Carol Burris is the principal of an outstanding high school on Long Island in New York. She is a leader of the principals’ group opposing the new state evaluation system.
This post includes her recent letter to the Regents in opposition to a new diploma program that she fears will encourage tracking. Her own high school has no tracking and she explains why it is a bad idea.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
If a school does not provide more and less academically challenging courses for their students, the school will not be providing the appropriate level of education for each student.
Here is an eloquent statement about the needs of gifted students:http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/12/gifted-students-have-special-needs-too/266544/
Those kids have been sold down the river long ago. Just asking ourselves ‘what do you think happens to a civilization that ignores it’s most talented?’ should make the long-term consequences obvious.
I only started in education 11 or so years ago, but this has been the case the entire time, especially in high poverty areas. The answer is always, give them extra work, or have them help their lower performing classmates, because teaching is the next step in mastery.
I never see recognition that those kids deserve to be challenged and deserve a curriculum built for them, just as much as the students at the other end of the spectrum do.
I don’t remember my union or school ever considering sticking up for these kids and doing something to make it right. Whomever managed to make tracking a dirty word achieved a tremendous PR coup.
The inner city parents of highly talented kids know that they are getting shafted and are starting to push back. My school has lost 4 students because we couldn’t find a place for our best students where they weren’t dragged down by kids with behavior academic issues.
As long as nobody is forced into a track and all are given the opportunity to prove themselves for a track, there shouldn’t be an issue. Eveyone should have the ability to push the limits of their ability; no one should suffer because they are able.
I also do not support charter schools that are designated for only certain populations, because that opens the door to segregation by ability –and with no regulatory oversight.
This is particularly problematic for Special Ed students, who have only been integrated in regular education for a short time due to legislation and case law which challenged the common practice of denying services to and/or segregating kids with special needs, as in Chicago, per Corey H. v CPS.
Are you comfortable with schools offering classes in which only one or two students can enroll? One student taking vector calculus in Southeast High, one student in Northwest High, two perhaps in South High school? The same for calculus based physics, physical chemistry, etc.
I believe in supporting students who are that advanced in taking credit bearing college courses at public higher ed institutions. I’ve had many high school students in my college classes over the years.
Chester Finn blames liberals and progressives for not supporting gifted education and defunding Javits, when it was his Republican dominated Congress which was responsible for that. http://www.policyinsider.org/2011/05/new-jersey-congressman-pledges-to-fight-elimination-of-gifted-education-in-note-to-cec-members.html
This is not about elitism. Many progressives know very well that gifted and talented kids need more appropriate challenges and we have long supported gifted education, just as we support Special Ed for kids at the other end of the spectrum. As Rick LaVoie said, “Fair doesn’t mean that everyone gets the same thing. It means that everyone gets what they need.”
I think there should be more options for all students in secondary education, including creative students, who Finn did not mention and who are less likely to be identified for gifted programs when traditional IQ measures are used. That would mean funding Arts programs –which are all too often the first to go in budget crunches
I do not, however, agree with providing high school diplomas with different designations, because I think that may stigmatize students who might want to later change their minds and take a different career path.
I assure you that there are ways to meet the needs of gifted students (whatever that means) in the same classroom. We do it in our IB classes for all. Our two students who just learned that they got into Princeton this week had their needs met, I assure you.
Even though my son went to a strong high school in my state, an appropriate education required that he do a lot of self teaching and went outside the school for some of his classes as a jr and most of his classes as a sr.
I think we are basically in agreement here, but would you be comfortable if the options included choosing another building that was not under the control of the local school board?
“As long as nobody is forced into a track and all are given the opportunity to prove themselves for a track, there shouldn’t be an issue.”
Ah, that’s the rub: requiring that kids “prove themselves for a track”. A climate so thoroughly entrenched in standardized testing is very likely to rely on test scores as “proof” of qualification for tracks.
We would need to have a lot more options available to kids than CTE, Regular and STEM, otherwise what kinds of choices will there really be for students?
No, I do not support vouchers for private schools.
Then I am at a bit of a loss to understand how to implement the variety of choices you advocate. Would each traditional high school provide the courses for every talented student? Would it make more sense to gather the talented students together in a single school?
