As grumpy as I am about having to acclimate to the school schedule again (mostly waking up at 6am & having a constant stack of homework to grade), I am relatively happy about my new position at this high school. I am officially labeled a "magnet" teacher, which means most of my classes fall within the magnet program, which attracts students from all over Los Angeles and offers a specialization and more rigorous study.
My schedule is as follows:
English 11 honors [two sections] (magnet)
English 10 (magnet)
English 10
English 10H (magnet)
I teach a total of 5 classes. With six periods in the day, my free time falls in first period.
Predictably and heartbreakingly, there is a lack of students of color in the honors classes. It's what we educators have come to call the "achievement gap", and it occurs in every school. The achievement gap is attributed to race & socio-economic status for numerous reasons, and schools struggle to maintain equal opportunities for all students to learn and perform to their potential. The gap is most apparent in standardized tests, where Black & Latino students score lower than White & Asian students. We also see it in the racial demographic of our "college prep" and "honors" courses. It is a phenomenon pervasive in public schools and a reflection of inequalities on a larger scale - socio-economically, historically, politically, etc.
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