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Evanston Township High seeks to diversify advanced classes
School may drop an honors English course for high achievers
By Diane Rado, Tribune report
9:43 PM CST, November 23, 2010
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When he scans the faces in his honors science courses at Evanston Township High School, chemistry teacher William Farmer can easily see who's missing: minority kids.
"Out of 26, you might have three nonwhite students," he said.
One of the most racially mixed high schools in Illinois, Evanston has a mission of embracing diversity and promoting equity and excellence for all students. But its own data show that few minority students make it into the school's most rigorous courses that will best prepare them for college and the future.
Honors classrooms dominated by white students have been common in Illinois and across the nation, a byproduct of a century-old and controversial tradition of tracking, or sorting, students into different levels of classes.
Across the Chicago region, high school officials say they are making inroads in diversifying their advanced classes, but Evanston is considering the boldest step of all: eliminating an elite honors English course that has traditionally been offered to the highest-achieving incoming freshmen ? usually white.
The proposal has spurred an emotionally charged and race-tinged debate in the liberal, multiracial community that his home to Northwestern University.
For the most part, freshmen of all races and socioeconomic and achievement backgrounds would learn together in the same freshman humanities class, an English course that blends literature, history, art, music and philosophy and is required for graduation. The class would be taught at the honors level, according to district officials, and all students would have the opportunity to earn honors credit depending on their grades on assignments.
The superachievers ? freshmen who outscore about 95 percent of their peers nationally on eighth-grade achievement tests ? would no longer have their own class, beginning next fall. A year later, the same approach would be taken with freshman biology classes, if the school board approves the proposal.
Evanston Township High School District 202 Superintendent Eric Witherspoon said he hopes Evanston's plan will become a model for schools across the country.
"I'm excited about moving away from racially segregated classes," he said at a packed school board meeting earlier this week, adding that all freshmen should be taking challenging courses that will propel them to even more rigorous classes as upperclassmen.
Applause broke out in some, but not all, parts of the mostly white audience.
Some parents and community members are skeptical, questioning everything from how quickly the proposal is moving forward to whether all students will benefit from being in the same class.
"What in this proposal is better for the top students?" asked Susan Mendelsohn, one of more than 20 speakers at the board meeting. Trying to tailor instruction to such a wide range of students in one class "will not work out," she said. "It is unreasonable. It expects too much."
The new humanities class would include all students able to read at the ninth-grade level, which the high school defines as scoring at or above the 40th percentile nationally on an achievement test given to eighth-graders.
A small number of students below the 40th percentile will be in a different class, to get more help. This year, 50 students are in that support class ? about 8 percent of students enrolled in all freshman humanities courses.
Administrators insist that the new humanities course will be rigorous and challenging to all students.
"I can assure you that we will not be dumbing down the curriculum,'' Assistant Superintendent Diep Nguyen told the Tribune.
But not all parents are convinced, believing that students could be shortchanged if teachers are unable to devote enough attention to both struggling kids and high-achievers who need the most challenging material to be able to compete against the best and brightest kids across the country.
Mindy Wallis, whose children have been in top honors classes, pointed out that the high school already has mixed-level freshman humanities classes that combine students of varying levels ? except for the very top honors students ? so there shouldn't be a rush to make more changes.
Karen Young, also a parent, agreed, saying the district hasn't even completed its evaluation of changes made to those classes two years ago.
High school data show that nonwhite students make up the majority of the mixed-level freshmen humanities courses, while white students make up most of the honors-only classes.
"It's time for all students to experience excellence," said Naomi Daugherty, co-president of the Student Council this year. She said she once heard a substitute teacher say he could tell he was in an honors course because there were so few minorities in the room.
The proposal to eliminate the honors-only class comes at a time when the Evanston high school has repeatedly failed to meet federal academic standards, requiring a major school overhaul to increase student performance.
The school spends more than $20,000 per student, one of the highest per-pupil expenditures in the state. But while white students have consistently scored high enough on state tests to meet the standards, black and Latino students lag far behind, according to state data.
In Washington, the federal government is pushing for states to increase academic standards to better prepare students for college and work, and the U.S. Department of Education has stepped up civil rights monitoring that gauges whether schools are providing minority students access to rigorous programs.
In Illinois, about 71 percent of students in Advanced Placement classes were white in 2006, the most recent Office for Civil Rights data available. That compares with 9.7 percent black and 9.4 percent Latino students in AP that year.
Likewise, at Evanston Township High School, white students by far take the most honors and Advanced Placement courses.
In an interview with the Tribune, Witherspoon said the school's stratified classes have been trapping minority students in lower-level courses for their entire time in high school. "They almost never ended up leaving that level, so they'd be here for four years, but they'd never make it to honors or AP classes," he said.
In Evanston and elsewhere in the Chicago region, students have been placed into different levels of classes based on several factors, including eighth-grade teacher evaluations and recommendations, as well as test scores, often on the EXPLORE test that is a precursor to the ACT college entrance exam.
Witherspoon objects to tracking incoming freshmen before they even walk in the high school doors.
"These are eighth-graders; they are just 13 years old," Witherspoon said.
The placement process has generated controversy elsewhere as well.
In June, an Oak Park parent filed a lawsuit against Oak Park Elementary School District 97, claiming her son's middle school violated student records laws when it provided information to Oak Park and River Forest High School officials involved in determining which classes her son should take. She said she wasn't allowed to review and challenge the information, and that her son was "adversely affected."
The elementary school district declined to comment. High school spokeswoman Katherine Foran said the district will likely review its placement procedures as a result of the lawsuit.
The practice of tracking students has both proponents and detractors. Critics argue that it hurts minority and low-income students and those who just miss the cutoff for honors courses and might have benefited from learning alongside higher-achieving students.
Some educators support the practice, saying it's easier and can be more effective teaching to students at the same or similar levels. Parents of high-achievers often like their children in the highest tracks because they feel their children are bored or held back in classes that have to cater to the abilities of a wide range of students.
Research findings have been mixed, with some studies pointing to successful "detracking" initiatives that have boosted minority achievement, while others suggesting disadvantages, including average and high-ability students becoming bored or doing worse.
Among other findings, a 2008 study by the Consortium on Chicago School Research at the University of Chicago found that absenteeism increased among average and high-ability students after Chicago Public Schools eliminated remedial courses and mandated college prep classes for all students in 1997.
Officials in some of Illinois' largest school districts say they have been eliminating the lowest-level classes at their schools, and pushing more students into Advanced Placement classes. Still, they have continued to track students.
Farmer, the chemistry teacher, who is president of Evanston Township High School's teachers union organization, said teachers in departments affected by the proposal generally favor it, as long as they get support from administrators and training in how to effectively teach the heterogeneous courses.
For now, the proposal is aimed at freshmen English-humanities and biology; other subjects, such as math, continue to offer courses at different levels. The district has made no final decisions on whether sophomore classes will be detracked if the freshman proposals go through.
The school board will hold another public hearing on the plan Monday and is scheduled to vote Dec. 13.
Farmer believes the school board will approve the plan, saying, "I get the sense in working with the board that they really recognize the moral imperative of needing to make some drastic changes to the school structure, to reduce the predictability of student achievement based on race."
Freelance reporter Victoria Pierce contributed to this report.
drado@tribune.com
Copyright ? 2010, Chicago Tribune
