Superintendent Dr. Brian Osborne’s proposals for change at Columbia High School and the middle schools have now been the subject of three community meetings, many conversations, and a petition drive by those who oppose the recommendations.   

Maybe the biggest concern I hear is that these changes will necessarily “water down” our curriculum, or force teachers to teach to the “lowest common denominator.”  As a parent of two children in the district (a 5th grader and a 7th grader), I certainly understand these concerns. 

However, I think those fears have it exactly backwards. 

Current restructuring proposals by the district, along with a variety of other programmatic and curricular changes already in progress, represent a well-considered and cohesive approach to addressing weaknesses of our school district at the bottom—and at the top.

When I moved to Maplewood over a decade ago, there were two comments I heard often about our high school. One was that there were “two Columbias” divided by race, culture and achievement; the second was that there was “a private white academy” at Columbia High School. While neither was quite true, and the latter was not exactly fair, both pointed to features of the leveling system that were problematic. 

The more I learned about it, the more I saw the South Orange-Maplewood School District leveling system as a pyramid that provided extraordinary opportunities for a small group at the very top, while effectively (if unintentionally) pushing the rest down, ultimately producing a too large base of low performers—much like a traffic backup at a tunnel.  As an educator, I looked for change that would turn that pyramid upside down, creating a system that moved all students up, nudging and challenging them to go one step further. 

Students would not simply move forward a grade from year to year, but also upward from where they began. 

That is, fundamentally, what education is about. 

Students don’t all begin at the same place, and not all will end at the same place. But this would be a system that produces a much wider top tier of high achievers and the narrowest possible bottom tier working to catch up. The highest ranked high schools in the state look like this.

We can too. 

Until recently, a very narrow gate allowed access to a limited number of AP seats. Lower-level courses don’t usually prepare students to move up. Students can be leveled down for poor grades, or a poor attitude. Opportunities for individual students to move up a level are inconsistent, and often require a heroic effort from under-prepared students, who might rapidly be returned to a lower level. Limited upward mobility and a behavioral component to leveling ensures that many capable students languish in low-level classes—the high school principal tells of quite a few Level 2 students who recently achieved strong scores on the 10th grade administration of the PSAT, demonstrating their capacity for more challenging work. 

Many complain that students in the “big middle” get lost. Outside of the accelerated and AP tracks, rigor can be variable—at a parent feedback session as part of the recent Math Audit, I was shocked to hear of a (white, middle class) student who had received straight A’s in level 4 Math from 6th grade on, but who was placed in remedial math at Rutgers.

Both smart students in Level 2, and honors students who need remedial college classes have been failed by aspects of our current system. A relentless focus on assigning levels to our students has enabled the district too often to lose sight of the quality of the education provided to any of them.   In a sense then, it’s excessive leveling, not de-leveling that risks dumbing down too many of our kids’ educations.

Some changes in recent years have already begun to address these problems.  Access to AP classes at CHS has been expanded, and pass rates remain high.  (One benefit of the IB Middle Years Programme is that it allows for a similar sort of external calibration of our rigor at the middle school level.) Curriculum revisions are ongoing, especially in light of the Common Core Standards Initiative. Heterogeneously grouped “multi-level” classes have been explored and proved successful at CHS.

The district is now ready to drop the multi-level designation and teach all students at the pace and depth of Level 4. Sixth grade was leveled up (combining Levels 3 and 4) in all subjects except math over six years ago and has been serving all children well. A trend of rising NJASK scores is one positive indicator of success. Last year Level 2 students were moved into what is now a single sixth grade level in those three subjects, taught at the pace and depth of Level 4. Seventh grade was leveled up similarly last year, with the Superintendent now proposing to include Level 2 students next year.  

The current proposal takes important additional steps toward inverting our educational pyramid, and adds some critical missing pieces. Eighth grade is also to be leveled up and eighth grade students who have mastered middle school language arts skills will be able to accelerate to ninth grade English. Many Level 2 classes at the high school are being replaced with classes specifically designed to address academic skill deficits and move students up as soon as possible.  Most classes at the middle schools will be unleveled, ending the labeling and mis-labeling that contributes to the discouragement and disengagement of too many students at the start of their secondary schooling. Flexible, in-school support will help struggling students overcome skill deficits and develop the coping and problem solving skills to manage the inevitable challenges of middle school. 

These changes are essential to creating upward momentum for all of our students: a system which enables our weaker students to catch up and succeed, our strong students to become even stronger, and all of our students to discover their talents and passions and pursue them at the highest possible level to which they aspire.