Varying solutions to leveling

Siver said students in Future World Lit (FWL), a 10th grade earned honors course, have benefited from a common classroom experience.

“Like with many electives, you get such a wide range of lived experience, skill, passion and knowledge all in one place,” Siver said. “I think FWL offers variety and options to help students assess how they learn best. In addition to the resources this style of learning provides, the communal feeling that exists in these classroom spaces is a very unique dynamic, and I think all courses can benefit from it.”

Musto said many of his peers are leaning against taking classes that offer earned honors credit in the future because of their experiences in a mixed class with WHISP this year, which includes the class moving at a slower pace.

“A lot of people have turned away from [earned honors courses],” Musto said. “I think a lot of people, at least in the honors classes, don’t like how WHISP is formatted and don’t want some of their other classes to be the same.”

Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Miller said it is difficult to understand the experiences of students with WHISP over the past few years using concrete data, but students have reported greater access to content than in prior years.

“Being in more heterogeneous groupings has shown some benefit, both academic and socioemotional, and student skills, student habits and behavioral presentation in classrooms have improved overall,” Miller said. “That is also true for our students with disabilities.”

Given the structural issues that come with leveling, Siver said she is excited to watch earned honors courses expand in the high school.

“Leveling, as a whole, has many flaws and exacerbates systemic inequalities. If earned credit is what is going to help us dismantle a problematic system, then I am eager to see how we as a school will continue forward with this line of work,” Siver said.

Siver said earned honors credit courses like FWL can serve as good transitions following an unleveled ninth grade class.

“The pros of earned honors credit go into this idea of student autonomy,” Siver said. “When you’re coming from either a space that’s perhaps unleveled where you’ve all had this same experience, and you’re coming into this opportunity where you can self select and gauge where you’re at in the curriculum, it gives you a greater sense of confidence. And I think that’s where we’re getting at with unleveling in ninth grade, and then giving a chance for students to self select and gain more ownership over their academic experience in Future World Lit with earned honors credit.”

Paris said new deleveling at the high school should cater to the learning needs of all students.

“I completely understand, having taught for 30 years, that students come in with a lot of varied math backgrounds and skills. I think that’s one of the reasons why math is so leveled in the United States in general,” Paris said. “In whatever changes we may make, we need to make sure that we provide a challenging and supportive environment for all students regardless of their math background and math skills. Our goal is not to delevel all of high school, we’re focusing on 9th grade. We will continue to have all of our AP options and really one of our goals is to make those AP courses more accessible to more students.”

Shiffman said there will always be someone who is unsatisfied with the change in approach to education.

“Every year I get more certain that we need to rethink [leveling in 9th grade], but there are no silver bullets in education,” Shiffman said. “Everything you do does have a consequence. And every transition is going to disappoint in some way.”

This article has been updated as of April 15 at 5 p.m. with more extensive reporting.