Their original proposal would ban all but remedial coursework, so your kids would get the same treatment as everyone else (by intentionally lowering everyone's achievement; especially the special needs and gifted kids).
I can only assume the people pushing this are trying to sabotage the school system, but they claim to have good intentions, and hide behind all sorts of woke double speak.
In other news, the schools no longer fund science or art classes. Instead, the parents pay the public school $1000's per year per student (tax deductible) so we can have those programs.
Also, the facilities are crumbling and have all sorts of obvious health and saftey issues. This is in an extremely affluent part of the state and a top ranked school.
My kids will be fine (the parents at the school happily throw money at the problems -- it's cheaper than private school, after all), but I don't see how kids in poorer districts will be able to pretend to have a middle school education, regardless of whether they earn a California high school diploma, or not.
In the Seattle school district, this is certainly not a cost cutting measure. It's an equity measure.
> The kids who want to excel generally will
That's true. Even though there's a complete lack of interest in them by the public schools, at least those schools don't make an effort to block them.
Having seen what the Seattle public school system has become, I'm planning to send my kids to private school. Most of my (largely Asian) friends here will do the same. As usual, people with the means to do so will pay to avoid these problems, but the lower/middle class suffers the consequences.
> I do think there is a push not to equalize everyone but to actually address individual needs, and those may draw resources from areas like advanced courses
This is a great point and reminds me of the quote "When you're accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression". I definitely got a lot of privileges in school my friends didn't because I got good grades - better choice of classes, counselors will listen to you more, and maybe most of all, teachers seem to care much more about teaching and engaging and not just getting a group of kids they don't think want to learn to pass so they can leave the class.
You try talking for an hour to someone on the train, and keep going when they put their earphones on and start scrolling on the phone… it's not that easy.
Until they completely lose the habit of learning. Which might come handy later on when the extra stuff they knew is no longer advanced.
I do think there is a push not to equalize everyone but to actually address individual needs, and those may draw resources from areas like advanced courses. Boredom in school for bright kids can definitely be a problem but I’m not sure it’s the end of the world. The kids who want to excel generally will, and can often just be advanced a grade or two. The rigid structure of class groupings by age is anachronistic and maybe like 50% appropriate. There are better ways to structure education.