And now for something completely different.
Phoenix wanted to create more activity downtown to increase real estate prices and justify building $1 condos and other such non-sense. One of the things they did to further this goal was open an ASU Downtown campus where they located both the journalism and medical schools.
To help feed students into the ASU medical downtown campus, they also worked with the city and local businesses to create the Bioscience High School.
What the heck is the Bioscience High School? Well it is a free public school with limited enrollment. You have to apply to enroll and be accepted. Their target is 100 students per grade for a total of 400 for the school. Every student that gets in is assumed to be an honors student. The honors material is integrated right into the general ciriculum.
They do things like instead of having separate classes for math and science they have a single class called Phalgabra with is an integration of physical science and algebra. Teach them a little math, then show them some science that uses that math, then a little more math, then some more science… Every freshman takes both phalgebra and bilology, in addition to a similarly integrated english and social studies. This leaves the only decision “Spanish, French or Chinese”.
Initially, they had just the bioscience focus. Last year they added an engineering track. Their Jr. Year they can pick whether they want to be in the equivialnt of AP biology or AP physics by their sr. year. Either way, every student is in the equivialnt of AP Calculus and AP English Composition by thier sr. year.
Every student, upon acceptance, is already able to pass the AIMS (our version of the standardized tests that schools teach to these days). Becasue of that, they don’t have to teach to the tests and can focus on what they call, “A higher level of understanding”.
In effect, they are cherry pikcing the best students from all the jr. highs, and putting them into one high school full of just “the cream of the crop”. 5 years the school has been open, not a single fight. No bullying. No drugs. Their main disciplinary issue? Misuse of the laptop that every student is issued.
They don’t teach to the SAT, but their average score is up around the 95% rank. 2 graduating classes, they have had 3 students accepted to Ivy League schools. Several students have gone to MIT. Part of their senior year project is to apply to both UoA and ASU, and not a single student has not been accepted.
Part of me thinks this is awesome. Why hold back the smart kids? This is the part of me that just had his 13 y/o genious daughter accepted to this school.
Part of me is concerned. By pulling the best of the best out of other high schools, we take away resources from those shcools. Had half of the best students been pulled out of my high school, there would not have been enough kids left to justify having an AP calculus nor AP physics.
What if we start to do more of this on the low end. Take the worst students and put them in a shcool of just the worst of the worst? At what age do we write someone off as not fit to do anything more complicated than sweeping the floor and emptying the trash cans?
My son is the opposite of his sister. He has strugled with both math and physical science. He’s had some disciplinary issues. At 14, should we have written him off as unteachable? He’s a great reader, writer, artistic. He has even aced biology, government and history. He’s 2nd in command for his Air Force JROTC class. But, based on his STEM skills, would he have been written off and dumped in the “stupid person school”?
Thoughts on separating people into different high schools by skills/abilities starting at 13/14 years old?
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