Eliminate high school honors classes to increase diversity?

@hawkeye10,

Hawk,

The difference I'm measuring is academic and through classroom participation. You can't really fake that. But, still appreciative of you sharing your views with me.

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@BillRM,

Hello BillRM,

Interesting thoughts you've shared with us. A couple points in particular struck me.

You wrote:

I am new to this thread but I would like to express a concern of locking out non-honor students from taking advance classes if they would care to do so....My ranking in those subjects ["mathematics and hard sciences"] was never below third place and often first and yet overall I was a B student or so....In any case, one of the very great joys for me at the time was beating the hell out of the honor students in those subjects. Even pre-high school kids sometimes possess special abilities in only one aspect of learning and I see little used of locking such out of the advance classes.

Congratulations. I certainly agree with all that. At my high school, about a decade ago, overall GPA had nothing to do with who got into what classes in a particular subject area. I'm sorry if any idiots held you back in Math because, let's say, you couldn't speak French as well as other people, for example. Fortunately, I don't think that happens as often these days (although I haven't taught high school in multiple places, so I'm probably not the best judge of the matter on this thread).

You wrote:

The answers were either right or wrong and the approach was either correct or wrong. Only once was my grade effected by my not being a teacher pet... If memory serve me correctly I had apply Laplace transformation to the problem instead of the method he had taught us to use.

Math teachers need to single out creative answers like that as accomplishments rather than failures. Imagine if John Forbes Nash's professors had marked him wrong every time he answered a math problem unconventionally. Nash most likely would have failed every class. (I'm assuming, of course, that you weren't given explicit instructions to finish the problem in a particular way...)

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I think there is a certain lack of perspective among some of the protestors here.

When I was in high school, there was no such thing as labeling a class Advanced Placement, but, I took what was essentially Advanced Placement biology. We called it Biology II. When I went to college, the same text was used for the introductory Bio class. I asked to be excused from it, and requested that I take a different class. I was denied permission.

Jimmy Buffet, the chief Parrot Head, is my age. When he was in college at a public university in Mississippi, he declared a double major: history and journalism. However, he was playing at a local bar, which is how he paid his tuition. He thought that composing would be easier if he could take music theory. He tried to register for the class, but was denied entry. Music classes were for music majors.

Students who want to learn have been denied access to classes throughout history.

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@Oylok,

Quote:

Nash most likely would have failed every class. (I'm assuming, of course, that you weren't given explicit instructions to finish the problem in a particular way...)

No the instruction was to show all the steps in solving the test problems but not to take any given path or apply any given method in doing so.

I assume he was just not aware that anyone knew in that class of any other method for solving that problem then the one he had given us so the subject of using other methods did not come up.

Having just been shown the power of Laplace Transformations in an electronic course, I was looking at all problems with an eye to see if his method could be applied.

When a problem on the math test just happen to lend itself to a fast and very easy solution using Laplace and specially in comparison to the approach we had been taught I jump on it without giving it a moment consideration.

All this was many many decades ago yet I find I am still annoy over the matter.

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@plainoldme,

Quote:

I think there is a certain lack of perspective among some of the protestors here.

When I was in high school, there was no such thing as labeling a class Advanced Placement, but, I took what was essentially Advanced Placement biology. We called it Biology II.

when I was in HS what is now accomplished with AP classes was done with tracking. If a person was on the college track they took different math/science/ history classes than did the people where were tracked general or Vo-Tech. Those classes geared for the college track were more rigorous than for the other two tracks, yet all satisfied the state requirement. The bash on tracking was that it was unfair to fence kids out of the opportunity to get into the university (though there was always the out that a general or vo-tech student could go to community college for two years and thus earn back the right to get into a university). There was a huge stink about tracking, so it was ended, and to some extent replaced with the AP system. The difference today is that universities have a lot more seats to fill, and they care less generally about academic achievement during HS than they once did. But still to be seriously considered for the top tier schools at least some AP work is a requirement unless the student is a member of some in vogue minority group (that being a group that is underachieving in academics but for which the university has a quota for when composing their student body...Men, blacks, inner city kids are examples of such).

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@BillRM,

BillRM wrote:

The instruction was to show all the steps in solving the test problems but not to take any given path or apply any given method in doing so....Having just been shown the power of Laplace Transformations in an electronic course, I was looking at all problems with an eye to see if his method could be applied.

