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When I went to school, junior high was heterogeneous and I was miserable. High school was tracked and pretty good. It was divided like the article said, into Ap

When I went to school, junior high was heterogeneous and I was miserable. High school was tracked and pretty good. It was divided like the article said, into Applied Arts, College Prep, and Honors. Applied Arts was where kids who would likely work or go to a trade school after high school took classes that taught them skills, College Prep was for kids who would go to a mid-level state college, then work in a white collar job. Honors was for kids who would end up at the University of California or a quality private university like Stanford or Cal Tech. I was shocked to discover that there were no Applied Arts at my kids' high school, everyone was being prepared for college whether they liked it or not, and my kids considered college prep as classes for dummies. It seemed like a typical modern euphemism intended to make people feel good without actually improving anything. I feel sorry for the kids who might have enjoyed metal shop, wood shop, auto repair, graphic arts, or other applied art classes, and who would have gained skills that could bring in decent pay, but who instead drop out of the totally useless (for them) college prep classes and go into low level service jobs or become single mothers. They still have the tracks, they just have different names. College prep is for students who likely drop out or barely graduate with no skills and be miserable, honors is for students who will likely go to a state college, and AP is for students who will likely go to University of California or a quality private school like Stanford or Cal Tech. The only change is the names and the fate of the lowest academic track. They are the losers in the current system.

jdmichal 14y ago
Germany still has this system for the most part. Clear separation between trade school and University preparation. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_Germany http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_Germany
jmj42 14y ago
Our high school uses tracked curriculum much like described. Math, for instance has 3 tracks: 1. Algebra 9A; Algebra 9B; Algebra 10; Geometry 2. Algebra 9; Algebra 10; Geometry; < various choices> 3. Algebra 10; Geometry; <choices>; <AP Choices> Track 3, requires 7th grade pre-algebra and 8th grade algebra. They are equivalent to Algebra 9A and 9B. Our 8th grade algebra even qualifies as "high school math" for qualification for the Illinois Math and Sciences Academy(IMSA).
WalterBright 14y ago
I took and loved metal shop, auto shop, and wood shop (I still use the desk I made in it), and went on to Caltech. Engineering is more than just math - it's about making things!
- amirmansour 14y ago
  Amen brotha, but don't tell that to the PhDs. P.S: I'm a PhD student.
- sesqu 14y ago
  And architecture is more than just arts. Perhaps more relevant than the existence of multidisciplinary fields is the low employment of monodisciplinary fields?
dinkumthinkum 14y ago
I don't care for this stuff. I don't think children should be placed into these tracks; it reinforces many problems. You have kids getting stuck into vocational trades because some administrator thinks they can't handle it or perhaps they haven't "blossomed" intellectually, or because of their family or family's station in life, think that's all they can do. Sorry, but the "honors if for state college bound and AP is for UC bound" little formula you have there just makes my eyes roll.
- just2n 14y ago
  What problems? You seem to have a particular worry about administrators deciding the fate of children by thinking they wouldn't challenge them by placing them in the correct track, or that the children would be discriminated against based on their race or social status. Just a quick FYI: this isn't 1850. There are solutions to problems like these. For one, we can provide aptitude tests. This would allow schools to decide which track is right for a student in an objective way. If a parent disagrees with the placement, they could request a certain placement, too. It's not meant to be segregation, it's meant to serve as teaching to students at a level that's challenging to them, but not unfair. Everyone is NOT created equal, and some excel at different things. To package everyone into the same exact track is ignorant at best, but probably just stupid. In fact, it's unlikely you'd have any student wholly within a single track. It makes more sense for some to take much more advanced courses in a subject that they excel at and in lower tracks for other subjects. And honors/AP separation is approximately correct. But AP has become even simpler since I was in HS (8 years ago). I looked up the AP exams I took to find that they have been simplified. The AP AB CS exam for instance no longer exists because it was deemed too difficult. I got a perfect score on it, and I ended up getting a math degree because I went to a state school and the CS curriculum was trivial for me. Having later taken Stanford courses and taught myself the curriculum used at MIT, they would've both been good fits. The only reason I didn't pursue either was the cost.
  - dinkumthinkum 14y ago
    Sometimes parents don't care. You realize that right? Sometimes parents fall into the same traps and don't help in opening up doors for their children. This is extremely common by the way. It's not that I think it is 1850; this happens every day. You may think it sounds crazy but there are plenty of kids that think that vocational jobs are their only options, very early on in life and I think these decisions are made for a number of reasons that may be faulty, especially so-called "aptitude" tests that young people take. People are not always who they were at 11, 12, or 13. As for the business of the honors/AP separation. It's just silly. There are plenty of different combinations of non-honors-non-AP/honors/AP students in no-college/"state college"/top-tier permutations. Your story, I guess is fine, but not to be flippant, is not really signifying of anything as far as this is concerned. I don't think the proposed formula is a real thing.
Gleaming 14y ago
I enjoyed metal shop and even woodworking shop, but that didn't stopped me to go to college. In fact, I found those classes to be more important in life than other well established and respectable subjects, such as english and literature. It isn't a either/or thing. And it shouldn't be.

