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Sounds really interesting and I am learning a lot, so thank you again!
With the competitive spirit I have noticed among parents, I can only imagine the drama, the anxiety, the suspicious attitudes, the hypocrisy and Lord Knows what else...that happen "behind the scenes" when children are placed in various classes. Overall, I find this spirit terribly sad, unhealthy and alienating...but this is the world we seem to live in.
We are not there yet but trying to remain objective to the whole thing, I can clearly see how this can become 90% about parental status and ego.
HOWEVER, one thing I don't understand well yet is whether these placements in "regular" vs. "advanced" classes, etc. concretely impact the student's future in terms of admission to college, etc.
In other words, would they have a "resume/CV" effect on the long-term trajectory of the student?
If it was just a question of staying in a regular class to master really well whatever the student needs to master, and at a slower pace, then I would not think twice about my child being in a regular class. This would be more than fine as long as I'd know the end result is the same - only achieved at a slower pace.
HOWEVER, if FAILING to be in AP classes would mean that certain colleges can reject him in the future simply because he learned his things at a slower pace, in a regular track - then I can see how I would end up having a problem with it and how anxiety would kick in about teachers' subjectivity in picking students for AP classes.
Growing up, you could have been the most horrific student you could choose to be, k-12; but in the end, if you pushed really hard towards the end of high-school and passed your exams for admission into University, nobody could have cared less about your "glory days" in k-12. There was no resume effect. Just admission exams - harsh, real, completely anonymous. No non-sense.
However, I sense that the k-12 trajectory in the US can leaves indelible marks on the child's "resume" which can affect admission into college. Am I correct about this?
If this is so, than I believe the whole thing is serious business and I can see why some parents would freak out, well beyond ego, about their child NOT being picked for AP classes.
Any clarification in this sense would be appreciated.
Colleges here look at first, college placement tests (ACT/SAT-most colleges accept one or the other), your transcript and the difficulty of your coursework, your activities/involvement, then GPA/class rank. If you get a perfect score on your college placement test, you are going to get into any college you want, for example.
I think the issue you see here on this board, other boards or in real life is that too many parents "prep" their kids to ONLY go to Ivy League schools and don't really consider that there are a LOT of other really, really good schools out there and for most careers getting a Harvard degree is really not going to have any more pull then getting a degree from a good local college.
In our kids' school they have to apply at the end of 8th grade to be in the honors/AP track in 9th grade. Most kids are "eligible" but not all. They have to write an essay and get teacher recommendations. I think it is more to see which kids are motivated to do this vs really a 'selection' process. Some kids take all honors/AP, some take a few, some take none.
In our schools kids can take AP classes as early as 9th grade with special permission-the REALLY smart kids do. In 10th grade there are 3 AP classes available and most of the top kids take those (or the kids that take AP in 9th grade usually are taking a full load of AP in 10th and beyond). In 11th-12th grade the top kids pretty much take all AP or College in the School/PESO classes, which are college level classes that earn college credits and high school credits. Some kids take a mix of these courses, some take none at all. We have an 96% rate of kids graduating from our district going on to 4 year colleges and not all of them have taken a full load of AP classes.
Quote:
Originally Posted by bigcats
Haha, except Algebra I is now REQUIRED before high school. And it is every middle school math teacher's job to make sure 100% of those students meet that standard. No "not ready" excuses allowed! Those teachers MUST BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE!
I know of no school that requires Algebra I in middle school-many offer it to advanced students but none require it. Also, I had Algebra I back when I was in middle school (junior high). It isn't any different now.
Quote:
Originally Posted by syracusa
How does a child "end up" on such tracks? What exactly do they have to do early in school, how should they perform, in order to end up studying Math, English, History, ALL main Sciences (Chemistry, Biology, Physics) and a couple of Foreign Languages, at in-depth levels? That is all I would care about.
The reason why I am asking is because it is still not clear to me what my role should be as a parent.
I am a firm believer in covering a CORE curriculum, that is studying classical subjects, with classical methods and covering them at in-depth levels, not just cursory.
