Universal AP English & History at Wilson next year for 11th grade

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04/05/2021 19:44

Subject: Universal AP English & History at Wilson next year for 11th grade

quote

Anonymous

Anonymous wrote:For all of you pointing to the course catalog, last year this same cohort had a choice between History and AP World History for the Sophmore year. Until the school made a policy decision to get rig of AP world history and enroll everyone in Honors World History. After students had already done their course selections. The existence of a course in the Wilson course catalog really doesn’t mean much.

+1. I was about to write the same, a bunch of kids who had selected AP World History found out end of April/May that the class was no longer offered to Sophomores and that they were all going to take Honors World History. so the fact that the classes are on the website does not mean anything based on past experience.

last year I was on the call with the Principal and the head of the department and parents of kids who had selected the AP class, where the decision (already made) was explained to the parents. While I think AP classes in HS are BS (I agree with the poster above on the IB curriculum), I came out of the call very concerned. Frankly I had the impression that the school is under high pressure to close the achievement gap and that it is much easier to do it by cutting corners and "make believe" that kids that are behind are finally doing better than to actually teach kids who may be actually years behind (especially in STEM), see calling all the classes "honors" and so on. the principal gave two reasons to cancel the AP history class for sophomores: 1) the class is too difficult, kids feel the pressure to take it, are not ready but take it anyway and then in the middle of the year struggle, get bad grades and try to get out of it, so let's wait one more year and they are older, more mature, ready for the class, they can take it and do it well. if she stopped there I would have agreed that it was a reasonable approach. but then she proceed to reason number 2) which I remember as follows: mostly white privilege kids take the AP class, vast majority of minority kids take the normal class, minority kids have suffered systemic racial injustice and the result is now that they are poor and disadvantage, they see the white peers proceed with AP classes and better education and this is unfair, so we cancel the AP class and all the kids will be in the same class and will do great. I, and many other parents on the call, found this reasoning stupid since it was unclear how canceling the AP class for the more advanced kids was going to help kids who not at a level sufficient to take it. frankly to me seemed very much a way for the school to show that all kids, white and minorities, are finally taking the same classes and that there is no education and achievement gap, without actually bringing the students who are behind at the level they could take more advanced classes. when my kid was in 8th grade at Deal we went to Wilson for the presentation of the school and the Principal went on and on about her goal to close the achievement gap and the Honors for all in 9th grade that had recently been implemented. a parent asked the obvious question "some kids come to HS and are behind, some significantly behind, how can they do honors classes with success without the school dumbing down the honor classes?". the Principal responded that the plan was to have very small classes in 9th grade, 10-15 kids max so the school could quickly identify the kids who needed help, work with them in an intensive manner, and by the end of the year they would be brought up to grade level and the following year could do well and even take advanced classes. I thought it was a bunch of wishful thinking to use a polite word, but I thought let's giving it a chance and see how it works. classes were not small at all in 9th grade, ranging from 25 to 37 kids for my kid and then when kids selected AP classes for the sophomore year, as the Principal admitted there were not that many minority kids. so it seems that the honors for all system did not really work in helping the kids who are behind. but now the school can boast that all kids take honor classes at Wilson and in the sophomore year there was no gap with mostly white kids taking the
AP class and most minority kids taking the regular class, since the AP class was canceled for sophomore. in short, I am concerned that DCPS is more concerned about making itself look good than actually help the kids who may need help.