In the fall of 2021, the two high schools in Newton, Massachusetts did away with long-held class levels. Instead of “honors”, “advanced college prep”, and “college prep”, students would now be placed in a multi-level class. This change had good intentions: recognizing that some students were trapped in lower-level classes with no pathway to the most challenging courses (e.g., AP Calculus) and that those students were most likely to be non-white and low-income, the school district and its teachers wanted to give more students access to rigorous coursework in high school.
The school district in Shaker Heights, Ohio had taken a similar approach starting in 2020, as documented in Laura Meckler’s 2023 book “Dream Town: Shaker Heights and the Quest for Racial Equity.” Superintendent David Glasner is quoted saying, “We had to ask ourselves, what are we doing to students if we’re sending the message explicitly and implicitly that white students are enriched and Black students aren’t.” This is an important question, and it seemed reasonable that it informed a new policy that hoped to enrich all students academically.
But detracking is either more complicated than leaders hoped, or simply not the right answer. One Shaker Heights teacher said last year, “It’s not everybody in honors; it’s everybody in core” with regards to the current high school biology course. In other words, instead of more students getting more rigor, everyone is getting less.
An op-ed published this week from a Newton teacher sounds similar. “In one of my multilevel classes, I received feedback that the lower-level students didn’t want to ask questions because they didn’t want to “look dumb,” and the higher-level students didn’t want to ask questions because they didn’t want their classmates to “feel dumb.” The result was a classroom that was far less dynamic than what I was typically able to cultivate,” wrote math and physics teacher Ryan Normandin.
We should applaud districts like Newton and Shaker Heights who are willing to challenge long-held customs about class levels, and to try something new in the name of increasing the rigor of high school coursework. Even as high school graduation rates continue to increase nationwide, it’s no longer clear what a high school diploma really stands for. A recent analysis of Massachusetts school district graduation requirements found that less than 12 of the 50 largest districts require coursework that would make a student eligible for admission to the UMass, Amherst, the flagship state university. Newton Public Schools doesn’t—the district doesn’t require four years of math to graduate.
Equally important to trying something new is being honest when it doesn’t work. Listen to Normandin on this point: “The concept of anti-racism often cited by administration officials should not involve blindly insisting that these classes are working simply because they make administrators feel good. Effective anti-racism should entail having the courage to admit they’re not working and finding something better. There is no shame in failure. There is shame in failing over and over again and calling it success.”
I want schools and districts to try new things. Most of my professional time is spent trying to determine what’s working for a school or district somewhere, and whether it’s reasonable that their success could be replicated elsewhere. But I want us to give grace, and political cover, to those same schools and districts when they inevitably realize that some of the new ideas just aren’t working.
There is a balancing act involved. How long of a runway do we give the new thing? It depends on what it is, and what the risks are. In the case of detracking in Newton and Shaker Heights, I’d want to see student outcomes data and qualitative data from students along with the teacher perspective. I’d like to hear from the colleges and universities recent graduates attend to see if they can tell any different in student preparedness for higher education. There are other ways to solve for access to honors coursework beyond detracking. Districts and parents should ask how many graduating classes of seniors they are willing to risk being under-educated and poorly served. Normandin is right—there is shame in failing over and over again and calling it success. If something is going badly, we don’t have to let it get worse.