Schools

Osborne Answers Concerns About De-Leveling

The Superintendent of Schools prefers the term "level up" instead of de-leveling and calls the proposed plans "modest."

Despite oppressive heat in the South Orange Middle School library on Wednesday evening, an audience of about 50 parents and teachers spent every bit of two hours listening to and then questioning Superintendent of Schools Brian Osborne as he explained the district's plans to implement recommendations by the Task Force on Excellence and Equity. Wednesday's forum was sponsored by the Community Coalition on Race.

The Task Force's recommendations—which were unveiled at a Board of Education meeting last week—center around a proposal to move Level 3 students "up" into Level 4, combining the two levels in 7th grade.

The proposal has elicited concern from some parents who fear that, instead of improving performance for current Level 3 students, the change would deteriorate the educational experience for Level 4 students. And, although the tone of the conversation was civil and even congenial throughout the evening, some parents expressed concerns with the plans.

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But first, Osborne explained to the audience that the de-leveling—or as he preferred to term it "leveling up"—would not occur in isolation. He described in detail plans to make structural changes as early as kindergarten that would ultimately support the effort to eradicate the "achievement gap"—the disparate scoring between white students and students of color in the South Orange Maplewood School District.

Said Osborne, that gap exists at 3rd, 4th and 5th grades. It does not appear suddenly in 6th, 7th and 8th grades. Hence, "leveling up" in 7th grade is not going to make the achievement gap disappear in and of itself.

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Osborne explained that the district would be strengthening support from kindergarten through 2nd grade to ensure that every student could read independently by content by the end of second grade. Osborne also described the enrichment pilot program at South Mountain Elementary that was bringing a multidisciplinary learning program and instructor into the classroom for all 4th and 5th graders. He said the enrichment program would be expanding to Clinton and Jefferson schools in different forms in 2010-2011. "It hasn't been perfect and without snags, but it is very promising."

He also talked about the plan to remove the Read/Write seminar and Spanish instruction from 6th grade, replacing them with 25% more time in core curriculum subjects to help "shore up" students for the new, de-leveled seventh grade experience.

The high school recommendations were much less extensive and included looking at adding "more multi-level classes and putting more students together who otherwise would not be." Osborne noted that he "was not against leveling. They become appropriate and important the older students get and the more complex the curriculum gets."

When the meeting opened to questions, David Frazer—a former BOE member—asked Osborne to address parents' anxiety that children in Level 4 would receive a lesser education because of the de-leveling. Osborne promised that a system of higher expectations, standards, rigor, student assessments, and training and support for teachers would ensure that the children were elevated, not neglected. Osborne stressed his "leveling up" point—that the new combined Level 3/4 would be held to Level 4 standards, not those of Level 3.

A parent asked if there were plans to de-level 8th grade. Osborne said no. Later he noted that this current plan did not indicate any long-term "snowball" effect whereby each subsequent grade would eventually be de-leveled. "I'm not sure yet where the cutoff is," said Osborne, "but 11 or 12-years-old is too early" to be placed in a level.

Another parent asked if there was enough time to get into place the professional development and the technology and smaller class sizes for the upcoming school year.

Osborne responded that "honestly in this budget environment we are not going to have significantly smaller classes." He noted that the classes would be smaller by default, however, since the current Level 4 classes are the biggest "by far." "If we level up 3 next year we will have a positive effect on class size." Osborne also said that professional development has been demonstrated to work best when it "happens close to learning" and as learning is happening. Plus, he reported, "teachers are indicating they are ready." On the technology end, Osborne said that the Parent Portal—where teachers make materials, assessments, assignments, results, etc. available online to parents—was on target to open in September.

Another parent asked if there would be outreach to counter negative "whispers" about de-leveling. Osborne said there would be forums at both middle schools on June 2. He said that the principals also would schedule meetings with parents by grade.

Yet another parent asked what the "visual change" would be due to the de-leveling. Osborne said that "de-leveling will create classes that reflect our district roughly." That would mean classes that were 50-50 black and white or—more accurately—45-45-10 in terms of black, white and Latino/Asian/Indian/mixed race.

"People come here for the diversity and to celebrate that diversity and then we have these segregated classes," said Osborne. Still, he stressed, "the education element must be the driver."

The most agitated parent was the mother of a 6th grader who worried that the current class of 6th graders would be frustrated by the lack of support they had received in 6th grade to prepare them for the new de-leveled 7th grade. She noted that they did not have the benefit of the 25% more time on core curriculum that would be created by removing Spanish instruction and the Read/Write seminar. Also, she noted that they would now receive three semesters of Spanish instead of two. Osborne agreed that the students would be frustrated and would need more support, but still, said Osborne, although "they could be more comfortable in Level 3. . . I think it's time for those children to be academically challenged."

When asked by another parent what changes he would make to do away with the achievement gap if he had "unlimited resources," Osborne laughed. "I never get this question!"

But quickly, Osborne became serious and said that he would work on the experiences for 0-4-year-old children and their families. He spoke of the work of Geoffrey Canada and the Harlem Children's Zone and the need to keep children from falling behind before they even reach school age. Osborne reiterated his belief that full-day kindergarten is an "equity issue" and stated his commitment to continuing that program and the fact that he was "terribly disappointed" over cuts made to the pre-K program for the coming year due to budgetary constraints.

The last question Osborne addressed, from Carol Barry-Austin of the Community Coalition on Race, was the district's efforts to hire more minority teachers. He lamented the difficulties that the district has had but stated his commitment to enlarging the candidate pool to be "more reflective" of the district. However, Osborne said, "we must hire the best."

 

 

 


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