Do We Have a Two-Tier System of High Schools?

I feel really conflicted about this.

Do we have a two-tier high school system in this country?

We have one set of high schools that teaches grade-level standards, high school standards, and if you graduate from that type of high school, you know you're a high school graduate.

You know you have learned what you're supposed to learn.

We have another tier, another set of high schools that are alternative schools.

that are for students who are behind, that are for students who need to learn in a different way for whatever reason.

And I don't think students get the same experience in those schools, and certainly they might need a different experience, but I don't think they're getting the same academics.

And I wanna talk about one type of school in particular that I think gives me some pause and poses a little bit of a conundrum for me.

And that is schools like big picture schools.

And my colleague Angela Watson over at truthforteachers.com did a two-day site visit at a big picture school in the Bronx.

And big picture runs something like 160 schools in 37 states.

So they're all over.

They have a very innovative sounding model, very progressive sounding model.

And Angela has a lot of good things to say about it.

And I do too.

But I really have some mixed feelings about what we're doing here and how we're portraying it.

And first of all, I think it is absolutely essential that we have good options for every student.

So if you get to high school and you're not going to take AP classes.

You are not at grade level.

You are not on track to, you know, to get into a good college.

Like if you are struggling, if you are behind, you need to have good educational options.

And I think we need probably twice as many alternative schools as we have in this country.

Like for every high school, there should be an alternative school as well, because we have students who need that, who are not going to be as successful as they need to be in a traditional high school.

The part that I'm conflicted about is is that in those alternatives and in schools like the one Angela visited, which is not billed as an alternative school, it's billed as a regular school that just does innovative stuff, students are learning maybe half as much, maybe less than that.

And if I kind of read between the lines in Angela's report, it seems like the high schoolers are doing middle school work it seems like they're about four years behind academically and there's a lot of emphasis on you know 21st century skills social emotional skills like there's all this stuff that's kind of fuzzy and and feels good and feels valuable and the students seem to have just a much better experience than if they were in a traditional high school and just kind of failing their classes it's like it's a good thing to have a good experience it's a good thing to graduate the part that I'm concerned about is the learning though.

Like we're not actually catching those students up.

We are giving them a good experience and then a diploma without them having done the learning that that diploma requires.

is supposed to represent.

So like they're staying behind.

And in fact, I think it's really clear based on the pacing and based on the curriculum and the courses that are offered that students are being taught less and slower at these schools.

Now, if you think that's not the case, let me know.

But I can't see any evidence that students are keeping up with their peers who are in traditional high schools.

There's no AP classes, there's no advanced classes.

Like it really seems like they're spending their time on things other than learning stuff.

And part of why that's happening is because in this extremely progressive sounding philosophy, there's a lot of emphasis on skills that I think are not really real.

Like critical thinking is not a real skill that you can just like do other stuff and have critical thinking.

Like critical thinking is a function of like actually learning the stuff that you're supposed to learn, actually becoming an educated person.

So I think there's a little bit of theatrics here to make everybody feel better about the fact that they're behind.

And that means actually doing a somewhat worse job of catching them up.

Like they're actually learning less and learning slower in exchange for staying in school.

I think that's the part that's really valuable.

And that's why I'm conflicted about all of this are, you know, like how are we serving those students?

What message are we sending them?

And like, is this a net positive?

I think it is, but again, I feel conflicted.

Let me know what you think.