I’m still a little annoyed that they quoted me without asking or warning me it was running; I suppose as an elected official in a public meeting, there’s no journalistic requirement that they do so, but I do sometimes speak ‘off the cuff’ in those meetings, not from prepared notes, and it’d be nice to have the option of editing my words into something more coherent.
But that said, I stand behind what I said. I don’t know if detracking will actually help solve the equity issues we’re facing in schooling, but I am convinced it’s worth trying, and I’m looking forward to seeing the results of the data a few years in.
The article isn’t terrible, but I want to note that the headline is inaccurate / misleading, at least for our school. We implemented an ‘honors-for-all’ curriculum for freshman year, which is not the same as cutting honors classes — it’s closer to the opposite, giving all students access to the honors materials and opportunity to succeed with it (the honors materials are also often more interesting and engaging than the standard curriculum.)
(You will need to register for a free account with an e-mail to read the article.)
“Before science teacher Rachel Richards’s Silicon Valley high school eliminated honors classes in her department, teaching the non-honors courses meant you were in for a year of behavioral problems, she recalled.
Now, students from across achievement levels are taught together, and Richards has noticed the teenagers try harder and pay more attention to lessons. “You’re not considered uncool anymore for taking a class seriously,” she said.
Menlo-Atherton High School, where Richards has worked for a decade, is among a number of high schools nationwide that are trying to reduce racial segregation on campuses by eliminating two-tiered systems of honors and regular classes, primarily during freshman year….”
…
“In the Chicago suburb of Oak Park, Ill., the local high school is analyzing the first year of a revamped curriculum that enrolls almost all ninth-graders in honors classes for English, science, history and world languages. Those who test below grade level are placed instead in catch-up courses.
Oak Park and River Forest High School officials pitched “honors-for-all” to the community for three years before implementing it. “I’m not willing to have my children succeed if it means they have to step on Black kids to do so,” Mary Anne Mohanraj, a board member for the high school, said in October 2021 before voting in favor, calling it a moral choice…”