Unless we give up the goal to bring out the best in each kid so s/he can reach, and hopefully exceed, her/his potential, and the society (and all humanity) can collectively benefit from her/his individual talent, differentiated teaching/learning would seem to be a necessity.
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I do find that turn of events ironic (ETA the above research paper is quite fascinating, thanks for posting). However, I agree with the concept of an âarms raceâ of APs and I worry about the mental health of kids who overload with these classes. The different philosophy was an appealing thing about this particular school and why we chose it for our kids, and I know we are privileged to have had that choice. They both attended public schools K-8 but I was concerned about what a high school experience laden with APs would be like at our local public HS. It seemed like less learning for learningâs sake and more like box-ticking because thatâs just whatâs expected.
D21 is now a sophomore at Stanford; she had to take a math placement exam and a Spanish placement exam before freshman year, since she didnât have AP classes or scores to show. She was able to place out of calculus and the one year of language requirement, despite not taking an official âAPâ class in high school.
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I think that plan works really well at Stanford but may not work so well at UCLA or USC. Donât students at many schools register by supposed class year, so that those coming in with 10 APs and thus sophomore standing, register first? It did at one of my kidâs schools. Room draw, too, was based on class standing, which could be affected by APs.
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Apparently not, since 2015. Maybe not the case at other large public institutions, I really have no idea.
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Insane. Completely counterproductive.
I LOVE the way my public school district handles placement into âhonorsâ (they actually call it something else that does not convey a value judgment). Students are placed in different levels starting in 7th grade. How do you get into the highest level? Get a final grade of A in the class. Thatâs it. Not an A-minus. A solid A in 6th grade math gets you into âhonorsâ in 7th grade. A final grade of A in 7th grade, gets you into honors in that subject in 8th. The reasoning is that it is not based on aptitude; itâs based on achievement and is completely in the hands of the student. And I can tell you, they are very strict about it. No amount of parental influence can get the B-plus student into honors. That is made very clear from the start. In my experience, it works great.
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No. My kid is at UCLA and despite having a ton of credits via AP (some got him out of requirements or pre-reqs, some just count as elective credit), those HS AP credits donât give you standing to register earlier. I think that might be different with DE credits. Not with AP.
The city publics in my area get more funding per pupil than the suburban schools.
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Registration priority is not necessarily higher class standing by credits first. Sometimes, class level by number of semesters attended since entry is used (with transfers being counted based on their transfer level). Sometimes, undeclared students with lower class level are given priority for entry and lower level classes so that they will not be delayed if they choose a major needing them. Students in declared majors often have priority for classes in their majors.
Yes, registration can be done many different ways. At one of my kidâs colleges, APs mattered, much to my surprise. Another something to investigate before deciding whether to skip that last AP exam
Same here, Baltimore City gets slightly more funding per pupil than Baltimore County for the past two years, if I am not mistaken, and about the same in the previous years.
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In theory I agree that those resources should be provided by teachers/schools. In practice, very difficult. Wife is a retired educator. Tons of friends are retired or current educators. They just donât have time and arenât paid enough to do that. Thatâs reality. MOst of them work really hard and deal with all kinds of crap they shouldnât have to. The solution describes a situation that puts almost all of the requirement on the teacher. They would say, where are the parents? Of course in your example the parent is working two jobs, but what about the ones that arenât? Why arenât they âtutoringâ their own kid? Why is that kid aloud to play sports, do other activities, watch TV, play video games when they havenât done/donât know how to do their homework?
Iâm not taking sides. This is the reality. Both schools and parents (and the students themselves) need to be more accountable. Many (most) teachers would tell you todayâs parent expects the teacher/school to take over many responsibilities that belong in the home. These teachers have their own kids so they swim in both pools. Anecdotally, when our kids were in school and had challenges with particular subjects, we got involved and helped them with writing, math, etc. Didnât do it for them, but helped them think through the process. Wasnât fun AT ALL for any of us, but we put the time in. I actually met with Dâs HS math teacher and he told me about online resources I could use to help her study, get more reps, etc. Made a big difference. He could have been available for 30 minutes after school, but she wasnât so our agreement was âif you want to continue with that EC, this is what weâre going to do 3 nights per week until you understand the conceptsâ. I hated that, but we put in the time and she became competent in the subject.