Well, in that case, congratulations again, Bill. Coming up with original uses for old tools in Mathematics is one thing that leads to new discoveries. Whenever I tossed my college professors a "curve ball", they usually rewarded me. On two occasions they read my proofs in front of the class. Mathematics is a great subject for creativity, even if "artsy types" do look askance at me when I say it...

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@hawkeye10,

I would say from reading this that the school system your kids attend is ordered differently than the schools in Massachusetts, or that your kids are in elementary school now which means you have no idea what high school curricula look like today.

There is no AP system.

Advanced placement classes are an additional layer of classes, reserved for seniors (and a few particularly bright juniors, some of whom then graduate after three years rather than four) that are taught at the college level.

Generally, in New England, vocational schools are separate from high schools. While today's vocation student may indeed be admitted to college, from my experience teaching (brief as it was) in a suburban Boston high school, sending a child to vocation schools approximates a prison sentence.

There is no general curriculum. Classes are tracked, perhaps more highly than when you were in school (I have assumed that you are in your 40s. Is that right?). In larger schools, the levels are College Prep I and II, with College Prep II taking the place of the general curriculum; followed by two more tiers above the CP levels, Advanced (generally reserved for freshmen classes and usually limited to English) and Honors (available in all departments, for grades 9 through 12).

In other words, students in CPII are more likely to have "ed plans," that is to be special needs students or kids with behavior problems. Frankly, all the teachers at the school where I worked hated the fact that many sweet kids who worked hard but simply weren't bright were subjected to classes filled with kids who were constant disruptions.

I moved 100 miles from Boston in the fall of 2007 and worked briefly as a substitute teacher in a rural system. After I appeared once, I was scheduled anywhere from three to five days a week, which was a financial boon. The rankings were not as marked and there were fewer layers in this small school than there were in the suburban high schools. However, the range from SPED to AP still existed, only on a smaller scale.

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@plainoldme,

Quote:

I would say from reading this that the school system your kids attend is ordered differently than the schools in Massachusetts, or that your kids are in elementary school now which means you have no idea what high school curricula look like today

I was speaking of my experience during the 1970's in Illinois. I have on other places spoke of my kids experience manly in Washington but also California and Arizona, which has been much different but also much the same, for while tracking is no longer used the AP system is now used to highlight the kids who are expected to excel in college.

I have a serious problem with any system of structure and record keeping in HS that does not separate out the kids who should go to the top colleges and the ones who should not go to college at all because they dont have the academic chops to do the work.

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@hawkeye10,

Quote:

I have a serious problem with any system of structure and record keeping in HS that does not separate out the kids who should go to the top colleges and the ones who should not go to college at all because they dont have the academic chops to do the work.

Huh?

That's what they do. The College Prep II business is a sop.

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@plainoldme,

Quote:

That's what they do

and anyone who wants to get rid of honors classes needs to lay out a credible plan for how high schools will continue to sift out the kids who should not go to college. We have already decided that the high stakes SAT/ACT testing program needs to have less importance than it has of late, which puts even more pressure on the HS to do the work. When Lash says she wants to end honors classes and she as a teacher is all about opening doors rather than closing them then I have serious concerns about the ability of high schools to complete their functions if we were to do what Lash wants to do.

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@hawkeye10,

Quote:

I have a serious problem with any system of structure and record keeping in HS that does not separate out the kids who should go to the top colleges and the ones who should not go to college at all because they dont have the academic chops to do the work.

Hawkeye you have normal selection that will take care of the problem as students as the students without either the interest or the ability to handle advance courses for the most part are not going to sign up for them in the first place. In fact in my days they went far out of their ways not to sign up for such courses.

Most such courses require that you had passed successfully earlier courses such as Algebra one before Algebra 2 and Algebra 2 before trig and trig before calculus.

There is no reason to lock out a math wiz from advance math courses because his GPA in such subjects as history or English or whatever is only so/so.

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@hawkeye10,

Don't kids naturally sift themselves?

Not all honors students go on to college. Some because they can't afford it and others because they don't want to.

Some kids who were high school honors students don't do well in college simply because there isn't someone always patting them on the head telling them how wonderful they are.

