Out of curiousity (and looking to move from DC to lower MoCo) I printed out the course selections for each grade for Whitman, and WJ (ran out of energy for BCC) since these are best fit my commuting needs. It's interesting how they differ even from each other, and which / where there is "honors for all" for which subjects and at which grade level.

English:
-- WJ:
Essentially for all grade levels, WJ does not have "regular" classes -- only "honors", and more differentiated ESOL classes.
For each of junior and senior year, WJ provides only 1 AP option -- AP Lang and Comp for junior year, AP Lit and Comp for senior year.

-- Whitman
Whitman is more differentiated for non ESOL. See below. Like, WJ, Whitman offers AP Lang and Comp for junior year, but for senior year offers 2 AP options, not just 1, - Lang and Comp, and Lit and Comp.

This is probably bc WJ has a larger ESOL population that resources are directed to (no politic-ing, equity bashing, etc. Just, .... this is what it is)

9th: both have only Honors English and ESOL english (WJ has more ESOL differentiated levels.)

10th: Whitman has regular, honors, and ESOL. WJ doesn't have regular, only honors, and various levels of ESOL.

11th: Whitman has reg, honors, AP, and ESOL. Again, WJ doesn't have reg, but honors, AP, and ESOL.

12th: Whitman has honors, 2 AP options, and one ESOL. WJ has honors, one AP option (different than the one in junior year,) and ESOL.

Social Studies:
WJ has more differentiation. Maybe bc it has more heterogenous population, and so provide more options and pathways for different level of student readiness for academic achivement. I think this would benefit not only ESOL, but non-ESOL kids who need more time to gear up for academic AP work.

9: Whitman has only 2 options -- honors US history OR AP US govt. WJ has three non-ESOL options: US History reg and honors; OR AP US govt.

10: Whitman has US Govt has three levels -- reg, honors, AP; for US History, it has only 2 levels: honors and AP. WJ has three (non ESOL) levels for each of US Govt and US history.

11 and 12th grade: The two schools really differ from each other for these grades. And each offers the same for 11th and 12th grade. For 11th and 12, Whitman offers only Modern World History at 3 levels: Reg, hon, AP. WJ has the same as 10th grade, three levels for each of US Hist and US Govt, and also provides World History for 2 levels -Honors and AP.

This narrowing of Whitman for 11th and 12 grade -- offering only 3 levels of World Hisory -- is a bit surprising.

Science:
9th: Both offer only Biology at 2 levels - reg and honors, with WJ having more ESOL options.

10th: They differ in this year. Both offer Chemisty and Physics at 2 levels: reg, honors. Whitman offers only one AP - AP Physics. WJ offers two levels of AP Physics, and also AP Chem, and AP Env Sci.

11th: Both continue offering what they did in 10th grade. Whitman adds AP Chem, 4 diff levels of AP Physics, 3 levels of Bio (reg, honors, AP), AP Env Sci, and about 4 specialized electives. WJ adds AP Bio (no regular or honors like Whitman, just AP), two levels of AP Physics, and two specialized electives.

12th: Whitman offers the same wide offering as it did in 11th grade. WJ adds two specialized electives.

It's interesting that Whitman offers reg and honors Bio for 11th and 12th, but WJ does not.

Math:
For Math, I can only say that each offers a lot of differentiation.

Anonymous wrote:

Transplant_1 wrote:Thank you. Why do they do this? Under resourced? In the name of equity? Both?

Equity for sure. They have multiple sections of each class and could easily have some be regular and some honors, and that's what they used to do. But everything is changing after the antiracist audit.

Ridiculous. Let’s not blame honors for all classes on the anti racist audit as this was happening long before the audit. Further the audit shows that there is imbalance in the way students are supported and the opportunities offered. And just because you don’t see or experience it doesn’t make it untrue. The audit happened the results are in and the disitrict is trying to address the problems document within. Does that mean that programs and academics should suffer, No. But it does mean teacher, administrators, and the district should be cognizant of the their actions and put in the work to ensure ALL students are supported to reach their highest potential.

Anonymous wrote:

Transplant_1 wrote:Thank you. Why do they do this? Under resourced? In the name of equity? Both?

Equity for sure. They have multiple sections of each class and could easily have some be regular and some honors, and that's what they used to do. But everything is changing after the antiracist audit.

So they're lowering the bar for advanced students so their statistics show a smaller gap. Seems like this is the worst possible solution for everyone.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The privates may be getting rid of the classes but students are still expected to take the tests.

PP here. The private schools my kids attend(ed) never "got rid of the classes." The number of AP classes is just less than in public schools and start later. Not sure what you mean about them being "expected to take the tests."

Another big difference is that students have to be approved by faculty to take any honors or AP classes, which keeps the classes on a high level. My daughter knows quite a few students who were upset they were not approved for honors English for example.

Admissions at the big privates for the unhooked are in the toilet.

Anonymous wrote:My kids would have been Churchill HS students. We pulled the first one out after middle school and the second one never attended an MCPS school. What we learned by accident is that the private schools they attend offer much fewer AP courses that start in junior year. So the pressure on the kids is much less and they are still surrounded by strong academic students. My oldest got into and just graduated from a top 20 university. My youngest just completed 9th grade and next year will take 3 honors classes...no APs offered in 10th. The school she attends is small and sent 25% of their graduates to top 20 schools last year.

In my opinion, private school pays off big in this area...unless you have a kid that thrives on being stressed out. I don't know too many kids like that.

^ recruitment post

Transplant_1 wrote:Thank you. Why do they do this? Under resourced? In the name of equity? Both?

