My school district (Santa Clara Unified) secretly got rid of our Honors Geometry book last year and only gave us a regular Common Core Geometry book to use. The teacher told us that if we wanted to learn what used to be in Honors Geometry we would have to go buy the book off Amazon which was $230.
Should I be worried that I’m not learning as much and start buying these books outside or take classes outside because of this?
Is this going to hurt college apps later because the colleges will eventually figure out that all of us 2027 students from my high school don’t really get taught “Honors” math anymore like the previous classes did?
I didn’t buy the honors textbook but now I’m wondering what I missed out on and if that is going to make it harder later for AP/SAT and stuff. All my friends from other schools still have Honors math classes so it seems kinda weird to be the only one without it.
“….Board Member Jodi Muirhead agreed with most of the committee’s recommendations but was concerned about more elite classes like honors. What about them? Fainstein argued that all students should have access to the level of instruction that is expected in honors classes – even though there is no standard to how honors classes are run, and honors courses don’t give an advantage for college admittance. Honors doesn’t equal acceleration, added Baldwin.
Similarly, Fairchild said she got emails from staff and families concerned that the new math pathways wouldn’t be a good fit for every student. Baldwin said the committee worked hard to consider as many students as possible and this pathway best met the needs of 14,000 students. He pointed out that there were only 82 AP Calculus BC students last year and admitted that gifted and driven students may require a different approach. Fairchild argued that they shouldn’t ignore those 82 students and warned that families will still choose outside programs to get their students ahead. Fainstein reiterated that they can’t stop families from seeking outside acceleration. However, if students do both compaction points, they can still reach AP Calculus BC without the barrier of the placement test or skipping courses, which was the task the committee was given….”
Yeah, I saw what the political people said in the news but I don’t really trust them cuz they quietly swapped the books without saying anything. Total sus… A lot of those people in all the politics don’t even have have their own kids attending schools right now that they are the bosses of. Majorly weird… Like, why are they even here? LOL? Plus, they started removing books and stealth changing classes while telling people in that article that it was just a proposal for later that would be discussed… So obvious, they don’t care what we think.
Like the new thing woulda made it so I couldn’t have done Algebra 1 until 8th which would have made it harder to do robotics because there was a lot of algebra. And if they pushed Algebra 2 another year, then that pushes other things out farther. Luckily, I already got past it before they started changing what year you can take the classes so that is more of a prob for the classes after mine.
But still, I wonder what is missing because the district took the Honors books away already… Yeah I was thinking of the AoPS because it seems like taking away the Honors version is maybe taking out all the stuff that is on Math Olympiad, AMC8, MATHCOUNTS? Like you would know enough for just Common Core but you would be an epic fail in math competitions. And I wonder if it will make other classes and tests harder missing out on what the previous classes were taught…
They kind of did the same thing to Honors English too. Now, even if you were supposed to be in Honors English, you are in the same class with the same books as Common Core English. We only found out when we went to class that everything got stealth swapped! There is just “extra homework”. It is nothing like what my friends at other schools have. Sus!
Other districts have probs with book banning sex/race stuff but my school is removing the academically advanced books that my friends from other schools have…
Could there be a petition by parents, at least keep a reference book in school to supplement regular curriculum.
I am sorry public school there is making a choice between raising floor and having advanced math topics in geometry.
It sounds like your school is first one to have this new policy implemented.
“We know from experience, data and comparisons to similar districts that PAUSD students are disproportionately held back in mathematics,” Cohen said. “That is, they are misplaced in math courses. Misplacement impacts student wellness and also makes it much harder for them to grow and reach their goals. It was also against the law….
On Feb. 6, Judge Carrie Zepeda ruled that Palo Alto is in violation of the Math Placement Act and that its “math placement policy must give parents and students a process for appealing their placements, and the district has to collect data on how the policy is working,” according to the writ of mandate.”
But,
Here is Santa Clara curriculum. Three high schools offer Geometry Honors level. Six offer Geometry.
“ Geometry Honors
Course# 202105 Grades: 9-12
UC / CSU Requirement: C,
Credits: 10, Year
Offered at MacDonald, Santa Clara, Wilcox
Prerequisite B or better in Algebra 1 or teacher recommendation
Honors Geometry is a one-year course, which encourages and guides the student in the discovery of new geometric concepts. A major part of this course will be devoted to teaching the student how to present a formal proof. The emphasis, especially in the first semester, will be placed on translating symbols, words, phrases, and diagrams into a logical sequence as it applies to two-column and paragraph proofs. Along with these ideas, the second semester will incorporate geometric properties of both two and three dimensions. Concepts such as area, volume, loci, right triangles, similar triangles, and circles will be emphasized. Note: the grade for this Honors course is not weighted for GPA purposes.”
“Regular” and “advanced” students take 6th and 7th grade math, then they split into different sequences in 8th grade, and then “advanced” students split into +1 and +2 groups in 10th grade:
Math was taught so poorly until high school in my highly rated public district that most of the parents who were able to, either taught their children math themselves, or got private accelerated, traditional math teaching for them. In your district, this clearly is going to be the case now until AP math. I recommend you teach yourself through Khan online, in preparation for the AP math courses.
To the OP: why not try to get your hands on the syllabus from last year’s honors geometry class and compare it with your current non-honors syllabus? You could also find the table of contents of the honors math book and compare it to your regular book. Find out what’s missing and maybe work with your teacher during their office hours to fill in the gaps. You can also go to Khan Academy to fill in the gaps there. Alternatively, you might want to try Thinkwell honors geometry. It’s $100ish for the entire honors course and you could fill in the gaps that way. I bet if you reached out to them and told them of your predicament they would give you a discount. You could also search eBay to see if there were any used honors geometry books. I bet you could find one there for cheap.
In some cities there is a club called a math circle, often run by a professor. See if you can find one near you for excellent math training. If not, see if your parents can persuade a math professor, or even a grad student, to start one for you and your interested classmates.
Edited to add: good news! Your city has one!
@arym
Common Core math is a mess (that is a gentle definition…)
Art of Problem Solving is amazing (written by mathematicians and not education “specialists”).
My one kid barely survived Common Core… 1 was homeschooled for a while using Art of Problem Solving to avoid Common Core, and 1 was lucky and was ahead of Common Core… First 2 were Mathy kids, last one probably will never fully recover (and never considered technical fields, i.e. Engineering or CS)… My condolences to kids who were educated with Common Core, especially in Math…
Geometry is indeed written only by Rusczyk, but PreAlgebra is written by 3 authors: 1- David Patrick has PhD in Math from MIT, another Ravi Boppana has PhD in CS but teaching math for years. 3rd is Rusczyk. All of them were Math competition winners.
In any case, I LOVE Art of Problem Solving books. These books are really oriented for people who are interested in Math and will understand math very well. I just can’t let these books go :). As a person with Math degree, I so much appreciate their approach vs. regular textbooks in standard schools…
Oh, and the best part are solutions manuals with 2-3 different approaches (obviously there are sometimes even more), but that is great way to open mind of kids. My son was often finding even alternate solution and arrived to the answer very quickly from absolutely unexpected angle. It was a lot of fun…
