Eliminate high school honors classes to increase diversity?

For the most part, freshmen of all races and socioeconomic and achievement backgrounds would learn together in the same freshman humanities class, an English course that blends literature, history, art, music and philosophy and is required for graduation. The class would be taught at the honors level, according to district officials, and all students would have the opportunity to earn honors credit depending on their grades on assignments

Evanston is considering the boldest step of all: eliminating an elite honors English course that has traditionally been offered to the highest-achieving incoming freshmen — usually white.

The solution: eliminate the honors courses and place those students in the "average" classes. Is that the right approach?

Would eliminating the honors classes have a negative impact on those enrolled in them? By preventing them from enrolling in certain colleges/universities? If so, I would be against it.

Evanston grads will be competing for college spots with students from other districts who did have honors courses

They aren't talking about eliminating the class, they're talking about making it open to everyone who passed the state's 8th grade test:

"But its own data show that few minority students make it into the school's most rigorous courses that will best prepare them for college and the future."

If everyone cannot benefit equally... no one should.

I am not surprised to read the sarcastic comments of those who would defend the bastions of the white, Protestant ascendancy.

then show how they have been unfairly advantaged in the entry requirement

A study of math scores on the 1992 National Assessment of Educational Progress found that the combination of four variables unrelated to instruction (number of parents living at home, parents’ educational background, type of community [e.g., “disadvantaged urban,” “extreme rural”], and state poverty rate) explained a whopping 89 percent of the differences in state scores. In fact, one of those variables, the number of students who had one parent living at home, accounted for 71 percent of the variance all by itself. See Glen E. Robinson and David P. Brandon, NAEP Test Scores: Should They Be Used to Compare and Rank State Educational Quality? (Arlington, Va.: Educational Research Service, 1994). The same pattern holds within states. In Massachusetts, five factors explained 90 percent of the variance in scores on the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS) exam, leading a researcher to conclude that students’ performance “has almost everything to do with parental socioeconomic backgrounds and less to do with teachers, curricula, or what the children learned in the classroom. ” See Kevin J. Clancy, “Making More Sense of MCAS Scores,” Boston Globe, 24 April 2000, p. A19. Another study looked just at the poverty level in each of 593 districts in Ohio and found a .80 correlation with 1997 scores on that state’s proficiency test, meaning that this measure alone explained nearly two-thirds of the differences in test results. See Randy L. Hoover, “Forces and Factors Affecting Ohio Proficiency Test Performance,” available at http://cc.ysu.edu/~rlhoover/OPT. Even a quick look at the grades given to Florida schools under that state’s new rating system found that “no school where less than 10% of the students qualify for free lunch scored below a C, and no school where more than 80% of the students qualify scored above a C.” See Jodi Wilgoren, “Florida’s Vouchers a Spur to Two Schools Left Behind,” New York Times, 14 March 2000, p. A18. Then there is the SAT, which, far from being a measure of merit (sometimes pointedly contrasted with affirmative action criteria), is largely a measure of family income. Break down the test takers by income, measured in $10,000 increments, and without exception the scores rise with each jump in parents’ earnings. See “1999 College Bound Seniors’ Test Scores: SAT,” FairTest Examiner, Fall 1999, p. 13; the information is also available at www.collegeboard.org.

The solution: eliminate the honors courses and place those students in the "average" classes. Is that the right approach?

students qualify for free lunch scored below a C, and no school where more than 80% of the students qualify scored above a C.” See Jodi Wilgoren, “Florida’s Vouchers a Spur to Two Schools Left Behind,” New York Times, 14 March 2000, p. A18. Then there is the SAT, which, far from being a measure of merit (sometimes pointedly contrasted with affirmative action criteria), is largely a measure of family income. Break down the test takers by income, measured in $10,000 increments, and without exception the scores rise with each jump in parents’ earnings