Like the sibling poster said this is probably a cost cutting measure. However, I really hate the dichotomy of “special ed” vs “gifted/advanced” that permeates education. Every student has special educational needs, and by that I mean not just academics. I excelled in school with no real effort and never got the support I needed in other areas because, clearly, I was doing great. I now have a 2e kid that goes to a Waldorf type school and gets like zero academic assistance (not really needed) but a ton of social/emotional support he needs. Eventually he’ll be in some more mainstream school where he can take advanced courses. I have a girl with ADHD and an 88 IQ - she just squirrels out as soon as she sees a problem that she cannot answer without some thought. She is sharp as a tack and does well in school because she has had to learn good study habits, but her support comes in the form of special ed to help give her a distraction-free environment in which to study.
I do think there is a push not to equalize everyone but to actually address individual needs, and those may draw resources from areas like advanced courses. Boredom in school for bright kids can definitely be a problem but I’m not sure it’s the end of the world. The kids who want to excel generally will, and can often just be advanced a grade or two. The rigid structure of class groupings by age is anachronistic and maybe like 50% appropriate. There are better ways to structure education.
Here in California, the people setting the next generation math curriculum explicitly reject the idea that some children are better in some subjects than others (0% of the people responsible for creating the math standards studied math).
Their original proposal would ban all but remedial coursework, so your kids would get the same treatment as everyone else (by intentionally lowering everyone's achievement; especially the special needs and gifted kids).
I can only assume the people pushing this are trying to sabotage the school system, but they claim to have good intentions, and hide behind all sorts of woke double speak.
In other news, the schools no longer fund science or art classes. Instead, the parents pay the public school $1000's per year per student (tax deductible) so we can have those programs.
Also, the facilities are crumbling and have all sorts of obvious health and saftey issues. This is in an extremely affluent part of the state and a top ranked school.
My kids will be fine (the parents at the school happily throw money at the problems -- it's cheaper than private school, after all), but I don't see how kids in poorer districts will be able to pretend to have a middle school education, regardless of whether they earn a California high school diploma, or not.
Seattle-area parent here. I grew up in near a small city in the midwest, but even there we had 3 levels of classes for nearly every subject, and a gifted program. It was awesome. My classmates were all smart and hard-working, and I entered college already having tested out of nearly 2 years of general education requirements. Public schools are the way to go, or so I thought.
Having seen what the Seattle public school system has become, I'm planning to send my kids to private school. Most of my (largely Asian) friends here will do the same. As usual, people with the means to do so will pay to avoid these problems, but the lower/middle class suffers the consequences.
I had a similar experience in school and definitely agree
> I do think there is a push not to equalize everyone but to actually address individual needs, and those may draw resources from areas like advanced courses
This is a great point and reminds me of the quote "When you're accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression". I definitely got a lot of privileges in school my friends didn't because I got good grades - better choice of classes, counselors will listen to you more, and maybe most of all, teachers seem to care much more about teaching and engaging and not just getting a group of kids they don't think want to learn to pass so they can leave the class.
For teachers is more fun to teach interested kids rather rather than people who clearly and blatantly aren't paying any attention.
You try talking for an hour to someone on the train, and keep going when they put their earphones on and start scrolling on the phone… it's not that easy.
I do think there is a push not to equalize everyone but to actually address individual needs, and those may draw resources from areas like advanced courses. Boredom in school for bright kids can definitely be a problem but I’m not sure it’s the end of the world. The kids who want to excel generally will, and can often just be advanced a grade or two. The rigid structure of class groupings by age is anachronistic and maybe like 50% appropriate. There are better ways to structure education.