To Increase Equity, School Districts Eliminate Honors Classes – WSJ

The parental pushback in Culver City mirrors resistance that has taken place in Wisconsin, Rhode Island and elsewhere in California over the last year in response to schools stripping away the honors designation on some high school classes.

School districts doing away with honors classes argue students who don t take those classes from a young age start to see themselves in a different tier, and come to think they aren t capable of enrolling in Advanced Placement classes that help with college admissions. Black and Latino students are underrepresented in AP enrollment in the majority of states, according to the Education Trust, a nonprofit that studies equity in education. 

via www.wsj.com

The faster public schools do this, the faster parents will abandon them if they have good students in their families. On its surface, therefore, it seems like a bad idea, if government wants to run schools. But perhaps government shouldn’t really be in the education business, at least in the long term.