Reply to Diversity of schools - can this work both ways? Am I being unreasonable?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote]
Anonymous wrote:

I went to school in a school that was so white I can still name the 3 non-white kids in our graduating class of 400. And it wasn’t any more diverse socio-economically — everyone was UMC, in the 80s meaning of the term and not the DCUM version that actually means “sort of rich.” Almost everyone went on to college, but we all went to state schools. Even with that homogeneous population, we had tracking. The district proposed doing away with tracking at one point when I was in 11th or 12th grade, and the kids in the advanced classes all freaked out because we knew what it was like in earlier grades in non-tracked classes and didn’t want to go back to being bored all day.

Yes, tracking can get complicated because it intersects with issues of race and class. But there are good reasons for tracking that have nothing to do with race or class. The DCUM cohort tends to be made up of people who were once advanced students bored in non-tracked classes. Many of us now have children facing the same issue. There’s more to it than just “socially segregating.”

This, and not just bored.[b] Many of us were very academically minded students who were bullied in non-tracked classes or had to deal with behavioral disruptions from students who didn't care to learn, refused to do the homework, and had little interest in the material. [/b]And I went to a majority white school that was like this. I want honors classes for my kid because I distinctly remember what it was like to be sitting in a classroom feeling enthusiastic about the material and barely able to discuss it because so much of the class was taken up with behavioral concerns and students goofing off and trying to distract the teacher. And then also being targeted by those same students for being lame enough to like school and learning.

I know black kids who are giant nerds like I was and I would also like them to have access to tracked classes that are filled with peers who care about the material and where they can move at a speed that matches their interests and ability.

Public schools have a lot of kids who just don't want to be there and don't want to learn. There are lots of reasons for that, but it's unclear to me why the kids who love school and love learning need to dumb themselves down to accommodate these kids when they could just be in another room actually learning. At least for a couple subjects a day. People who opposed honors classes or tracking are either willfully forgetting what public school was like for the academic students or they were not very academic themselves.[/quote]

+1 to all of this.  Have a kid at a popular charter who was a lackadaisical student in 8th and complained to me in 9th grade about how the kids in her regular classes were disruptive and the teacher couldn't get through the material because of managing behavioral issues.  (9th was first year of real honors track separation).  I told her that if she wanted to be with other students who weren't disruptive and wanted to learn, then she needed to work hard to qualify for the honors level.  This "honors for all" or ---to be more accurate about most regular DCPS MS and high schools--NO honors for anyone---is idiotic.
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