Are schools eliminating honors level work and classes; or are they raising the bar for all students? There has been a flurry of news articles about school districts doing away with honors classes, especially those offered to 9th and 10th grade students as they begin their high school career. One of the most recent being in The Wall Street Journal: To Increase Equity School Districts Eliminate Honors Classes. There is also a flurry of parents expressing their concern on parent forums and neighborhood chats, including on the Nextdoor thread that keeps my neighborhood talking.
Despite school districts and even news organizations reporting that the effort is to ensure that all students achieve at a high level, many parents see it as a ‘dumbing down’ of instruction for their children. However, educators and students frequently verify the effort is to raise expectations for all students to achieve at a high level rather than reducing what our children are expected to know and be able to do. However, some also report that it is difficult to help all students achieve at high levels and so some students just slip by and/or the educators just cannot reach all students. We must not let this happen.
The vast majority of the schools and districts being reported as ‘eliminating honors,’ are in fact working to eliminate the tracking of students in remedial or basic classes versus honor or advanced classes. Tracking of students results in some students being expected to learn or master less. An examination of state educational standards reveals that all states in our country expect all students (standards are the bare minimum that students are to master) to master analytical and critical thinking skills, problem solving skills, reading and understanding complex text in a variety of disciplines and to write clear and persuasive or technical documents. Or in other words, what has traditionally been taught in an honors class is what all students are expected to know and be able to do.
Lower-level classes which do not ensure our students master these skills, but rather allow them to graduate with an education that does not prepare them for college and/or career, results in life long damage to the individual student and to our society and economy as a whole. Such high school diplomas are worthless. Schools and districts, striving for excellence, are attempting to rework the system to ensure that all students are provided a rigorous education.
However, there is more to this than just eliminating remedial or basic level classes. These schools and districts must also ensure that the educators working in these schools and classrooms have the skills needed to provide the additional support that some students will need to master these rigorous standards. The expectations must be high for all students. Educators must be equipped with instructional strategies that enable them to support gifted students, students learning English as a second language, students with disabilities, and students grappling with the extra burdens of a life lived in poverty. Meeting the needs of a wide range of students is not an easy task. Teaching so that all students master and/or exceed rigorous standards is indeed ‘rocket science’ as they say. It takes highly skilled educators to make it happen. Districts must provide the support educators need to continuously develop their skills for meeting a wide range of student needs.
As I wrote in With Equity There Are No Lessor Scholars, schools that practice equity realize that our systems, often intended to support students with additional needs, are instead systems that perpetuate the marginalization of many of our children. Equity schools do not allow a child’s circumstances to determine what type of education they get. Rather these schools do whatever it takes to ensure all students master rigorous academic standards so that they graduate high school with a wide range of future opportunities available to them.
These schools teach all students to read grade level text and above. They use the science of reading and instructional practices proven to ensure all students learn to read at high levels. They teach all students to think and reason mathematically rather than using rote algorithms. They teach students to use their mathematically knowledge to address real life problems. They are constantly and explicitly teaching their students to read, reason, write, and think as scholars in the various content literacies such as chemistry, biology, economics, history, performing arts, visual arts, technology and so many more. The students in these schools know that their teachers have high expectations for them and will support them in achieving them.
On top of all this hard work, schools and districts also need to show parents that regardless of what the class is called, that their child is mastering and/or exceeding rigorous standards. Their child is performing at a high level. They are on track to graduate high school college and/or career ready. This will not totally alleviate the concerns of parents who evaluate their child’s education through the lens of meritocracy. However, for parents who can focus the evaluation of their child’s education through their individual child’s demonstrated abilities to engage in higher level thinking and rigorous content, they will rest assured their child is being equipped for success in college and/or career and then some.
This blog is written by Dr. GwenCarol Holmes, a long-time educator and passionate advocate for all students mastering rigorous standards.