![]() "I'm excited about moving away from racially segregated classes," he said at a packed school board meeting earlier this week, adding that all freshmen should be taking challenging courses that will propel them to even more rigorous classes as upperclassmen. Evanston Township High School District 202 Superintendent Eric Witherspoon said he hopes Evanston's plan will become a model for schools across the country. ![]() A year later, the same approach would be taken with freshman biology classes, if the school board approves the proposal. The superachievers - freshmen who outscore about 95 percent of their peers nationally on eighth-grade achievement tests - would no longer have their own class, beginning next fall. ![]() The class would be taught at the honors level, according to district officials, and all students would have the opportunity to earn honors credit depending on their grades on assignments. For the most part, freshmen of all races and socioeconomic and achievement backgrounds would learn together in the same freshman humanities class, an English course that blends literature, history, art, music and philosophy and is required for graduation. The proposal has spurred an emotionally charged and race-tinged debate in the liberal, multiracial community that his home to Northwestern University. Across the Chicago region, high school officials say they are making inroads in diversifying their advanced classes, but Evanston is considering the boldest step of all: eliminating an elite honors English course that has traditionally been offered to the highest-achieving incoming freshmen - usually white. Honors classrooms dominated by white students have been common in Illinois and across the nation, a byproduct of a century-old and controversial tradition of tracking, or sorting, students into different levels of classes. But its own data show that few minority students make it into the school's most rigorous courses that will best prepare them for college and the future. One of the most racially mixed high schools in Illinois, Evanston has a mission of embracing diversity and promoting equity and excellence for all students. "Out of 26, you might have three nonwhite students," he said. When he scans the faces in his honors science courses at Evanston Township High School, chemistry teacher William Farmer can easily see who's missing: minority kids. ![]()
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