Anonymous wrote:College admissions people must laugh at this. What a joke. This CAN’T be helping top students with college (and I realize that’s not everyone’s main concern but it’s mine and so I’m glad I’m not in this mess!)

You have very strange ideas about what college admissions people find amusing. Have you not met very many? A hint: they will be more concerned with your child's essay, their test scores, and their gpa than they will be upset that your county didn't let Larlx take AP Extra Advanced English in 9th grade.

I mean, I agree, it would be nice if the county spent more time pushing humanities classes like they do STEM, but not because I'm worried what some college gatekeeper thinks about what my kid read at 14.

Yes, it is to inflate their GPA unfortunately. Hurts students who can actually succeed and learn in a real honors class. It also hurts students who are not where they be in terms of reading level.

There has been a push for honors for all since pre-covid. At some schools for some subjects (it is different at every school) honors and on-level classes are mixed, so, you would have some kids in the same class getting the +5 gpa bump for honors while other kids in the class are not getting the bump. In theory the honors kids were assigned more work, but, as grading practices and re-dos have become more lenient, teachers recognized that honors kids were not really doing that much more work. My own family's experience is at BCC.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Moving all students to honors is just a way of implementing heterogenous classes. By presenting it this way, the hope is that there will be less public opposition. It will eventually gravitate to heterogenous non-honors in all but name as they won't want to have large numbers of students fail honors level courses.

Thank you. This is exactly it. They are not honors classes except in name.

and unfortunately, a lot of colleges know this about MCPS. "Honors" is a joke.

Yes, but it's less of a joke than almost any other district so it's mostly viewed favorably.

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think it's a school-by-school decision.

If anyone is aware of schools that are not choosing this model, can you post this thread? Blair is our homeschool, but I'm seriously considering not ranking it first if I can find an alternative that is not beholden to this honors for all nonsense.

You would be foolish not to rank Blair first. Blair has more course options than any school in the DCC. For example, you can take regular Calc at Blair. Other schools only have AP.

Yes, Blair has the best options of any school/ This works out great for those who want to learn. There's less spread in these classes and more choices so kids can take the appropriate level.

They also set a higher standard for all students.

I posted about this a few weeks ago. They changed the course offerings over the summer but didn't tell parents. What we were told at the end of my kid's 8th grade year is no longer accurate. All honors English plus a couple of sections of honors English that is actually pre-IB. At Einstein.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Moving all students to honors is just a way of implementing heterogenous classes. By presenting it this way, the hope is that there will be less public opposition. It will eventually gravitate to heterogenous non-honors in all but name as they won't want to have large numbers of students fail honors level courses.

Yes to this.

My kid’s MS was one that put every kid in ‘Advanced English’. It was pretty terrible.

The only way to achieve heterogenous classes is by promising that rigor will be raised. Efforts to implement heterogenous classes without that promise have often failed. If you put a frog in hot water, it jumps out. Put it in cold water, ...

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Moving all students to honors is just a way of implementing heterogenous classes. By presenting it this way, the hope is that there will be less public opposition. It will eventually gravitate to heterogenous non-honors in all but name as they won't want to have large numbers of students fail honors level courses.

Thank you. This is exactly it. They are not honors classes except in name.

and unfortunately, a lot of colleges know this about MCPS. "Honors" is a joke.

Anonymous wrote:Moving all students to honors is just a way of implementing heterogenous classes. By presenting it this way, the hope is that there will be less public opposition. It will eventually gravitate to heterogenous non-honors in all but name as they won't want to have large numbers of students fail honors level courses.

Yes to this.

My kid’s MS was one that put every kid in ‘Advanced English’. It was pretty terrible.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think it's a school-by-school decision.

If anyone is aware of schools that are not choosing this model, can you post this thread? Blair is our homeschool, but I'm seriously considering not ranking it first if I can find an alternative that is not beholden to this honors for all nonsense.

You would be foolish not to rank Blair first. Blair has more course options than any school in the DCC. For example, you can take regular Calc at Blair. Other schools only have AP.

Yes, Blair has the best options of any school/ This works out great for those who want to learn. There's less spread in these classes and more choices so kids can take the appropriate level.

I don't understand this argument. We are in a thread talking about how Blair does not have options for English. There is a massive spread in that class because there is no advanced option available and everyone is in the same room. How can you then make the case that Blair has the best options?

College admissions people must laugh at this. What a joke. This CAN’T be helping top students with college (and I realize that’s not everyone’s main concern but it’s mine and so I’m glad I’m not in this mess!)

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What percentage of 9th students were assigned to regular English class before this change? Do the students get extra support if they are not ready for the honor class?

There is not much rigor in an "honors" class and lots of grade inflation too.

It's one of those classes where you mostly only get out of it what you put into it. Imagine that...

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think it's a school-by-school decision.

If anyone is aware of schools that are not choosing this model, can you post this thread? Blair is our homeschool, but I'm seriously considering not ranking it first if I can find an alternative that is not beholden to this honors for all nonsense.

You would be foolish not to rank Blair first. Blair has more course options than any school in the DCC. For example, you can take regular Calc at Blair. Other schools only have AP.

Yes, Blair has the best options of any school/ This works out great for those who want to learn. There's less spread in these classes and more choices so kids can take the appropriate level.

Anonymous wrote:What percentage of 9th students were assigned to regular English class before this change? Do the students get extra support if they are not ready for the honor class?

There are three tracks but they are all honors - regular honors, honors for kids where English isn’t their first language and honors for kids with IEPs.

Anonymous wrote:What percentage of 9th students were assigned to regular English class before this change? Do the students get extra support if they are not ready for the honor class?

There is not much rigor in an "honors" class and lots of grade inflation too.