Why Honors English is Coming Back for 10th Graders

Four years ago, the Culver City School Board voted to eliminate Honors English classes at CCHS after seeing data that showed the lack of diversity in Honors and AP English classes. Starting in the 2022-23 school year, all 9th and 10th grade students were placed into honors-level “College Prep” English classes. Many parents and students protested this decision loudly, arguing that it took away opportunities for “motivated” students to take challenging English courses. Last November, these dissenters got their wish when the School Board voted to order CCHS to develop a new English 10 Honors curriculum, which will likely be approved at another meeting this summer.

This decision only directly impacts current freshman, who now have the option to take the new English 10 Honors course next school year, though the school board could expand this to 9th grade and CCMS in the next few years. According to Asst. Principal of Curriculum Hilaleh Hamad, approximately half of the class of rising sophomores have chosen to take Honors English. The course will be taught by Ms. Gonzalez, Ms. Rick, and Ms. Reyes, and students will read at least 5 books in class, including Frankenstein by Mary Shelley and the play Zoot Suit by Luis Valdez.

But the controversy around Honors English is complex—why did the school board eliminate Honors in the first place?

For one, Honors English classes have zero impact on a student’s GPA. CCHS has never provided a grade boost for Honors classes in any subject. The UC and Cal State university systems do their own GPA calculations for applicants. They give boosts for approved math and science Honors classes, but not for Honors English classes.

On top of that, the Honors English system that existed before 2022 was, according to CCHS employees, deeply flawed. The Honors and grade-level English classes had become essentially the same. They read the same 4 novels and wrote the same number of essays—students in Honors got the “Honors” label on their report cards simply for choosing to enroll in that class, not for doing any extra work. Students in Honors, who were disproportionately white and Asian-American, were subsequently much more likely to enroll in AP Language and Composition in 11th grade because they felt encouraged to do so in their Honors class. By removing the meaningless Honors label, CCHS removed this academic advantage received by “Honors” students simply for believing that they were better at English. This decision also helped to repair the subtle division between Honors and non-Honors students.

This division between students perceived to be “motivated” and those who are not is called “tracking,” and it begins in elementary school. Based on test scores, students, their teachers, and their peers subconsciously and explicitly decide if they are on the “motivated” track to take challenging courses and advance academically down the line. It limits students who are not tracked into advanced classes, who then come to believe that they are not capable of taking more advanced classes, even though they may be fully capable.  

However, many parents argued that this “detracking” of English hurt students who truly did want an extra challenging English class. So, this time around, the new Honors teachers and the School Board are working to ensure that the Honors class is distinctly more rigorous than the grade-level class. The new curriculum includes a selection of books different from both the current College Prep courses and the old Honors courses. Students will write six essays (including a memoir and a multi-media research presentation) rather than the four they would write in current College Prep class, and will theoretically be more prepared for AP Lang. The creation of this new curriculum has proven to be a difficult task.

“What everyone has to understand is that 10th grade standards are 10th grade standards whether it’s a Honors course or not,” says Ms. Hamad. Unlike a math or science course, English classes don’t have to teach concrete concepts (like DNA replication or the area of circles), they have to teach skills (like being able to identify the theme of a text). This means that, according to California Common Core standards, Honors and grade-level English classes will always be teaching the same things, unlike Honors math classes, which teach additional concepts. One CCHS English teacher compares an Honors English class that reads more books to an Honors math class that learns exactly the same concepts as the regular class, but just does more practice problems. It is difficult to make the new Honors curriculum distinctly more rigorous than the College Prep curriculum.

It is also important to note that all the 10th grade English classes that integrate students with special needs, often called “Collab Classes,” will be grade-level. Although special needs students with IEPs (Individualized Education Plans) can be accommodated in Honors classes, there will not be an Honors English Collab Class specially structured for a large number of IEP students.

So why is Honors English coming back at all? The decision came from the Culver City School Board, who noted that the lack of diversity in AP English classes has not been solved by removing Honors, and the removal of Honors has only served to reduce opportunities for “motivated” students. The new curriculum will hopefully create a truly distinct, more rigorous English Course for these students. Only one Board Member, Brian Guerrero, voted against the decision. According to the Culver Crescent Newspaper, he emphasized that, “Every single student has the potential to excel in these [Honors and AP] classes.”

Interestingly, Santa Monica High School eliminated Honors English classes at the exact same time as Culver High, and has no plans to bring it back. Some CCHS employees believe that this is because Samohi saw much less backlash from parents after their decision to detrack. Culver City parent activism after CCUSD eliminated Honors was vigorous. Parents went to local news outlets, and the issue was even covered in the Wall Street Journal. CCHS English teachers who spoke out in favor of removing Honors had their emails leaked on Facebook and were harassed online. 

Notably, none of these teachers who spoke out, many of whom have decades of experience in teaching both 10th grade English and AP English classes, have been chosen to teach Honors English 10 next year. 

Ultimately though, this issue has put many teachers in a difficult position. “Our teachers are the ones who do the work every day,” says Ms. Hamad. “They’re the ones who spend the most time with our students. So we want to make sure that we provide them the care and support to get up everyday and do the work because we know they care.”