Two students can sit in neighboring math classrooms yet experience completely different workloads, expectations, and pressures depending on whether they are placed in a College Preparatory (CP) or an honors-level course. Though the level differentiation is designed to meet students where they are academically, the gap between CP and honors math at Lexington High School has grown so apparent that it often feels like students are choosing between two completely academic environments, rather than distinct yet carefully catered learning paces.
For some students, this divide becomes clear very quickly as they progress throughout high school math. Junior Zoey Gao has taken both CP and honors math courses during her time at LHS. As a freshman, Gao took CP Math 2, switched to honors math for her sophomore year, and chose to return to the CP level in her current junior year.
“Both [course levels] were pretty self-guided, honestly, in terms of structure. It’s mainly the difficulty that’s different,” Gao said.
Differences in workload and in pacing between the two levels of math courses seem to be the key factors in the difficulty of these courses, as well as students’ decisions to choose one over the other.
“Honors math was definitely faster paced and took much more time and effort. For CP math, I spent less than thirty minutes, and for honors math, I spent an hour, or sometimes a little more, on homework,” Gao said.
Gao’s experiences with these courses seem to align with the deliberately calculated and intentional differences the math teachers themselves implement in teaching various levels of these classes.
Math teacher Christopher Brunner, who teaches multiple levels of math at LHS, said that CP and honors classes are designed with different expectations in mind.
“When I teach a CP class, I tend to go a little bit slower, because typically the curriculum covers a little bit less material. In an honors class, there’s more of an expectation of independent thinking. I probably would give a question and wouldn’t give all the intermediate steps. You have to kind of work your way to get there,” Brunner said.
That difference becomes especially visible on assessments. Honors tests often include questions students have never seen before, requiring them to combine concepts in new ways, while CP assessments tend to be more straightforward.
Teachers and experienced students alike seem to agree that the structure and content of each of these levels have been designed to suit different types of students with different lifestyles and methods of thinking. Still, despite this intent, the social reality of these levels complicates the experience. Honors math carries an unspoken prestige at LHS while CP math is viewed as a step down, a stigma that almost subconsciously affects how students see themselves and each other.
“I feel like in honors math, you can feel the atmosphere around you in the class,” Gao said. “Everyone’s more focused.”
Brunner believes this stigma is tied less to academics and more to college pressure. He said students today face far more scrutiny and comparison when applying to colleges than previous generations of students did.
“There’s a pressure to appear, on paper, the absolute best and most perfect student that you could be,” Brunner said.
That pressure, he explained, often pushes students into higher-level courses regardless of whether those classes align with their interests or with their well-being.
“I see students who overload themselves, and even if they’re doing it, they’re not enjoying it,” Brunner said. “School becomes this miserable slog, and it really should not be that way.”
The drastic differences between CP and honors courses at LHS can easily lead students like Gao to feel as though they belong in neither level of math.
When stuck in a state of indecision during course selections, unable to choose between levels of math that are quite different from one another, it is important to consider the benefits and drawbacks of each course level. Often, rigor is treated as a measure of intelligence, creating unnecessary pressure for students to select courses that may not be the right fit for their schedules or their learning methods.
The focus on fast-paced academic excellence at LHS should instead shift toward ensuring that all students find the correct class level in which they can thrive without sacrificing balance or enjoyment in learning.