Shades

So I'm from Texas, where we have a bad public school system. I did great in it with little effort. In Texas, kids are placed in about 3 seperate castes in Grade 1. Gifted and Talented, Advanced, and Whatever the Bottom is Called. What I did not know is that this is rare.

It never really occured to me that this was weird until about a week ago, when I read that some other state that does this wanted to abolish them, and I was like "Oh great, mix the smart with the tards and get universal mediocraty!" But my parents told me that they thought the system was jive, that it was uncommon, and that the kids did all around better in their schools growing up with everyone together.

I don't consider myself an elitist. While some kids I knew in Advanced were dumb, there were plenty at my college who got a higher GPA than me with seemingly less effort. So even if I'm so smart, they're still smarter. I don't put a lot of faith in the ranking system, but I didn't see it as bad until a day ago.

I guess I just wanted to know what the many different peoples here grew up with and wether or not I'm an asshole.

Empty_One

Are you taking Highschool? At my gradeschool, we were all lumped together, and it really set the classes back, in terms of the amount of material able to be taught.

In highschool, it was a 3 tier system also. Remedial at the bottom, normal, and then advanced/AP. 75% of the students were in the normal classes, 15% in remedial, and the rest in advanced. It wasn't for all classes though, just math, english, history, and science. Classes like spanish, gym, and whatever else got grouped together.

Some may think it's elitest, but I have to disagree. Students were able to be taught what was appropriate for their level. If all math was taught at the remedial level, 85% of the student body is going to be bored, not learn as much, and probably cause trouble.

My school wasn't the best in the world, but it did have a great remedial and advanced track. People used to say that if you were dumb as a rock or brilliant, you recieved a great education. If you were in the middle, you were screwed.

krwlz

I personaly was always bored in my math and chem and physics classes....I wish we had had a system like that here in New York. We can accel by a year in math, but the class moves the same speed, just a year earlier.

gov135

Out of grade eight, you were placed into a course. There were no "remedial" or "advanced" labels. Some people just went through a trac that started with Biology II and ended up with Physics, others started with Bio I and ended up in Chemistry. Same for math and english. Everything else was combined.

This is a very large high school. I'm amazed they were able to offer what they did. I think they did a nice job, you got what you needed, and if you wanted you could take Physics, AP English, or Calculus.

Shades, are you an elitist if you took advanced courses? No. Are you an elitist if you feel you are somehow better than the next guy cause you listened to a Calculus lecture? Maybe.

TaiModan

where I come from, all the people are lumped into the same classes, but some students, were given 'Special' assignments, either because they were behind or ahead, then in highschool, we had regular classes, Adjusted(for them that couldnt pass regular) and Honors, for those that were too damn smart for regular.
the differences wernt really extreme, mostly just a matter of pace, and how much extra material was covered... as far as I know the system works, but I was never part of the bottom of the barrel, so I cant really say much.

Jadey

In Illinois (atleast when I was in HS) we had the same thing. AP, College Prep, Normal (whatever it was called) and then the special studies classes. Though you could be in different levels depending on the subjects. For instance, I was in College Prep Math classes, but was in AP English and History classes. Many elctive classes were lumped together, but the required courses were categorized like that.

Antagony

I'm also from Texas, and I've never seen this system that you speak of.

While I'm sure you aren't making this up, it seems that it is incorrect to generalize and say that it is a "Texas thing".

I'm probably not much older than you either, as I am 21.

Anyway, I still haven't decided what stance to take on public education, so for now I'll withhold my opinions about that system

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Nhanced1

I got lumped in my publick (haha, thats a joke see, cause i went to public school and i was in a.. never mind) school. It was incredibly boring to take classes that were not AP or at the "normal" level. by normal level I mean the class that you were supposed to be in at that point. All through my high school career, I was in the same english class as my peers, non AP, just vanilla. and I was bored stiff, so I didn't do work, but when I did, I got A's. I remember I pissed off one of my teachers royally. This teacher told me that I had written one of the best papers hes ever read from a student, and then just 2 months later proceeded to tell me that I couldnt handle the AP class when I brought him the form. I was so bitter after that, I never tried to get into English AP, even though now im sure I could have excelled. Only now do I realize the error of my ways. Aint that always the way?

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Andrew

In Michigan, we basically have the same system. This year, I took AP Government, AP English, AP History, and AP Calculus. If I managed to pass all of the tests with a score 4 or better, as I expect to, I will be able to start college as a sophmore. These programs have saved me a good ten thousand dollars.

I see where the arguement of becomming an "elitist" could come into play, but is that really isn't a bad thing? It encourages competition among the more intelligent students, and fosters a better learning enviroment. The one arguement that I've heard, and I think is partially true, is that it encourages the lower end students to have a lower self-esteem and generally not to put forth as much effort.

All in all, I like it.

Andrew.

MacGnG

in Elementry i was in Gifted And Talented program, in middle school it was called Honors and in high school all my classes were honors but there was AP and stuff like that

openthought

Yeah, I like the different rigor that everyone can take, but it does bothre me that in a diverse school such as mine, the special ed, regular, honors, and AP also tend to reflect an ethnic break.

I have my own thoughts about class rank and I'd like to get them out here. Currently, Class Rank is determined by GPA. However when it get's to the top 5% what happens is that kids will take less classes in order to be valedictorian. This is how that works. Say myself and 3 other people are tied at third place in class rank. All 3 of us take 3 AP's (A=5) 3 honors (A=4.5) and we all get A's. The only difference, is that on top of those classes I take another class like art which is regular (A=4). So I did even more work but my class rank is going to drop because it is determined by average. The kids who just took the 6 weighted classes will have a GPA of 4.75, whereas mine, where I did even more work, is now 4.64...

My proposal would be to base rank on Grade points instead of grade point average. That way it accounts for both difficulty of classes, grades in classes, and number of glasses. To determine grade points you just take GPA and multiply by number of classes. This way my extra work is rewarded 4.64...x 7 classes = 32.5 , whereas the 4.75 x 6 classes = 28.5.

To bad I can't get the system changed.

Shades

Antagony seriously? I've been in school in Houston and Dallas, and know people in San Antonio and Austin, as well as knowing several teachers, and they assure me that their schools are also divided into three seperate academic levels.