We have gifted and other selective enrollment schools in public education. No need to siphon money from public ed to pay for private schools. I would like to see more choices in neighborhood public schools, as they used to have before NCLB and RTTT.
We have none in my state. There was an attempt to set up one for the state, but they were not planning to include language instruction, so I thought it was a non-starter.
On another note, does “Rockville Centre Union Free School District” mean that teachers are not unionized there, as in Walmart Union Free Supercenter?
No, it doesn’t mean no union.
Thanks for the info! So what does “union free” refer to then?
My guess is the free refers to the school, not the union. Much like the fine tooth comb is not referring to a comb for your teeth ( credit to Patrick O’brien for that one).
Sorry, I don’t get the analogy. “Union Free” appears to be part of the name of an entire school district, not just one school.
I wonder if “union” is used similarly to “unified” (or combined or amalgamated) and if “free” refers to public.
I think the free refers to the school not charging.
We have unions. UFD (Union Free School District) is a term that distinguishes the district from a CSD (central school district).
Diane, this is a very important issue, and the argument of the Dr. Burris overlooks key issues, and so is quite misguided.
1. We are now tracking our children to unemployment and jail and welfare.
2. No national school system has been able to bring all children up to an academic level where they can complete a 4-year academic college degree.
3. The children who come out of our schools now are at vastly different academic levels, yet we pretend that they all have the same qualification in the ‘diploma’. This is playing ‘let’s pretend’, not serious.
The first means that our schools are failing the lower half of the class, hugely, on school-to-work transition. I by no means think that education should be narrowly vocational, but if they don’t *at least* qualify students for a productive place in the economy, they have failed.
The second means that the ‘career and college’ mantra of Arne Duncan et al., repeated here, covers up a key problem, which is that different standards are required for different careers, and many of them are not the same as 4-year academic degrees.
The German apprenticeship system, in place decades, is credited with low youth unemployment. See: http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-07-19/german-vocational-training-model-offers-alternative-path-to-youth And the level of imprisonment is way lower in Germany. Dr. Burris cites a report on IQ advancement in academic vs technical high schools in Germany, but does not mention any control for selection effects, the lack of which would render her conclusion invalid.
Also her argument is muddled because she urges that she isn’t against Career and Technical Education. The key question is whether *voluntary* opt-in to programs of career and technical education can help 11th and 12th graders—after the school leaving age. If we have divers qualifications, all of which are labelled ‘high school diplomas’ as one component.
The critical issue is whether good programs that enable students to get *mentors* in the world of work, leading to real jobs can motivate students who are now dropping out, maybe to drop back later, but with much suffering and social dysfunction. This motivation would include to academic studies that students have lost hope of mastering, but which are needed.
Finally, as much as I honor Dr. Burris’s achievement, this is not in an inner city or rural school, which are the laggards.
Key issues here: 1. Whether the diverse programs are voluntary or not. and 2. Whether they happen after school leaving age, above 15. 3. Do they help populations who are least well served in the current system.
I personally think that effective school-to-work programs for those who are not going to graduate from academic 4 year programs is one of the key issues to help our children and society. Dismissing them is totally the wrong approach. The question is to identify when they work, and expand them. The liberal cry of ‘tracking’ to block the development of these programs is as backward and damaging as the dreadful conservative high-stakes testing regimes and teacher-bashing that you have been rightly criticizing in this blog.
I also have questions. I wonder if Carol could provide citations for the studies she cited. I would also like to see exactly what the NY Regents are proposing.
I am a scholar on the subject. I assure you I have citations. I would direct you to Keeping Track by Jeannie Oakes for a popular
Overview of the literature. Please also read the articles that I have authored or co authored in AERJ, TIP Teachers College Record and other peer reviewed journals.
Erich, I agree that we can’t evaluate the Regents’ program without knowing more than is indicated in the letter. It could range from terrible to great, and we don’t know.
Personally, I think the diploma is antiquated, because most occupations benefit from one or two years beyond high school. And currently those who receive the diploma have vastly different educations. It may be that the best thing politically is to have only one diploma, but that it be included as one marker along the way to many different programs.
