What Parents Say About "Equal Access"

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011 A compilation of concerns regarding Equal Access and Honors For All

“I honestly believe that the depletion of resources for our Honors/High Achieving students is an unintended consequence of the schools trying to do the right thing and consequently muddling it for a majority of the involved parties.”

“I have been following this discussion for some time without commenting. Now I feel compelled to comment… I believe that the teachers are not happy with what has been mandated. Common sense says that this program will fail. What program??? There seems to be a shotgun approach to closing the achievement gap and, let’s face it, that is what it all boils down to. The funds are linked to achievement and that is what matters… the bottom line. “

“I've done a lot of research on these issues… but have always followed the line of advocating individually for my own children. I feel that my kids don't have the time to wait for the district to figure it out, and that the current course is an unswerving path to mediocrity. I also have the impression that our administrators and school board allow public comment with a polite smile, and

carry on with the original intentions. I did write a letter to the school board last year, and agree in spirit with the guiding goal of high expectations and challenging curriculum for all. Implementation is what it all comes down to.”

“High achievers aren't challenged, the lower level is pulled along inappropriately fast, and teachers are overwhelmed. Lack of communication continues to be an issue as well. Obviously, many of these problems come from the fact that Summit rushed into a new model before trouble-shooting and professional development. Our current students are the test market, and may be accidental casualties of education reform. One thing to keep in mind is that all stakeholders have the same goal here; the best possible education for our student population… I have to continue to remind myself of where the district proponents of the "greater good" are basing their outlook and decisions. I feel that my student is not more important than any other, but at the same time, is definitely just as important as any other, no matter where they lie on that bell-shaped curve. I believe that without honors level classes, there is now a new population that is being denied access to appropriate education.”

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“I have a problem both with the (lack of) rigor of honors classes as they were and that the district did not do a good enough job of pushing different kinds of kids into the honors level programs. We need more diversity in our honors classes and we need more rigor. “

“I have been painfully advocating for my child since they started kindergarten. I was told, "Every parent thinks their child is special." I agree - but not all children ask about molecular structure of a cell in kindergarten and understand cellular mutations of a bird flu viral cell.

I have seen so many families up and quit living in Summit County in search of better schools on both ends of the academic spectrum. Gladly, special education for kids struggling to learn have improved a great deal since my first child was in kindergarten. I cannot say the same for mid, high achiever, and gifted students' education. There have been gains, but it's been an extremely hard fight. I

am getting exhausted and wish I had moved away years ago now that my kids are in middle and high school. My heart sank to the cold depths when I heard there would be such a quick, unprepared for "Equal Access" instruction for my children.”

“I agree with having honors classes and challenging the students. This does not mean having them do a bunch of projects and extra busy work and calling the class honors. I thought I could let the system work itself out. I think I can sum up my feelings about Summit School District in that I am disappointed in the quality of leadership. I have defended the district for years and now I feel that they are not here for my students…. disappointment.”

“Touting CMC classes as a wonderful alternative is ludicrous – you don’t take algebra as the next step when you have already taken pre-calculus! Whether it is “College” algebra or not doesn’t matter – it is still the same algebra that is taught in the middle and high schools. It is wonderful to have those classes done before going to college as she doesn’t have to pay the tuition on them, but I am waiting to see if there was really any value to them.”

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“We have been struggling for years with the lack of challenge that exists in our district for our gifted student. As early as 3rd grade, the district eliminated any pullout or clustering of like-minded students, citing both budgetary constraints and change in philosophy. The following year, the district tried to convince us to simply skip a grade, billed as the panacea for all gifted students (we politely declined). The following year, we chose to supplement our student at CLC for math, where an entire grade of math was happily completed in about three months, leaving our child with excitement but leaving us to ponder how to continue engaging our child when the district is clearly unable to do so. As we look at Middle School and beyond, our child is now asking to be homeschooled, citing complete boredom and lack of interest in "wasting time at school". We wish the district had the same concerns for the highest achievers as it clearly does for our most struggling students. It's certainly not politically popular to classify both ends of achievement as "special needs" even though the state of Colorado clearly does! We know so many families of high achieving students who have simply given up and moved on. We inherently believe in public schools and never thought we would get to this point. But eventually you simply have to give up and accept reality.”

