At its November 21, 2006, meeting, the MMSD Student Senate discussed many issues of interest to this blog community (e.g., completely heterogeneous high school classes, embedded honors options, etc.). Here is the relevant section from the minutes for that meeting:
Comments and Concerns:
- not isolating
discussion level is still high
homework is the same (higher expectation for essays; two textbooks)
teachers don’t cater to one type of student in discussions
Main problems to bring to BOE:
- higher standards for all students *
- division within classes creates too many boundaries *
- not bad to keep advanced classes in some disciplines *
- voluntary peer education *
- colleges consider accelerated course loads (factor to consider) *
*Group majority
On December 4, 2006, BOE Student Representative Joe Carlsmith made a presentation about recent MMSD Student Senate activities to his BOE colleagues. Here is the relevant portion of the BOE Regular Meeting agenda for that date:
Heterogeneous vs. Homogeneous class grouping; Multi-level divisions within classrooms at West.
Voted consensus, though no official motion, on the following:
1. We need to work toward higher standards at all levels.
2. Motivated teachers result in motivated students.
3. Total elimination of TAG or AP classes would be detrimental to the overall curriculum.
4. Honors or AP divisions within classes create too many barriers between students.
When I asked Joe if Item #4 referred specifically to embedded honors options, he replied: “We came up with item four as a general consensus on a discussion we had specifically about West’s embedded honors program.” In other words, as he explained to me on the phone, the Student Senate does not support embedded honors options in our high schools because of the divisions they create within a classroom.
I have invited Joe (and the other members of the Student Senate) to come to the Madison United for Academic Excellence meeting on January 23 (7:00 in Room 209 of the Doyle Building) because our focus that evening will be our high schools. As well, we will have at least one student and one parent from each of our four high schools present at the meeting, prepared to give a brief update on what’s been going on at their school and to answer any school-specific questions that might come up.