<p>Our school district is considering changes for next year. One they are considering is only having two levels of instruction at our high school- honors and AP. A few years ago, we offered general, academic, honors and AP. General courses were eliminated a few years ago, and now the Board is considering removing the academic courses. I have several concerns:
1. Are "top" colleges going to consider a course "honors" if everyone except for a few special education students are in the courses?
2. Students who have a high GPA in academic courses may suffer when they have to compete with true "honors" students. Our state school admits mainly by GPA and is the number one school of choice for many academic students.
3. Our state is encouraging schools to stop "tracking" students, which has led to the decision to take away academic courses. However, many students choose to study at this level and are not able to do well in an honors course.
4. The top students are worried that the "honors" curriculum will change when everyone is taking the same courses and that the title will become meaningless. They are also concerned about true academic preparation for AP courses.
The Board is meeting next week and I'd like some advice before I attend the meeting. Thanks for any assistance you can provide.</p>
<p>1) good question; top colleges will probably look towards the AP courses…</p>
<p>2)this may be a problem unless there is grade inflation at your school (you haven’t mentioned if your HS ranks students)</p>
<p>3) yes, absolutely, if the honors classes are actually taught at an accelerated level</p>
<p>4)yes, absolutely</p>
<p>There are a few districts in the country who have reverted to the model with what you call “academic” level and AP and eliminated honors…have not heard of one like this…but it sounds like the same thing with just a different name…</p>
<p>The school, however, that I am thinking of is a top 50 in the country and their “academic” courses are considered at a higher level than most other HS’s honors</p>
<p>Our district just has 2 levels - regular and AP. Seems to me that if there are only 2 levels, then “honors” becomes regular despite the high and mighty title. Unless you live in Lake Wobegon, there will always be a majority of students who are average, no matter what you try to call them. And you know what? It’s OK to be average!</p>
<p>I agree with you, megpmom. If there is only one level besides AP, then “honors” becomes regular. While it is OK to be average, I like our current system where students who want more of a challenge can take an honors course. Trying to make almost EVERYONE “honors’” or “regular” doesn’t make sense, and I think our Board of Education is just trying to confuse people by using the “honors” title for all courses. I don’t think this will fool any college admissions officers. Most of the parents who are concerned are the parents with children who are succeeding at the academic level and do not want their child’s education to change.</p>
<p>I agree with your concerns.</p>
<p>What are other parents and students saying? If there is general objection to this plan:
You could get one other parent to meet with the superintendant on this, tell him or her that you represent a lot of parents, and express your concerns using a “Getting to Yes” approach ("We are all after the same goals, which involve meeting the needs of all of the students in the district…parents believe that the way to accomplish these goals are to group the kids according to the skills that they have mastered (NEVER say “tracking” - it is a dirty word in edu-speak, use other words instead!))</p>
<p>Are there public hearings where you are allowed to testify before the Board? You can tell the superintendant that you do not want to have to do this, but you will if necessary: organize lots of parents and students to testify. You could hold a meeting ahead of time where you could tell them the most effective strategy: to say that the school should meet the needs of all of the students…keep emphasizing this because these are the “buzzwords” that get through to them!
Good luck and please let us know what happens; many of us fear this kind of thing across the country!</p>
<p>I think taking that approach would be a big mistake. Presumably the reason a course is an honors course is because it is being taught at a level above what the average student can handle in order to provide a challenge to top students. So if all courses are made honors or AP, either the honors courses are going to be dumbed down or the average student is going to be left behind because he/she will be unable to handle the course. I think the assumption by colleges will be that the “honors” track becomes the regular track.</p>
<p>Did I miss the impact on GPA? In our public high school, both honors and AP classes get an extra 1.0 in the calculation of the weighted GPA. If everybody’s getting an extra 1.0, kind of makes the weighting ridiculous.</p>
<p>(FWIW, we tend to have four levels–standard, advanced, honors, AP. Just a few years ago they stopped giving an additional 0.5 for advanced classes. Not sure how that changed the mix of students at the various levels, but it was expected to push more kids into honors/AP.)</p>
<p>Not to long ago my district’s high school eliminated honors courses whenever an AP or IB course is available, leaving “general education” courses as the only alternative. Current parents are still fighting it.</p>
<p>I think eliminating honors options is a mistake. I have one son who is all honors/AP. He has taken honors/AP in every core class until Jr year. He is very good in English and would probably have done very well in AP, but chose not to take AP english jr/sr year. Because they offer AP the school does not offer honors english jr/sr year. Son has been in regular classes and frankly is bored and also is probably the top student in his english class. Both years teachers have been wowed by his writing and wanted to share with the class. Son has admitted he probably should have taken AP, but he didn’t want to overload himself since he’s taking courses like AP Chem, AP Psych, AP Calc B/C. His decision, and a good one.</p>
<p>Wish he could have had an honors option for English. </p>
<p>Options are necessary and good. My 2nd son will be in regular courses and would not do well in honors classes, so I can see the issues from both sides.</p>
<p>My son is at a private school and the course offerings are just honors and AP. I think you can have that offering when you are at a school that screens students for admission, but can’t imagine it working the same way in a public school where there is a wider variety of students. Our school doesn’t rank and it doesn’t weight courses the same way as the public schools. I think colleges realize the rigor of our curriculum and it hasn’t influenced admissions negatively to only have two levels of course offerings. I think it would be very difficult for a nonhonor’s student to perform well in a true honors class. I can’t imagine how your school could do this without watering down the class material.</p>
<p>Thanks everyone. There is a Board meeting next week. I’ve been inviting parents to attend and several plan to speak. Most students at our high school take a mix of honors and academic courses with a few taking all honors and some all academic. I personally feel that any course described as “honors” should be one where the students are the most outstanding in that subject. Any suggestions/opinions on how to approach the Board are appreciated…</p>
<p>Well here’s the thing … whether there are two academic levels or five, do the kids in different levels end up in different places? Back when dinosaurs roamed the earth, kids in the “college prep” classes were expected to end up in college, kids in the “business” classes were expected to begin office work immediately following HS, and “regular” class kids were expected to attend trade school (at most). With just two levels, what are expectations for those in Honors … which is basically every kid except the college-prepared AP kid? Um, “Honors Track” doesn’t look so good when viewed that way.</p>
<p>OP, I will reiterate because this is the only thing that has worked for us…
“We are after the same goals, which involve meeting the needs of ALL of the students in the district.”
