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To Increase Equity, School Districts Eliminate Honors Classes. Supporters say uniform classes create rigor for all students but critics say cuts hurt faster learners
Wall Street Journal ^ | February 17, 2023 | Sara Randazzo

Posted on 02/17/2023 10:54:30 AM PST by karpov

CULVER CITY, Calif.—A group of parents stepped to the lectern Tuesday night at a school board meeting in this middle-class, Los Angeles-area city to push back against a racial-equity initiative. The high school, they argued, should reinstate honors English classes that were eliminated because they didn’t enroll enough Black and Latino students.

The district earlier this school year replaced the honors classes at Culver City High School with uniform courses that officials say will ensure students of all races receive an equal, rigorous education.

These parents disagreed.

“We really feel equity means offering opportunities to students of diverse backgrounds, not taking away opportunities for advanced education and study,” Joanna Schaenman, a Culver City parent who helped spearhead the effort, said in the run-up to the meeting.

The parental pushback in Culver City mirrors resistance that has taken place in Wisconsin, Rhode Island and elsewhere in California over the last year in response to schools stripping away the honors designation on some high school classes.

School districts doing away with honors classes argue students who don’t take those classes from a young age start to see themselves in a different tier, and come to think they aren’t capable of enrolling in Advanced Placement classes that help with college admissions. Black and Latino students are underrepresented in AP enrollment in the majority of states, according to the Education Trust, a nonprofit that studies equity in education.

Since the start of this school year, freshmen and sophomores in Culver City have only been able to select one level of English class, known as College Prep, rather than the previous system in which anyone could opt into the honors class. School officials say the goal is to teach everyone with an equal level of rigor

(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Front Page News; US: California
KEYWORDS: arth; bellcurve; culvercity; education; equity; hateteaching; lausd; losangeles; softbigotry; teachingfail; woke
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To: Republican in occupied CA

“Isn’t DeSantis talking about eliminating AP classes in Florida?”

He talked about replacing College Board AP courses with something else. Wasn’t particularly clear about what something else. The College Board criticized his comments about the African American studies AP course. This was just his way of getting back at them.


21 posted on 02/17/2023 11:13:28 AM PST by JSM_Liberty
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To: Bobalu

That cartoon doesn’t work as well if you can’t see the name of the school.


22 posted on 02/17/2023 11:14:15 AM PST by JSM_Liberty
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To: Chad C. Mulligan

Vonnegut’s story was about envy. If he was alive now he would apply his story and its lessons to Equity, the mask which the spirit of envy wears today.


23 posted on 02/17/2023 11:17:07 AM PST by spirited irish ( )
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To: Republican in occupied CA

“Isn’t DeSantis talking about eliminating AP classes in Florida?”

A little information is a dangerous thing.

AP courses are presently controlled in the United States by The College Board which is the same cadre that planned to institute ramrodding the AP African American studies course DeSantis kabashed.

He is recommending that other programs could take the place of AP courses in the state. He mentioned the International Baccalaureate and Cambridge Assessment programs as alternatives to AP.

It’s helpful to know the whole story rather than a cherry picked snippet.


24 posted on 02/17/2023 11:21:04 AM PST by traderrob6
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To: karpov

When I was a kid in parochial schools, the teachers would give me extra work, just to keep me from being bored in the class. I worked at my own pace. I never changed classrooms or had a different teacher, but I was able to go faster than the class without making the other students uncomfortable. I never minded the extra work, because I was hungry for more than the regular curriculum in many subjects, particularly math and reading.

There was no need to separate me from the class, but I was happy that they saw fit to give me more advanced work.

The classrooms today could never get away with that, because there’s no discipline for the cut ups. The whole class suffers.


25 posted on 02/17/2023 11:21:36 AM PST by FamiliarFace (I got my own way of livin' But everything gets done With a southern accent Where I come from. TP)
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Comment #26 Removed by Moderator

To: FamiliarFace

When I was in fourth grade (1955) the teacher kept a shelf of more advanced books in the back of the schoolroom. Every kid could take them home to read them but few of them did. I raced through them and asked the teacher to replenish them and she was excited to find a voracious reader and kept me supplied with fresh titles. And the other kids didn’t notice a thing.


27 posted on 02/17/2023 11:41:26 AM PST by Colinsky
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To: Gnome1949

Public education is child abuse—no denying it any more.