jdmichal 14y ago

Germany still has this system for the most part. Clear separation between trade school and University preparation. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_Germany http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_Germany

jmj42 14y ago

Our high school uses tracked curriculum much like described. Math, for instance has 3 tracks: 1. Algebra 9A; Algebra 9B; Algebra 10; Geometry 2. Algebra 9; Algebra 10; Geometry; < various choices> 3. Algebra 10; Geometry; <choices>; <AP Choices> Track 3, requires 7th grade pre-algebra and 8th grade algebra. They are equivalent to Algebra 9A and 9B. Our 8th grade algebra even qualifies as "high school math" for qualification for the Illinois Math and Sciences Academy(IMSA).

WalterBright 14y ago

I took and loved metal shop, auto shop, and wood shop (I still use the desk I made in it), and went on to Caltech. Engineering is more than just math - it's about making things!

amirmansour 14y ago
Amen brotha, but don't tell that to the PhDs. P.S: I'm a PhD student.
sesqu 14y ago
And architecture is more than just arts. Perhaps more relevant than the existence of multidisciplinary fields is the low employment of monodisciplinary fields?

dinkumthinkum 14y ago

I don't care for this stuff. I don't think children should be placed into these tracks; it reinforces many problems. You have kids getting stuck into vocational trades because some administrator thinks they can't handle it or perhaps they haven't "blossomed" intellectually, or because of their family or family's station in life, think that's all they can do. Sorry, but the "honors if for state college bound and AP is for UC bound" little formula you have there just makes my eyes roll.

just2n 14y ago
What problems? You seem to have a particular worry about administrators deciding the fate of children by thinking they wouldn't challenge them by placing them in the correct track, or that the children would be discriminated against based on their race or social status. Just a quick FYI: this isn't 1850. There are solutions to problems like these. For one, we can provide aptitude tests. This would allow schools to decide which track is right for a student in an objective way. If a parent disagrees with the placement, they could request a certain placement, too. It's not meant to be segregation, it's meant to serve as teaching to students at a level that's challenging to them, but not unfair. Everyone is NOT created equal, and some excel at different things. To package everyone into the same exact track is ignorant at best, but probably just stupid. In fact, it's unlikely you'd have any student wholly within a single track. It makes more sense for some to take much more advanced courses in a subject that they excel at and in lower tracks for other subjects. And honors/AP separation is approximately correct. But AP has become even simpler since I was in HS (8 years ago). I looked up the AP exams I took to find that they have been simplified. The AP AB CS exam for instance no longer exists because it was deemed too difficult. I got a perfect score on it, and I ended up getting a math degree because I went to a state school and the CS curriculum was trivial for me. Having later taken Stanford courses and taught myself the curriculum used at MIT, they would've both been good fits. The only reason I didn't pursue either was the cost.
- dinkumthinkum 14y ago
  Sometimes parents don't care. You realize that right? Sometimes parents fall into the same traps and don't help in opening up doors for their children. This is extremely common by the way. It's not that I think it is 1850; this happens every day. You may think it sounds crazy but there are plenty of kids that think that vocational jobs are their only options, very early on in life and I think these decisions are made for a number of reasons that may be faulty, especially so-called "aptitude" tests that young people take. People are not always who they were at 11, 12, or 13. As for the business of the honors/AP separation. It's just silly. There are plenty of different combinations of non-honors-non-AP/honors/AP students in no-college/"state college"/top-tier permutations. Your story, I guess is fine, but not to be flippant, is not really signifying of anything as far as this is concerned. I don't think the proposed formula is a real thing.

Gleaming 14y ago

I enjoyed metal shop and even woodworking shop, but that didn't stopped me to go to college. In fact, I found those classes to be more important in life than other well established and respectable subjects, such as english and literature. It isn't a either/or thing. And it shouldn't be.