Rhode Island schools facing backlash for ending honors classes
Legal Insurrection founder Bill Jacobson on the criticism facing Rhode Island schools for the decision to end certain honors classes.
Bill Jacobson, founder of the nonprofit group Legal Insurrection, said Wednesday the schools in Barrington, Rhode Island are trying to eliminate "distinctions" where students can excel academically and achieve high honors.
On "America's Newsroom," Jacobson explained why high-performing schools in the community where he lives are moving to eliminate honors courses.
"A student doing well in a subject doesn't take away from another student. It's this ideology of diversity, equity, and inclusion. This is the equity portion of it, which means everybody has to be equal. But parents don't want that. What they want is equal opportunity for their children, but allow the gifted children to excel. So it's really infuriated the community," he said.
Jacobson said residents across party lines are uniting against this policy toward education.
Barrington, Rhode Island, public schools are among the best in the state. Many parents move to the district, and tolerate the higher taxes, because of the academic rigor that sets their children up for attending Ivy League schools or receiving academic merit scholarships. However, all of that academic appeal is being chipped away after the district brought in a so-called "equity and inclusion" agenda.
Rage broke loose among parents of all political stripes after the honors students were targeted, parents said. The school announced that the days of honors English and social studies were gone. Parents protested, arguing that the move deprived their children of a competitive edge – and in effect – future opportunities such as merit scholarships.
Parent speaks at March 30 Barrington Public Schools meeting. (Barrington Public Schools)
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Jacobson said consultants are trying to "fix something that wasn't broken" which as a result has parents outraged.
"We were doing quite well out of over 10,000 school districts in the country. We were ranked up until two or three years ago, 189th, which is astounding."
As a result of the schools aiming for equity, Jacobson said the schools have started to suffer academically, now ranked in the 300s.
"There were these theories based on equity, based on everybody having to be equal, no one being allowed to excel, no one being made to feel bad if they don't excel, that we're like guinea pigs and people don't want that in the community and they are rising up against it."
Fox News' Hannah Grossman contributed to this report
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