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Middle School Honors Classes
Is Your Child Ready?
By Sue Marquette Poremba
This push isn't always done with the best interest of the child in mind. It has more to do with today's culture. Parents are afraid that if their child isn't in the best preschool, isn't reading on a high school level by the third grade, isn't tracked in the gifted classes by sixth grade, their child won't get into the best colleges.
But colleges don't look at a student's academic record before ninth grade. "Starting in the ninth grade, we do like to see students take a rigorous curriculum – honors or AP classes," says David Lesesne, dean of admission at Sewanee: The University of the South, a prestigious and selective liberal arts institution. Whether or not honors classes in middle school prepare students for high school honors classes is questionable. A student who struggles or fails to learn the material in middle school can end up forever behind in high school.
Half the children in middle school will be above average, just like the other half will be below average. To ensure that your child gets the best education possible, parents should be honest when evaluating where their child is on the academic spectrum, and then work to make sure their child receives the best middle school education possible – for that child.