The tracking is not the same. By virtue of being selective, the private schools rejected applicants from the bottom half ( or more) of the public school class. They have in effect already pre-screened for honors kids.
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So you donât think Harvard Math 55 is offered to students with very different abilities in math?
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Students do have different abilities; however, the factors described in the document are interests, goals, and background.
Tthe placement test does not distinguish between the courses in the Math 18, 19, 21, 22, 25, 55 and AM 22 column. What a student placed in that column takes depends partly on the studentâs interests and partly on how much time the student wishes to spend on mathematics this year.
Math 25 differs from Math 22 by virtue of the work load in Mathematics 25 being significantly more than in Math 22; but then Mathematics 25 covers more material than Math 22. Note however that any course that asks for Math 25 as a prerequisite accepts Math 22 as well. Mathematics 55 differs from Mathematics 25 in that the former assumes a very strong proof oriented mathematics background.
Iâm not familiar with UCLA at all. I just know that the Ivies my kids attendedâand most of the schools they looked atâhad one level. But my point was that these HSs DO offer multiple levels and pathways in every subject, including English in 11th and 12th, and that if Harvard is a good model to follow in math, why not in writing?
In looking at the APs offered at Culver City HS and the various pathways, does it seem to you that they are leveling the entire curriculum? It doesnât to me, but maybe we disagree on that.
I live in a place where the public school is well rated, sends as good a ratio of kids to top schools as many privates, and which offers a ton of APâs. And still, some parents send their kids to private. You canât just look at the tracking or course offered. Some parents are reacting to class size, how easy it is to assure their kids get the classes they want them to, reputation of the teachers, guidance and college counselor individual attention, specific attrition data for colleges, specifics about their sports or extracurricular programs, or real or perceived safety, etc. So many personal reasons. For some diversity isnât a criteria, positive or negative (whether that should be true or not).
I know nothing about Culver City HS. Many years ago I lived there before I had kids, and the general perceptions was send your kids to private if you can afford to. Public schools in CA are usually severely resource constrained because a 1978 voter proposition changed the property tax laws (that fund schools) to no longer tie taxes to property values (they are tied to sale price, so if someone has lived in a house a long time, they are paying far lower taxes than their newer neighbors). Thereâs exceptional great public schools, but private was way more common in the greater LA and Bay Areas than where I live now where there are smaller districts and property taxes sync with property values (and are very high compared to the national average).
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Are you asking generally about the LA area, or just about these two schools/districts? Because neither of these schools are part of Los Angeles Unified, and both are tiny in comparison. To give you an idea, I think Culver City Unified is around 6000 kids while LAUSD is close to 600,000.
And neither are experiencing an exodus because of these new policies. Many families in CC and SM choose private for a variety of reasons that probably resemble reasons elsewhere. But I donât see the issue of no honors English in 9 and 10 moving the needle.
According to this Wikipedia page:
Many students dropped Math 55 after taking it:
BTW, the two high schools mentioned in the WSJ article also donât force students into one class or another. They have to make their own choices. That doesnât mean, however, theyâre all suitable for the honors class and will be able to finish it.
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Sure, some classes are super hard. I took a few notoriously difficult classes at Stanford and MIT that turned out to be beyond my abilities and I had to drop (although it was difficult to determine before taking the class whether it would be a fun hard class, or a âbeyond my abilitiesâ class).
However, your post actually emphasizes that this class is the exception, not the rule. It sounds like the vast majority of students enrolled in Harvard math classes are not taking this one particular class.
If you want to enrol in a proof based math class at Princeton (say 216) you go and talk to the prof. He judges your mathematical maturity before agreeing to let you in. It is not just up to the student to decide based on how much time she wants to spend. There are at least 4 tracks. You are encouraged to drop down to your level of comfort
Sorry, but I just had to laugh at this. First of all, the advisors discourage merely outstanding students from attempting Math 55. By merely outstanding, I am not talking about kids who got an A in Calc BC and 800 on the SAT Math section. I am instead talking about kids that may have been among the strongest math competition students in their home state, but donât show additional signs of math talent beyond that. Those kids are suggested to instead take Math 25, which is still extremely rigorous.
Thereâs a good reason for that. About half the students who attempt Math 55a (the first semester) drop after the first exam. This exam is actually harder than the remaining ones, as the first exam is in time for the struggling students to switch into Math 25, and the professor doesnât want any students remaining in the class to fail. But for the students that remain, itâs still over 30 hours per week.
I havenât suggested public charter schools as alternatives to public schools, because a) that isnât always a viable alternative for every student; and b) there arenât enough charter schools, private schools in the country to supplant public schools. So why not make the public schools better for more students so some of them wouldnât leave for charter schools or private schools?
Until when? 11th grade? Iâve asked the question upthread at least twice but havenât received any answer. Perhaps you can answer it. What if by 11th grade, the classes still arenât diverse enough? Do we eliminate the AP and honors courses all together then?
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Ok, so weâve established that Math 55 is a super hard class, suitable only for a few Harvard students. That still leaves a wide variety of multivariable calc classes at Harvard (Math 18, 19, 21, 22, 25, and AM 22) differentiated in terms of the studentâs interests (do they love abstract math?), goals (what major are they pursuing?), and desired workload.
Of course, the vast majority of students at most colleges are not going to need a course like Harvardâs Math 55. For the vast majority, wouldnât it be better to focus on interests, goals, level of preparation (advancement), and desired workload? That is what I am seeing in math tracks at most colleges.
A lot of those classes are differentiated by rigor. Not just 55. Not sure why you want to avoid that term. Kids start at a level that is appropriate to them. Itâs not like a class tailored to an anthropology major and another to a psychology major.
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The answer is that Harvardâs freshmen are likely much more uniform in their writing abilities than in their math abilities, unlike their counterparts at, say, UCLA, for example.
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I think the answer to that is pretty clearly no. The teachers feel they can prepare many kids who currently do opt for those classes as well as some who donât. Then kids can choose what is appropriate when they reach that point.
I donât have any problem with the term ârigorâ⊠I was simply using the term âworkloadâ because we were talking about Harvardâs materials and they use that term.
Although now that you mention it, I am not sure if ârigorâ is really specific enough. It seems to me that ârigorâ combines both workload, and something else one might call trickiness. Some classes have a high workload, but are highly learnable if you do the work. Other classes have high trickiness and require a lot of leaps of insight. There is probably a better word for this 
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So we put off the issue for two years if this still results in a less-than-diverse class. For what? Isnât there a cost to those students who would have been in the honors classes that they arenât being challenged sufficiently for those two years, and as a result, may fall behind (and perhaps even permanently) their peers at other schools, and not realize their full potentials?
Academia uses the term mathematical maturity for the level of student preparedness. And then for
the likes of 55 the most of the kids that survive the initial attrition need to put in 15-20 hours per class outside of the lecture every week for the hardest classes. Indeed most students find it comfortable to take the level of math that would require no more than 10-15 hours a week.
This is exactly what these two public schools are trying to do: Make the school better for more students. And so far as I am aware these schools arenât losing enrollment. Rather, people outside the districts are queuing to get in.
Sorry for not answering, I figured this was just rhetorical posturing, prematurely making up a fake issue because no real issue actually exists.
Anyway, I donât think theyâll do away with Honors and/or AP level English courses for 11th and 12th graders, and I donât think there is any reasonable justification for you to speculate that this is in the works. As @politeperson pointed out, these schools offer quite a few higher level courses and I knowing the communities they serve I donât think that will change.
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Thanks for your non-answer. The question is hypothetical but real and probable. I can understand why you choose not to answer it, though.
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