Equity for sure. They have multiple sections of each class and could easily have some be regular and some honors, and that's what they used to do. But everything is changing after the antiracist audit.

Anonymous wrote:My kids would have been Churchill HS students. We pulled the first one out after middle school and the second one never attended an MCPS school. What we learned by accident is that the private schools they attend offer much fewer AP courses that start in junior year. So the pressure on the kids is much less and they are still surrounded by strong academic students. My oldest got into and just graduated from a top 20 university. My youngest just completed 9th grade and next year will take 3 honors classes...no APs offered in 10th. The school she attends is small and sent 25% of their graduates to top 20 schools last year.

In my opinion, private school pays off big in this area...unless you have a kid that thrives on being stressed out. I don't know too many kids like that.

How would you possibly know the stress levels of mcps HS kids when yours did not attend? My MCPS kid is also at a t20 school and did not find his very stressful.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:
My senior just graduated, OP, with a dozen AP classes, like many students.

AP is the new Honors.
Honors is the new Regular.
Regular is the new Remedial.

This has been going on for years.
If you don't know this, you haven't been paying attention.

If you care at all about college admissions, you have to play that game. There are plenty of 4.2 wgpa, multiple-AP students who are rejected from UMD.

True. When low skill students are mainstreamed, honors becomes regular. It’s not necessarily a bad thing but I agree that you have to be aware of it.

Then schools should be more forthcoming about it. Instead what's been happening is the regular courses have quietly been eliminated and all kids are being assigned to honors regardless of what their grades have been.

Forthcoming? What more do you want, if you look at courses offered and don't see a regular class for that subject? Are you going to assume that all students magically became good at the subject, or are you going to understand that the "Honors" class is just the least challenging class?

I see you belong in the Regular class, PP

You don't understand. When our then-8th-grader was registering for 9th grade, the school's registration form listed both regular and honors classes for English and Biology. But then when they got to 9th, the regular classes had disappeared and every 9th grader was put into 'Honors' English and 'Honors' Biology. There was no explanation about this change ever shared by the school. We only found out it happened because a parent shared the info on the listserv.

DP but what's the problem there? Maybe there was not enough students taking the regular classes, or maybe they were challenging everyone to their potential?

NP. no, they dumbed it down. And they do nothing in MS to prepare kids for the more rigorous AP classes.

Yes, they dumbed it down. This is how MCPS describes honors courses. Does any honors course even resemble this?:

Honors courses provide expectations and opportunities for students to engage in more rigorous and complex content and processes and to develop authentic products that reflect the student’s understanding of key concepts. The curriculum in each Honors course includes appropriate adaptations for enriched learning to pursue in-depth studies that require abstract and higher-order thinking skills.

It would be nice if on Back to School night, teachers of honors courses would explain to parents how their class will be providing the above.

At our school, this is not the case at all. They have helped students rise to new heights, but I did hear at the lesser schools they had to dumb it down.

This PP posts this same drivel in every thread. Ummm... no. You are just painfully unaware of what is going on in classrooms. - High school teacher

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
My senior just graduated, OP, with a dozen AP classes, like many students.

AP is the new Honors.
Honors is the new Regular.
Regular is the new Remedial.

This has been going on for years.
If you don't know this, you haven't been paying attention.

If you care at all about college admissions, you have to play that game. There are plenty of 4.2 wgpa, multiple-AP students who are rejected from UMD.

True. When low skill students are mainstreamed, honors becomes regular. It’s not necessarily a bad thing but I agree that you have to be aware of it.

Parents want their kids to do well and pressure the school to make exceptions. This has led to things like SAT scores being boosted by 200+ points relative to scores before 1990, or 40% of the class having an A average instead of just 5%.

I even remember when you had to get recommended for classes like AP English. Some parents would pressure the school to let their children into it, which then would dumb it down.

Honors for all was a completely predictable result.

The bolded is not the same. Students are better prepared for the SAT, and it has been renormed.

For the rest, you can whine about nomenclature all you want, but the net result is that you need to work the system for your kid. That's all. Honors is now a normal thing, so your kid can only stand out with a ton of APs, fantastic ECs, etc.

It's an arms race. You can choose to participate or not.

No... definitely not. But it was renormed to try to erase racial imbalances.

Anonymous wrote:The privates may be getting rid of the classes but students are still expected to take the tests.

PP here. The private schools my kids attend(ed) never "got rid of the classes." The number of AP classes is just less than in public schools and start later. Not sure what you mean about them being "expected to take the tests."

Another big difference is that students have to be approved by faculty to take any honors or AP classes, which keeps the classes on a high level. My daughter knows quite a few students who were upset they were not approved for honors English for example.

It stops when MCPS and other systems reach the same place as Baltimore schools where no one is up to grade standards. Equitable grading achieved.

The privates may be getting rid of the classes but students are still expected to take the tests.

Which private was that? The problem with privates is that there is even less data.

My kids would have been Churchill HS students. We pulled the first one out after middle school and the second one never attended an MCPS school. What we learned by accident is that the private schools they attend offer much fewer AP courses that start in junior year. So the pressure on the kids is much less and they are still surrounded by strong academic students. My oldest got into and just graduated from a top 20 university. My youngest just completed 9th grade and next year will take 3 honors classes...no APs offered in 10th. The school she attends is small and sent 25% of their graduates to top 20 schools last year.

In my opinion, private school pays off big in this area...unless you have a kid that thrives on being stressed out. I don't know too many kids like that.

Anonymous wrote:How is MCPS able to do Honors for all? In DCPS we can’t even do grade level for all, let alone honors. What is happening to all the kids below grade level in MCPS?

Based on proficiency data, those students appear to get left behind.