Bottom line on top: District 214 is engaged in a process of removing the “tracks” — that is, advanced, regular, or lower-level instruction, from its (non-math/math-heavy) academic courses, such as English, social science, and biology. They are doing this out of the public eye and without any public school board authorization. This will impact families with current middle-schoolers and by the time their students reach high school, it will be much more difficult to force a pause and public discussion.
The following speech and Q & A material was prepared by “D214 Parents for Kids” parent Elizabeth Bauer and presented at the May 13, 2021 board meeting. Please share widely, and share your thoughts in the comments or in the forum.
Speech
For anyone new to the school board meetings, my name is Elizabeth Bauer. I’m part of a parent group called D214 Parents for Kids pushing for more transparency. My topic for today is the move to “earned honors” classes.
This is a significant curriculum change that is now underway. It is being implemented for next year at Meadows, for biology, and at Elk Grove for freshman and sophomore English, as well as freshman biology and geography. In fact, it has already been implemented at Elk Grove for Freshman English this year. I have a document prepared which explains the change to the extent I have been able to find out about it, which I am sharing with the board and with any members of the media or other attendees as may be interested, because time doesn’t permit a full explanation of the change in a short speech.
Specifically, the change involves removing the Honors sections of a particular class. Instead, all students are in the same class and an “earned honors” designation is given out to some portion of the students to preserve the opportunity for a GPA boost. I have asked questions of multiple people and have not gotten much in the way of answers on exactly how teachers will instruct all levels of students in a way that challenges them, both in terms of their homework and also during classtime, and without leaving the more struggling students behind.
The reason for this change has been explained to me that the way students had been assigned to honors vs. nonhonors classes in the past had been perceived to be unfair, because they might have done poorly on a single standardized test, or because teachers might be overlooking students with unnoticed potential. But it seems to me that the problem it intends to solve, of some kids missing the chance for honors instruction, could be fixed in other ways, such as allowing any student to opt into honors classes or providing more flexibility to move from honors to non-honors or vice-versa at any point in the school year.
Perhaps I’m unnecessarily concerned; everything might work out just fine. I don’t know.
But my larger concern is that at no point has the school board discussed this. Based on the board’s regular insistence that there are likewise never any private discussions, it must then follow that you are wholly unaware of this change.
And that’s a problem because this is a major change in the schools’ curriculum. The board approves financial contracts which are trivial in the grand scheme of things, but has not discussed this at all. I would therefore like to request, as a written response, information on the extent of the knowledge that the individual board members have had of this change, and whether they have given the administration any authorization to move forward with these changes.
In addition, I further call on you as a board responsible to the community, to present to the community complete details on this change, including the ultimate intentions for the extent of the change and the metrics you will use to judge its success or failure or under what circumstances you will abandon the program.
And finally I call on you to be accountable for the decision by taking a vote and going on record with a yes or a no.
Q & A on the district initiative
What is de-tracking?
Generally speaking, de-tracking is the process of reducing the number of tracks available for a subject, e.g., honors/advanced, regular/college prep, or lower level/support.
What actions is District 214 taking?
First, District 214 is removing the lower track from certain courses. It’s hard to tell exactly what’s going on at each school, but some schools offer this track for biology, chemistry, and physics, as well as geography, world history, and US history, and some don’t. Specifically, Buffalo Grove, Hersey, and Wheeling appear to offer a lower track for all these classes, Meadows and Elk Grove do for only some, and Prospect removed this track for all courses just this year.
Second, District 214 is removing the upper track for other courses. At Meadows, there will no longer be an Honors Biology class next year. At Elk Grove, there was no Honors Freshman English this year, and next year, Honors Sophomore English will be removed as well as the honors English, geography, and biology classes for freshman.
While these latter changes are officially labeled a “pilot,” it is the understanding of one information-source that this second change is slated to be implemented for all schools. Whether this means that all students, from the lower to the upper track, will now be in the same classroom, or whether the lower track will be reinstated is unknown.
What is “earned honors”?
Because the removal of the honors track will remove the opportunity that students would have otherwise have had to boost their GPA by the 0.5 credit for honors classes, an “earned honors” system will be implemented to preserve this benefit so that they can compete with their peers in other districts for college admissions and scholarships. This will be done through the “earned honors” designation.
