High Schools Under Fire

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in the sophomore honors English class and the movie projector begins to whir. Act III, Scene 1 of The Merchant of Venice. There is no discussion and only a few questions about the plot. The 18 students and their teacher all hunch silently in their seats. Down the hall, three more English classes, packed in a small theater, are also viewing films. Complains one teacher: "I really get caught up in my subject matter. But some teachers think that's weird. The attitude in the faculty lounge is, 'Does anyone have a film I can use?' "

In another class, this one in U.S. history, the teacher keeps up a patter of jokes and badinage. A discussion of economic competition sends him off on constant tangents. "I've got to borrow some pens," he says, leaping up and racing around the circle of desks in the room. His point, although garbled, is that pen manufacturers must be careful not to overprice or their products won't sell. When a student volunteers that his Bic pen cost 39¢, it strikes the teacher as a revelation. "Really? Have they gone up that much?" The kids loll back, tittering. "Would you cry if you lost a 39¢ pen?" he asks. "How about a $150 pen?" By now the class is thoroughly lost. "What are you getting at?" one obviously bright student asks impatiently.

In keeping with the trend of the '60s, Marshfield began offering its 1,866 students a wide variety of courses in an effort to broaden the traditional curriculum. The number of courses has grown to 215. Elective options in English include science fiction, film studies and business communications (considered easy) or British literature (harder). An array of general math and essential math courses has sprouted in the mathematics department, traditionally regarded as the best in the school. Although four years of English are mandatory standard survey courses stop after the tenth grade. No foreign language is required. Students must take two years of science and one of math, or vice versa, but the choice of courses is left to their discretion.

A easy courses proliferate, classes in the harder subjects wither away. Calculus and Russian, two post-Sputnik specialties, are extinct. Only 35 students are braving physics this year. Few kids prefer the nononsense, four-year algebra-geometry-algebra-trigonometry sequence to the simpler math courses. The attrition rate in foreign languages is so great that after the first year, students in higher courses are combined in one class. High-ability kids are not taking high-level courses," says Accounting Teacher James Whitty. The students ask: Why should we?" The school's course brochure advises college-preparatory students that they "should make certain they are getting the best preparation for college admission." But the head guidance counselor concedes that the five counselors do not believe in prodding the students to take tough subjects

John Johnson a strict, highly respected math teacher, has been at Marshfield for 18 years. He accepts the obvious: students are not taking the traditional math courses because "the homework has dropped off in other courses and it's easier for kids to get good grades elsewhere." A stocky, gray-haired man who is also head basketball coach, Johnson worries that the simplified math offerings are "an easy