Reforms to Ease Students’ Stress Divide a New Jersey School District

[PragmaticMom]

My interest is piqued by the “divide” being identified along racial lines. This divide was economic, not long ago. When I was in high school in the 80’s, AP courses were often the public school answer to the prep school challenge. It was assumed kids who could afford prep school tuition were also the ones who could pay for private tutors, private music lessons, private coaches. AP classes gave public school students exposure to the rigor accessible only to affluent prep school students - a way to level the field when it came to prepping for college.

Not everyone can keep up with the Jones’ private tutors and summer enhancement programs. There will never be a level playing field in that respect. But AP classes at public schools should be accessible to everyone who wants in. Is there proof that schools are discriminating against white kids and limiting white enrollment in AP classes?

That the playing field is tilted toward hard-working, single-minded students with ambitious parents is an odd argument to make given the historical inequalities and lack of accessibility in American education.

If those over-stressed students were affluent and white, rather than affluent and asian, would we be singing the same tune? The focus on accelerated math is curious – why is there not a similar uproar about AP Lang or AP U.S. History?

[garland]

^Because no one cares about those subjects–they’re not STEM-y enough. No one gets rich on those. /sarcasm-sort of

[MaterS]

English and language arts are too subjective. Can you imagine the parent response if the special snowflake isn’t placed in the advanced class?. At least with math you can take a test to determine competency.

There are students who should be given more challenging material in several subjects.

I believe students should be learning and not just memorizing facts to get an “A” for the course.

[mathyone]

It’s also less of a waste of time to take a below-level English or history class. You can always learn more history, especially with the enormous amount of material covered in those survey courses, and you probably haven’t read all the books in the particular English class you are in. Maybe your essay is way better than the rest of the classes but that pales in comparison with cranking out 30 math problems you already knew how to do.

[GMTplus7]

@TheGFG wrote

But what happens down the road if we allow advancement with no limits? Are taxpayers now going to be responsible for paying for these extensively tutored children to attend college while in high school then? Because that was what was happening in our town. When the kids maxed out of the high school’s offerings in math, science, and sometimes foreign language, our district was paying top dollar for students to take classes at the over $60,000/year college nearby. Now, instead, we are paying high salaries to PhD’s to teach math that is 4 levels above AP Calc BC. Where will it end?

The school district should have said NO. It should have set a REASONABLE stretch curriculum and left it at that.

[garland]

^^The anti-humanities bias gets more and more palpable.

[PickOne1]

It’s a waste of time to retake pre-algebra many times until all the kids in the class can get it (and many never do). 30 math problems 2 years below you would take about 10 minutes. So, I am not sure if I mind the wasted time doing easy problems, it is more that many kids can and SHOULD take calculus in high school. Skilled math students can start thinking in math terms which opens up physics and other math based ideas to them.

It’s a waste of time to not learn critical reading, thinking and writing skills because you are in a silly social studies class with everyone all mixed together. You can teach college level english classes with high level reading assignments and discussion periods in high school, or you can drone on about basic grammer rules and read collections of insipid short stories. You can understand history in perspective and say co-go-po comparitive government and politics, or you can memorize facts … You need teachers who will grade essays to college level, which probably will be difficult if some of them are barely able to write a legible sentence at all.

Science classes can either be the beginning of a love affair with science and nature or a meaningless drone.

I think there is certainly a place for high level education for 15-18 year olds that we want to be the future politicians, scientists, journalists, historians, mathematicians, hey even app developers. If we have to hire some PhDs to teach in high school, hey, I hear there are some out there, and if you put them in a classroom with really smart high schoolers and pay them say 70K a year with summers off, I think you may have something there. The issue is that no one wants to pay a teacher 70K because we think they all should be graduates of schools with 500-500-500 SATs and earn 50K (numbers made up here).

Most kids will not need tutoring if they really should be taking 12 AP classes in high school … but some people want to make their snowflake even more special and will pay lots of people to help (and in fairness, if english is not your first language or if you haven’t taken anything beyond college algebra … .a tutor probably is necessary if snowflake hits any obstacle in their path …).

Maybe this is an issue with school choice … let people chose to go to say TJ or to go to a very good traditional high school or a tiger-mom AP factory or maybe an arts program.

