Envision this. A young student is entering her first year of college. Nervous that she might not be prepared for the courses that she is about to enroll in, but hopeful that her high school teachers have done everything in their power to ensure that she is as ready as she’ll ever be. She downloads her class schedule to show:
- Business Calculus
- English 1
- Intro to Marketing
- Meteorology with Lab
- Macroeconomics
She takes a deep breath and realizes that she has classes for about 3 hours a day and then is free to work independently on her assignments, participate in campus life, and even possibly have a job. Everything now seems more manageable.
Now take that vision and make a few alterations. The student is a 14-year-old girl entering high school in the fall. Her schedule consists of four or five college-level classes and three honors-level courses. The student will be in school from 7:30 AM to 3:00 PM, then will leave to participate in any extracurricular activities she believes will get her into the college of her dreams. The student gets home late at night and then must complete hours of homework to prepare for the same seven classes the next day. No break, no time. All PRESSURE to succeed.
As crazy as this sounds, it is the current environment that our educational system is in. Students in middle school are encouraged to take high school courses. High school students are then encouraged to take college-level courses. Some students even graduate high school with an AA Degree. This trend has been happening ever since the 1990s; however, it has recently become more apparent. From 2006 to 2016, the rate of AP exams administered doubled from 2.3 million to 4.7 million (College Board, 2017), proving the nationwide push for more accelerated courses in high school. At what point does high school stop being high school? Are we encouraging the students to take these courses for the right reasons? And are the students even prepared for them?
In a study conducted by Kelsey Cummings, Tracking in Mathematics, she sites that in 1990 only 17% of the 8th-grade student population were enrolled in Algebra 1. In just six years, that increased to 53%!! She went on to explain that most of these students are “just sneaking by without full comprehension of the material because it is over their head. Memorizing material for a test and then forgetting it by the next lesson is a common practice.” As an educator, I see this first hand. Students consistently cram for tests and then forget the information or simply cannot build on their previous knowledge. The need for remediation at all levels is astonishing. It leaves me to wonder, are we setting these kids up for success? If the material is too difficult to fully master, why are we pushing them to do it?
In most cases, schools around the nation are graded based on test scores, acceleration points, and graduation rates. Administrators are forced to play the game of “where can I get the most points” in order to raise or keep their high rating. There have been instances where honors-level courses have been replaced with college-level classes, therefore funneling many students into a class they may or may not have chosen. Decisions like this can lead to parent and student frustration, in addition to extra stress.
I truly believe that as educators we strive to enroll students into the most rigorous courses for that particular student’s level, but sometimes this comes at a cost. Gone are the days of simple answers. Instead, we are left to ponder how can we ensure that we are not pushing kids too far too early?
College Board. (2017). AP courses and exams. Retrieved from http://apcentral.collegeboard.com/apc/public/courses/teachers_corner/index.html
Cummings, K. (2019). Tracking in Mathematics. https://capstone.extension.harvard.edu/files/capstone/files/tracking_in_mathematics.pdf