More parents must be searching for private or charter alternatives in California. There was a time many years ago when California public schools were considered among the best.
This is one of the dumbest things I’ve heard in a long time and has now been added to the growing list of reasons why I’m glad we left CA several years ago.
Good grief!
Parents should revolt. Only in public school academia is achievement discouraged.
Private schools if you can, leave the state if you must.
As the article says this is happening in more places than just California.
It seems like a knee jerk reaction (although the article says the teachers researched this for 18 months) in the name of equity. I do understand how some students might feel they are less than if they aren’t in honors or APs, but seems like the HS GCs (which everyone doesn’t have access to) or teachers could help students decide whether or not they should move into honors and/or AP courses. With that said, students should have to attain a certain level of performance in on-level/college prep courses before increasing rigor. I am working with a current soph with a number of Cs and Ds in their first 3 semesters, and they just signed up to take two AP courses next year. Probably not going to go well.
Ding, ding, ding.
So it must be right.
Our local school district chose not to have honors classes ages ago. It’s the reason we sent our D to private school for high school, and we sent our S to a neighboring school district. When our S was a substitute teacher in a high school in our school district following college graduation, he thanked us for sending him elsewhere.
I’m all for equity. But I don’t view honors classes as inequitable in and of themselves. I’m not sure honors classes are necessary at younger ages, when teachers can use in-class grouping to allow kids to work at their own level. Once kids are in high school, though, it’s time to allow kids to work more quickly on more advanced material if they’re ready to do so.
Why restrict “equity” to just academics? What about the kids who feel “less than” because they aren’t in the sports team? Maybe, lower basketball nets and make them wider?
I can’t read the article, but I am confused. Do many school districts offer honors courses to children at a young age? I thought honors classes generally start in high school (or in some school districts in middle school).
Also does this mean that the public universities in California will need to design a new admissions system? I thought there was a whole GPA calculation thing that was done based on honors & ap courses for California universities.
According to the WSJ article, the honors classes eliminated were high school classes.
In our local school district, you test into the “Gifted Program” in elementary school. Those students are taken out of class 1-2x week and given “enrichment” activities to do. I thought the article was talking about getting rid of this program, and I don’t see that being terrible.
Once in middle school, those tested into the Gifted Program and can (but don’t have to) start Algebra in 7th grade,. They also separated from the rest of the kids. All of their classes are together in a separate wing. They even have their own lunch. In our low performing with lots of serious discipline issues this is seen as a big plus for parents. It’s like a private school within the public school.
Those not in the Gifted Program in middle school can be placed in Advanced, where they can start Algebra in the 8th grade. I believe anyone can sign up for them. Advanced classes are separated from those where most of the discipline issues occur, but they still are in the same wing, same lunches, etc. When we pulled younger S out of private school, his school wouldn’t recommend him for gifted, so he was in Advanced. It was a positive experience for him.
High school, anyone can take honors or AP classes. No restrictions. I am definitely in favor of keeping honors classes starting in middle school, though I think anyone should be able to sign up for them.
I wonder what those school districts would do if their AP classes are still deemed to be represented inequitably after the elimination of honors classes. Wouldn’t the elimination of AP classes be the next logical step?
There has been talk of that in our school district and the county school district. I am very glad my kids are gone!
That’s what I was thinking, too.
And to take that logic 1 step further, wouldn’t AP classes end up getting gradually eliminated one at a time?
AND…there goes plans for these high schools to offer AP African American Studies.
It’s truly ridiculous. SO glad our kids are in a charter school.
I agree. A good example is one of my S22’s classmates - he was an indifferent (and that is putting it generously) student through MS, however, he was ambitious and signed up for all honors classes as a HS freshman. Fast forward - he did exceptionally well and was eventually accepted to both MIT and Harvard last year.
We were faced with this when my D was in middle school but not because of equity but due to budget cuts. We agonized about the decision but we ultimately sent her to private school. We were tired of the district trying to blackmail families into voting for tax increases by withholding courses, ECs, and bussing every other year. We realized though that we were privileged to be able to make that choice.
The community where we currently live is having the equity debate now and they just eliminate one of the early accelerated math tracks. Now the “normal” track is to get everyone to AP calc by senior year. (That was the accelerated track where we used to live). There is still a pathway though for highly advanced students to take classes at the university in town.
I wasn’t able to read the article so I’m just reacting to the little bits posted here so I’d love to hear the argument about how uniform classrooms create rigor. That wasn’t our personal experience at all when our D was young.
Not every student has the ability to excel in AP. As humans we are all gifted with different aptitudes. There are some kids, no matter what, that will not be able to understand calculus or absorb AP History. Unfortunately education has become so focused on making sure kids feel good about themselves while neglecting to encourage students to go into trades or other technical fields. If schools want true equity I wonder if the sports programs will become open to everyone. No more varsity sports?
Our school did away with having a team captain of sports because kids felt bad. Every senior could then say they were team captain. Silly.
Oh, the original quote posted from the article was about students being discouraged because had not started honors classes from a young age. But by young age, apparently they mean high school? That does not seem very young to me, and the decisions made about tracking in high school have very different purposes (in my opinion) than the decisions made in elementary school.
I have a friend who teaches high school math. She says that in her school, they have honors classes but they have eliminated the gate-keeping that used to happen with tracking since it often favored entitled parents over parents who had less power (or believed they had less power) within the school system. Everyone has a choice about which level of class to join. However the syllabus in honors courses is not modified or adapted for students without the appropriate prior experience or prerequisite. Instead, it moves at the pace and in the depth that it had with tracking. Kids keep up or drop down a level, but the syllabus is what it is.
I appreciate the elimination of the sort of gate keeping that kept certain kids out of honors because their teachers decided in advance that they were not honors material. I’ve seen some ugly assumptions made and bias towards talented students from marginalized demographics over the years.
We need to weed out teachers that would do this. I hope the teacher unions take note!