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A hot topic at Lansing High School is the elimination of 10th Grade Honors English.  According to school officials this has caused a lot of misinformation on 'the grapevine', with people worried that honors classes are being eliminated in Lansing, and that it is because of necessary budget cuts.  But High School Principal Eric Hartz says that it is only about 10th grade Honors English, and that the strategy is to mentor more kids into 11th grade honors classes by putting them together with students who would naturally qualify for honors.

"I think it's a way to grow the honors program, not diminish it," Hartz said.  "But it's hard.  It's change.  When you have had kids who have gone through and been successful, which a lot of families have, kids who are gong to Princeton and upper level ivies, it's hard."

Hartz held a meeting attended by 30 to 40 people including parents last week to explain the change and receive input.  He plans another meeting in a few more weeks as well.  At the end of that meeting he asked parents to bring a broader spectrum of people and opinions to the next meeting.  Hartz received praise from some parents for the openness of the meeting and the information they got from it.  But not all parents were ready to jump on board.

"I'm alarmed by the consideration to end honors tracking," parent Chris Barrett told the Lansing Board Of Education Monday.  "My read of the literature is that the core purpose of heterogeneous grouping is to improve the performance of traditionally under performing children.  That's an objective we should all care about a lot.  Unfortunately there are kids in the Lansing schools who don't do as well as they might be able to do and we need to pay attention to them.  But the results of heterogeneous grouping at best are very mixed."

Barrett said he could find no results that say kids who traditionally did less well had better test scores as a result of heterogeneous grouping.  He said he didn't find results that the approach harmed kids who consistently do better either, and said that cutting honors classes would put Lansing students at a disadvantage when applying to elite colleges and universities.

Hartz notes that the only honors class on the block right now is 10th grade honors English.  He says that by mixing students who would normally qualify for honors English with others who might qualify with a little extra push he hopes to actually increase the number of students who make it into Honors English in 11th and 12th grades.

"My proposal is that heterogeneously grouping, which means mixing all students through tenth grade, might give us a stronger outcome for eleventh grade honors," Hartz says.  "We have not taken eleventh grade honors away.  We don't plan on taking APs away.  We're maintaining as many higher level courses as we can."

Hartz notes that currently English is the only subject with a 10th grade honors section.  That creates three groups of students: honors, Regents, and those who are not pursuing a Regents degree.  He notes that the only other exception is foreign language, which occurs on an accelerated track because students have to pass a proficiency test in 8th grade.  So in a sense the change would bring English in line with other topics.  Hartz pointed out that students are heterogeneously grouped all the way up to high school.

Superintendent Stephen Grimm stated categorically that cutting the class is a strategy to help more students get into honors English, and it has nothing to do with looming cuts because of dwindling school funding.

"It is not a budget issue at all," he said.  "In fact there were always enough kids to make a section of honors.  Some of the misinformation that was going through the grapevine was not about that.  Then, from my perspective, the awareness of the issue caused the high school English Department to look and say, do we want to have it?  I also ask how are we determining who is in honors and how are we excluding who is not in it?  How are we preventing them from being in it?  How perfect are we with our assessments in 9th grade or 8th grade when we determine who will be in honors?"

Hartz says he hopes the interest and enthusiasm for English shown by the higher achieving students will rub off on those who may be borderline.  While he acknowledges that honors classes on a transcript help when applying to college, he says his goal is to provide that opportunity for more Lansing students, possibly doubling the number who qualify for honors English after 10th grade.

"The colleges tell you 'if you don't offer it how can we punish you?'  What people are asking is that if we do have it, does that look better on a transcript?  I'm going to tell you it probably does with an 'H' next to it. But if we had more kids taking APs and more kids in 11th grade honors I think we're doing a better service to all students.  I get that it's hard, but I want to make sure we do what's best for all children.  We're a public school.  We're not a private school."

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