<p>my kids have had block scheduling but not 4x4, they have same classes all year, with all classes having a two hour block once a week,say you have music monday, wednesday, thursday and friday you have a two hour block. So each class you have all year 5 hours a week, but only 4 days a week.We think it works well, one day a week you don't have a class, and once a week you have a longer block of time for special projects, speakers etc.</p>
<p>There have been threads on this subject in the past. My kids are on a 4 X 4 block. It is not my first choice but we have learned to live with it. It has at times been great and at others not.<br>
One of my biggest issues at our school is that after freshman year you are only guaranteed 3 classes a term. And the 4th is a study hall. The problem is that very few kids stay at school for their free period so they have an 1.5 hr break in the middle of the day. For the last 2 semesters mine has had her 3rd period as her free period. So basically she is free from 11:30 till 1:30.
When she first got her senior schedule they had her scheduled for 2 classes and 2 free periods first semester and 4 classes spring including 3 AP's. We were able to make some changes but she still has the crazy spring schedule of free period, class,lunch, free period and class. So she will go to school and home twice each day.</p>
<p>She has not had any problem retaining information but that is just her. For my 2nd this is his first year on the block for him who has learning issues and ADD having fewer classes to deal with has helped with managing homework. He is not in the highest level of classes and I do find that those classes tend to give them homework time in class and the teachers don't all teach the full class time.
All schools have problems and most people don't have alternate choices so you learn to work the system that you have and hope that you have parents who at least try to get the best education available to each child.</p>
<p>The alternate block is a great schedule bcos it allows for longer discussions in humanities, and the chance to work on labs in science and/or math. But, the 4x4 is poorly designed, particularly for honors/ap kids, for many of the reasons posted above. </p>
<p>Further, contrary to the student posters about finishing with "crap" teachers earlier, there is a significant downside to that, as well. Yes, you would be done with said teacher in 19 weeks instead of 38, but, there is absolutely no time to recover a grade in that time. This past year, good friend's S was reallly struggling with the Bio teacher, but seemed to be working hard. By the time the first grade report came out in week 9 (equivalent to a full quarter), parent conferences were held, conferences with Dept Chair, and then GC, and the Asst Principal, the HS finally made the decision that the teach and kid had personality differences. Long story short, Asst Principal recomended a different science teach where the kid flourished. But, since the semester was now 2/3rds over, even perfect scores for the remainder of the semester could not yield a B. So, even though the class calendar is compressed, the bureacracy still moves at the old nine-month pace. </p>
<p>AP course scheduling is also critical. At least at this 4x4 HS, they begin AP's in Sept, even if the kids have to start class at 7:00 am. </p>
<p>Finally, educators are gonna have to rethink their comittment to 4x4 due to national and state testing requirements. Educators have long known about the loss of subject memory that occurs over a summer -- indeed, the first 3-6 weeks of a new year are review of material from the past, particularly in math. If the national/state testing doesn't occur until spring, it will be difficult for many kids to remember all those concepts from a class that they completed in Dec or Jan.</p>
<p>Mom60 - that would defeat the original purpose of blocks at our county's schools - giving people extra opportunities to pass classes for graduation! Many kids do not take 32 classes, they get their requirements done and go half days senior year, but aside from scheduling and maxing out say appropriate math or science classes, they can get 4 classes a term.</p>
<p>One bad result of this system for my husband has been that the top students, and many of the "good" students are sucked out of the system. What are left are kids/families who either don't care or can't make a change for their children or, actually these are the majority, don't realize what a raw deal their kids are getting. He feels strongly that when you have some top students in the class it raises the bar and the performance of the "great middle". Now he's in a situation where, in order to offer chemistry and physics (remember we're talking about 1600 students), underprepared students are admitted - it's an uphill process to teach stoichiometry to a kid who doesn't have a reasonable grasp of algebra. The middle kids are pulled down instead of up.
