Very often, one might walk down the hallways at TABC and overhear students complain about their workload in a certain track, especially when compared to another track, For example, a student in Accelerated English might complain at great length about how his workload compares to regular English.
But how many of those complaints are factual? I decided to find the answer.
General Studies Principal Mr. Poleyeff determines class placement for our school. He told me that every class has a workload appropriate for its level of instruction.
Poleyeff stated that it is perfectly normal for a student in the Honors (H) track to receive substantial amounts of homework each night, while a student in a Regular (R) track is more likely to receive much less work. This is simply because Honors students are expected to be able to handle that workload; this is what is appropriate for their level of learning.
Junior Efraim Ginsberg transferred to TABC from another school; he also transferred from Honors to Accelerated in Hebrew language. This gives him a unique perspective on this issue. Regarding his new placement, he said, “It’s a little bit less work than Honors, and difficulty in material went down a little bit.”
Ginsberg felt that the Accelerated track is pretty similar to Honors, with the difference being a drop in work difficulty, since Accelerated students.
Fellow Junior Ezra Ratner is in R for all classes except for English (for which he is in H); he had this to say about his workload relative to other students’ in other tracks: “Definitely less than H. I don’t know about A or G; I just hear H kids complain a lot.”
Like Poleyeff, Ratner believes that every class has a workload appropriate for its level of instruction. Ratner thinks that, for an R level class, he is getting an appropriate amount of work each night.
History Teacher Marita Poline teaches several different tracks. She said that all of her classes get the same amount of homework in terms of hours spent, but her higher tracks will get more difficult material, like analyzing primary sources.
Head of School Rabbi Asher Yablok teaches both Y5 and Y9. He said something similar to Poline: workload for his classes is relatively the same, but higher tracks will have more information and more difficult questions on their exams than a lower class.
Even though Judaic studies classes usually don’t have any homework, Rabbi Daniel Fridman said that every track he teaches has relatively the same workload, all depending on a specific student’s efficiency.
The issue of tracking opens up another area of inquiry: how well does our school do when it tracks students? Are students always tracked appropriately? And is it easy to remedy situations when students are not?
When asked this question, Ginsberg responded that he did exceptionally well on his entrance exam with Rabbi Yosef Adler, but only because Adler had tested him on a specific Gemara that Ginsberg knew the best. As a result, Ginsberg was tracked too high and placed in Y17. Eventually, he requested to move down to Y16.
Ratner said that he was tracked appropriately, as he had been in Accelerated classes since freshman year. However, Ratner moved down because the workload in Accelerated Physics was too much for him to handle, so he moved to R. But scheduling conflicts complicated things and required him to move to R in all general studies classes other than English.
I asked Poleyeff and Rabbi Ezra Weiner how they decide on tracking students. Weiner said that freshmen and student-transfers get tracked based on their entrance exam with Adler, where they are tested on a section of Gemara that they are currently learning at the time of their application.
In contrast, upperclassmen get tracked based on several factors observed by all three rabbis who teach Gemara, Chumash, Navi/Mishna: performance in terms of grades, motivation to learn, social factors, and personal chemistry (whether a student connects better with a certain rabbi).
Poleyeff told me that freshmen are tracked based on their placement test results. “It’s not a perfect science,” added Mr. Poleyeff. Students in upper grades will stay in the same track for the next year unless the student or one of his teachers asks to change tracks.
Weiner allows most transfer requests, either if a student wants to switch tracks (to have a more or less challenging class) or if a Rabbi recommends a better setting in a different track.
Poleyeff says that for middle-of-the-year transfers, teachers will meet to discuss each student’s request and decide whether or not the student should move. Poleyeff added that 75-80% of students’ requests are honored.