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I think that the AL kids will again pay the price for the 'middle' and lower kids to do better. It probably does motivate some kids to work harder and socially I think it would be good. However, GCS is in the education business (supposedly) and they should do what is best for ALL kids, including the AL ones. If this were EC kids they would legally get the extra they need, but for some reason (the dumbing down syndrom) AL kids are always getting the short end of things!

Debora,

Once again, you have hit the nail on the head. This is yet another of GCS "dumbing down". Soon, this method will be found in all the middle schools in Guilford County.

This is just another attempt by GCS to lower achievement gaps by bringing down the highest performing students instead of raising the performance of lower performing students.

Is anyone really surprised by this?????

Have you heard of "Osmosis Learning". You put a poor child next to a middle class child and you put an advanced learner next to a child struggling to grasp the concepts and .........
POOF! EVERYONE DOES THE SAME!

If you don't believe this concept, GCS can bring in an author (funded by an "outside" source) to prove the validity of the concept!

In a perfect academic world, where classes contained no more than 18 or so students, and the teacher is well-trained and motivated to take each child where he or she is and move them forward as far as they can go, heterogenous grouping can inure to the benefit of all students.
There is research to support this basic premise, and I have seen it in practice and know it can work. The problem is that those conditions do not exist in most of our schools. My sense is that we in Guilford have made a policy decision that uniform mediocrity is to be preferred over wrestling with the difficult and expensive question of how to motivate our advanced students to excel AND close the achievement gap. What happens in most large heterogenously grouped classrooms is that the teacher of necessity teaches to the middle and spends any extra time helping the children who are not succeeding. The brightest children fend for themselves or help tutor those who are struggling. Argue against heterogenous grouping and you don't get much past the "elitist" charge in today's educational and political environment. But any parent or teacher who knows what it is to watch a bright child be challenged and motivated knows that peer tutoring, while a valuable experiences for a child who is also being taught at his or her level, cannot substitute for having a teacher meet that child's needs. We live in a state that ranks near the bottom, in a nation that is drifting further and further down in international standards of educational achievement. Our brightest students need and deserve to be challenged and motivated just as much as our struggling students, and we as a society need them to be so. More heterogenous grouping, in the context we will experience it in Guilford County, will not serve them well, and in the long run will not serve us well.

Agreed with all of the above comments.

It will serve the politicians well. It will make the school board and Grier look good on paper. Dummydown is their only answer. It would take too much effort to actually educate all students.

The kids who continue to distract others in class because they can't keep up or care nothing about school will only distract more. The smart kids will be distracted more and learn less and be told to tutor the others. The smart kids will have to teach themselves. Nothing new here.

Take a look at American literature and what the in advanced classes are forced to read in high school. Black history in America is only one tiny aspect of American literature. Just take out your signs and apologize again and again for being white. These books give the same message. Now with dummydown we can all be equal.

Don't forget about 1/2 a million for being healed. Now you can dummydown and be healed and learn how horrible you are for being white all in one day.