We agree that changing the high-school curriculum to eliminate honors classes is not the most effective way to narrow the achievement gap ("Honors? Horrors!" Editorial, Dec. 18). And we agree that the only way to attack the achievement gap is beginning years before students enter high school. But we part company with the Tribune's assertion that intervening by age 5 will reap results. Learning begins at birth, and research shows the achievement gap is evident as early as 9 months of age. The best way to create and maintain a level education playing field is to reach at-risk children with high-quality early-learning programs, starting at birth.
The first five years of a child's life are crucial in developing the cognitive, social and emotional skills necessary to succeed in school. Vulnerable children who attend early-childhood programs are less likely to be enrolled in special education and more likely to graduate from high school.
Deep budget shortages are forcing many of the state's public-school districts to do more with less. Public early-childhood programs are among those programs most at risk for elimination. But if we don't acknowledge the critical role early education plays in shaping a child's success in school and properly fund quality birth-to-5 programs, unacceptable racial and economic disparities in student achievement will persist.
— Diana Mendley Rauner, president, Ounce of Prevention Fund, Chicago
Interest in classes
In the Dec. 18 editorial "Honors? Horrors!" I agree that "Eliminating the honors class (at Evanston Township High School) won't close the achievement gap." I also believe it won't even close the "self-esteem" gap, which often is cited as another disadvantage to honors tracking.
My twin brother was always placed in an honors math class. I was not. Because I knew his interest in math was greater than mine, I suffered no low self-esteem. Students, parents and teachers should realize that a student's placement into an honors class is likely the result of his exceptional interest or background in that subject. It is not that excluded students lack the ability to be exceptional. Therefore, the concern of lower self-esteem for those students excluded from honors courses has no merit.
— Steve Waller, Park Forest
Would someone from Evanston Township High School please explain what is meant by "promoting equity"? Does it mean that all outstanding students get a C, and all fair students get a C, and all failing students get a C?
— Rosanne M. Barrett, Northfield
I totally agree with the Tribune's editorial "Honors? Horrors!"
Straight to the point for Evanston Township High School: It is a lot easier to make an intelligent student dumber than a dumb student intelligent. Eliminating honors classes for kids who qualify will ensure you learn this lesson, and at students' expense. You cannot legislate parity no matter how hard you try.
— Barry Flanagan, Highwood
You have addressed the most salient issue in your editorial "Honors? Horrors!" although I disagree with your conclusion regarding the elimination of the honors track. How do students who have spent at least nine years in the elementary Evanston School District 65 arrive at Evanston Township High School unprepared to receive challenging instruction and, in some cases, unable to read grade-level instructional material? How is it that these students, whose reading difficulties are evident in the primary grades, are advanced from grade to grade in the elementary school until they are no longer the responsibility of the elementary district?
ETHS has struggled to rectify this achievement gap without once laying blame where it belongs. What is the elementary district doing to ensure that all students are reaching their potential?
— Aviva Tauman, Evanston
The decision by Evanston Township High School to eliminate honors classes in humanities may or may not be a mistake. However, your editorial ends with the statement that the gap begins at age 5. The problem is that the gap begins before birth and communities like Evanston need to address the issue of quality preschool for our children — beginning as early as possible. By quality preschools I mean the kind of schools that affluent children attend, such as Montessori schools. The classroom environments and teachers need to be of the highest caliber (and better paid than they are now — paid like high-school teachers, perhaps).
Evanston is a great community with an interesting, often challenging mix of socioeconomic levels. It has the opportunity to do something great like free preschool to end the many decades of educational achievement gap. Yet, sadly, year after year Evanston ignores the research and waits until the children are in elementary school to even begin to try to close a gap that has been widening since the children were born.