I certainly don't know what my children's major in college will be, but I do know they will have to go all the way through graduate school, come H or High water. As such I would expect them to go on the Math track all the way to the end, but would also expect them to do serious English, Science, Foreign Languages and Latin.
I didn't select any of the above - they were selected for me - and I had never even had a talent/knack for Math; at times, I even hated it but my parents expected me to go through with it and I did.
With Math, the problems were often at International Olympics level. The prep for the admission exam into University was a bit of a nightmare but I survived.
What I am trying to say is that this "self-selection" method, left completely up to the student, seems a bit dangerous to me as I would expect many students normally put off by Math to not even think about trying a Math track simply because it comes across as "not for them".
I can almost imagine my son selecting himself out of such challenging topics if left to his own devices simply because they are ...well...hard.
Too hard. My question would be: so what?
In elementary school parents have very little say in which class placement their kids are in. Kids are placed in classes based on past performance in school, standardized test scores and teacher recommendations. They also have to balance out classes with boys/girls, ability levels, separating trouble makers, etc. This is almost always done with their current teachers and the next year's teachers. Some schools allow you to request a teaching type, but not a specific teacher, some school don't allow any requests.
I know you are concerned about your son's education but given that he hasn't even started school yet, you are really putting the cart before the horse. It's good that you are getting information but a lot of this will also be learned along the way-just like we all did. The key really is to get him into a good district with good schools and they will guide you along the way.
Your role as a parent should be to make sure he gets enough sleep, make sure he does his homework, teaching good study habits at home, attending parent/teacher conferences and answering questions he may have along the way. When you start micromanaging his school career, HE never learns to take ownership of his education. If he doesn't do his homework one night, let him take the consequences at school the next day (don't do it for him like SOME parents do), for example. If you make education a priority, he will do well.
That sounds nice and I think that episodes like the one you described can break the tediousness inherent in studying and just give kids their moment of fun.
At the same time, I am deeply convinced that no real studying of any subject can happen without going through tedious, judicious, line-by-line abstract mental effort. For all of its good intentions, I am afraid that such "new" educational methods emphasize entertainment, fun, excitability and short-cuts way more than they should, to the point where students end up expecting all learning to be fun, attractive and easy; and if it's not, the teacher had better come up with some methods to make it this way.
In reality, studying is often NOT fun and NOT fluffly.
It is painstaking; and this is something today's children no longer know how to accept.
Just because something is fun, that doesn't mean it is fluffy (I assume you mean lacking in substantive academic value). The assignment that was described by another poster was not fluffy. It taught actual academic and critical thinking skills. Learning does not have to be boring.
Kids learn more by doing something and talking about it than they do by just looking at a piece of paper. Remember, we are talking about third graders (8 year olds) not juniors in high school (16 year olds).
Even in high school there are "hands on" learning experiences (science labs, mock courts, debates, etc.) It's not JUST because these activities provide a break from the book learning, but some subjects really need a person to experience something to learn it.
You cannot learn a foreign language simply by studying it. You need to be provided opportunities to actually speak that language in an everyday setting. That's why foreign language teachers frequently use games and require all dialogue to be in the foreign language. Just sitting around conjugating verbs is informative but you will never learn to speak that language unless you actually take some time to speak it.
By the time the kids have gotten to high school the hands on learning is usually accompanied by a written report (lab reports) or oral presentation. That's not necessary for 8 year olds.
I know of no school that requires Algebra I in middle school-many offer it to advanced students but none require it. Also, I had Algebra I back when I was in middle school (junior high). It isn't any different now.
The State Board of Education in California mandated that 8th graders take the Algebra I CST test in 8th grade. This means, of course, that they need to have taken that class.
Where I was wrong, I see now that I'm reading up on it, is that a lawsuit was filed and an injunction against requiring this was granted. Which the SBE is trying to have appealed. For now, it is blocked.
Whatever happens with it, the fact is that there is an expectation by the SBE that students should have Algebra I under their belt before high school. As some of the SBE wrote in a letter, "Anything less than Algebra I should not be considered grade-level proficient at eighth grade."