NJ has a unique town-based education system (most states run their schools on a county level) so maybe some of this is being pushed by concentrations of affluence, ambition, even ethnic differences … good and bad.

I don’t think memorizing facts would get you a 5 on any of the harder AP tests. If memorizing facts is the basis of an AP class, I think scores will be very disappointing.

Stupid homework is stupid … but math problem sets are easy if you are good at math … essays are quicker to write if you write a lot and learn to organize your thoughts … reading is easier if you learn to read quickly and critically … etc.

[PickOne1]

Separate comment - do people from these kind of school districts really fare poorly in college apps or is this just paranoia that leads to crazy pressure on kids ? Take into account that only 5-20% get into the elite colleges that everyone seems to aspire to (I think there are likely 100 of the 150 Rutgers people who are happy to go there and get a good education at in-state prices).

In other words, if you are say on the second highest track, no summer school, no tutors, but get good grades, get a 1350 on your SATs with one cheap prep class and some self study … are you going to have to go to some poor school … or are you just not going to Harvard with 95% of its applicants from perfectly sane schools all over the country, some of whom have taken 12 APs …

[Cardinal_Fang]

If a student can’t take the most rigorous curriculum offered by their school because the school has unstated prerequisites that are not offered as school year classes, then that student will suffer in admissions compared to equally able students from other districts that don’t have unfair prerequisites.

[garland]

I’ll answer anecdotally–we didn’t have these insane tracks at our school, yet my kid, with no summer school, no tutors, but good grades and 1510 SAT (M and V, another 750 on SAT 2 Writing, all with no prep or self study) went to Columbia, and somehow held his own with those pumped up students from the 12+ AP towns.

[Periwinkle]

The focus on accelerated math is curious – why is there not a similar uproar about AP Lang or AP U.S. History?

Because those subjects require essays which draw upon hours of reading books without adult supervision? The hothouse version of parenting does not leave children free time to play in the park, let alone sit down with a book. The humanities courses draw upon years of self-instruction through leisure reading.

If you look at the score distributions for the 2015 AP exams, you’ll see that less than 10% of students earn 5s on APUSH, AP Lit, AP World History. In comparison, 45.9% of students who took AP Calculus BC earned a 5, and 21.8% of test takers earned a 5 on AP Calculus AB.

https://secure-media.collegeboard.org/digitalServices/pdf/research/2015/Student-Score-Distributions-2015.pdf

That aligns with the common theory that it’s nearly impossible (or at least really hard) to raise the verbal portion of the SAT. To do well on the SAT verbal portion, you have to read. That takes lots of time.

http://www.stevechapple.com/in-search-of-the-2400-sat-score.html

These days, ambitious kids study so intensely they have little time to read for pleasure. A major theme for Summa is teaching comprehension, irony, point of view, just plain reading. Math can be taught, but reading must be read. Longitudinal studies show that adults score worse on the math component of the SAT over the decades but better on reading, presumably because they’ve had time to do a lot more of it than most bright 17-year-olds.

[garland]

yup. I teach composition in a NJ state university. Student writing and reading comprehension are getting shakier and shakier; I keep hearing “I like math better.” It’s harder to cram for how to write a more thoughtful essay–all the algorithms go out the window there.

[Periwinkle]

@MaterS,

Then they need a better test. 442 students are not at the same ability level. The dual track method really doesn’t work well for math. It holds the brightest students back. Math should be taught on three or four levels.

It’s possible through diligent out-of-school prep to make an average kid appear to be a superstar. The students who score at an advanced level on the same test, but haven’t been taking extra classes on the side would seem to be just as smart, if not smarter than those who’re doing extra lessons in early elementary school.

Setting up classes for the top third, the middle third and the bottom third would mean…three levels. However, the practicality would vary by state. Many states limit tracking in elementary school, due to tracking’s controversial history.

[NJSue]

@TurnerT, my D went to one of the Monmouth County magnets for your so-called “snowflakes.” Our home district school is middling fine and among the better ones in the county with a lot of resources and AP classes available (not Keyport, Monmouth Regional, Asbury etc.), but has two things we don’t like: sports worship and a lot of drug use among the bottom half of the class (marijuana and heroin). We were satisfied with the magnet school experience, which really didn’t sound like what is going on in Holmdel/West Windsor (few APs are offered in the magnets, for example, and the student support each other instead of being cutthroat).