Thank heaven once you are lotteried into the magnet school, a child can only flunk out, you don't have to be lotteried each year, also usually siblings can attend as well.</p>
<p>I guess it's just my ignorance here but why/how would an 8th grader be taking SAT's? Was your kid taking advanced HS courses in all the subjects that will be tested? No offense meant, I just don't understand the rush to test so soon when most kids don't take SATs until Jr/Sr years in my experience. I have an 8th grader taking algebra that will be credited toward HS credit, but he hasn't taken geometry yet, which would be on the SATs. How are your schools set up that your kids are able to advance like this? We have to beg and plead to do anything out of the ordinary at our school.</p>
<p>Cangel:</p>
<p>many kids at our 4x4 HS end up taking their AP-style classes at a junior college, which, IMO, is a horrible work-around.</p>
<p>Cangel- we have 3 high schools in our district so you could transfer to one of the others with a traditional schedule. It was not started at our school to help kids graduate that has not been a problem at our school. They actually try to sell you on the idea that you can earn more credits to get you to attend the school and they don't advertise that only freshman get 8 classes a year. Unless you do a large group activity band or a sport and then you get 8. Due to budget cuts you are also not allowed to double up with math or language in any one year. With the sciences they are will let you take the regular 1st semester and ap the second. So we have a higher rate of kids who are taking all 3 ap science classes that are offered.</p>
<p>As far as passing the standardized tests and Ap's the scores are a bit less then 1 of the other high schools and higher then the other. We also have a fairly rabid group of parents who try to keep the school on track.</p>
<p>I posted briefly about the block scheduling scheme at our local HS. Let me elaborate a bit. The school has an A day and a B day each being 4.5 blocks each and occurring on alternate days. Therefore students may take up to 8-1/2 courses which begin in september and end in june. Classes meet for 1-1/2 hours every other day.</p>
<p>This make it very convenient for the students to participate in an evening event and get their homework done because they have two days to complete it.</p>
<p>It is more like a college schedule and helps prepare them for study beyond HS.</p>
<p>There are less books to lug around every day.</p>
<p>The half block is for lunch, and the school offers a few 1/2 credit options which students can choose to take-chorus, weight training, life skills(cooking!!).</p>
<p>The teachers are able to be more creative in developing their lesson plans. The 1.5 hour periods all them to incorporate group projects, labs, demonstrations, discussions, homework review, quizzes, etc into the class period. Rarely do they lecture for the entire time.</p>
<p>Most students seem to like the block schedule and take advantage of its benefits.</p>
<p>Don't count on block scheduling for all 4 years. My daughter planned out her 4 year program. Starting her senior year, the school switched from regular to block scheduling, dropped many classes, and dropped weighted GPA. Her transcript will be reported with 3 years weighted and one year un-weighted, and no explanation.</p>
<p>Mom60, if the outcome has been more kids taking AP sciences, at least that is one positive outcome :). Sounds kind of like a bait and switch to me, "They actually try to sell you on the idea that you can earn more credits to get you to attend the school and they don't advertise that only freshman get 8 classes a year."</p>
<p>The entire county is on block here, so there is no escaping the schedule at another public high school. However, some schools have more AP students, so more classes are scheduled, one school has IB (I don't know how they work that out with block, but they have to somehow, because the rest of the school is on block schedule), the state residential math and science school is in our town, and a large majority of parents who can afford to have opted out into private schools, including many teachers. This is not quite as elitist as it sounds because private school is much cheaper here than other areas of the country, and the privates vary widely in size and quality.</p>
<p>Whoever said you have to do the best you can with your child's choices is very correct.</p>
<p>three to go, my daughter is taking the SAT as part of the JHU CTY talent search. She could have taken it last year but I didn't really see the value at that point as she had not taken algebra. She's in a special pull-out section of honors algebra with only 12 kids which has been great for her because she loves math. Don't worry, I haven't had her take an SAT prep class or anything. I just thought it might help her to go through what is basically a no pressure dry run on facing the SAT. </p>
<p>I found out more about the 4x4 block at our high school. It looks to be impossible for a student to take every AP offering. Requiring 4 blocks of gym and 2 blocks of art/music leaves very little room to fit everything in because our school runs a lot of the AP offerings over two blocks. English, Chemistry, Computer Science, Calculus and US History run the full year. European History and US Government and Politics run for one block. AP Biology is a block and a half with a Bio elective making up the last quarter of the year. I imagine these must be some great classes where the students can go into great depth of subject matter, but choices have to be made about where to concentrate. It's no surprise the school has a 90% pass rate on AP tests. We are a very diverse district, semi-urban, with a substantial number of kids who work hard just to graduate, while others are bound for top colleges. I can definitely see the Block helping the bottom tier student because they have a full extra semester built in as far as meeting minimum graduation requirements.</p>
<p>Thanks for all the replies, it's clear this is going to require a lot of advance planning and communication with guidance people.</p>
<p>MomofFour, judging from what I have read on this forum and DH's experiences a 90% pass rate (?3 or above) is a very good track record on the AP exam, particularly for an "ordinary" public school, not an entrance exam school, or an unusually affluent district.
A good question to discuss with the guidance people is the college profile, do they make it clear that it is impossible for a student to max out APs? Have students taken CC classes in the past to extend their offerings in an area, or because they couldn't get a class scheduled that they needed. Wiser parents chime in, but I don't think selective colleges penalize an applicant for not taking all the most difficult classes if it is made clear that no one could take all the APs - I'm not sure outside of HYPSM that taking all APs offered is that important if a child makes good grades, and doesn't have a large number of "fluff" courses.