And with the climate towards teachers being what it is nowadays, it means that a teacher who does not have his/her students there by the end of 8th grade is ineffective, lazy, bad.
I had Algebra I in middle school too. That doesn't mean it is appropriate for every student.
Colleges here look at first, college placement tests (ACT/SAT-most colleges accept one or the other), your transcript and the difficulty of your coursework, your activities/involvement, then GPA/class rank. If you get a perfect score on your college placement test, you are going to get into any college you want, for example.
I think the issue you see here on this board, other boards or in real life is that too many parents "prep" their kids to ONLY go to Ivy League schools and don't really consider that there are a LOT of other really, really good schools out there and for most careers getting a Harvard degree is really not going to have any more pull then getting a degree from a good local college.
In our kids' school they have to apply at the end of 8th grade to be in the honors/AP track in 9th grade. Most kids are "eligible" but not all. They have to write an essay and get teacher recommendations. I think it is more to see which kids are motivated to do this vs really a 'selection' process. Some kids take all honors/AP, some take a few, some take none.
In our schools kids can take AP classes as early as 9th grade with special permission-the REALLY smart kids do. In 10th grade there are 3 AP classes available and most of the top kids take those (or the kids that take AP in 9th grade usually are taking a full load of AP in 10th and beyond). In 11th-12th grade the top kids pretty much take all AP or College in the School/PESO classes, which are college level classes that earn college credits and high school credits. Some kids take a mix of these courses, some take none at all. We have an 96% rate of kids graduating from our district going on to 4 year colleges and not all of them have taken a full load of AP classes.
I know of no school that requires Algebra I in middle school-many offer it to advanced students but none require it. Also, I had Algebra I back when I was in middle school (junior high). It isn't any different now.
In elementary school parents have very little say in which class placement their kids are in. Kids are placed in classes based on past performance in school, standardized test scores and teacher recommendations. They also have to balance out classes with boys/girls, ability levels, separating trouble makers, etc. This is almost always done with their current teachers and the next year's teachers. Some schools allow you to request a teaching type, but not a specific teacher, some school don't allow any requests.
I know you are concerned about your son's education but given that he hasn't even started school yet, you are really putting the cart before the horse. It's good that you are getting information but a lot of this will also be learned along the way-just like we all did. The key really is to get him into a good district with good schools and they will guide you along the way.
Your role as a parent should be to make sure he gets enough sleep, make sure he does his homework, teaching good study habits at home, attending parent/teacher conferences and answering questions he may have along the way. When you start micromanaging his school career, HE never learns to take ownership of his education. If he doesn't do his homework one night, let him take the consequences at school the next day (don't do it for him like SOME parents do), for example. If you make education a priority, he will do well.
Our school systems are very similar to what is above. When I too was in high school the AP test was available to a handful of 9th graders. If we did well on those tests when we reached the higher grades, instead of taking the AP classes we took classes affiliated with the local college for some of the subjects. Students could accept this challenge if offered but it was up to the school to decide who was eligible.
My own children are in elementary school(first and third) They are both in classes with children of mixed abilities but they are pulled into groups to match their ability level and work is dispensed accordingly. My kids do have color coded notebooks and folders for each subject. And horror of horrors lunch money is sent in with them each Monday for the week. They even have ice cream day where they have to pay with their money themselves.
I agree -- fun doesn't mean not difficult or not intellectually stimulating. Obviously that's a philosophical difference, but these days many schools do try to make learning interesting; you may have to work hard to avoid those schools, while simultaneously discovering that many of the most academically-oriented students (and parents) are actually fighting to get their children INTO those schools. The idea is to get kids excited, thinking in creative ways, and engaged in figuring things out; they learn to like learning, not just to follow rote directions. It's an opportunity to make the book learning relevant, and to go above and beyond the basics. They're not designed just to be fluffy breaks from the "real" learning.