“Aside from my deep concerns about the direction of education

in this district, and the wisdom of implementing these programs, I also am incredibly frustrated by the way in which these changes occur and the permanent status that they seem to attain despite the lack of communication and discussion.

Although these programs are implemented through the back door, once in place, no one seems willing to discuss whether they should be kept. Once installed, they are here to stay and the question becomes how to rework, modify, train, explain, and "educate" parents in order to keep the new program in place.

I truly understand the issues at hand, and I am tired of being "educated" by administrators. It's not that I don't understand, I deeply (and respectfully) disagree with the direction the administration and board are taking this district.”

“My son experienced Equal Access last year. He was used to the pace and progress of Honors all his prior school experience. When he is so bored at the perceived lack of pace of learning and completes his assigned tasks within the first 10 minutes of the class, he asks the

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teachers for more work. The response is either, here is the next chapter, go to the library and figure it out yourself, do a PowerPoint synopsis of the chapter and give it back to the teacher next class. The second response is that he has to wait until the rest of the class has completed the task. (At which point he plays his Nintendo DS or completes other school curriculum homework).

Right Honorable Members of the School Board and leading Academia of our school, please describe how this is a challenging and stimulating teacher/pupil learning interaction? Please explain to me, and my son, how this is a better solution than the prior Honors program? Last year was the first year he said he did not want to go to school – he said he was so bored.”

“My primary concerns are with the high school as their approach is somewhat different than the middle school and what they do has a much more direct impact on our kids’ future in terms of college admissions and preparedness. The high school has two years of experience to show that it is not working. Is there any testing data available to demonstrate that fact? Either a decline in numbers of kids scoring advanced or declines in growth levels?”

“Most research studies about detracking absolutely support eliminating rigid tracks (ie if a kid is in honors, they are in all honors classes, same with standard classes and remedial) and eliminating remedial classes. What does not seem to exist is definitive support for eliminating honors classrooms entirely. There are some schools that appear to have done it with success but other studies find that high ability students do not do as well. The District often touts a school in New York as an example of great success with this model. But when you dig into the demographics of this school there are huge differences between their challenges and ours. Here are some comparisons from Greatschools.org

Metric! Rockville Centre School District ! Summit School DistrictSpending per student:! $20,513! $10,308Spending on Instruction (%)! 69%! 57%Spending on Instruction per student! $14,154! $5,876Free and Reduced Lunch (%)! 8%! 29%ELL (%)! 2%! 20-25%Average Class Sizes8th grade English! 209th grade English! 17! !10th Grade English! 18!10th Grade Science! 2

School size for Summit is not on Greatschools.org. But reports from this year’s classes is they are much larger than Rockville.

http://Greatschools.org/

http://Greatschools.org/

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”Cluster grouping in classes still requires there to be curriculum designed to meet the needs of each group. (I suspect this means a lot of extra work for teachers) IF this is what was taking place in my child’s science class last year, second semester, SHE would say it was not successful.”

“The book Becoming a Great High School, by Tim Westerberg is cited as evidence in favor of melding all levels of learning in one classroom. This book has some great ideas and thoughts on strategies to better address the needs of all students. However, it is not a book about Equal Access as it is being implemented by Summit School District. However, he does advocate for more "open" access to honors classes:

"Research on effective schools strongly suggests that schools with a we-expect-success attitude at the heart of their cultures have policies and practices in place that encourage open enrollment in honors, Advanced Placement (AP), International Baccalaureate (IB) and 21st century career and technology (C&T) programs."

He also states:

"At Littleton High School in Colorado, where I served as principal for 20 years, students are encouraged to enroll in honors, pre-IB, AP and IB classes. The only requirement for students to get into AP English is to sign up. Students fill out an application for the IB Program, but the application is to ensure that students and their parents understand the program expectations." So even the author of this book, when he was principal, was not eliminating accelerated classes or creating one classroom for all levels of learning, but was instead working hard to get more students into these advanced classrooms.”

“Preparing our kids to meet the challenges in this world should be in the forefront for all of us!! Nothing is ever a "perfect fit" so it is incumbent for all of us to want to work with one another, be open and honest with ideas so that we can put the best possible model forward. Open communication and honest dialogue is the cornerstone for many successful models in all aspects of our society to include education. Whether or not we work with a revised Equal Access model or something different, if it is not implemented correctly with proper support from all parties as outlined above, proper accountability, training and development,

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allowing for feedback so that you can fine tune where needed, a solid foundation can not be put in place which ultimately jeopardizes the record for success.”

“Javier Pineda is an exceptional person and an exceptional student. What he is not is a great example of the success of Equal Access or Honors for All. He is where he is today because an individual teacher took an interest in him and pushed him into Honors classes - not equal access classes. Equal Access started after him, he never had an Equal Access class. However, he is an example of the talent that we are missing in the Hispanic community. “

“I would guess we all want everyone to have equal access to honors and advanced level classrooms. Many of the schools that have "detracked" are not doing what Summit is doing and still have honors level classes. Their objective is to raise the bar in all classrooms and push kids into honors. Open access to honors level classes without required test scores or teacher recommendations is one of the keys in these articles. Some do

advocate complete elimination of all separate honors classrooms. Others call their efforts detracking, even when they don't eliminate the highest level classes. What these schools mean by detracking is eliminating racial, socio-economic, cultural or teacher bias for kids to access honors classrooms. Again - I think that is something that all of us can agree to. I just am not sold that we’re doing it the right way or that our teachers are prepared. There are many different models for detracking and one size does not fit all communities. The key is that there are other successful models and some do include honors classes.”

“My daughter is an amazing kid, but falls under the category of a gifted child that doesn't achieve. Although she didn't actually fail any classes, she definitely checks out. The concept that gifted kids will automatically achieve is false, we lose many talented kids because they don't have the opportunity to connect or be appropriately challenged

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at school. Gifted girls are also more likely to 'dumb themselves down' to fit in socially. How many kids do we lose because they can't connect to learning?”

“I think that we need to demand that there be more transparency going forward. We need to reach out to Heidi to ask for her commitment for that. I want to have any big changes in service delivery, etc. to be visible. I also would like to communicate that the forums and panels we have had in the past have been seen as pacification and not working together. The only one that I think went ok was ideas for budget cuts. However, not all allocation priorities were the priorities of the public.”

“There is ABSOLUTELY a belief with administrators (I haven't met Heidi Pace yet so don't know if she fits the same mold as the others I've talked to) that student evaluation of their education is worthless. They don't

take the critique of kids - their consumers as valuable. They believe all kids are going to complain.”

“Last year the distinct impression I got was that admin wanted to let the parents talk themselves blue in the face until they gave up and accepted the districts "expert" direction. We had a GREAT turn out at the media center to discuss equal access, standards based grading and the schedule for a board meeting. I left feeling like I talked myself blue in the face and wasn't heard… I believe that we have been listened to and nodded to ad nauseum as a way for admin to say - look we care - we listened. But in the end the discussions haven't been productive.”

“While I accept that these are paid educators that have experience, I do not accept that they are necessarily good researchers or the

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ultimate experts. I feel like we have been blown into a politically correct system. Really, where are the emperor’s clothes??”

“There is another side to this discussion, and that is the students on the low end of the spectrum. How de-motivating is it to them to be in a classroom with kids that understand the material within minutes, sit there bored while the class goes over the material multiple times, and don’t have to study to do well on the tests? I cannot imagine that it helps those kids that have to put a lot of time into studying and have to have the material explained to them several times. No matter how much “character” you try to develop, it is tough to have good self-esteem if you know you are the low man on the totem pole academically. And having that thrown in your face every time you go to class is not going to motivate you to try harder.”

“I think that it is pretty obvious that the district has no intention of returning to the old honors model, and I feel the best chance to retain

a rigorous classroom experience is to give alternatives to our decision makers and mesh the goals of two very diverse perspectives… I have had great success working on a micro-level with individual teachers, counselors and principals to fine tune "the system" to accommodate my child’s specific needs. My thought about the current implementation of equal access is that if administrators are promising differentiation in the classroom, that is a contract that I will very politely and doggedly insist is fulfilled.”

“I would like there to be reflection on this and look at alternatives for Equal Access. I think that right now we are "stuck" with this educational delivery model. As such, the key component for our kids to get what they need and deserve will be to assure there are high expectations of the administrator and the teachers.”

“A couple of years ago I asked an

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elementary teacher why social promotion was so rampant. Why are 5th graders (at a 2nd grade reading level) continuing on to middle school without appropriate remediation? The answer was twofold: the cost of that child's education for an additional year if held back, and the fear of legal repercussions. Equal Access is a more recent term that hails back to Brown vs. Board of Education in the 1960s. Civil Rights. The soft bigotry of low expectations.”

“I agree with having honors classes and challenging the students. This does not mean having them do a bunch of projects and extra busy work and calling the class honors. I thought I could let the system work itself out. We are still lucky in that our class sizes are still relatively small (even though there is evidence in the literature that class size doesn’t matter). I think I can sum up my feelings about Summit School District in that I am disappointed in the quality of leadership. I have

defended the district for years and now I feel that they are not here for my students…. disappointment.” “Our son loves math and science and I have serious concerns about how deeply he can go into these subjects at the high school. Other parents have told me that he will run out of classes to take and the CMC curriculum will be too easy. We are not in the position to supplement his education with CLC, but I am still glad we have the CMC option!”

“Our belief is that all students excel when they are pushed beyond their comfort level. In fact the same is true for all us. But there must be people to help push these kids…How can we expect the teachers to maintain a high level of teaching and expectations when many students in the class just want to pass the class. It is human nature for our kids to take the easy road out and this is a disservice to them. We as parents will continue to push our kids, but that should not be the primary means by which they achieve their highest potential; our

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school district staff and administrators have the primary responsibility of this task. We need to demand more from our kids by first demanding more for our teachers/administrators by raising our standards instead of lowering them.”

My son – as a freshman, was bored to the point of sleeping in more than one class last year. His science class was supposed to be differen<ated – the only difference I saw was extra assignments for the “honors” kids. Civics and Economics had different tests for the “honors” kids, but no different instruc<on or assignments. And that was it. The amount of homework he actually did was next to none. The amount of studying for tests that he did consisted of maybe re-‐reading some notes. His grades were not great, but he had no mo<va<on to do anything different. The idea that a highly intelligent child is going to be self-‐mo<vated to do well is the most ludicrous of all the comments that have come out of the district yet. A good number of these kids are intelligent enough to know that they can get by, they know exactly what they have to do to pass, and they see no reason to put more effort into the assignments when it gets them nothing more than a grade they can get without doing so.”

“I do not know the history of where equal access started but it was never part of any CTAG (closing the achievement gap) meeting I ever attended. For me it was an idea that was put into committee and implemented with no further discussion or input. Does anyone know from any meetings if it was actually put under the CTAG / McREL flag? Even if it was implemented with the idea that it fit the CITW (classroom instruction that works) model that McREL suggested we institute, it wasn't implemented well. I personally believe it can't be implemented well unless it's a separate program that kids/parents can choose to attend (like the dual language program).”

“Shouldn’t we be demanding evidence from the school board that Equal Access works, for low, middle, and high achievers? On numerous occasions, I’ve sent the school board objec<ve data in the form of scien<fic papers that demonstrates that clustering by ability is effec<ve. They have not responded to this informa<on (Brad Piehl excepted). I have also asked for objec<ve data suppor<ng that heterogeneous honors classes are effec<ve. Again, no response. But I am only one person asking. I

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think as taxpayers we need to take a stand and say, “show me the data.” If I am presented with sufficient objec<ve, scien<fically collected data demonstra<ng the benefit of Equal Access for all students, they will have my buy-‐in to give it a shot. But I don’t think the data is there—unless they’re keeping it a secret for some reason…”

“Educational research is not like medical research. It is much harder to find really scientific studies partly because of the nature of education. All too often you are comparing apples and oranges. Control groups don't really exist. You can find schools where this concept has worked. The district is good at touting one in New York. But finding examples of schools that have similar demographics, challenges, size, teacher training and budgets is really, really hard.”

“It is really time to stop all the politically correct speeches and be honest about what they are doing. This whole thing revolves around bringing the test scores of all students to within a certain percentage of each other, and if

the upper kids come down a little bit it will be that much easier. There are grants and funds being handed out to districts that are able to get the gap closed, and our district is great at grabbing onto them. Unfortunately, the upper level kids are the ones that will lose in that game. “

“Many people who had accelerated students in elementary school chose to go to Vail Mtn School instead of SMS/SHS. “

“Philosophical debates aside, there are real and alarming consequence to the sweeping changes and the lack of board response to our concerns. The number of families considering Vail Mountain School or homeschooling or just moving out of district is worrisome to me. If all the motivated kids leave, who will there be to pull up the level of conversation in classes? Not to mention that the families who are leaving are the families that I see volunteering and donating. I mean, it’s thanks to families like these that our schools get stuff like new ipads…yet the needs of their kids are being completely ignored. I am surprised that this trend doesn’t worry the schools,

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but maybe they want these kids to leave. That will solve the achievement gap pretty quickly.”“My impression is that parents are being told that the needs of iden<fied giVed kids will con<nue to be met via ALPs, regardless of equal access ….Can anyone confirm this? Do kids at SMS and SHS have ALPs? If so, is there any “meat” to the ALP, or is it just lip service? I know at our Elementary school there are no giVed extensions per se; rather, the giVed facilitator coaches the teachers (although I heard from the facilitator that teachers rarely access her). The giVed kids are grouped, all in the same class—at least they were last year in 4th grade and this year in 5th grade. My child has thrived in that environment—the ALP seems almost irrelevant. The grouping is what has kept her engaged, & I am gravely concerned about what will happen next year if she’s no longer grouped with her peers.”

“Right now both of my children have scheduling issues at the high school and I need to work through these issues as well. Too much all at once.”

”Some kids genuinely could not care less about what their peers are thinking and doing and really are there to learn – not

to have a social hour. It is hard to tell my children that they can learn something from the kid that continually asks the same questions because they just “don’t get it”. While I applaud the attempt to bring up the kids that need more help and get them to stay in school and do well, they are loosing the students that are already doing well. The best analogy I have heard is that you wouldn’t take the basketball team and allow all kids to play equally, no matter what their ability level is. You would put the best players on the Varsity team, and you have them practice together to push each other. Taking a C team player and throwing them into a Varsity game would be considered extremely unfair to that player. You also don’t take your varsity players and make them coach the C team – they are players, not coaches. Why then do we have no problem doing this in the classroom? What you end up with is a mediocre team and all your star players go play Club or for another school.”

“Imagine the school told the varsity football team that they could no longer make decisions about who was on the team and that every kid from the least athletic to the most athletic would be on the same team. They tell the athletes don't worry we will continue to treat every player as if they were a top athlete, delivering the hardest training to all the kids. Don't worry we will have the coach at every practice work with all the kids so each would get what they really needed. How would the

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most gifted or hardest working athletes feel about this? They couldn't play together with the best players to hone their skills. How about the players who didn't even want to be on the team in the first place or have no motivation or little skill - is this motivating to them to watch others get the plays or moves so quickly? Or is getting to play at their own level with kids of similar ability better for them. How about the coach - isn't this a huge responsibility, especially if the coach hasn't had adequate training on how to deal with such a HUGE mixed level team? As with all analogies it breaks down in comparison eventually. There is the positive feature that there may be some lower ability kids that are spurred into action by this system to play better, but if it's not done well, and the kids aren't allowed to play with like kids, I believe if it going to fail. Think about your own child. Does it really ring true that every child is able to handle honors curriculum. If I have a child that is struggling to get it at school, I believe the school throwing harder information at them but assuring them they will be tested at an easier level is ridiculous.

This is not only about honors kids - it's about all kids and what the best approach is to teach them. We are not talking about tracking the kids, we are asking the school to please deliver the curriculum in an effective way for all kids and not experiment with our kids. This work has had nothing to do with gender, race, high ability, low ability, honor or special ed, but about what is best for not just our kids, but all kids.”

“I'm having my child tutored outside of school because I am concerned that she will not get enough education at school. What are my taxes paying for when I have to pay more money out of my pocket to get her to be challenged? My daughter has never been challenged in Elementary school. She never had homework because she did it in class and then helped her friends. Why didn't she get extra work or something that interested her that she could work on? Why did the teachers tell me they would help her with this when they clearly can only do so much when they have to focus on the kids who don't get it? Why did I always have to try to challenge her myself and add to her education? I got frustrated because I can't do it all. I am a single parent and school was like day care for her so I could work. She did learn some things and she had wonderful social experiences and has learned some core values from school but she's not challenged with more in-depth education.”