On Friday, the Dispatch headline proclaimed that the outcome of
the Gilroy Unified School District Board meeting last Thursday was
a
”
small step for GHS honors.
”
On Friday, the Dispatch headline proclaimed that the outcome of the Gilroy Unified School District Board meeting last Thursday was a “small step for GHS honors.”
In my opinion, that’s a gross overstatement. The Board decision to continue an honors pilot program doesn’t qualify as a step in my book. As the time draws closer for my eighth grade daughter to decide where she will attend high school, I get more and more apprehensive about the speed with which our district will move. I keep telling my daughter that she needs to keep all her options open, but she has decided she wants to go to Gilroy High. I would like to be able to assure her that she can get an outstanding education there, but I will not lie to her. She will take the entrance exam for Catholic High School, because we need a fallback plan. Many of her friends and classmates who are succeeding in Brownell and South Valley will take those private school exams as well. Too many Gilroy families will not wait around while the District analyzes data that tells us what we already know.
Last year, Larry Slonaker taught Language Arts at Brownell to seventh graders. He was on sabbatical from his job as a writer for the San Jose Mercury News. His week-long series about his year in the classroom was both enlightening and frightening. Most seventh grade students in Gilroy are not capable of doing seventh grade work. This was illustrated by the publication of one student’s work in which the following is written: “Where my shoes at?” (This has been my personal catch phrase for the past few months. When I run into a person who is particularly inept, I think to myself “Where my shoes at?”)
Those seventh graders generally got promoted to eighth grade. They are working hard over at Brownell, but all those years of social promotion and bilingual programs which kept students illiterate in two languages can’t be fixed in one year, so I expect there will be a number of “Where my shoes at?” graduates in 2003. The vast majority of these students will enroll at Gilroy High. Since we know we will be getting the low achievers, and we have set lofty goals district wide, we will need to retain the high achievers who leave our junior highs. We need to actively recruit them into Gilroy High. It’s that simple.
How do you retain the high-achieving students? Offer them classes which don’t insult their intelligence. Offer honors classes across all academic areas. Honors classes are necessary for that minority of students who enter Gilroy High performing on or above grade level. More than half of the freshman class is operating below grade level. Those students who do not require remedial work want to be challenged. It is not fair or equitable to require that students who have a good work ethic be forced to sit through classes full of students who don’t have any concept of what it takes to learn. It is not fair for students who are hungry for knowledge to have to sit in classes with students making their third lame attempt to pass geometry.
It insults me when The Dispatch reports “some parents and staff have said continued poor performance by underachievers is one of the negative impacts or separating students according to their ability.” How convenient it would be for a student to blame their failure on the mere presence of an honors course. Show me one iota of evidence that an underachieving student can blame his poor performance on the lack of hard-working or high-achieving students in his classroom. There is no evidence because it’s a red herring.
I’m sure that students who chronically goof off and underachieve miss having those bright students in class; they were the ones who used to carry the class. I would say that the evidence is already in on the effect of not separating students according to their ability. The evidence is found in those bright Gilroy High students who go up the freeway or over the mountain everyday to schools which offer honors classes designed to accommodate their needs.
I want to be able to assure my daughter that she will be a Mustang next year but I can’t do that yet. She will take her PSAT in January and her Catholic School entrance exam.
As for me, I guess you could say that I am putting GUSD on a six-month pilot program. I’m giving them six months to do right by those students who could pass the high school exit exam upon entrance and require nothing more than a decent teacher and classmates eager to learn.
Denise Baer Apuzzo has lived in Gilroy for 5 years. She is married and is a parent of three children who attend Gilroy public schools. You can reach her at: lu*****@ea*******.net. Her column is published each Thursday and can read on line at www.gilroydispatch.com
