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

Forum Index » DC Public and Public Charter Schools

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

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]FWIW, Wilson has had the best DL of any school that I know of in DCPS.  Dr. Martin has really made sure the teachers have been all in--my kid has had synchronous class all day, four days a week and enough work to keep her busy all day on Wednesday.  I agree that AP classes can be taught with differentiation and, if all 11th grade English and History classes are now AP, the AP classes won't get any bigger because there should be a lot more of them.  I also think the 4x4 schedule--which means longer classes-- may offer more creative options for break outs.

Give it a chance.[/quote]

actually the 4X4 schedule makes it worse because a lot of material is covered in half the time. plus, kids who finish in January will have to wait  months to take the test. kids who take the AP class in the second semester starting on February 1, will have a class ending around June 20 but the test will be in mid May, giving them even less time. [/quote]

[b]It's not covered in half the time...[/b]the classes meet every day under the 4x4 schedule (as opposed to every other day under the old schedule).  This year has been an anomoly because of COVID screwing up everything and Wednesdays being off...

On another point, here's an interesting article about a school that has done this (or at least something similar)...it's actually seems pretty balanced.  If anything, it appears most of the pushback (while initially from folks like those on this listserve) came from those who felt their kids needed a less demanding option.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/education/gifted-programs-worsen-inequality-here-s-what-happens-when-schools-n1243147[/quote]

it is, even if the number of hours is the same, the class is done in 4 months with an intensive pace that makes is even more difficult for the kids to "digest" and learn the materials. if it was just the number of hours, then you could just have a class 12 hours a day for three weeks and be done with it.  and the issue with the test 4 months after the end of the class for the first semester kids, or one month before the class ends for the second semester kids is still there. I understand this year with DL and Covid, but keeping that schedule in the future is bad.

the article you mention talks about a school in NY with 1000 kids, 80% white and MC/UMC and only 20% minorities, with only 15% receiving free or reduced lunch.

I personally think that the tracking system in US school is awful, but I also think that classes should be rigorous and that only kids at grade level should be in a grade. I went to public school in Europe and that was the system there. no tracking, all kids in 6th grade were taking 6th grade classes, same for all other grades. but at the end of the year a student needed to have at least a passing grade in each subject (meaning the student had sufficient knowledge of the material studied during the year) to move on to the next year. if in some subjects the student had a lower than passing grade, the student had study all summer on his/her own, no summer school, and take an exam right before school started and get a passing grade. if the student passed, the student could move on to the next grade, if the student did not get a passing grade even just in one subject, the student had to repeat the entire year. so in every class there were kids with various abilities, from the math wiz who always got A+ to the math floater just trying to survive and get a decent grade. there were no people who were seriously behind and could not keep the pace of the class. our system was by no mean perfect but generations of working class kids got a good education and were able to get better jobs than their parents

[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics