[AGDee]

The main difference I've seen is that the first 6 weeks of school are spent reviewing the material that's on the standardized test rather than the actual curriculum for that class. My son's Algebra teacher said straight out at Open House "We won't be using the book until after the MEAPs because we'll be going over what is on the MEAP until they take it" (MEAP is the standardized test Michigan uses). Ok, so my son, who is in honors math won't being learning Algebra until the 6 week mark of school because they are teaching to that test? Ack. That's the whole first half of the first trimester. Don't you think the kids in honors math are going to pass the exam without 6 weeks of review? Ok, so since they are a year ahead of their classmates, it's been a while since they had that original material, but from my recollection, math concepts are pretty cumulative. I would think a kid who can solve a quadratic equation can do long division and understands fractions.

Our schools have drastically changed our curriculum due to increased state graduation requirements. I'm on the fence about whether these requirements are ideal for all students. They now require 4 years of math for all students (even those who earn 1 or 2 high school credits in the middle school by being in honors math and who have no intention of going into anything math related in college), and all students must take Algebra, Geometry and Algebra II/Trig. The fourth course can be a more applied type of math, like business math. They all have to take 3 years of science including either chemistry or physics. They did add a Chemistry in the Community course for kids who just aren't really science oriented.. again, a more applied science class. They all have to take an online course, which I think is probably a good thing with the current trends in academia and the prevalence of computers in ALL jobs. They also went to trimesters which, in theory, would give them more options of classes to take. But then they made a rule that band students and AP classes would all be 1.5 credits a year, so they have to have them all 3 trimesters, which has screwed my daughter out of taking any electives at all her entire high school career. AP classes shouldn't be more credits than other classes. It's ridiculous. We are talking to her band teacher about him waiving one trimester of band each year for her so that she can get these AP classes in and take some of the things she loves (creative writing, journalism, graphic design) too. Since she aspires to be a writer/journalist, it would be nice for her to be able to have some focus on this before she hits college. If she doesn't do this, she would graduate with 6 high school band credits, 5.5 high school math credits, 5 high school social studies credits, 4.5 high school science credits and 4.5 high school english credits. Although she does great in math, she hates it. Calc would be torture to her so she's going for AP Stats instead of AP Calc her senior year. Kids who aren't in band are taking both though. Being in marching band and orchestra band for 4 full years precludes her from being able to be the valedictorian. The girl who will be valedictorian dropped out of band to be able to do it. The issue though, is that many kids just don't have what it takes to complete some of these courses successfully. Not all kids are college material. Some kids aren't capable of it. I can see these kids giving up on school and I think we could see the drop out rate increase as a result.

I will note, for the record, I am not concerned with whether my daughter is valedictorian or not. SHE is the one who freaked out when she found out her academic rival dropped band to be able to take all of the AP courses offered when she, herself, will only be taking 5 of them instead of 6. She was certain she wouldn't be able to get into the school of her choice unless she was the valedictorian. I encouraged her to stay in band because having 5 years of Marching Band (she was invited to start in high school marching band while in 8th grade) shows a dedication and commitment that colleges like to see. Maintaining a 4.0 (non weighted GPA) and doing that, plus earning her Girl Scout Award, and doing all the other extracurriculars she does will only enhance her college application, even if she's "only" salutatorian.

Back to the standardized test thing though.. she was worried one year because she had a lot of absences (all medically excused, really sick that year) and I reassured her "They're not going to kick you out of school, they need your MEAP scores"