In Elk Grove’s freshman composition, this is how it plays out: there are the usual assignments for a composition class, including essays, research papers, and quizzes on the content of a book being read in class. Of these, three larger assignments are chosen to be evaluated not just for a letter grade but also for “mastery points.” If a student receives 240 out of 300 possible mastery points, they receive the earned honors designation and a 0.5 point boost in their GPA for that class. Exactly how easy or difficult it is to meet this requirement isn’t clear to me, but one mother I talked to was under the impression that everyone pretty much automatically got that 0.5 point boost, so if it is meant to be a real challenge, it’s not being communicated well.
What’s the purpose of this change/the removal of honors classes?
Promoters of the change believe that students in the current system unfairly lose out on the opportunity to take honors classes when they fall just below a test score cut-off or if a teacher fails to recognize their potential. Whether such a drastic action is truly necessary is not apparent, given the alternative of simply allowing any student to choose to take on the challenge of an honors class regardless of past grades or test scores, or providing more flexibility to move from honors to non-honors or vice-versa at any point in the school year if they struggle in honors classes or are bored in non-honors classes.
What about AP Human Geography?
Freshman students who would have had the opportunity in the past to take AP Human Geography and gain college credits through the AP test will not be able to do so except as an additional elective class. While, generally speaking, this is not a class that meets any specific major requirements in college, it provides students with an early encouragement to continue with AP classes which will be lost.
What will the curriculum look like? How will teachers instruct students at all levels in ways that maximize learning, challenging more adept students without leaving the more-struggling students behind? Will students in English class be reading Shakespeare or The Hunger Games? The same thing is true with social studies and biology – how much reading in their textbooks should kids be doing each night? With what level of detail will a concept be explained, to maximize the amount of instruction kids receive without losing them because it goes over their heads? How quickly can a concept be covered? How challenging should the reading level be, when it comes to sentence structure and vocabulary?
I was unable to find the answers to these questions. At Evanston High School, which is the model for this change, their online information claims that their classes are all “taught at an honors level,” but, at the same time, they maintain a lower level which are called classes “with support.”
Has this change been successful at Evanston?
While these things are always contingent on the metrics used, it is noteworthy that the achievement gap between white and ethnic minority students at Evanston High School is greater than the already-high gap at District 214, according to the Illinois Report Card data.
What are the sources for this information?
The school district, in response to my FOIA request, provided only the parent letters announcing the three changes, that is, the parent letter at Elk Grove last year, and the letters this year at Elk Grove and Meadows. They refused to provide any further information. Other information sources included a discussion with staff members at Meadows, a review of a prior FOIA on student grades and personal discussion with a parent and staff member at Elk Grove.
How much does the community know about these changes?
Virtually nothing. Incoming freshmen have received one-page letters announcing the change from their respective schools. Note that when Evanston implemented the change a decade ago, the changes were discussed in public board meetings and reported on in the news media.
Most critically, has the school board had any public discussion about these changes, the ultimate ending point, and any metrics used for evaluation along the way?
No. As a parent who has attended board meetings since August, and who has read meeting minutes for the past several years prior to that point, I can feel confident saying that the board has never held a vote on this change to go on record with support or opposition. If the board is at all informed on the change, or has authorized it, it is only due to behind-the-scenes actions.
I am extremely concerned about this topic and feel we are going to lose our educational edge. I understand there are inherent issues in the education system that often puts minorities at a disadvantage. These discrepancies need to be addressed earlier in the education system.
Putting everyone in the same high school class is helping no one. How can one teacher meet the needs of students at very different places of their education? A struggling student needs support. A motivated child needs challenge. The theory that one teacher can meet all those needs in one class needs some serious discussion.
I actually pulled my son from RMHS as it was not challenging him academically. He truly put in minimal effort with resulting straight A’s. In one class he was told to self assess his own grade. His teachers told me to bump him to the honors and AP tract so he would be challenged. How can they tell me we can’t challenge him in the average classes as we can’t leave behind those struggling and then have the school detrack classes?
The semester we spent in D214 was extremely frustrating and I choose the easy answer – leave. It’s a sacrifice to send a child to private school but I lost confidence that D214 is putting children first. Children before unions or politics. Or more importantly having open and honest discussions.
Grateful to those who didn’t just give up and leave the district and are instead trying hard to hold the district accountable for decisions.