My DD took all APs that she could take (all the school offers except AP art, not her thing), but with the new science curriculum, that will be very difficult to repeat in the future, it will be interesting if that makes a difference. It won't matter to my son, he's not heading to one of the "most challenging classes available" type schools, the school has a very savvy college counselor, my guess it that she will compensate.</p>
<p>Momof4 - you might ask to see the distribution of AP scores by course and find out if all kids are encouraged to take the exam, or whether those kids likely to score low are discouraged. The national average for AP is ~65% for passing. Our local HS's are in the mid-80's (depending on test, teachers, and senior-itis); everyone is encouraged to take the test, but not required to take it.</p>
<p>The other question that comes to mind is how many APs are offered at the HS and how many can a strong kid could take. If your HS offers 15 APs, but the block schedule limits kids to 3, then the school is doing a disservice to the high achieving kids.</p>
<p>For 2003 year the pass rate for all AP exams was 61.48% so a 90% pass rate is surperior. For public school students the pass rate was 59.75% and by computation, 70.86 for non-public schools.</p>
<p>But more to the point, the manner in which our HS implements its block schedule has no impact on the number of students taking AP courses or their performance on the exam. The are able to take up to 8 full year courses which begin in Sept and end in June, after the AP test has been taken. They spend that month with a final research project required of all AP students. The grade on this project is used as their final exam grade. For his AP History research project, he studied the county demographics of the slave population in the 25 years leading up the the civil war. Because we have many churches in existance for more than 200 years he was able to look at primary source materials in addition to census data.</p>
<p>From what I understand, there are currently 10 AP subjects, the ones I listed above, plus Spanish and Art. It's hard to predict what my daughter will want to take 3 or 4 years from now, but I don't want to close any doors due to poor schedule choices now. She enjoys math and science more than english and history at this point but that may well be because of the teachers involved. She's taken French in middle school and I'm not sure why there isn't an AP class for that listed in the high school curriculum. That will be one of my questions for the staff.</p>
<p>I think they score so well on the AP exams because they do limit the numbers of kids enrolled and perhaps because of the amount of class time. Having double blocks (fall and spring semesters) for some of the AP's gives twice the instruction time leading into testing. The scores haven't always been this good from what I've been told. They've recently put a lot of emphasis into improving the AP program because of not wanting to lose top students to private schools.</p>
<p>Jay Mathews of the Wash Post has an interesting way to rank HS, based on # of APs/IB's divided by graduating class. In his view, it's a way of measuring how a HS offers a challenge to all students. His old link is attached. </p>
<p>That's interesting bluebayou. Do you know if colleges use that sort of analysis as well? It would seem to penalize schools who have students from diverse ability levels. We're really all across the board and there are a lot of students for whom AP classes would not be appropriate. Including them just for the sake of improving enrollment numbers might considerably dumb down the class for more able students.</p>
<p>Actually I sent that link to our high school. It points to a huge flaw in our school, and how it is/will be perceived by competitive schools. We have open enrollment in our AP, with varying results as to the rigor of the class. Most students, however, do not take the exam, and most that take the exam do not do well. If we are going to say we offer 21 AP classes and "pretend" that we are a "rigorous" high school, then I'm glad there is a standard to see through this charade. It will never be corrected until someone from outside our system says the Emporer is not wearing clothes!</p>
<p>Momof four
a district close to us ranks very high in newsweeks assessment of schools as they use just that rationale. They encourage students to enroll for more AP classes than they are comfortable with, and despite earlier promises, don't allow them to drop an AP class if it gets to be too much.
It isn't about how well they do on the tests apparently, it is how many classes they take. Seems the emphasis is on making the district or school look good, not on the quality of learning in the classroom.</p>
<p>Momof4 -- </p>
<p>I definitely don't have any insight into the adcoms' winner workings From the few info sessions I have attended, all presenters have stated that they review the app "in context to the local HS," stating that if a HS only offers 3 AP courses, a kid can't be expected to take more. Conversely, as was noted in the Gatekeepers, if a school offers 20+ AP's, and the curriculum of the school is directed towards AP's (ala Harvard-Westlake Prep), the top students are expected to take a lot.</p>
<p>Anecdotally, private counselors who have given fee info sessionsl locally (thier marketing), all say that it is better to get a 1 on the test, than to not take it at all, in their opinion and experience.</p>
<p>My point about testing was that a high pass rate is easy to get if all the non-stars are discouraged from taking the AP test. Thus, it is not necessarily a good indication of teacher prep and quality.</p>
<p>TXMom -- if many kids don't take the AP exam (feeling unprepared), and, of those that do, the scores are low.....at a minimum, an average HS should score at the national average as posted by charlesivies. A "rigorous" HS should have a pass rate at least in the '80's, IMO, since a 'pass' is supposed to be equivalent to a college C.</p>