<p>Also the same # of posts as SamuraiLandshark on page 1.</p>
<p>How do you do that?</p>
<p>hazmat, at first I didn't realize what you were talking about, and then I noticed artmommy77's post above yours. Artmommy, you've been busy!!</p>
<p>Our school has 4 levels for major subjects: regular, cp, honors and AP. Students must be on the honors track in order to be eligible for AP. The earliest AP offered is junior year with most in the senior year. There is only one AP course per subject, per year. With limited seats available and high demand there is a necessary weeding that occurs to the detriment of many deserving students.</p>
<p>Way back at the beginning of this thread, Mathmom mentioned the "slow" level, and that jogged a memory for me that's a bit off-topic, but what the heck.</p>
<p>When I saw the word "slow", I thought of the "slow food" movement and that reminded me of an experimental class I had looong ago in J.H. 3 teachers (Art, Music, and Social Studies). The topic was the Civil War era. We learned and sang spirituals, did a survey of architecture and, of course, learned history. Best class I ever had. We took it "slow"; that is, we studied a short period in American history, but dug a little deeper and savored what we found.</p>
<p>The point is - if any - that I think this kind of course, which took advantage of the special talents and knowledge of a particular school staff, are rarer in public schools today because there is no way to classify and standardize them. If so, too bad.</p>
<p>Our HS offers a dual American History/English III class called "American Studies", where the two classes are scheduled back-to-back and the two teachers team teach. They make a more in-depth connection between American History and the literary works studied junior year. The class went on a number of field trips that the rest of the 11th graders missed out on (I don't know how that got approved) (and we're lucky living in New England) and had special lunches, etc. My son LOVED it.</p>
<p>But it was only offered in one section each year and only offered at the "academic" (regular) level. I was initially horrified that he did not take AP Eng Language, but he (healthily) thought the American Studies sequence sounded more interesting and he was unconcerned about his weighted GPA and curriculum rigor. Rightly so.</p>
<p>S2 would have none of it and targeted AP Eng Lang from the start. I agree, it is too bad that more HS classes aren't like these.</p>
<p>archiemom,</p>
<p>Special lunches! That's even better. Really, that sounds great. My kids' school offered nothing like that. </p>
<p>I think those connections between subjects are extremely important.</p>
<p>My school has about 3000 kids total and loads of Honors and AP classes, but it seems, at least to me, that the honors classes become sort of "Dumbed down" because the number of honors and AP courses affects GPA and therefore class rank, and so everyone takes them even if they should have just taken the normal class.</p>
<p>our school has honors for freshman/sophmore and AP for junior/senior (with the exception of AP World which can be taken sophmore year)</p>
<p>idk what the big deal is. honors/AP is the level you should be performing at anyway... that's why i take them </p>
<p>the only difference between regular and AP is at the lower levels you get alot of dull lightbulbs</p>
<p>Ap are more lik College prep courses while honors are just harder and require more work. Although i took all honors in H.S. and they were not difficult.</p>
<p>Our school doesn't even have honors courses per se. We have "accelerated" courses.</p>
<p>Most of the time, "accelerated" is just another word for "honors", but some courses are different. Acc. Physics at my school follows the AP Physics B syllabus (and we take the AP exam in May), and Acc. Spanish III and Acc. English III earn college credits in college level Freshmen courses (12 credits for both courses in all).</p>
<p>My school (1600 students) has advanced honors, honors, standard, and basic courses, as well as 6 APs, only one of which is commonly available before senior year. These courses allow more intellectually gifted/motivated people to be adequately challenged. Advanced courses are weighted, and in my opinion, rightly so, so as to prevent people who attain straight A's in honors courses from those who work harder in the advanced honors or AP courses. Generally, the average kid at my school will take a mixture of honors and standard courses. Basic classes mainly serve the people who are on the technical (vocational) path.</p>
<p>Sons school with 2000 students has 4 levels (remedial; regular; college prep and honors or AP) The honors courses require lots of summer homework (up to 10 books, several 5 page papers) and a great deal more homework every night. Honors courses require a student maintain at least a B to continue into the next year's honors course equivalent.. School has just a few AP's -not necessarily more difficult than the Honors Course, but geared to teach material for the AP test.</p>
<p>My school of 1100 has no "honors" at all, except English for 9th & 10th grade. The "normal" freshman takes algebra, intro to science, etc. However, if you're on the college-prep path, you take geometry, biology, and skip all of the "9th grade classes." In the end, only the students who took geometry as a freshman can take AP Calc, but nothing else is really affected, since there is no specific science sequence. On the other hand, our U.S. History class is the only one that has three levels; Basic, Regular, and AP. No other APs or "honors" besides AP German and AP Spanish.</p>
<p>here in effed up louisiana, we've got 5 levels (in some things) at my school of 2500.
specifically, 10, 11, and 12 grade englishes have: remedial, regular, honors, AP, and gifted.</p>
<p>From what I can tell, the AP distinction is the easier level than Gifted, though that's entirely hearsay. </p>
<p>Most classes, however, only offer a few levels, regular, honors OR ap, and gifted. some classes, like chem II (which is essentially AP chem) and chem III (organic chemistry) are only offered at the gifted level.</p>
<p>my school doesn't weight anyway, so it's all a moot point, except to <em>fight</em> for an education</p>
<p>My school (with a graduating class of about 100) has exactly what the OP mentioned. We have regular, honors, and AP level courses for almost every subject.</p>
<p>My school has an approx. population of 2000 and has Practical, Standard, Advanced, Honors, AP, and Community College Courses. Most subjects have all the levels, with the exception of languages, electives, etc.</p>
<p>Regarding my number of post. (In the billions). It was a dark and stormy night and I posted 4 billion posts. No really, the number appeared just a couple of nights ago. I can’t explain it. I’m just lucky :d</p>
<p>The Honors designation isn't just for multi-level course tracks, evidently. At my daughter's high school all students in each grade take the same courses. All juniors take AP English Lang/Comp, AP US History, Physics, Spanish, and Honors Pre-calculus. There's no non-honors pre-calc. My understanding is that this has to do with California state designations for the material; because high school courses in California have be certified by the Board of Regents in order to be counted towards the requirements for UC admission, the state determines what constitutes 'honors' for some courses, or at least has some say in certifying that a course is 'honors' for the purposes of the weighted GPA the UC system accepts. </p>
<p>Other parents more familar with the A-G madness may know more about this; I don't have to understand it, other than knowing that every student in the high school exceeds the minimum A-G requirements.</p>
<p>This is so interesting to read. My D went into the public school system in 8th grade. I had no idea that there even were honors courses, so they put her in stndard level classes. When she went into high school, I asked for honors Math (because she was so bored in 8th grade) and they fought me tooth and nail because she was not in the honors track in middle school (I won). Anyway, first week of 9th grade her teacher asked that she be transferred to honors English, and for second semester she was also in honors history and science (per teacher rec). </p>
<p>The upshot of all this is that her weighted average is lower than it could have been if I had been more knowledgeable; she is a year behind some of her peers in science who all knew to take chemistry in 9th grade (so the advanced science APs may not work out for her at all); and I am not sure she will be marked as taking the most rigorous curriculum despite the fact that she will have at least 5 APs by graduation.</p>
<p>That's my warning to middle school students and parents-make sure you know what your high school offers and make sure your kids get into the most challenging track -so long as they are capable. I know schools often suggest that even bright students not stress themselves and take just one or two honors classes-that will be detrimental to them in the college admissions process.</p>