“If we do not meet the needs of ALL of the students, people will move out of the district.”
“Group the kids according to the skills that they need to master - this makes the most sense - so that teachers can raise the achievement levels of ALL of the students.”
“Each and every student deserves to progress.”
Tell EVERYONE to avoid the word “tracking”!
Good luck and let us know what happens!</p>
<p>Has anyone else had success with keeping this educational trend at bay? I am always looking for new ideas, too because this resurfaces all the time!
Does anyone know of any research studies regarding these different approaches (I know that most educational research cannot be randomized or blind, so this has to be kept in mind in any critical analysis)? I’m not talking about theoretical musings - I am talking about real empirical research.</p>
<p>I agree, we only have two kinds of classes… regular classes have no designation and then the rigorous classes are either AP branded or they are designated on the transcript. I agree with Megmom and think it’s little “Lake Wobegone” to have honors and AP. I don’t think the colleges really “care” what schools call their classification…they simply look at the transcript and gage how the student “chose” classes based on what are offered. As someone said back in the day you were either college prep or not, it’s still the same despite all the labeling and GPA weighting and the rest of the “feel good” stuff.</p>
<p>OP, did the Board meet yet? If so, how did it go?</p>
<p>You need to ask why they are changing and where is the data to show that this is a good thing? I know that it is not very popular to track so the district is forced to do something different. The problem is the way they are going about it. In their minds:</p>
<p>Kids that are in the honors program are more likely to go to college than students who are not…conclusion: put everyone in honors and they will all go to college! </p>
<p>Silly logic, but most administrators are into political correctness and not logic. The teachers will need to hold their ground and make sure that students are graded on an honors level–lots of D’s and F’s will be the natural conclusion. The problem with this is that most teachers cannot stand to make their students miserable, so they will teach to the middle (which will be “academic”). So much for the honors curriculum.</p>
<p>Now the true honors kids will need to move to AP and again the teachers will have to teach to the middle–there goes the integrity of the AP program. The solution? They need to offer support classes for the academic students so they can achieve at the honors level and do the same with the honor level students so they can be successful in AP. The kids at the bottom? Honors, really?</p>
<p>Make them be explicit what the goal is for changing. Then make sure they can back up the change with data (not anecdotal stories). I have to admit, I am against this kind of tracking, but just changing the name of the classes isn’t going to solve anything. They need to be clear how they are going to get the kids that were formally not performing at the honors or AP level to do so.</p>
<p>They also need to explain why they are so confident that all of their students can perform at the honors or AP level–are there no average kids in your district? Are they ok with graduation rates going down due to the number of failures?</p>
<p>Well, the Board met tonight and voted to approve the changes. There will still be academic levels in math and foreign languages, since the separation in these courses starts in middle school. Science, social studies and english will only be taught at the honors and AP level. They also plan to change the academically talented program at the middle school. I’ve heard of many parents who are now exploring private school options. Most of the complaints I’ve heard about are from students and parents who WANT the academic option.
I did speak at the meeting, but the Board already was in support of the changes and did not address my concerns. At least I tried…</p>
<p>I can see a private school only offering honors and AP, but it seems odd for a public to do so.</p>
<p>I know of a ps that did this but only in one subject (English). The curriculum didn’t change but they provided additional help by putting the teachers’ aides that had been in the academic classes in certain sections of the new honors classes. (The teachers’ aides are special ed aides that are supposed to be there to help the kids who need accommodations.) Kids with special needs who were able to tackle honors were put in those sections and the aides often worked with all kids in those sections who needed extra help. Somehow, the school also paid 1 or 2 English teachers to help kids after school. YMMV </p>
<p>If the school holds the level for honors, it will mean kids failing and failing to graduate. It will probably impact second language learners and low-income kids more than anyone else. It seems more likely that the school will lower the level of the class-- but the lower students will see a gpa drop since they will be competing with much stronger students.</p>