Lowell High School in San Francisco is in the news again:
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No surprise. Essentially, the proportion of students receiving a D or F went from less than 10% in the competitive admission cohort to almost 25% in the lottery cohort. Next, I’m sure that teachers will be pressured to water down the curriculum and the academic standards, because if the Ds and Fs are not distributed proportionally according to race, the curriculum and academic standards must be racist, same as the SAT must be racist.
I can only imagine how challenging this must be for these teachers, who were used to teaching bright, motivated, hard-working students, until this year.
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They will just start offering two levels of courses like all other open enrollment competitive high schools. There will be two schools, within the school. The rigor will be noted based on classes taken rather than having attended Lowell. Or they might rethink the process now that they have a new board of education.
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The most likely scenario is grade inflation to help “level the playing field” because math is inherently unfair.
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What exactly is so surprising? Lowell went from being a magnet school to a lottery school. Of course, there is going to be a change in academic results arising out of this.
How does this have ANYTHING to do with race/ethnicity? What am I missing?
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I imagine that some of their current ninth graders basically didn’t get full time schooling from March of 7th grade through all of 8th grade, and that has also made things harder.
For example, at one of my children’s high schools (not in California), for the first time ever, there were students who entered this year with no exposure to Algebra prior to ninth grade. The high school didn’t change its admissions policies at all nor did it change the numbers of kids admitted from various sending schools; the problem is that the middle schools that typically send students to their school just weren’t able to cover the usual material during 15 months of remote/hybrid learning. There ended up being a much bigger than usual gap in preparation between middle schools. My impression is that there is also some differences in preparation among the freshman class, but this year was extraordinary despite keeping admissions policies the same.
Thus, if San Francisco middle schools had similar difficulties with remote learning, I imagine that between COVID and the new lottery system, the former magnet school mentioned above has a much more academically heterogenous class than before.
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Or “like almost all other high schools”. A typical high school has two or three schools within the school:
- Honors (including AP or IB) college prep courses, for A students aiming for more selective colleges.
- Regular college prep courses, for B students aiming for less selective or open admission colleges.
- Less challenging courses, for students who just want to pass with C/D grades to graduate from high school.
Of course, some students do cross over or straddle more than one of the above “schools”, often by subject (e.g. honors math and regular English, or vice-versa). There will also be a few courses that are required for all students (e.g. health) and/or are electives that appeal to all students, so these courses will see more of a mix of students.
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looks like Lowell offers 3 levels of courses…intro/college prep, honors, and AP: Fall 2023 Course selection begins February 16th | SFUSD
@Mwfan1921 Wrong Lowell High School. The thread is about the one in California.
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Oops, I will correct my post! Thanks
I believe they are doing the same thing to Boston Latin School. Or making quotas by neighborhood or some other such nonsense. Since Boston Public Schools mostly suck, they have to make them all equally bad in order to make things “fair”? I just don’t understand this logic.
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So typical. Let’s solve for an artificial result, declare victory so we don’t have to address the more difficult to solve underlying issues.
In the meantime, we have this pressing issue that the SF school district is tackling. Chiefly Illiterate in San Francisco Schools - WSJ
Since this is behind a paywall, an excerpt:
" Now the San Francisco Chronicle reports that the school district is planning to phase out the word “chief” in its job titles, “given that Native American members of our community have expressed concerns.” Currently the district has executives with the customary roles of chief financial officer, chief of staff, and so on.
Here’s what is particularly amusing in this attempt at progressive sensitivity: While the English language has lots of words that can be traced to the native peoples of the Americas, including “chipmunk,” “barbecue” and “hurricane,” they don’t include “chief.” That word comes from Old French, and originally Latin, and the Oxford English Dictionary has citations back to 1297."
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Looks like honors and AP are really not separate levels, so it is more like there are two levels.
At least for math (as it seems easier to do), it would be nice if there were public programs that did not consider anything except for relevant performance on a test. If the kid wants to take Calc then he must get X% on the pre-calc exam before she/he begins, no matter the age, race, sex.
With all of the advances in delivery during the pandemic there must be many platforms this could be delivered on?
Are there any public schools that are able to do this and if not, why is it a bad system?
It seems the common argument is that if it is public funds then everyone should attend but it seems this will only play out with the high-achievers with means, continuing to leave the public system.
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In high school, progression from precalculus to calculus can be and often is determined by the grade in precalculus; no need for an additional test. The same applies for most other progressions where the student is expected to have taken the prerequisite course at the same school.
Where placement testing is most needed is where a student may enter at various levels based on work at a different school or not in school (e.g. entry level for math in college, placement higher than beginner level in foreign language).
Our local school’s AP Calc AB course description says
PREREQUISITE(S): 80% or better in Honors Pre-calculus or 90% or better in Pre-Calculus with teacher recommendation.
This is true of just about every advanced course. Is this not common?
Seems common. For example, one nearby high school catalog lists honors or AP math course prerequisites as A in the previous regular math course or B in the previous honors math course, while regular math course prerequisites are C in the previous regular math course.
Surely it is more of a challenge to teach students who aren’t uniformly outstanding, but that’s what is asked of public school teachers.
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Same happened in NYC
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