But I want to emphasize that applying crying “tracking” which can be evil for first to third graders, when applied to 16 and 17 year-olds is misguided. Note that at 18 we throw everyone into the deep end of a highly competitive society, with maximum ‘tracking’. We need better transition. And diverse programs that actually help students should not be labelled as evil forcing of people into lower stations in society. We need actually to help 16 and 17 year old students achieve a respected and productive place in adult life, not neglect them in the name of pie-in-the sky ideas of every child being prepared for a four year academic college degree.
Vocational and technical education needs to be more than the neglected step-child of American education. The letter reinforces that view, rather than seeing it as what it could be: one the the places where—as in early childhood education—there is an opportunity to do far better than we are now, and as a consequence have much better outcomes for our students, and the country.
I love the “over thinkers” on this thread. What difference does it make if a student who takes regular classes, wood shop, auto mechanics, and art graduates from the same school that a kid that takes IB, AP, and whatever other “college level” courses? Wouldn’t it be apparent, to the college or employer, the level of their achievement? Why do we need to quantify (with a diploma, test, program, etc.) every kid for the sake of the employer or college. Everyone needs to take a chill and realize that kids are finding their way through life, not conquering it at the age of 17. Why do we need to highlight the gifted student that is headed to an ivy? Isn’t their acceptance recognition? DO NOT TRACK STUDENTS. LET THEM FIND THEIR OWN WAY. Amazing how ignorance comes full circle.
Let’s also be clear. Schools are not failing our “lower half of the class”. Poverty rates, racial segregation, and high stakes standardized tests are. Forget the multiple Regents diploma idea and start fully funding PUBLIC education (no, that doesn’t include charter schools). Allow students to take a well rounded curriculum. Who knows, maybe that ivy bound student would rather become a cabinet maker. Or would that be a waste of their potential?
Why give the gifted child heading to an ivy a suitable education? I thought every student deserved it. Give students challenging and interesting classes because it is is the students interest.
My point exactly. Offer all students a well rounded education that is challenging and interesting. Fully fund the public school to make sure those courses exist. I do not understand why this would require a different diploma.
Bill,
“Gifted” programs are not just for kids heading to the Ivy League. Sometimes they provide opportunities for those who would slip through the cracks. I taught in a high poverty/high crime, gang infested minority area. Just because kids lived in the ghetto didn’t mean they had to stay there. Even in the worst areas there are enough students with motivation to move up. To say “educate them all” is to deny reality.
I fought to start a “gifted” program in that school. Although several teachers fought it as being “egalitarian” I also got a lot of support from the faculty. Twenty years later the results are in. Most of the kids who passed through have completed college. Some have even completed advanced degrees. So many of them have contacted me and the other teachers involved to tell us this program turned their lives around. Several have become teachers and chosen to work in the same neighborhood they came from. Sometimes kids can’t “find their own way in life” without a differentiated curriculum.
If I can add a little, gifted students might well not graduate without a gifted program. My son credits the college courses he took as a junior and senior in high school as the thing that kept him going. One of his college classmates dropped out of high school and masqueraded as a first year at MIT (and did very well in those classes).
Who said anything negative about gifted programs? I said a well rounded curriculum. That might include college level courses, CTE courses, general education courses, whatever. The point is let students choose their path and let them all graduate with pride from the same school with the same diploma. Why do you assume that the gifted children will be held back by those “un-gifted” children in class? Or that their accomplishments will be lessened because the “lower-half” graduated with the same diploma?
Gifted students will be held back in courses that are not too difficult for the “ungifted” students. It is not an assumption, it is an observation.
Please tell us what you have observed.
I observed a very middle American high school, well tended, surrounded by small homes in a middle class community. I observed children of different racial and ethnic backgrounds, along with students with extreme disabilities, representing the school. I don’t pretend to be an expert on the topic of South Side High School but I do know that it is not situated in one of NY state’s silk stocking districts.
I have observed children I have put through public high school. The most academically gifted ended up viewing his high school experience with a good deal of contempt. Luckily for him, the high school principle allowed him to do much of his work as independent study or in classes at the R1 research university in town.
He had to take US history as a junior by state law. Because he was taking ten hours of calculus at the university, independent studies in environmental science and computer programming for the AP exams in those subjects, AP chemistry and AP physics (the school only teaches AB and he was planning to take the C AP exams, so a bit of extra work there), he decided to take the mainline US history class. He learned little to nothing in that class. The same was true his senior year when he had to take a state mandated US government class. At least he was able to take that as an online class. In his words, that was just certification, not education.
