Reply to Honors classes - are they teaching or bragging?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I'd say y'all have a point, but having done more research, there's credible evidence from other past students and from other parents that this particular teacher is very poor. Even in her non-honors classes, the kids are confused. Parents tell me that their complaints to the administration have met with 'yes, we know there's an issue with her but we can't do much about it'.

The facts are the facts. When you have kids on the honors track going through the math classes pulling As and Bs and hit an Algebra 2 honors class and the majority start failing, putting it back on the children without exploring further is absurd.

[b]Having read through more threads on this board (and not being from this area originally), the theme seems to be 'my kid is smarter than yours and your kid doesn't belong where my kid does'[/b]. Maybe it's the competitive nature of the DC area, I don't know, but ... wow...

FWIW, I've never been a 'pusher' and don't care if my DC decides not to take honors. I DO care if my tax dollars are paying for teachers who have a history of not teaching. [/quote]

You need to think that statement through a little bit more.

That same attitude that you cite (bolded) also often causes Type A parents to push their own children to do things for which they're not prepared. Similarly, it causes them to push school systems to accommodate their children.

You are describing an "open enrollment" course. Do you understand what that means? There is absolutely no barrier for entry.

Maybe the teacher is bad, that could be a problem. It's also similarly likely that some children are in the class who really do not belong there. This is not a "my kid is smarter than yours" observation; my kids are still in Elementary School, so I have no idea yet whether they'll be able to handle an honors curriculum. But the bottom line is if the teacher in fact is mediocre and the students are ill-prepared, you have a recipe for disaster. And given the self-entitled attitudes that prevail in this area, you have a lot of finger pointing. Of course, when you point a finger, three other fingers point back at you.

Personally I cannot imagine any sort of test in the first two weeks of school that could be based on material the teacher has inadequately taught. So, as one pp said, it sounds like there was an assessment test of some sort to take a baseline of where the class stood. 85% failed, which suggests in that particular case that they are not at the same level from which the class is starting. And she's giving you fair warning she will not dawdle to catch the snowflakes up with the material. That, to me as an outsider who doesn't know you, your school, or anything else about your circumstance, appears to be what is going on here.[/quote]

When you stated your kids are still in elementary school, I can see you might not understand why there would be a quiz this early in the game on new material.   The teachers now are being evaluated on the class performance ( (see Chicago teacher's strike to gauge reaction).  The math dept at my DC high school, like a lot of schools, decided to implement a program this year where a teacher will teach a portion of the chapter, then have a quiz on it to see how well the kids are doing. So in fact, this wasn't review, it was a quiz on the new material presented. As I stated, 85% failed.  In my DC school, the children in this algebra honors class came from an honors geometry class last year, i.e. the kids track honors from their freshman year. Only a few will jump to honors from non-honors their second year.

You'll see when your kids move to middle and upper how different things are. Especially upper.[/quote]

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