Archived: The Educational System in the United States: Case Study Findings

Activities and school resources
. Given the importance that U.S. adolescents
place on the range of opportunities afforded by their schools, it was not surpris-
ing to hear complaints about the need for more activities and course offerings
than some schools currently provide. A female student at Uptown commented:
I would add more advanced, honors, and AP courses to challenge the stu-
dents. I would also add more sports and activities. We are having tennis this
year and I think that is great. I know some schools have horseback riding
and fencing. I think those activities would help make students more well
rounded, a bigger area of knowledge, more discipline, and it will give stu-
dents more to do. (Twelfth-grade female, Uptown)
A student at Metropolitan, asked to identify the main problem with his school,
said: ‘‘Well, I would say this school is cheap. I would have a lunchroom. I
would let students go on trips.’’
Students as early as middle school were aware of the inequities of school fund-
ing and the relative inadequacy of their own situations. In West City, a student
commented that ‘‘our district doesn’t have much money compared with the dis-
tricts on the other side of town, so in the middle school district they took all
the sports away.’’ Parallel stories were cited in Metro City schools as well.
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Classes and teachers
. Students were most critical of classes that were boring,
that were taught primarily in lecture style, and where the material presented
was an oral recapitulation of their school texts. A 10th-grade male, whose par-
ents are both professors, said that what he would change at his school is the
‘‘boring routine of classes. Not purely because they are boring, but because it
is not productive. It is inefficient. And it is not a way to educate.’’ Asked what
the teachers do that is so boring, he replied:
If they lecture, they do not have a lot to lecture about. I sit in health class,
a we go around in circles. There is so much that one could say about health.
You can talk about biology and medicine, about social issues and moral
issues—there is so much there, and the lectures are just her briefly regurgitat-
ing what is in the text, and the text is very lame, maybe third grade level.
This is not an honors course. The honors courses here are outstanding, out
of this world. Especially in the history division, and in other areas, too.
In a group interview with high school students at Springdale, students talked
about their attitudes toward their classes. One female said, ‘‘There are days that
I am sleeping in my geology class because it is so boring. I am bored out of
my mind, but then there are days that are really cool.’’ A male friend in the
group replied:

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I think it is more like the core subjects, like math and science, English, the
straight edge classes. They are not really fun, but you have to kind of do it.
And then there are the fun classes, like psychology, law, auto, art, and thea-
ter. In those classes you have a lot more fun, and you do a lot more things
that you like to do.
•
Tracking
. The division of students into separate courses was a source of consid-
erable discussion. Some expressed concern over students who are labeled and
channeled into low-level courses. One student, an African-American senior at
Springdale, said that she thought that some students were perceived as stupid
and put in certain classes accordingly, passed from year to year, and given
diplomas that meant nothing. Others, she noted, were really quite bright, but
were labeled as behavior problems, stereotyped as stupid, and placed accord-
ingly. ‘‘Someone needs to pay more attention to those kids.’’
An African-American 15-year-old male at Hamilton, the child of professional par-
ents, said:
I think that this is an excellent school academically, but they track here. Like
kids who didn’t do well in middle school, they just throw them in a low
track and maybe expect them to drop out or something. You see more
minorities here in the lower track. But sometimes I think that may be their
fault. I think that it’s time for, especially black people, to start taking charge
of things. We are sitting around complaining that there are no opportunities,
but there are some opportunities here and we’re not taking advantage of
them. If a parent would come in and say that I don’t want my child in this
lower track, then I’m sure they would change the child, but I don’t see that
happening often.
The most common concern raised about tracking, as noted in the comments
above, was the conflation with race and socioecomonic class, and the effect this
has on the schools as a whole. At East City High School a senior commented
that she didn’t see the system as equal. ‘‘Advanced is mostly upper class, mostly
white. Academic is mostly lower class, with a lot of black people. There are
even two class presidents, a black one and a white one.’’
At Springdale High School a student talked about ‘‘honors, regular, and basic’’
students and said:
The racial issues are very intertwined. The fact is that in most of my classes
there are not a lot of minority kids. Why, I cannot say. But it is certainly an
issue. It is not meant to be segregated, but it sort of is.

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As a white student, he was bothered by the fact that his primary contact with
African-American students was in gym and health class, and that in a community
that prided itself on racial integration, the school had become so segregated.
Similarly, at Hamilton High, a white student in a group interview noted:
The kids in the honors and AP courses are mostly white, and by the time
of your senior year, you know most of the kids when you walk into the first
day of class. The regular and general classes are mostly black.
An African-American honors student in the same group responded to this com-
ment:
What is really weird, if you take a low or regular kid and put them in an
honors or regular class for a month, you will see work like every other hon-
ors student. And I wonder like why they are in lower classes if they can do
honors work.
The mechanisms for selection into various courses and tracks varied from school
to school and seemed relative to the population. At the high-achieving schools,
honors and accelerated courses were reserved for those working well above grade
level, but honors courses at Uptown enrolled students ‘‘who are working at grade
level or above.’’ Most schools used scores from state-mandated tests or teacher
recommendations for placement. In nearly all schools, however, it was noted that
parental preference could override more objective criteria, a system noted by
teachers as more likely to benefit those with parents knowledgeable about how
the system functions, typically white, middle, and upper-middle-class families.