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Alternative view here: While I don't doubt that your kid was hilariously unappreciated from the school based on one test, I was a relatively lazy middle school

Alternative view here: While I don't doubt that your kid was hilariously unappreciated from the school based on one test, I was a relatively lazy middle school student, scoring B-C ranges on most of my classes as well as pretty much failing the first aptitude test (pretty sure it said that I should be a truck driver). As a result, I wound up getting placed into non-honors classes freshman year. After a few weeks of finding the classes mind-numbling boring, I offhandedly mentioned to my advisor that I wanted my classes to be more challenging, and she immediately moved me to honors courses because of the fact that I had taken the prerogative to tell her that I wasn't being sufficiently challenged. Currently I'm studying Computer Science at a large state University. Because both our examples have an n = 1 sample size, it's definitely not correct to generalize high schools across an entire nation. However, in my experience, high school advisors were more than willing to toss out aptitude test results if the student had taken the prerogative themselves. While I agree with the idea that "Every school is essentially 2 schools", the barrier between them is honestly so low that it's not realistically a problem.

codexjourneys 12y ago
You were lucky. At my high school someone from the regular track had to jump through hoops and speak up loudly to be allowed into an honors English class. Separately, my high school guidance counselor "lost" the application of a student who wasn't doing very well in high school (it was the student's only application to college, so this may very well have messed up her life for a while), while constantly harassing me in the cafeteria to apply to more/better schools. I believe (somewhat cynically) that her motivation was to make the high school's acceptance rates look better. But the real crime of the traditional education system, in my mind, is to condition students to be so focused on jumping for gold stars that they don't think about what they really want to accomplish and what activities (stars or no) will get them there.
gscott 12y ago
You had a more supporting environment, I am sure it varies by school. My son did try to get into Honors classes but they would not let him. To get into the Middle College program he tried to get recommendations from all of his teachers and two of them said he would never make it and suggested he give up and that she would actively send a negative recommendation. The rest of the teachers were supportive. I would say his school situation may have been more on the extreme side. Luckily he was able to get out of there. It was very demoralizing to him but once out of there he received all A and B grades in his college classes and he continues to get A and B grades at UND.
wtallis 12y ago
Trying to cross that barrier before high school is in my experience much harder even though the payoff of doing so is much greater.

codexjourneys 12y ago

You were lucky. At my high school someone from the regular track had to jump through hoops and speak up loudly to be allowed into an honors English class. Separately, my high school guidance counselor "lost" the application of a student who wasn't doing very well in high school (it was the student's only application to college, so this may very well have messed up her life for a while), while constantly harassing me in the cafeteria to apply to more/better schools. I believe (somewhat cynically) that her motivation was to make the high school's acceptance rates look better. But the real crime of the traditional education system, in my mind, is to condition students to be so focused on jumping for gold stars that they don't think about what they really want to accomplish and what activities (stars or no) will get them there.

gscott 12y ago

You had a more supporting environment, I am sure it varies by school. My son did try to get into Honors classes but they would not let him. To get into the Middle College program he tried to get recommendations from all of his teachers and two of them said he would never make it and suggested he give up and that she would actively send a negative recommendation. The rest of the teachers were supportive. I would say his school situation may have been more on the extreme side. Luckily he was able to get out of there. It was very demoralizing to him but once out of there he received all A and B grades in his college classes and he continues to get A and B grades at UND.

wtallis 12y ago

Trying to cross that barrier before high school is in my experience much harder even though the payoff of doing so is much greater.