[Moominmama58]

My first thought after reading the article was, have those over zealous STEM parents seen this?

http://mitadmissions.org/apply/process/match

Because it doesn’t sound like they understand what it says.

“We are emphatically not looking for a batch of identical perfect climbers; we are looking for a richly varied team of capable people who will support, surprise and inspire each other.”

Getting a handful of kids into MIT every year is really good, but then we don’t know how many of these WWP kids applied and were rejected. Maybe the odds were in their favor (i.e. all of them, so 8% got in.) ;))

Anyway, hundreds of the kids MIT also accepts in a year come from public schools that are in the normal range and since they have something like a 92% graduation rate, their prep must have been adequate. Its only one example, but my son went to a good but 70% URM school, never went to summer school, only took a handful of AP classes, and yet he’s doing great and loves it there. I don’t think I could have stood the WWP rat race, so kudos to GFG for fighting for her kids to get into the classes they needed and deserved. I hope the changes brings some sanity to her school district.

[EarlVanDorn]

@austinmsshauri

I wouldn’t assume colleges will take all those AP credits. If they count toward the credits needed for the student’s high school diploma, some colleges won’t accept them.

The money districts are spending on AP courses should first be spent on providing an appropriate education to their special ed students. Whatever remains could go toward providing free college courses for other students. However, their first duty is to provide an appropriate high school education to all their high school students. I’m not convinced that’s happening in most districts.

@austinmshauri It generally costs nothing extra to teach an AP or other advanced course. A teacher is a teacher, whether they are teaching remedial math or astrophysics. My son is taking five AP classes, and most of them have 20-25 students. There simply is no extra expense. Yet the article says students are going to be prevented from taking AP exams purely to limit their educational opportunity.

There is a huge misconception that massive sums of money are being spent teaching the gifted and talented. In a few instances, yes, by having relatively small classes of third- and fourth-year German, for example. But the amount spent on the brightest students is a small fraction of what is spent on slow-learners.

@“Cardinal Fang” At my son’s school some kids (including my son) have taken some math courses over the summer to advance a year. For example, my son is in BC Calc as a junior instead of as a senior. I assume he will take AP Statistics next year, or perhaps a college course. But there are no secret prerequisites to the courses, and everyone is on an equal footing.

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If a school is able to field a professional-level orchestra then they ought to do so, and have a junior varsity orchestra for students who aren’t quite as adept. My son’s best friend is a near-professional-level cellist, and he doesn’t play in the school orchestra simply because there is nothing there for him. I think it would be wonderful if he could be grouped with 10 or 30 kids of equal talent, but that possibility just doesn’t exist in our community. In other words, the “right to squeak” should apply to beginning musicians only, who shouldn’t be placed in the same group or orchestra with proficient ones.

[EarlVanDorn]

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[snarlatron]

In a thread that threatens to never end, I really appreciate @Moominmama58 's MIT link. Parents everywhere need to be reminded that self-focused, one-dimensional students do not get great LORs nor are universities that eager to stock their classes with them.

[3girls3cats]

I want to love and not just like @“Cardinal Fang’s” and @MamaBear16’s posts. I didn’t read in either one of them a suggestion that APs be eliminated or lessened or that academic challenge was an evil notion. What I am reading is a warning that the one upmanship and strategizing to be ahead of one’s peers is dangerous to the health of these kids.

For that matter, I have to say, if a kid is so gifted and desperately bored in school, wouldn’t studying the subject over the summer that’s going to be part of the regular curriculum in the fall be a recipe for even greater boredom? I think it’s done to secure the almighty A and not to stay engaged. Increasingly, as others here have stated and restated, other kids find themselves sucked into it not to be ahead but simply to keep up with the pace of the class. Why not spend the summer doing something entirely different? Weaving or working on a farm or studying something completely off the curriculum?

[Pizzagirl]

"If you are neither a “tiger” parent (any background willing to hire tutors, tutor them yourself, or spend all summer in summer school … or have the student who can take a dozen APs without really being stressed out), then skip the rat race and head off to a 51-100 USNWR school of your choice. "

Oh spare me. Plenty of us have kids who got into elite schools and we were neither “tiger” parents who hired tutors nor did the kids need to take a dozen APs. The elite schools don’t WANT only these uber-prepped and stressed kids, but their supposedly smart parents haven’t figured that out.