Peter, fwiw, our district tracks students in middle school, so even though there is not as explicit of a differentiation for LA as for math, the students who are at our HG magnet program have one level of instruction vs the students who are in the honors track at each neighborhood school have one level of instruction vs the students who are at the neighborhood schools and not in the honors track. The base curriculum is the same for each LA program (i.e., same focus and same generic set of books) but the depth is different, and the writing instruction is at a higher level for the higher levels of ability. Our schools also have Social Studies and LA loosely tied together. This does lead to somewhat the same effect as accelerated math - the kids who are in honors LA and social studies in middle school go on to take honors/AP in high school, and some take AP before their senior year.
None of our students earn high school credit for either honors LA or accelerated math classes. They can have high school level courses taken in middle school in math and foreign language added to their high school transcript, but it doesn't count toward graduation credits. I see the issue of receiving high school credit for courses taken in middle school as separate from the issue of providing appropriate level of instruction/challenge in middle school courses such as LA. At least I see it as separate in how you advocate for change, kwim?
polarbear
