Alg 1 vs Honors Alg

[Anonymous]

What is the difference in the levels?

[Anonymous]

which school?

Honestly, the "honors" designation is not really honors. It's a way to inflate grades for lower performers, and to also not make those kids feel bad.

FWIW, I had kids in "honors" Alg.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:which school?

Honestly, the "honors" designation is not really honors. It's a way to inflate grades for lower performers, and to also not make those kids feel bad.

FWIW, I had kids in "honors" Alg.

That is certainly true for ELA and social studies, where there is an honors for all model, but I don’t think that’s the case for math and science.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:which school?

Honestly, the "honors" designation is not really honors. It's a way to inflate grades for lower performers, and to also not make those kids feel bad.

FWIW, I had kids in "honors" Alg.

Why would the school matter? Isn't it the same curriculum taught throughout the county?

[Anonymous]

At my kids' school there's only Honors Algebra (I and II) and Honors Geometry. There's also Advanced English and Global Humanities, which are supposed to be more in-depth than regular English and regular Social Studies.

I also have a senior in high school - take it from me. Honors is the new regular, and AP is the new Honors. Regular is remedial. Never place your kids in regular classes unless there's only that choice. If they're struggling in Honors, hire a tutor. If they're doing well, go AP.

This is from a college admissions perspective, but also, basic requirements of general culture and rigor.

[Anonymous]

I thought MCPS only offered regular algebra 1 (which can be taken as early as 6th grade). Honors appears to start with Geometry.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I thought MCPS only offered regular algebra 1 (which can be taken as early as 6th grade). Honors appears to start with Geometry.

Op here---I just found the course bulletin for 22-23 and you are correct. There is no Alg 1 Honors.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:At my kids' school there's only Honors Algebra (I and II) and Honors Geometry. There's also Advanced English and Global Humanities, which are supposed to be more in-depth than regular English and regular Social Studies.

I also have a senior in high school - take it from me. Honors is the new regular, and AP is the new Honors. Regular is remedial. Never place your kids in regular classes unless there's only that choice. If they're struggling in Honors, hire a tutor. If they're doing well, go AP.

This is from a college admissions perspective, but also, basic requirements of general culture and rigor.

Correcting myself as well. Honors starts with Geometry.

[Anonymous]

It's about the pace with which they go through the material.

for example, on level pre-calc did a 3 week review of Algebra 2 before starting new material while honors pre-calc did it in one week

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:which school?

Honestly, the "honors" designation is not really honors. It's a way to inflate grades for lower performers, and to also not make those kids feel bad.

FWIW, I had kids in "honors" Alg.

Why would the school matter? Isn't it the same curriculum taught throughout the county?

same curriculum but not the same course offerings.

Some schools have "honors" and regular classes; others only have "honors".

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:which school?

Honestly, the "honors" designation is not really honors. It's a way to inflate grades for lower performers, and to also not make those kids feel bad.

FWIW, I had kids in "honors" Alg.

Why would the school matter? Isn't it the same curriculum taught throughout the county?

Yes, but some like to pretend there's a difference. It makes them feel better.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I thought MCPS only offered regular algebra 1 (which can be taken as early as 6th grade). Honors appears to start with Geometry.

Advanced Math in MS (assigned cohorts by county)
6th - pre algebra
7th - algebra
8th - geometry

[Anonymous]

I think they only offer Hon Algebra at our school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:which school?

Honestly, the "honors" designation is not really honors. It's a way to inflate grades for lower performers, and to also not make those kids feel bad.

FWIW, I had kids in "honors" Alg.

Why would the school matter? Isn't it the same curriculum taught throughout the county?

The schools matters because of the students at the school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:which school?

Honestly, the "honors" designation is not really honors. It's a way to inflate grades for lower performers, and to also not make those kids feel bad.

FWIW, I had kids in "honors" Alg.

Why would the school matter? Isn't it the same curriculum taught throughout the county?

Ostensibly, yes. In practice, no. Long term subbed at multiple middle schools; although the curriculum was the same at all the schools, the level and depth covered was significantly different. At the lower performing schools - especially ones where "everyone was honors", any material not explicitly tested on a county progress check was not covered. In contrast all the materials in the curriculum would be covered at the higher performing school. So much so that at some schools the "advanced" IM class (combined math 7/8) at a lower performing school was not even the equivalent of a Math 7 at a higher performing school. That is the 2 or 3 extra subjects that were taught from IM were added at the cost of 5 or 6 regular level subjects.

For instance, I taught at one middle school one year, and then at the high school it fed into the next year. I and another teacher taught all the middle schoolers this required subject. And two middle schools fed into the high school. So since I had taught a quarter of all the high school 9th graders the previous year as middle school 8th graders, one would think that on average, about 1/4th of my students in high school would be students I knew already.
Nope; only 4 students out of about 150 (and I only had 2 of them) from the lower performing school were placed in the honors sections at the high school that I was teaching. And of those 4 (yeah, I tracked them...) only two stuck with the honors track. The students from the lower performing middle school simply weren't prepared for the higher and more rigorous pace of "honors" at their high school. And of course the students had little clue; for them things were much the same, they were still in classes with their peers from middle school. It would have taken a student (or their parent) quite a bit of outside-the-box thinking to realize the students from the two feeder middle schools were not very mixed.


So, although the same curriciulum is used, how deeply and thoroughly it is attended to is very school dependent.

And for what it''s worth, I didn't think the difference was in the quality of the students, or the quality of the teachers. It - IMHO - directly related to the competency (or lack there of) of the administrative team. But I'm sure some admins lurking around will take great umbrage at my suggestion that "It's not the student, it's not the teacher, it's the admin" that makes the biggest controllable-by-the-county difference in outcomes.