At the 2025/02/05 BOE meeting, a high school junior spoke of an issue with math class tracking. He mentioned the benefit of this in general (“students are able to find a balance that works for them”), but raised an issue with Montclair’s implementation (“mobility between tracks in an upward direction is difficult after fifth grade”). This is hardly a new issue. Addressing demographic imbalances in advanced classes, and just generally getting more students to take advantage of these, has been discussed many times in many ways. Unfortunately, few changes of any real substance have been made over the years while those that have been made have often been more of appearance than actual substance. Meanwhile, simple improvements such as that suggested by the high school junior are left untried.
We can start with a review of how this has evolved over the last few years. First, know that there are generally three levels of rigor (called “instruction levels” in the Program Planning Guide) in our high school classes:
Academic (A) – These classes are for students with achievement test scores generally between the 30th and 70th percentile. Classroom work depends upon outside preparation each day with class reinforcement. These classes will afford students a solid foundation to build upon as they move through their high school experience.
Honors (H) – These classes are for students of high academic achievement. Students recommended to these classes typically have high grades and high scores on standardized assessments usually above the 70th percentile. Classroom instruction assumes that all students have the skills and motivation enabling them to do special reports and projects, etc., in addition to mastering the regular basic test and materials.
Advanced Placement (AP) and High Honors (HH) – Students recommended to these classes typically have high grades and very high-test scores – usually above 95th percentile on appropriate standardized achievement tests. These students have also demonstrated a great interest in the subject with skills commensurate with enthusiastic independent work and exploration.
Until about 2016, the math sequence looked like:
Something to notice about this is that, while numerous paths exist to transition to lower-rigor classes, there are far fewer opportunities to transition to higher-rigor classes. For example, a student completing Geometry H has the default path to Algebra 2H and a second documented path to Algebra 2A, but no path is shown to Algebra 2HH.
For the 2016-2017 school year, this was changed for members of the class of 2020 (freshman at the time) and later to:
More recently, this has become:
At math-night presentations and in other discussions, it was made clear that one of motivations behind this was to make the paths more vague. While this may seem counter-productive, vagueness leaves a simpler graphic while – most importantly – offering more potential paths for students. In theory, at least, it is no more or less problematic to “jump tracks” upward than it is downward.
However, while there are more options to move to a more rigorous track in this model, the comments made by the junior point out a weakness: there are limited mechanisms for acceleration documented for students. That is, unless a student receives a sufficiently advanced placement in middle school, the later – most advanced – math classes remain out of reach. Advanced science classes too can be closed to students as a result of this.
The 2016 model had at least one acceleration option documented: a student could take an Algebra and Geometry class concurrently, the latter filling a schedule slot as an elective. This option persists today, but nothing equivalent is documented in later grades. Moreover, as he pointed out, even this option is not consistent between the three middle schools. As the student noted, “you can double [up] the math courses, but in many situations that requires knowing someone that can tell you that you can ask to do that.” This is an obscure option at best. He also pointed out that “there are third party summer courses that are available, but those are expensive and often require transportation which is not really an equitable way to do things.”
The board was asked to explore options for more “upward ramps”, but it may be less about these being created and more about the existence of these options being made public. He pointed out, for example, that though this isn’t offered as a documented path, a small number of people take Algebra 2 and Geometry concurrently each year.
The student closed with two strong points. First, he pointed out that this is about supporting students to take advantage of the opportunities our district offers. These opportunities should be available to all students; not just a privileged few. Second, he noted the cascading effect of delayed math classes. This student would have been blocked from a Physics class except he happened to know a teacher who could help him get past this. Left unstated, but still clear from an earlier remark, is that students with sufficient monies have acceleration options such as summer classes that other students are denied.
Simply documenting possible paths, making them available to all otherwise eligible students, would be a small change that could have a significant effect. It shouldn’t be necessary for a student to “know the right people” in order to get the best education in our district.
What other small changes like this, with potentially large results, exist? I spoke about one a couple of years ago, noting the role that improving teacher recommendations could have in improving demographics in advanced classes. Has there been any change in this area?
In April of last year, Mr. Inyang presented the High School Cohort Program to the board and the public. This incorporated the idea of an “AP Bootcamp” that Dr. Ponds mentioned numerous times and which dates back even further, at least to a superintendent’s report by Dr. Johnson in September of 2018. The High School Cohort Program was to begin this past summer. Did it bring more students into advanced classes? Will this program be continued, or perhaps even expanded?
I’ll have more to write about our math sequence in the future, and I also remain convinced of a need to improve math education in the early grades to improve results in the later grades. Still, we’ve numerous opportunities for improvements that could make a big difference to students without a lot of effort or cost. These “low hanging fruit” need to be picked.