I've met many a college professor who has complained in recent years that the students are increasingly less able to think for themselves, and more likely to want explicit directions for things: if you want a successful, high-flying college student down the road you do NOT want them to either find education unpleasant or to have been conditioned to expect to get everything from a textbook. The academic drones may do well, but they're not going to make it to the very top.
Last edited by uptown_urbanist; 10-05-2010 at 08:23 AM..
How does a child "end up" on such tracks? What exactly do they have to do early in school, how should they perform, in order to end up studying Math, English, History, ALL main Sciences (Chemistry, Biology, Physics) and a couple of Foreign Languages, at in-depth levels? That is all I would care about.
High school graduation requirements in my state (which is similar to others) have students studying:
4 years each of Math, English
3 years Science (2 must be labs)
3 years Social Studies (more than just history)
1 credit Fine/Applied Arts
1 credit Physical Education
8 credits electives
PLUS they have to pass the state tests.
This is the bare minimum to graduate. Students who intend to go to college are encouraged to take 3 years of the same foreign language. They MUST have 2 years of a foreign language to be admitted to the state universities here.
Students who intend to go to college should also take Math through Algebra II and have Biology, Chemistry and Physics which may require an extra year of science depending on the school's requirements.
Most high schools have guidance departments to advise the kids of these requirements. There is usually a presentation for parents at the beginning of the school year to communicate these requirements to the parents.
Quote:
Originally Posted by syracusa
I certainly don't know what my children's major in college will be, but I do know they will have to go all the way through graduate school, come H or High water. As such I would expect them to go on the Math track all the way to the end, but would also expect them to do serious English, Science, Foreign Languages and Latin.
You cannot require your kids to go to college or graduate school. Once they are 18 they can do as they please. Of course you can encourage them by making it clear that you want them to do these things but you really cannot require it of them.
Some schools offer Latin. If my kids school offered it I would definitely encourage them to take it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by syracusa
I didn't select any of the above - they were selected for me - and I had never even had a talent/knack for Math; at times, I even hated it but my parents expected me to go through with it and I did.
With Math, the problems were often at International Olympics level. The prep for the admission exam into University was a bit of a nightmare but I survived.
What I am trying to say is that this "self-selection" method, left completely up to the student, seems a bit dangerous to me as I would expect many students normally put off by Math to not even think about trying a Math track simply because it comes across as "not for them".
I can almost imagine my son selecting himself out of such challenging topics if left to his own devices simply because they are ...well...hard.
Too hard. My question would be: so what?
My experience is that although students are allowed some input into their course selections they are not really allowed to "self select". They may be able to choose between an honors level and a regular level if they are recommended for honor but parents have lots of input, teachers have lots of input. Plus requirements are such that they cannot select that many classes on their own.
As you can see kids are allowed 8 academic electives. If they are college bound they use 3 of them for foreign language classes. If they want their transcripts to be strong they will take some academic electives. Academic electives my kids have chosen include Business Law, Constitutional Law, Percussion Ensemble, Science Fiction. Not all self selected classes are easy. Kids are advised to take electives that interest them, but not all of them are easy classes. My oldest is learning how to write legal briefs.
Even though kids can self select a few classes they are not allowed to self select everything. In our school kids are placed via teacher recommendation. Kids are encouraged to take the hardest classes they are recommended to take.
In some cases kids opt to take an easier level because their schedules can get out of hand. My son opted to take 2 AP classes this year instead of 3. He took the Honors level because with his level of involvement in school/community service 3 AP classes is to much. In that case it was fine for him to self select himself down in one class. He is not as good in English as in History and Science.
Given his interest in the military academies athletics and leadership are as important for him as academics. Each child is different. If you would have told me that my son was going to be interested in a career in the military when he was 5 I would have thought you were crazy. Yet here I sit making appointments to discuss the application process to the Naval Academy with the high school guidance counselor.
Just encourage your kids to learn and pay attention to their strengths and weaknesses. Be there for them. Help them learn how to learn. Everything else will shake itself out.
We are talking about two separate systems: one based on grades and one based on tests.