Very difficult situation to solve because it involves doing the work.
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Indeed.
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Of course spending per student will increase if enrollment decreases, and this article doesnât show the detail to understand how much total spending has increased at the featured school districts.
The information on performance though is just sad, and likely explains some of the decline in student numbers. Obviously spending per student will continue to increase as long as people who can/have other options continue to leave these districts
CPS performance has declined as well, according to the 2021 Illinois Report Card . Only 26% of juniors could read or practice math at grade-level. According to a report by Ted Dabrowski and John Klingner from Wirepoints, only 11% of Black students and 17% of Hispanic students were reading on grade level in 2021.
According to the New York State Education Department , only 44% of students were proficient in reading in 2019. While the NYC Department of Education maintains that scores rose in 2021, only 21.6% of students were tested at all during the pandemic.
For D.C. students , only 31% of students were at grade level in reading, and 22% in math.
Only 41.7% of LAUSD students were reading at grade level, while only 28.5% were on grade level in math.
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I guess Iâm a little slow and donât see what is so âobviousâ. If the student population declines significantly, why would not the school budget not decline overtime as well? (adjusted for inflation, and with a time lag, to close unneeded schools)
LA Unified had well over 700k students in the mid-90âs. It now has 430k, and is projected to decline to 300k in the next 10 years. Yet, LAUSD approved a record budget in total $.
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Maybe the spending has declined in total (yet cost per student could have still increased), thatâs my point, thereâs not enough data presented in the article to understand whatâs happening. No trends, no total spending numbers over a number of years, etc. etc.
Big picture, many school system costs donât decrease when the number of students decreases, and if they do it can take years for that to happen. Itâs difficult (at least in Chicago) to close schools, lay off teachers, etc.
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I worked at a huge college & a very small college. Some costs donât decrease when student population decreases. In a k-12 situation, the challenge post-Covid is to make up the learning gaps to the extent possible & deal with the mental health issues that were exacerbated with the pandemic.
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From the data above, it appears many schools/students were performing poorly years before the pandemic as well. Hence the importance of honors classes for the small subset of kids performing well there.
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agree with your points. And yes, school budgets are political (so we canât go down that path in this thread.). But just bcos its difficult to make budgetary decisions in a declining market (to close schools for example), doesnât mean that a school district can claim they are under-funded as an excuse for poor performance (or as some on this thread seem to infer).
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No, what Texas does is looks at schools that are performing well and rather than using that school as the standard that other schools should try to achieve, they take money away from that school and use it to fund sports and other after school programs at other schools.
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I wonât buy the WSJ article, but I have read a few other sources on this issue and I think there is quite a lot of misinformation/misunderstanding being floated here.
I think the âHonorsâ classes that were discontinued were only 9th and 10th grade English. College Prep English is still offered, as are AP options for 11th and 12th graders. The feeder middle schools donât offer Honors English, so no one is being knocked off âtrack.â Also, the eliminated courses were not weighted in the UC or CS calculations.
For comparison, the local private schools (even the most rigorous ones) donât offer Honors English in 9th and 10th grade either, so fleeing to the privates probably wonât accomplish much in this regard.
As is often the case with these culture war issues, this faux-outrage, or perhaps much ado about very little. Or rich parents donât want their kids in the same class with poor kids.
Also, as an aside, it seems like a lot of parents here donât place much value on their kids learning to work well with others who might be differently skilled or situated. That seems like a skill that might come in handy after in life.
ETA: Was meant to be a reply to the whole thread, not a particular poster.
Also, neither district involved is L.A. Unified.
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