illustrative Math for middle and high schools.
All of these materials are well-regarded by national experts. CKLA, which was just added this past school year, is particularly strong, given its commitment to the science of reading in the early grades, and its solid evidence of effectiveness. The “knowledge” part of its name is key, as it’s based on cognitive science showing that the way to build kids’ reading comprehension is not primarily by teaching “reading comprehension skills,” but by building their knowledge of the world by teaching history, literature, science, geography, and the arts.
Alas, even these strong programs still leave many gaps in the MCPS curriculum that need filling. Its entire science and social studies program is home-grown, as far as I can tell, and quite weak. As CKLA is rolled out in elementary schools, the county’s youngest kids should start getting much more science and social studies content, and in a more systematic way. That’s a good start. But it’s not enough, and the courses at the middle school and high school level still leave a lot to be desired.
The same goes for middle and high school English, which also relies on district-created materials, and based on my kids’ experience, is pretty much of a wasteland. And don’t get me started on foreign language, art, music, and the other electives, where teachers appear to be largely on their own, meaning it’s hit or miss.
Specialized programs
Montgomery County also deserves credit for beefing up its career and technical education offerings in recent years. The district commissioned an analysis by alumnus Matt Gandal and his team and has started to implement some of its recommendations, adding more capacity to what had been meager offerings. The new superintendent should keep it going.
Likewise with its approach to selective-enrollment schools and programs for “highly gifted” students. These include “centers for the highly gifted” for fourth and fifth graders, plus a handful of selective-enrollment magnet schools at the middle and high school levels. Some of these, like the math-science magnet at Blair High School, are nationally recognized.
A pre-pandemic reform made a shift to equity, in that the system started to prioritize the selection of students from high-poverty schools into these programs. Those changes were highly controversial, especially among the county’s Asian population. But the reforms were appropriate, in my view, given that students from poor schools were less likely to attend class with other high achieving peers, and thus had a greater need for programs that could bring gifted kids together. The county also worked to replicate these programs, and should keep doing more on that front, too.
The problem is that the district promised that there would be beefed up offerings for advanced students at regular elementary, middle, and high schools, and that’s a promise it has not kept. For example, there’s a fantastic program focusing on the humanities at Eastern Middle School, which challenges students to read great literature and non-fiction, well beyond what most middle schoolers get to tackle. There was talk at one point about exporting the curriculum to all middle schools in the district. To my knowledge, that has never happened, and so we are left with a middle school and high school ELA program that is very weak tea.
Likewise, the county shies away from ability grouping, except in mathematics, where students can qualify for a “compacted” program that allows them to cover fourth, fifth, and sixth grade material over the course of fourth and fifth grades. That puts them on track to take algebra in the seventh grade. It’s great, though the county is constantly threatening to get rid of it “because equity.”
But in every other subject, in both middle and high school, the “honors” courses are barely deserving of the name, as they serve virtually all students. So until kids enroll in Advanced Placement or International Baccalaureate courses, the high achievers study next to low-achieving peers, who might be reading many grade levels below them. That’s not good for anyone or conducive to great teaching. It also means is that lots of kids who might be ready to succeed in AP or IB courses with the right level of challenge and support—starting in middle school if not earlier—don’t get it. (And the kids who need extra help to catch up don’t get it either.) If ability grouping works for math, so does it work for ELA, social studies, and science.
Where major changes are needed
Montgomery County’s biggest problems in the teaching and learning department are self-inflicted. Like many districts, it bought into fashionable but dubious ideas around equity in recent years, which led it to make changes around grading, discipline, and attendance which have served to encourage the “soft bigotry of low expectations,” in President George W. Bush’s memorable words.
For example, it adopted a “no-zeros” policy in grading, meaning that students who bomb a test or fail to turn in assignments get a 50 percent as a minimum. It also introduced a generous retake policy for exams and encouraged teachers to downplay deadlines. All of this was supposedly to level the playing field, but it’s wreaking havoc here and across the country. The district has backtracked on some of these policies—the no-zeros policy is now history—but could and should go further. One example: It’s still the case that students who get an A in the first quarter and a B in the second quarter receive an A for the semester. Anyone who understands incentives (and teenagers!) will understand what that implies for student effort.
Montgomery County has also leaned into a soft-on-discipline approach, with a big focus on restorative justice. This might work in some cases, but it’s clearly failing in some of the district’s toughest schools. It also fails to hold students or parents accountable for attendance. (Kids can miss a lot of class and still get good grades; they can miss almost every class and still graduate.) The cell-phone policy is left to every principal, and enforcement is left to every teacher. It’s time for a phones “away for the day” policy, districtwide.
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Montgomery County is heading in the right direction on several fronts when it comes to teaching and learning. It has chosen some great curricular products, and I trust that its impressive systemic capacity to support teachers in implementing those products will help them be taught in the classroom with fidelity and effectiveness. Other districts around the country could learn a lot from Montgomery County on this front.
The district is also moving forward on career and technical education and expanding programs for advanced students.
But it needs to beef up its English and science courses in middle school and high school. It desperately needs to make a U-turn when it comes to its grading, discipline, and attendance policies. And it needs to fulfill its promise to expand offerings for advanced learners at students’ home campuses. All of these items should be on Superintendent Taylor’s to-do list, the sooner the better.
Next time, we will tackle policy and budget issues. Stay tuned.