In the US, a GPA really is the average of every class a student takes. Everything means everything, including, PE and electives. If you take a class that is beyond your capacity, or that requires more work than you're willing do, it will be disastrous for your GPA. If you get a C- or a D in a class, nothing can ever change it. Colleges will see it. In most schools you can't take a pass-fail course "just for the exposure" the way you can in college. I suppose this has the effect of discouraging some people from taking very difficult classes.
In a system that is based on tests, there is no penalty for taking a very difficult class. You may get something out of it and it will likely help with the big exam.
The advantage of the GPA system is that it's based on a long, slow slog through dozens of classes and hundreds of small tests over 4 years. The danger of a system that relies on one huge test (like in Japan) is that if you blow it, your academic career is over.
In reading the replies (didn't read all of them) it looks like you still don't have a good answer to how the children get tracked initially...My daughter is in Middle school now so we're in the middle of it all, and looking ahead to high school.
Initially in early elementary school (and I am only speaking of how things were done here in NC, not sure how other districts do it), individual students will be pulled out for further testing based on end of year standardized test scores and/or teacher recommendations--sometimes a student who doesn't test well on standardized tests is still noted to have "potential" and will be tested further with IQ testing to evaluate for gifted programming. (same would hold true for special education placement as well, if problems were noted).
Those students who test high enough (each district has slightly different qualifications--a certain number on an IQ test combined with other things, like grades, teacher recommendations etc) will be "tracked" to gifted programming for math, reading or both.
At this point my daughter has stayed on the "gifted" (called AIG) track for both reading and math. ONLY the students on this track will be eligible for taking Algebra in 8th grade, before HS, and even then they must pass 7th grade with a certain grade in math, along with high enough end of grade testing scores, teacher recommendation etc, to be able to take Algebra for 8th grade.
The tracking carries on into HS by the levels of classes they'll be eligible to take, "college prep" "regular" and "basic" are the 3 main ones, there is a level below and above (would be AP but only at the Jr and Sr years in HS), basically the majority of students would be taking "regular" classes (again, this is how it's done in my county, all I'm familiar with, though I imagine many places are similar), with smaller percentages taking the higher and lower classes. Grades here are weighted....an "A" in a regular class is worth 4 pts, but an "A" in a college prep class is worth 5 and an AP class it would be worth 6 pts...so a Grade point average which could only be a 4.0 as a high when I went to school can now be much higher...and that is something that a college would look at for admissions. It gives incentive to take the higher level classes.
Right now my daughter sees some friends in the "easier" regular classes getting straight As with a lot less homework, where she's struggling to get her A's and B's, with no difference in how it appears to others. I've told her how things will be differently weighted in High school and she's encouraged that at least in 2 yrs she'll get some more visible credit for taking the harder classes. Not that she has a choice as I won't allow her to drop them, she can do them just fine!
Haha, except Algebra I is now REQUIRED before high school. And it is every middle school math teacher's job to make sure 100% of those students meet that standard. No "not ready" excuses allowed! Those teachers MUST BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE!
Oh, good grief. Algebra I is NOT required in middle school in any of the schools I know about. You must be in California where the governor insisted on that. It's not true in Texas at least. It is required for preAP students, I think, but not all kids are in that category.
OTOH, my ds took Algebra I in 7th grade and Honors geometry at the high school in 8th grade and there were other kids who were taking these subjects in 6th grade and taking Algebra II by 8th grade.
Oh, good grief. Algebra I is NOT required in middle school in any of the schools I know about. You must be in California where the governor insisted on that. It's not true in Texas at least. It is required for preAP students, I think, but not all kids are in that category.
OTOH, my ds took Algebra I in 7th grade and Honors geometry at the high school in 8th grade and there were other kids who were taking these subjects in 6th grade and taking Algebra II by 8th grade.
Yep. I was in high school when they started saying that everyone had to take Algebra by 8th grade. It was horrible for a lot of kids. They had to make it so that you could take take Algebra as a two year course if you weren't going to be able to pass it in one year. Now many school districts have both those options.
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