California State Guidelines Discourage Schools From Offering Advanced Middle School Math
25th October 2024
A small but growing number of American schools are reducing or delaying access to advanced courses. Most often, these changes have been enacted in the name of reducing achievement gaps between demographic groups. However, rather than helping marginalized students, these policies deny educational opportunities for gifted students of all backgrounds.
“Detracking” is an increasingly popular proposal among educators that attempts to reduce the degree to which students are separated by academic ability. It typically takes the form of removing advanced course offerings or delaying the introduction of these offerings. Supporters claim that marginalized students are often wrongly placed—or place themselves—in less advanced courses and that these students often stay on a less advanced curricular path.
In San Francisco, public schools have eliminated accelerated math courses in middle and high school since 2014, and several Seattle schools had rolled out detracking efforts by 2016. Earlier this year, a Detroit-area school district eliminated middle school honors math classes, while schools in Cambridge, Massachusetts, began phasing out advanced middle school math in 2017—though the district announced it would reverse course in August. Outrage erupted in February when one Los Angeles–area school eliminated honors English courses for ninth- and 10th-grade students.
Harrison Bergeron, by Kurt Vonnegut.