Honors Courses Give Way To AP Rigor

At Rockville High School, teacher Jasmine Leonard assists Marc St. Aubin, 17, and Joseph Outmezguine, 18, in 12th-grade honors English. (By Melina Mara -- The Washington Post)
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"No schools in Fairfax County have ever had honors offerings at the senior year," wrote Ann Monday, then an assistant superintendent in the county, in an e-mail to a parent two years ago. "I hope that all involved can agree that advanced academic offerings for seniors, if not juniors, should be college-level work."

Administrators say their ultimate goal is not to raise AP numbers but to streamline high school study.

Prince William high schools have eliminated the honors designation over the past five years, steering students into AP, IB or Cambridge college-preparatory programs or into the county's "regular, rigorous" curriculum, said Gail Hubbard, who supervises the advanced programs.

"We thought it was very healthy to have simply two choices," she said.

Loudoun schools thinned the ranks of honors courses a decade ago, eliminating all honors sections in mathematics and social studies and in some other subjects.

Although the Rockville High school principal said she thought the school's honors English classes too closely reflected the regular curriculum, Loudoun officials found the opposite problem: Honors offerings were too much like AP classes.

"The only difference was they weren't taking the Advanced Placement test," said Sharon Ackerman, assistant superintendent in Loudoun.

Loudoun students still have three high school tracks to choose from: a basic grade-level curriculum, a more rigorous sequence of courses labeled "academic" and college-level AP.

Fairfax schools, too, have embraced the philosophy that if schools provide a college-level course in a given subject, a less rigorous honors course is unnecessary.

West Potomac High School in Alexandria now lists just two courses labeled honors in its social studies and English departments. Students there and at a few other Fairfax schools have grumbled about declining honors offerings in recent years.

"We all felt like the honors level was the perfect level for us, because it was right in between," said Kenneth Llewellyn, a senior at West Potomac.

Llewellyn said most of his friends have been "scared off" by the prospect of more AP courses and have gravitated toward regular classes.

Munk, who oversaw the county's English curriculum before becoming principal at Rockville High, wants the 11th-grade honors course to become a more rigorous class that prepares students for AP study as seniors.

No other Montgomery school has followed her lead. But her initiative has led to a systemwide review of school board policy, which currently requires principals to offer honors classes in every core subject and grade level at least in alternating years.

"It really needs a full discussion by the board with input from staff on what direction all this is going," said Sharon W. Cox (At Large), a school board member. "I think that, especially in Montgomery County, people want to have options open to them."

At Walt Whitman High School in Bethesda, honors classes are thriving. Principal Alan Goodwin has counseled students to consider honors instead of AP to ease their workload and stress. At Albert Einstein High in Kensington, Principal James G. Fernandez views honors classes as "a motivational, inspirational thing" for students who aspire to college.

"Honors is great, but it's only a start," Fernandez said. "You need to move into AP. Show them you're capable of college-level work."