BY BRADEN CARTWRIGHT
Daily Post Staff Writer
Congressman Ro Khanna has waded into a debate over honors classes in the Palo Alto Unified School District, prompting thousands of supporters and opponents of the board’s decisions to weigh in on social media.
“It is absurd that Palo Alto school district just voted to remove Honors Biology for all students and already removed Honors English,” Khanna said on X. “They call it de-laning. I call it an assault on excellence.”
Khanna, D-Santa Clara, is referring to the board’s 3-2 vote on Jan. 21 to eliminate Honors Biology, instead grouping all freshmen in the same introductory class starting in the fall. Khanna’s post on X had more than 3,500 replies Tuesday, including from senators and fellow congressmen.
“I wish my high school had more AP and honors classes,” said Sen. Ruben Gallego, D-Arizona. “I can’t imagine a school willingly dumbing itself down.”
Former school board member Jennifer DiBrienza came to the district’s defense.
“Oh Senator, please educate yourself before weighing in. Nothing is being dumbed down,” she said. “If you’d like to know why the district did this, feel free to reach out to the district. The #1 district in the state, which continues to offer many AP and honors opportunities.”
Yoni Appelbaum, deputy executive editor of The Atlantic, said he took AP Biology at Gunn High School with Barbara Snapp, a Cornell Ph.D., and the class was college-level.
“Today’s Gunn students deserve opportunities like that too,” Appelbaum said.
DiBrienza replied that Gunn and Palo Alto high schools still have AP Biology that students take all the time, and the elimination of Honors Biology was led by teachers who thought a single class would better serve all students.
“I trust they know what they are doing,” she said.
At the Jan. 21 board meeting, teachers said that grouping all students in a single class would ease the transition from 8th grade to 9th grade, when students are still learning what level is appropriate for them.
Teachers said they would make the standard class just as tough by offering opportunities for students to dive deeper on certain topics, if they want to.
Teachers said they don’t foresee changes to Honors Chemistry or Honors Physics that require higher-level math skills, science teacher Liz Brimhall said at the Jan. 21 meeting.
“We really want to give all students a really strong foundation and springboard so they can access our various science pathways, including honors,” Brimhall told the board.
A handful of students and parents said they wanted to keep Honors Biology.
“I’m very passionate about STEM, including life science and biology,” said Katie Hu, an eighth grader at Greene Middle School. “I want to take a science class that challenges me and moves faster than a regular class, and I was really looking forward to Honors Biology.”
Board members Alison Kamhi, Shounak Dharap and Shana Segal voted to move to a single biology course./p>
“Once we start to subject teachers to strict scrutiny on educational decisions, we are going to get fewer educational initiatives from them,” Segal said.
“People have concerns, but they don’t work with our kids every day,” Dharap said. “To not vote for this would be a disastrous mistake.”
All three student representatives to the school board voted to keep Honors Biology, but their votes don’t count.
Board members Rowena Chiu and Josh Salcman also voted to keep Honors Biology.
“I would really like us as a district to move toward a process, when we’re doing things like this, where we engage the community earlier,” Salcman said. “It concerns me that Mr. Dharap frames this as, ‘You’re either with the teachers or you’re against them.’”
Chiu said she’s heard from students and parents who fear the district will eliminate other advanced classes.
“Do we trust our high school students with autonomy and choice, to decide for themselves what their learning journey looks like?” Chiu asked.
“a single class would better serve all students” — this reasoning can be applied to any honor classes 🙂
not if the H and regular lanes are substantively different. Which the teachers say the other classes are and bio isn’t.
I’m very interested in how this has changed over the years. That certainly hasn’t always been the case. Nevertheless, we must remember that it is ultimately the teachers who made the two lanes very similar.
This is a gaslighting comment. If Honors and regular are not substantively different, which I highly doubt, the solution isn’t to reduce standards to the lowest common denominator but to demand a more rigorous Honors biology curriculum for the students who need to be challenged.
It’s because of attitudes like Ms. DiBrienza’s that homeschooling and alternative forms of education are flourishing, along with demands for the abolition of the Department of Education.
It does appear true that honors and regular bio are very similar. That’s because they were changed during Covid. But like you said, why not make the honors bio live up to its name rather than kill it?
The people who shout “equity!” don’t see that this is pushing parents to shell out on extra tutoring, private schools, and all sorts of things that require lots of money and resources. So much for equity. Tough to be a gifted kid in this town unless you come from privilege.
Such are results of his party’s push for ‘equity’.
I’m confused by the “already removed Honors English” part of Ro’s tweet.
When did this happen? From old news articles I see in 2014 there was a proposal to delane English that was rejected by the board. Was there later another proposal that was accepted? If I look at the course catalogs for both Paly and Gunn, I see two distinct lanes for English for 9th and 10th grade as of today…
English honors only exists for lucky Gunn students, not Paly students, which have had dumbed down English classes for years now.
Gunn students still get English Honors as freshmen, but not the Paly kids, who have had dumbed down English classes for years now that many students complain about. Bio H was already dumbed down for a few years before this push to make one integrated bio class, which is probably why the teachers could say they were not substantially different.
Ahhh, got it.
But if I look in the Paly and Gunn catalogs, I don’t see any honors 9th and 10th grade English classes. Only College Prep and Advanced. Is “honors” just a nickname students use for the Advanced classes?
It is more important that the dim bulbs feel good about themselves, than the bright kids be given a chance to excel.
I hear that Austin talked to Khanna and then misstated the conversation to the school board. Khanna didn’t apologize, contrary to what Austin said.
They’ve been dumbing down the PAUSD curriculum since Ken Dauber was elected, and now they complain they were outted on a national platform. Bo ho!
Shounak Dharap’s papa bought him a house and a business, so he’s never been aligned with the people of Palo Alto who want to succeed based on merit. These officials are a bunch of clowns who oversee a district that gets high ratings because of all the work parents put into their kids OUTSIDE of school.
Khanna represents the only congressional district, other than Hawaii, that has an Asian American majority population. Both the employees and a majority of the board hold a world view that emphasizes “equity” over providing opportunities for all students to do their very best. Those who agree with Khanna and disagree with the district need to start organizing today to elect new board members that will change the direction of the district.
I want my kids to go to good schools. I guess Palo Alto would not be a suitable place for us to live in.
PAUSD ought to be a fine district if you want your kids to be “woke.”
Khanna isn’t wrong, but Palo Alto is defensive about dumbing down its schools. Families who want their kids to take honors classes ought to move to another city.