Typing this quickly. I have three kids and this is going to be a busy day.
I disagree that most academically gifted children view their experience with contempt, but I’ll take you word that your children did. I think the AP Computer Science course, and others like it, is a perfect example of why I think you believe that public schools are not meeting the needs of the gifted. AP CS is a course driven by a test, a multiple choice test. Here students spend the year learning a fantastic computer language called JAVA. The only snag is that the course has to prepare students for a multiple choice exam that will ultimately remove all creativity from the programming process. In my school we have an introductory course that uses a similar language, but there is no standardized exam at the end. This allows students to actually program, and their final assessment is an actual executable (a video game) that is presented to students and staff. The gifted students are not held back, their creativity and desire to learn often leads them to producing really amazing and interesting projects. Other students that find the material more challenging still produce something they can be proud of. The point is that all students regardless of their abilities are challenged and have a wonderful experience. Unfortunately, things have gotten worse as now the tests are used to evaluate teachers and schools. This will narrow the curriculum even more, and make it less enjoyable for all kids, not just the gifted.
Diane just put this link out in a post: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/people-places/Why-Are-Finlands-Schools-Successful.html . What if we removed all standardized testing from our courses? Would that help?
wclaps
Ill reply below to get is a bit more room.
That is not how the brightest students in my high school feel. Come visit. Each year many do. We are 16% FRPL, 22% black or Latino, 3% Asian. We have a housing project, section 8 housing and a few million dollar homes. We run the gamut. To see the proposal, google Schumer and letter to Regents. It will come up. I am not against CTE. We have some students who go half day to BOCES. They still grenade with a Regents or Advanced Regents diploma.
Very few gifted students get to go to one of the best high schools in the country.
The truly discriminatory aspects of “tracking” are rooted in our elementary and middle schools — that is where many of our students lose faith in their ability to achieve, to perform and to play by some rules that they don’t fully understand. The fallout from this — the die that has been cast — are the largely race-based, class-based academic course levels in which many of our high school students find themselves (two different levels of diplomas are chump change in comparison). We take away all potential options for these students to make a living wage for themselves after high school (AKA vocational training) under the guise of “college for all, or bust”… yet we do so after “or bust” has been hammered into the very souls of these students. The old bumper sticker “If you’re not angry… you’re not paying attention” comes to mind. “Race to the Top”? With no bottom… there is no top.
Some very astute observations
wclaps
Unfortunately our local high school did not offer any computer science classes, so taking one was not an option. The offerings for gifted students might well be reasonably limited because of the ease of access to university classes, however.
While it may be true that self study for the AP computer science exam is not ideal, it did give my son enough of a foundation that he was able to take a graduate class in computability theory his first year in college and his three person programming team finished 12 in his district in the intercollegiate programming contest this fall at the beginning of his second year.
Carol,
Is your school’s College Board School Integrated Summary of PSAT, SAT & AP results for this past school year and recent ones posted? Also ACT & IB results? If not, it would be great to be able to see them and, ideally, those of other high schools and charter high schools in your and nearby districts.
For readers unfamiliar with it, the Integrated School Summary is an annual database report of each high school’s performance on the SAT, AP and PSAT. It is 38 pages long and includes school test data, disaggregated by ethnic group and by gender.
For all three, a comparison is shown with state public school results and with US public school results. For SAT and PSAT (sophomore and junior results are reported separately) results, the # of test takers, mean reading, mean math & mean writing scores are displayed. AP results are displayed by # of test takers, # of tests and # of 3-5 scores. There are 3 pages of individual AP test results, displayed by test. They show # of exams and the # of students that received scores of 1, 2, 3, 4 & 5 side by side with the results of the previous year. This breakdown is not shown if there were fewer than five tests.
Since no student names are shown, there is no issue of confidentiality. In fact, the breakdown of results for any individual AP exam is not displayed, if there were fewer than five tests.
These results are also available as a District (LEA) Integrated Summary and as a State Integrated Summary.
Here is current example: “School Integrated Summary, 2011-12: Henry M Gunn HS” in California: http://pausd.org/community/ResearchEvaluation/downloads/HenryMGunnIntegratedReport.2012.pdf
or: http://tinyurl.com/cs9q888
Erich