NCES Study: "Honors" Math Classes No More Rigorous.

USA Today (3/12, Toppo) reports that according to a new National Center for Education Statistics analysis of "textbooks, curriculums and transcripts of nearly 18,000 students nationwide," many students enrolled in math classes labeled "honors" "are actually getting intermediate-level work - or worse." The article quotes NCES Commissioner Jack Buckley criticizing the lack of "truth-in-labeling" in the courses, and quotes him saying, "It's a lot of kids that are obviously getting courses that are called one thing, but difficulty-wise look like they're something else." USA Today explains that the analysis "began as an attempt to solve a mystery: Researchers were trying to find out why more students were taking 'advanced' classes in 2005 than in 1990 but weren't turning in better results on nationally administered 12th-grade math and science tests. Tuesday's findings suggest that their course offerings were often 'advanced' in name only."

 

The AP (3/13, Elliott) reports, "During their review of almost 18,000 high school students' records and textbooks, the investigators found as many as a third of the textbooks weren't about the subject printed on the cover. And within the subjects, the course titles were subjective and didn't really reflect the courses' difficulty." The AP touches on how the revelations will impact college admissions, and says they "suggest that many elementary teachers are not preparing students for high school-level math and that many students who complete Algebra I and Geometry courses are not prepared for future classes, either during later high school years or in college."

 

Reuters (3/12, Simpson) also covers this story, and quotes NCES Associate Commissioner for Education Statistics Peggy Carr saying, "If we're accepting a watered-down ... course, call it anything, we are in effect suggesting that we haven't met these students' needs."