That would have had to be a very long time ago. CA public schools went down hill quickly after 1978 when CA capped property tax increases and stopped tying them to market/assessed values of homes. They have and remain exceptions.
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Why does this matter? Suppose the teacher was good at maintaining discipline with a bunch of 5-year-olds. Does that make it okay that sheâs an imbecile when it comes to other crucial knowledge?
Iâm no dentist, but if my dentist says that teeth are made of green cheese, heâs an imbecile.
No, no. The teachers weâre talking about arenât worthy to be in the presence of ANY students. A teacher who teaches that the moon landing was faked is a lot more dangerous to the kids who arenât reading astronomy books for fun. But letâs not pretend that all the teachers have a clue, or that people of good character must ignore it when they donât.
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I suppose to someone that characterizes the concept of water as a gas as âcrucial knowledgeâ for a 5 year old, and that a kindergarten teacherâs job is merely to babysit, it probably doesnât matter.
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I wasnât referring to the one example of a conspiracy theorist teaching 7th graders. I was referring to the general distain that those here are showing for anyone, teacher or student, who they do not consider their intellectual equal. Bullying students who couldnât keep up, mocking well-meaning teachers. Along with the kindergarten teacher as an âimbecileâ comment, you captured the sentiment to which I refer above . . .
Seems as if there was a learning opportunity missed here.
But all this is getting rather off-topic. Whatâs happened at these schools has been misrepresented from the beginning. Thatâs unfortunate in my opinion.
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Not everyone wants to keep up by high school. Maybe they have a trust fund or athletic scholarship. Maybe they have other plans. Maybe they are stoned. Whatever. Honors classes at least provide an escape for that subset of the student population that is academic-minded.
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Both these schools offer a choice of English courses starting in 11th grade, including AP courses and a a number of electives for those interested. Just like at the privates in the area. And no, not all the local privates are academic powerhouses where all the classes are honors classes.
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So you just have a problem with differentiating kids at 14 but not 16? Got it.
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Just providing the facts. I figured that might be useful in a thread where the actual facts havenât really played much of a role in this conversation. (Take your false claims about how the enrollment was declining at these schools, for example.)
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Your âactual factsâ are the school allows tracking at 16 which in your opinion is somehow entirely different and much more acceptable than tracking 2 years earlier? How do you feel about sophomore year? 15? It is all part of high school, right. And of course many kids are already 16 by sophomore year. Maybe we could allow the more mature kids in the sophomore class to select honors classes and hold the younger ones in the general population.
A rational argument can be made about tracking in elementary or middle school. But high school? Really?
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So tracking at 16 is ok. Unless the school deems it to be unacceptable two years from now. In which case it is unnecessary at 16 as well.
In the realm of goods markets this is called shrinkflation â ie taxes continue to go up, and services continue to decline in quality and quantity
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Or perhaps never. How silly.
It is commonplace to offer one main track of English through Sophomore year. It seems to work out at a wide variety of schools, and all the students can benefit in one way or another.
But for those who donât want your 14 year old to have to share an English classroom with those you believe are inferior, and/or if you believe the teachers are imbeciles, then perhaps home school might be a good option.
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I donât believe that some kids are inferior, but some of them darned well donât want to be in school.
I went to high school in an affluent suburban district. My classes that werenât honors or AP were jokes. Not because the other kids werenât bright, but because they couldnât have cared less about being in class. Yes, sometimes I think it would have been better to be homeschooled because I would have pushed myself a lot harder than the teachers who had their hands full with crowd control. Ugh.
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When we had kids in k-12 we wanted them in classes where the students were interested in learning, the teachers capable of teaching, and administrators who were able to maintain order.
One kid can disrupt and entire class. We did not want that. Thankfully both kids had a great education. In high school that was achieved in honors classes and AP Classes. Both kids (separated by 5 years) said the regular, non - honors classes were zoos. Too bad, a shame really.
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I didnât get everything I could have out of my 9th and 10th grade English classes either, but it wasnât the fault my teachers or classmates. The failing was mine. Had I been interested, the opportunity to learn was there. And the learning opportunities extended beyond whatever we happened to be reading.
Public school doesnât exist to only teach the kids whose parents think are gifted. SaMo and Culver City are trying to teach all the kids at a high level, not just the select few.
âZoos?â Why do you think the kids in the âzoosâ deserve less of an education than your kids?
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My tenth grade teacher noticed that my best friend and I were bored out of our minds. So he let us go to the library and do independent research the whole semester. I wrote a paper about Genghis Khan. But donât you think it would have been better to be in an AP class with some more guidance and class discussion? Itâs just not the same.
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Weâve had experience with all sorts of classes. The kicker was non-honors math for my son where they had to take group quizzes. In many groups he was the only one doing any work. One of his classmates responded to his questioning of why she wasnât contributing: âI have an F in the class already so why tryâ. Group quizzes were harder and longer, to encourage division of labor and problem solving techniques. Great in theory but not in practice. My son picked the honors option the next semester and not only got a better classroom experience but also better grades. He was so frustrated in the regular class.
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âZoosâ were how my kid described them. Noise, running around, disrupting class, not following rules.
I assume that the school was doing the best they could do with those classes. Perhaps the parents should have been more vocal?
I am happy with the education our kids teceived.
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I think that the working assumption here is that these schools are watering down the courses, but thatâs not the schools are trying to do. The goal is to raise the standard to college prep English for everyone. That wonât be easy but is possible, and it happens regularly at many of the local private schools.
Seems pretty obvious that the school wasnât if the differences are as stark as you present. It is easier for the schools to just syphon off a few of the kids and disregard the rest, and that seems to be the preferred approach to most of the parents on CC, but it doesnât do much for the education of the neglected kids in the âzoo.â
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Yes. Not to mention threatening or even assaulting teachers, students, aides, during class. Not uncommon at all in regular classes here.
Itâs not that they are inferior. I just want my kids in a classroom where learning of some sort is even possible for the more important subjects (to me)
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