Curriculum Issues

There appear to be several major issues right now as related to the delivery of curriculum in the Madison schools. 

Advanced Level Course Offerings

As parents begin to advocate for more rigorous curriculum in the schools, we have begun to put together a collection of research on the usefulness of AP classes.

Recently parents got together to discuss the possibility that the district will phase out all accelerated classes and attempt to provide differentiation of material for students placed in heterogeneous classrooms. As part of that discussion, we put together a list of the different accelerated courses offered at the four high schools in the district. A review of those course offerings highlights the tremendous differences amongst the four schools. This comparison chart is also available as a .pdf document.

Math
The first issue relates to changes in the way that math is taught within the district as the district begins implementing constructivist approaches to math instruction.

Small Learning Communities

The second issue has to do with the reorganization of the high schools into small learning communities. Related to the issue of school reorganization are changes in the course offerings available to high achieving students. We are hoping to include information about each of the four high schools, but currently only have information about West. Please send us information about your high school.  Also of interest to parents is a recent schoolinfosystem posting from a La Follette teacher who speaks out about the inequities and implications of the four block system on La Follette students' educational opportunities.

Middle School

Along with changes in the curriculum at the high school level, there appear to be plans underway to restructure the curriculum across the middle schools in the district such that every middle school offers the same curriculum. Concerns about these changes are being raised on schoolinfosystem.org.

Interested readers might want to check out Cherie Yecke's book: Mayhem in the middle. How middle schools have failed America - and how to make them work.  Or check out the comments of parents who have removed their children from the Madison schools.

Reading

Reading Recovery has often been criticized for being too expensive and not very effective in teaching students to read. A recently publicized letter signed by an international group of researchers summarizes the evidence on Reading Recovery. The conclusion is that the program is too expensive and not effective. A number of other researchers have written a response to these criticisms. You can read their response and decide for yourself. For more on the topic of reading instruction, you can read a review in American Educator by Torgesen (2004) entitled Preventing early reading failure.

 

For parents who are interested in advocating for more than one section of Accelerated Biology at West High School, we have the following information:

• A collection of letters written in 2004 when West was proposing to eliminate its one section of accelerated biology.
• A look at what the other high schools in the district offer in accelerated or honors biology.