28 posted on 02/17/2023 11:43:09 AM PST by cgbg (Claiming that laws and regs that limit “hate speech” stop freedom of speech is “hate speech”.)
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To: Colinsky

Exactly.


29 posted on 02/17/2023 11:47:34 AM PST by FamiliarFace (I got my own way of livin' But everything gets done With a southern accent Where I come from. TP)
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To: karpov

Liberal logic: The only way to make it fair to stupid kids is to hold back the smart ones.


30 posted on 02/17/2023 11:51:40 AM PST by bk1000 (Banned from Breitbart)
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To: karpov

The bright students will breeze through and become bored. However, the students who aren’t so bright will have trouble with learning the curriculum.

Not too worry, however, they will be passed to the next grade with acceptable grades in the name of equity regardless of their accomplishing the tasks. A win/win for everyone, eh? They will all get a diploma.

As this idea catches on we will see not so bright brain surgeons coming out of med school.


31 posted on 02/17/2023 11:56:00 AM PST by wildbill (The older I get, the less the term 'life in prison" scares me)
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To: Chad C. Mulligan
You're thinking of Harrison Bergeron

https://www.tnellen.com/cybereng/harrison.html

32 posted on 02/17/2023 11:56:29 AM PST by TomEd (Her şey hazır! Buyrun, şölene!)
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To: karpov

Stop complaining about the “free” education.

Your neighbors are paying for it.

If you don’t like it, pay for your children’s education yourselves.

Many homeschoolers are excelling on their own without ever stepping into a school.

I know self-taught homeschoolers who killed it on the SAT and graduated college with honors.


33 posted on 02/17/2023 12:09:45 PM PST by Tired of Taxes
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To: bert

Inequality of Ambition.

Blacks are constantly conditioned that being ambitious is a “White” thing.


34 posted on 02/17/2023 12:11:34 PM PST by dfwgator (Endut! Hoch Hech!)
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To: karpov

My tagline sums this up


35 posted on 02/17/2023 12:12:03 PM PST by Gil4 (And the trees are all kept equal by hatchet, ax and saw)
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To: karpov

Get your kids out of Libby schools


36 posted on 02/17/2023 12:20:40 PM PST by inchworm (al )
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To: karpov
I believe I am living in the "Twilight Zone" where equity had advanced to the point that Ballerinas all had to compete at the "Acceptable Weight"... It required those who were thin and agile to wear weights on their arms and legs in order to achieve "Equity".

Rod Serling was definitely a visionary..., unfortunately (among other authors of Dystopian Works during the 20th Century!).

37 posted on 02/17/2023 12:42:53 PM PST by ExSES (the "bottomhttps://youtu.be/ycrqXJYf1SU-line")
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To: FamiliarFace

You had great teachers. I wish I had. I got REALLY bored really fast, and became a straight ‘C’ student because I lost interest VERY early due to the lack of challenge. My computer programming teacher was the only one to do what was right. She said she saw my gift, and thought the best thing she could do was to just get out of my way.


38 posted on 02/17/2023 12:55:38 PM PST by FrankRizzo890
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To: karpov
“We really feel equity means offering opportunities to students of diverse backgrounds, not taking away opportunities for advanced education and study,” Joanna Schaenman,

Well Joanna, it doesn't matter what you "feel" the word means. Equity is equal outcomes. What you described is "equality," which is equal opportunities.

Your communist masters were never interested in equal opportunity. When they said "equity," they meant "equity," and not whatever you dreamed up in la la land with your mistaken feelings.

It's not fair your little brat might be smarter than some 15 year old hoodrat with a preschooler's command of the English language. They want all the serfs to be the same. If the actual truth really were told, your commie masters actual want everyone to be equal. They want the hoodrat crowd to be more equal than you.

Perhaps, when it came time to vote, you should've used reason and logic, and looked into what was meant, rather than your relying on your feelings, d!ps4!t.

39 posted on 02/17/2023 12:57:07 PM PST by Repeat Offender (While the wicked stand confounded, call me with Thy saints surrounded.)
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To: karpov

Okay, leftists…what is it? Diversity or Equity? You are all morons! 🙄


40 posted on 02/17/2023 1:05:23 PM PST by DennisR (Look around - God gives countless clues that He does, indeed, exist.)
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