Bill makes an excellent point. Some kids are incredibly smart but their school records don't reflect it. Maybe they're the ones that are really bored by school.

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@boomerang,

Quote:

Some kids are incredibly smart but their school records don't reflect it. Maybe they're the ones that are really bored by school.

and since they made the choice to not apply themselves and play the game in HS they might just do the same thing in College, or in their career. Even brilliant slackers might be a bad bet when allocating our education dollars. Intelligence is only one piece of the puzzle of success. HS tests and records more than aptitude, and must continue to do so.

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The approach I would favor is to open honors/AP classes up to all students with voluntary sign-ups. I belive my son's high school offers AP classes up to all who sign up for them provided you have met normal prerequisites (e.g. Trig before Calc). I think eliminating honors courses or teaching all courses at the honors level is misguided. Regardless of whether it is because of opportunity, home life, inate ability or student attitude, not all students are equally prepared to excel in advanced classes. I don't support denying better prepared students an opportunity to excel because others aren't as prepared nor do I support insisting that they stay behind to help their less prepared peers. The students' job is to apply themselves and excel to the best of their capability. The system's job is to teach and allow the opportunity for students to excel. I do think that any student willing to put in the work to master the material have access to more challenging classes. A student should be able to place themselves in an honors class regardless of test scores or "tracking". That said, a student with less preparation should understand that the climb will be higher than for those with more preparation going in. I also think that students with less preparation should not be forced into more advanced classes based on a social theory that says that everyone can perform at an honors level. There are many reasons why some students come in less prepared than others, but placing a student where he has a lot of stress and a low probability of success doesn't seem to be a viable teaching strategy. There is a difference between the "soft bigotry of low expectations" and setting reasonable goals for achivement.

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@engineer,

Quote:

The approach I would favor is to open honors/AP classes up to all students with voluntary sign-ups

That only works if you and the school staff are willing to wash kids out, tell them point blank that they are not good enough no matter how hard they try to do the work, by the handing out of failing grades, most likely a lot of them...

Is this realistic given the current culture in the schools? I think certainly not.

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@hawkeye10,

All classes should be honors classes, because all our children are above average.

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@roger,

Quote:

All classes should be honors classes, because all our children are above average

Exactly, and exactly why Engineer's idea is a bad one...

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@hawkeye10,

Hawkeye if I had been lock out of advance classes in science or mathematic I might had gone into overdrive to get my GPA in others subjects up to the level needed to pass through that gate you would like to see set up or I might had given up .

Society would had lost one electrical engineer with a thirty-three years career behind me if the lock out had happen and I do not think that society would had been better off as a result.

But that is just my opinion.

Quote:

brilliant slackers might be a bad bet when allocating our education dollars

I do not think also that the term either brilliant or slacker apply to me.

I was reading books on prime number theory before high school and I read every science book Asimov wrote and did things for fun such as figuring out the mass of the sun given the orbit of the earth. Wiring transformers and playing with firing iron nails across the room using magnetic coils, capacitors, toy train transformers and a stepping relay I had picked up on radio row in New York City.

This was my idea of play not work. I was driven by my interests not my great intellect and all in all I think society benefit by allow a GPA student of 3 or so in other subjects to take those courses and go on to an engineering degree.

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@BillRM,

Quote:

This was my idea of play not work. I was driven by my interests not my great intellect and all in all I think society benefit by allow a GPA student of 3 or so in other subjects to take those courses and go on to an engineering degree.

I was a EE at Michigan State so I know as well as you do that the rules for entrance into the School of Engineering are somewhat different than for the other schools. This will never change.

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@hawkeye10,

hawkeye10 wrote:

That only works if you and the school staff are willing to wash kids out, tell them point blank that they are not good enough no matter how hard they try to do the work, by the handing out of failing grades, most likely a lot of them...

Is this realistic given the current culture in the schools? I think certainly not.

I think the number of students signing up for classes over their heads would be very few. I think the reverse usually happens: good students need to be encouraged to take on the harder course load. I do have one anecdote where one girl was placed in the equivalant of AP English by her parents. She didn't apply herself and was dismissed. Her parents got pretty irritated (at the school, not at their daughter) but she didn't get back in.

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Eliminate high school honors classes to increase diversity?

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