What a complete joke. Why don’t we just outlaw excellence and the pursuit of it?
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My sons’ school does not offer honors courses and limits the number of AP courses a student can take. Students are required to take the AP exams to receive credit for AP courses. The school covers the cost of the exams.
Students may petition to self-study AP courses not offered by the school. The school requires the students/families to cover all fees for those exams.
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Both of my kids went to a private school. Their school didn’t have honors. They taught every class at a fairly high level. As an example, they only offered one geometry and calculus class. No water down geometry class or higher level geometry class. A ninth grader could take the calculus class if he/she is capable of doing the work. D1 had an 8th grader in her calculus class when she was a junior.
The school offered few AP courses, like AP US history, because their history class was not tailored for AP exam.
I think public schools can do the same - not to offer honors, but allow students to take classes at the level they are capable of.
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I don’t get riled up about much going on in schools, but this would definitely get me going. Our K-5 schools had crappy honors/gifted. We almost skipped D19 ahead. 6-8 it was pretty solid. We had about 200 kids per grade. 40-50 were in the honors.
In HS we have about 3900 kids. My kids went to school for the most part with 100-125 kids per grade. Those are the kids taking honors and AP. Our HS has about every possible AP class. A friend refers to regular classes as gen pop. My kids were serious in HS. They wanted to get as many college credits as they could so they could double major in college. Both have been pretty darn successful. D19 only had to take like 1-2 GenEd classes in college. D23 appears to be on the same track. D23 is hoping to never have to take another science or math class again.
My kids didn’t go to school with the entire population. Also some kids get bullied for taking Honors/AP but others.
HS is not the time to make it perfectly equal. Don’t get me wrong I am all for serious time and money being spent to help all kids in grades K-5. That is when you can make a big difference.
Yes, my D’s public school sounds a but like this. And same on lack of APs - they don’t want teachers teaching to the test, but rather developing their own curriculum based on high standards and what they as professionals deem important and relevant to the subject, which also adds opportunities to cover materials beyond the scope of the College Board curriculum/test.
They also limit the number of APs a student is allowed to take - no APs before 11th grade, then a maximum of 3 per year (out of a selection of around 15 total).
I have heard that a number of private schools are moving away from APs entirely. And of course the top boarding schools tend to not offer APs, as I understand. So I think there are other ways of ensuring rigor and excellence that don’t involve the College Board. But of course not every district has the capacity to do this - and therein lies the real problem, in my opinion.
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Disagree. The class can only move as fast and deep as the lowest common denominator.
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The why is the million dollar question so to speak - and I suspect the HOW to fix is really difficult which is why they are going down this route, b/c it’s “easier”. So standard lazy problem solving.
There are probably a number of reasons, but the I think the main reason is lack of a support network/infrastructure for kids at a young age. Whether it’s working poor parents with no time or knowledge to help with homework. Some kids have to babysit their siblings. Lack of nutrition. And so on… it’s harder when you’re poor. It’s harder when your parents don’t have the same education. It’s harder when the reward systems aren’t geared towards academic excellence… and so on.
The solution is probably pretty close to what your other story about the Bhutan refugee family illustrates. A large community effort to provide the support network/infrastructure to every student.
Easier said than done.
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Our HS not only makes it mandatory to take the exams, but to pay for them the second week of school or else get removed from the class. If you don’t want to pay you are not allowed in the class. The HS does offer a lot of AP classes, but you need the teacher and guidance counselor to approve it.
That’s misleading. Well-resourced private schools can offer many more courses with rigor often exceeding AP-level courses. For example, Exeter offers 450+ courses (and no AP courses), some of which far exceed AP-level courses in similar subjects:
Few public schools, if any, have such resources.
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That seems nuts to me - and very inequitable.
The point isn’t to offer MORE courses, it’s to offer better courses. It’s about quality, not quantity, imo. But I do agree that there are many public schools which do not have the funding or teaching capacity to raise the bar very high for the core classes.
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Exactly—in our area I think it’s mainly privates who have moved away from honors/AP classes. And our HS like yours (maybe not quite to the same degree as yours) doesn’t really do H classes except in math. Your D was just accepted early to Cal, so I’m confident schools can learn to crack that admissions nut when they need to. Glad our school offers APs but I’m not stepping on the outrage treadmill about this just yet.
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Agree. My son’s private offers all honors and no AP, yet he was able to take advantage of its excellent Russian curriculum starting in middle school, which had helped him to stand out when applying to college.
Edit: I don’t think Russian is offered at our local publics.
It was a pretty recent change, when my youngest 2 started high school. When my oldest started 11th, the HS eliminated honors classes if there was an AP option, my oldest had to drop down to regular English because it was her weakest subject. We didn’t have to pay in advance, but I assume I would’ve received a refund since college board didn’t need to be paid yet. My middle took 9 AP classes and several DE where you had to pay in order to receive college credit. Fortunately she graduated college in 3 years so the $ was worth it. My youngest took 3 AP classes and didn’t even bother to study for the exams.
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Resources aren’t just about numbers. They’re also about quality. Few public schools, other than a few premier magnet schools like TJ in VA, have the resources to offer higher quality courses. Moreover, if they have academically uneven student bodies (which most of them do), they would also have to offer MORE courses at different levels to meet the needs of all their students.
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Did it make sense for there to be three tracks (regular, honors, AP) instead of two tracks (regular, honors = AP if AP exists for the subject) in this type of situation?
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Again, I said to allow students to take classes they are capable of. The school should teach every class at the level it is supposed to be at. If you can’t read, you shouldn’t be in a Literature class.
This is an issue in our school district as well. I am really surprised, given the number of parents who are attorneys, that the policies regarding AP classes have not been challenged.
The way it works in our district, if you take an AP class, you must take the exam. Some districts with this policy pay for the student’s exam - I could be on board with that. Our district does not pay - the student (or their parents) must pay.
If you do not take the exam, the course will not be reflected as an AP course on your transcript, even though you did all of the same work as the other kids in the class who did take the exam.
I am not an attorney, but this does not sound legal to me. I have asked some attorney parents, and they think this is not legal.
While most families in the district can afford to pay, it still makes an impact on family finances. Middle kid took 10 APs at about $90/each, youngest took 6 APs, eldest took 5 APs, but before the policy was in place.
However, eliminating Honors or APs is not the answer. Middle kid took that many APs because she needed to take whatever course was the most rigorous offered. There are kids who need the Honors and AP classes. Sometimes they are bored even in Honors - imagine how bored they will be if the only class is something less than Honors.
Our local public school system has eliminated all gifted programs and grades from elementary through middle school. 8th graders are no longer allowed to take Algebra. All in the name of equity.
Our kids are in Catholic school.
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When D first started high school I felt a bit of the outrage when I saw how few honors/AP classes were offered. I was really concerned about rigor both for the sake of learning itself and for the purposes of college admissions. Over time, however, I have seen the advantages of the school’s strategy and frankly I am super glad we never had to scramble to take 15 or 20 APs or whatever is currently considered “competitive.” In the end, the overall rigor at her school is perfectly fine: she was adequately challenged in most classes and gained a solid high school education. I don’t see any obvious gaps in her knowledge. And, as you mentioned, it all worked out in terms of college admissions. She was not penalized for lack of honors/APs (although, in fairness, she did take several DE classes over summers).
So in terms of this article, I am not terribly bothered by it. I have seen how it plays out at our school and am fine with the results.
But - and the big but - is the acknowledgment that our district is relatively well funded and I do have concerns that less well funded districts would be able to enact the same strategy and get the same results.
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